Storiesonline.net ------- It's My Party by hammingbyrd7 Copyright© 2008 by hammingbyrd7 ------- Description: Two college women follow up on a very strange fraternity invitation. Codes: MF cons rom reluc rape coer mc dru het ScFi PostApoc Mdom span rough BD humil sad tort orgy harem poly 1st anal pett enem preg slow sch ------- ------- Chapter 1 Time: Friday, December 21, 2018 4:05 PM EST, nine kilometers northeast of Burlington, Vermont "Are you sure you know where you're going?" Jada looked at the driver with only a tiny hope of getting her roommate to give up. Once Emily had her mind latched on an idea, she had the tenacity of a Maine lobster holding onto it. Emily pulled the car over to the side of the rough country road and squinted at the signs ahead of them. The sun had been behind thick clouds most of the afternoon, but was finally making an appearance just when it wouldn't do much good. It was ten minutes before sunset and the road surfaces were already in twilight shadows. Only the upper half of the nearby pines and blue spruces were catching the day's brief golden light. "Enjoy the sun while you can," said Jada. "There's supposed to be a big snowstorm moving in tomorrow." "Uh huh. Not that big I heard..." mumbled Emily as she stared at her map. "Emily, are we lost?" Emily looked up from her map and gave a small sigh. "Nope. I know exactly where we are, right here..." pointing with her finger at the printout in her lap, "the intersection of Discovery and Lost Nation Roads." "Marvelous! I knew this place looked familiar!" Jada replied with mild sarcasm. They had spent the last twenty minutes making one and a half round trips down and back a short three kilometer run of Lost Nation Road. Emily gave a dismissive grunt and started up the car again, pulling into a turnaround on the deserted road and making an easy U-turn. "I'll go more slowly. It's got to be here somewhere. You watch the right, I'll watch the left." "Oh, just drive. I can watch both sides." "Yeah, okay. Any driveway at all not leading to a house, tell me to stop..." "Right..." Jada smiled at her friend as the car returned to the southeast. The task of inspecting the now familiar road was boringly easy, and she began to reminisce about meeting her roommate at the beginning of the term. Jada hated the thought of being prejudiced, but she was half convinced architecture students were an entirely different species from engineering students. Jada's first year as a University of Vermont undergrad had been filled with two major commitments. The first was serious study, spending many evenings working either at the campus libraries or at her desk in her quiet dorm room. The second commitment was fulfilling her training and competition requirements for her partial scholarship. Jada was an orphan, totally on her own and managing a scary package of student loans and a tenuous athletic scholarship. She thought her five-year path to a Masters in Mechanical Engineering was very much dependent both on maintaining an excellent academic record and staying in excellent physical health. At her dorm, Jada's freshman year was filled with quiet study, but this past term a large herd of architecture students had moved into her area and the character of the wing had changed completely. Parties, loud music, boys wandering the halls at all hours, even during school nights, didn't these architecture students ever have to study? Apparently not, but they paid the price as their term projects became due. Jada smiled at the memory. Candice, the freshman dorm queen of midnight gothic and heavy metal, had finally been shown the error of her ways. A sophomore engineering student named Erica would pound on Candice's door almost nightly, complaining that the loud music was preventing her from sleeping. And throughout the fall term, her pleas for quiet were ignored. The moment for revenge had come two days ago at the end of the term when the architecture projects were due. After a semester of partying, many of the freshman students suddenly realized just how much time it took to build a professional model. A number of the students had waited until the last few days, and Jada was convinced several were using speed to stay awake to complete their work. Late last Wednesday as midnight approached, Candice had walked out of her room exhausted, carrying almost a square meter of a very professional looking building design, due promptly at 8 AM the following morning. It was a full layout complete with parking lots and landscaping and even tiny miniature trees artistically lining the access road. She had created something quite beautiful, and she left the model on the floor outside her dorm room for the glue to dry, Awake for over forty hours, Candice returned to her room and collapsed upon her bed. Ten minutes later Erica came out of the adjacent room, heading to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and what was in her way but the large landscape. It would have been so easy to walk around it, but should she, after an entire term of pounding heavy metal? No. Boom, boom, crunch, crunch, it was just like Godzilla going through Tokyo. Jada was awakened by a tremendous scream shortly before 1 AM. Fearing someone was being raped or murdered, she grabbed her robe and dashed outside her room, only to discover a shocked, horrified and bewildered Candice staring at her 3-D model that was now in a completely 2-D state. It was an act of pure revenge. Erika had confessed to Jada the following day that she was the culprit. Erika had no hope that Candice would take the hint and lower the volume on the stereo system. Erika's action was one of pure revenge, plain and simple, and Candice currently had an incomplete in the course. She would have to rebuild her project after she returned from Christmas vacation. Emily's car reached the southern end of Lost Nation Road. The connection to Route 15 was now just a few hundred meters away. They could be back on campus in fifteen minutes. Jada turned to her friend and smiled hopefully. "Hungry? I could make some lentil soup. Maybe we could go see a movie afterwards. I hear Flashpoint Seven is pretty good." Emily frowned and looked at the clock. "The posting said admission would be open until 5:22 PM. We still have another hour to find the place." "A strange time to turn away new guests, don't you think? I mean, why not a simple 5:30 or something?" Emily shrugged. "I don't know." Jada sighed. "I think I do. The winter solstice is at 5:22 PM today. Hello winter! The fact that they're supposedly locking the party doors at that exact moment is a tip-off this is all ... well, don't you find it really odd?" "Oh Jada, have a little faith." "Faith in what? That there really is a party god? Emily, get real! And besides, it's getting dark." Jada hoped Emily could hear the slight whine in her voice as she pointed through the window towards the east northeast. "See that bright silver light on the horizon? That's what we engineering types call the rise of the full moon. Aren't you afraid of werewolves? And more to the point, how are we going to find this place in the moonlight if we can't even see it in the daylight?!" Emily's eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "Exactly! The castle's lights should be more visible in the dark! Let's make the loop again and look through the trees for the lights of a large building." "Uh..." But Emily was already making another U-turn, and Jada didn't have the heart to argue the issue. She settled back and began scanning the trees, occasionally glancing at Emily and smiling at her roommate's misplaced determination. "Well, it's not as if I don't owe her a few favors," Jada thought. Emily shared something in common with Jada. They were both Jewish orphans, and Jada suspected that was why campus housing had asked her if she were willing to room with the first year undergrad. But unlike Jada who had been abandoned, Emily's parents had been killed a year ago in a car accident. She was now of legal age and on her own, but unlike Jada had almost a half million dollars in inheritance and life insurance benefits. And during their first week together, Jada discovered Emily also had a heart of pure kindness. "What's this?" Jada had asked, walking into her dorm at the beginning of the term and discovering a large pile of brand new textbooks on her desk. "Oh, I was in the bookstore, getting my course books. You should see the lines!" Emily paused and added casually, "I thought I'd pick up yours too." She turned away and started folding her wash. Jada stared at the pile of mint condition books and picked up one. "Yeah, these are my course books all right ... How did you know?" "Oh, it wasn't hard..." "Emily, you're very sweet, but I can't..." "Sure you can. It's not a big deal, just a few books." "A few books?! I know how much new books cost! I can use the library. That's what I did last year. These I should return." "You can't. They're already marked up. The bookstore won't accept them." "Huh?" Jada examined the pristine engineering text in her hand and then held the heavy book to her nose and sniffed. "I don't think this book has been cracked open since it left the printers. Marked where?" Emily took the book from Jada's hands, opened the front cover and with her pen made a large checkmark at the top of the title page. "Right here where I'm showing you with my pen. Hey, stop that!" Jada had given a soft cry and had Emily locked in a fierce hug. Jada eyed her friend now as they started making their third round trip on Lost Nation Road. What a joy getting to know Emily over the last four months. She was now like a sister to Jada, and a shining counter-example to Jada's generally low opinion of architecture students. They both shared a love of knowledge and learning, and in the past few months, Jada had come to appreciate that her roommate was also a first-rate visual mathematician. Emily's only flaw perhaps, was that she sometimes seemed to have no understanding of the word caution. A few favors indeed! Books, clothes, meals, being invited on sightseeing trips during the beautiful Vermont fall. It had been the happiest time in Jada's life. And whenever she was feeling stressed, she would open her textbook and stare at the checkmark and remind herself that she was now loved. No, Jada was definitely not going to fuss about this trip, even if her roommate was lost on a wild goose chase. Lost Nation Road? Hah! The pranksters had probably picked the street just for its name. "See anything yet?" "Sure, lots of nice trees, and I'm pretty sure we passed a raccoon about a hundred meters back." "Ja-dahhh..." "Remind me again what this place is supposed to look like." "A building as big as a castle. It's part of a new shopping mall with a bunch of residential wings mixed in. I've heard they've done some very innovative design work too. There are lots of hexagonal themes in the architecture, should be interesting, don't you think?" "Oh, I suppose..." Emily could hear the skepticism in Jada's voice. She gave a quiet sigh. "I know you think this is all a joke, but the building is real. You must have heard of it, Castle Commonwealth?" Jada leaned back in her car seat and sighed, glad to be in the warm car and not the frigid air outside. "A little maybe, not really." "Come on Jada, the construction has been going on for years, big bucks too, really serious money. The place is supposed to be enormous." "Oh yeah? How big?" "Uh ... I'm not sure I ever heard a specific number. But really huge, vast, going far north where the great fires were. The mall is the cornerstone of the area's recovery plan." Emily was referring to a horrific arson attack that had occurred six years previously. "Uh huh," her roommate finally replied, "And you heard Kappa Alpha picked this site for their frat house?" "Yep, in the posting this morning. That's where the invitation said to go." "Earlier I mean." There was a pause. "No, not earlier." "Which proves this is all a joke." "It proves no such thing. The building is real, therefore its access road must be real too. We're just missing it somehow." Jada gave a quick derisive laugh. "Lost Nation as an access road to a big mall?!" "Well, okay. You've got me there. I think we're looking for a short cut." "Oh, I don't know Emily. The school is almost deserted. This is a crazy time to throw a party." "No it's not. It's a Friday night, Christmas break is here, and there are still lots of students on campus." "Yeah, right." Jada's mind jumped to how deserted their dorm seemed when they left an hour ago. "Jada, if the fraternity wants to throw a party now, why not? It's not just me. Other people have seen the postings." "The guys' dorms too?" "Heck, how am I supposed to know that? Maybe not, but why would the fraternity brothers invite guys anyway? Do you think they're looking for pledges?" Jada laughed good naturedly. "I don't think this fraternity even exists!" "Oh, it's here somewhere." "Kind of far from school, don't you think?" "It's not that far. And look how pretty it is here..." They drove the rest of the way in silence. It was almost 4:30 PM by the time they reached Discovery Road again. The sky's gray twilight was fading rapidly. Jada looked at the dim intersection and smiled at her roommate. "Like coming home to an old friend." She paused for a moment and took genuine pity on Emily's distress. "You don't suppose it could be north of here, do you?" Emily frowned. "No. The invitation said south of Discovery Road." "Don't you think it's diagnostic that we've seen no other cars trying to find this place?" "Not really. The invitation recommended that people find parking between 1:00 and 1:30, and that the party would start before 2 PM. We're very late." Emily stretched and thought for a moment, her fingertips idly drumming on the steering wheel. "I suppose we could try to find a house and ask." A thin rolling band of clouds began to cover the moon on the horizon, and the dark isolation made Jada shiver. "Oh Emily, in a few more minutes, it's going to be pitch black out here. Do you really want to do that?" She hoped Emily would hear the worry in her voice. There was a long pause as Jada's concern finally got through to Emily. "No, I suppose not. Okay. You still interested in Flashpoint Seven?" "Sure!" Emily nodded and made yet another U-turn and began her final trip down Lost Nation Road. They had only traveled a minute when Emily noticed another car behind them about a hundred meters back, the first car she had seen since they left Route 15. She watched the car for a short while in her side mirror as she drove back to campus, and then gave a small gasp as the car disappeared. "Huh?!" she exclaimed as she braked the car suddenly. "Emily, what?" The car behind us, it just made a left turn!" "So?" "Left turn Jada, left turn! Towards the lake area! There were no houses on the left! Where the hell did it go?" In the gathering darkness, Emily carefully turned around and headed back. A few minutes later she stopped before a narrow path. "Well, it makes sense. This is the direction towards the open areas. But how did we miss this, six times in a row?" "Well, the very last time we weren't looking, but yeah..." Jada examined the trees lit by the headlights for a long moment. "It's an optical illusion. The trees further back are bigger, right where the road curves. It makes them look closer. In the daylight, I bet this road is almost invisible ... I guess..." Somehow the explanation didn't seem quite right, and something else was bothering her too. The road was dirt and very narrow. Their small car would be scraping pine branches on both sides. "Emily, this can't be a road to a shopping mall!" "The mall isn't open yet. Construction access is temporary, further north, through some private land." "Where did you hear that?" "Uh ... I forget. In the newspapers I think. Jada, I've been here four months. You have a full year on me. You say you never heard of Castle Commonwealth? There are articles about it all the time." Jada shook her head. "Oh, I might have heard something I guess. But it was completely outside of my ... areas of interest. Before you, I hadn't been to a mall since high school." Jada raised her eyebrows as Emily started to approach the path. "You sure you want to try this?" "Yeah, I'm sure. This is it. And it doesn't have to go to the mall itself, just to the frat house." Emily nosed her car to the start of the narrow path. "I'll be careful. And we can always back out." She switched on her high beams and entered the forest. ------- Chapter 2 After the first minute of following the forest path, Jada didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. But she finally decided didn't want to disturb Emily's intense concentration, so she kept silent. The road was a nightmare, numerous tight curves often hidden by the overlapping pine branches. The surface directly underneath them was hard-packed and dry, but there were deep ravines everywhere along the sides, often less than a meter away from the wheels. If they drove into one, it would take a tow truck to pull them out, and a no tow truck could ever make it in here. Emily drove silently, her hands gripping the wheel with white knuckles as she inched her way forward. Jada had a horrible premonition of the road abruptly ending with no place to turn around. Their only solution would be for Jada to stand outside in the cold Vermont night and try to talk Emily through the turns as she backed up. It would be a miserable, bone-chilling job, and in the dim light of the backup lights, their two-minute trip into the forest would take hours to unravel. But then there was a final sharp turn and they were out of the pine trees. They both made soft unconscious moans at the release of the tension. Before them appeared a modest overflow parking lot. It was full of cars, and beyond that an enormous building loomed in the darkness. The impression of a vast castle was very strong. It was the theme of the mall. "See any place to park?" asked Emily. She guessed the lot held about thirty cars, perhaps a few more, and it was packed. "It's not very well lit. Nothing over here though..." Jada looked to the left and right. There appeared to be acres of parking nearby, but the areas were on the other side of temporary chain-link fences. She finally turned and pointed behind her. "How about over there? You might be able to park on the grass." "Yeah." Emily drove over to a small grassy area near where they exited the forest and shut off the car. She sighed and then shuddered from the harrowing experience of the drive through the pine trees. "Jada," she said quietly, "I rely on you to be the better part of my decision making. Why didn't you talk me out of this?" "Uh ... I tried to, a little." "Why not more?" Jada took the question seriously and thought for a moment. "I don't know. I guess I was like you, curious." "Hmmm." Emily's face relaxed as she accepted the explanation. "Well, anyway, we're here." She looked at the clock and smiled. " ... with time to spare." Jada couldn't help but grin as she got out of the car. She took a deep breath, savoring the coldness of the frosty air. "Well, we're not there yet. You still want to party? We can get back in the car be on Lost Nation Road in a few minutes." Emily closed her door and locked the car with her remote. "Heck no! We've come this far. Let's check it out!" It was the answer Jada was expecting, and the two women walked across the dark lot and towards the imposing building. There was a short row of glass doors next to the parking lot, with an arc of portable lights out in front. It looked like a typical back entrance to a mall. The only distinguishing feature was the wall above the doors. The area had been decorated to look like a drawbridge. It looked like an obvious fake, but Jada hoped maybe they weren't finished with the artwork yet. One of the doors had several additional portable lights by it, and instructions for how to proceed to Kappa Alpha. Jada tried the heavy glass door and was somewhat surprised to find it unlocked. Kappa Alpha might still be a hoax, but if so the pranksters had somehow procured access to the unfinished mall. Following the directions, Emily and Jada began to follow a winding path, picking up new directions at each leg of the journey. After the first ten minutes, Jada had the impression they were playing a childish game of treasure map through endless corridors. Their walk was full of twisty turns traversing shopping areas and several eating pavilions, one with a great hexagonal food court with a spiraling motif in the floor. Jada thought most of the design work was okay, and occasionally the novelty was interesting. A few things though looked rather gaudy. As their journey progressed, they came to other areas that were obviously going to be residential. There were slanting rows of apartments with a modest pool and tennis courts nearby. They walked down one row and then seemed to backtrack half the distance on another. Their path was becoming so convoluted, Jada began to suspect it was intentionally complex. They both shivered in their coats as they walked through the unheated corridors. It seemed colder inside than it was out. And the moon was shining brightly again. Jada saw dim images of a great exterior hexagonal courtyard in the silver light, overlooked by what would be future garden condominiums adjacent to a food mart. It looked like it would be a convenient place to live. Perhaps having a frat house here was actually possible. Jada was amazed they were able to walk through all the unfinished areas unchallenged, but except for the lit signs guiding their way, the place seemed deserted, and the smell of heavy construction was everywhere. Eventually their path took them back to a commercial shopping area. Jada guessed the mall was months away from opening. Most of the stores they had passed were empty shells with bare concrete for floors and walls, and the few shops that did have shelves and their signage up were devoid of merchandise. And they often saw staircases that were roughly poured in concrete but still unfinished. In the final part of their journey, they took a stairwell two levels below ground to what looked like a very long and poorly lit maintenance tunnel. In the far distance they could see a much brighter light. As they walked the tunnel, Jada began to feel uneasy and debated whether to voice her concerns to Emily. She finally decided to wait until they reached the far light. She coughed and realized her throat felt very dry, and she mentioned the fact to Emily. "Yeah? Mine too. I just noticed it. I could really use something to drink." At last they came to their first indication of hospitality, several tables with lights and a large selection of refreshments. Their trail ended in a small room with the tables to the right of a single elevator. The room was at the top of a T intersection, with new corridors running left and right into the distance. There was also a steel door to the left of the elevator which Jada assumed was a stairwell. The underground room felt very drab, with damp air and an almost freezing temperature. All the walls and floor and ceiling were made of simple concrete. On the lit tables were plastic cups and all sorts of cold sodas and hot drinks in electric urns. There was also a large sign that read, "Have a drink, choose an access code, enter a party before expiration. Kappa Alpha." Jada noticed a large trash can nearby nearly overflowing with used cups. Emily smiled happily and gloated as she grabbed a new cup and poured herself a large drink from one of the urns. "Oh yee of little faith. Hot chocolate too, my favorite!" Jada raised her eyebrows. "I admit it. I'm shocked we've gotten this far. But I still don't hear any music. This place is as silent as a tomb." "So what? We're below ground now. The party must be upstairs. Hey! This hot chocolate is delicious! Try some." Jada shook her head in disbelief as she looked back at the bare tunnel. She couldn't shake the feeling of being vulnerable. She walked to the left of the elevator and tried the door. It was unlocked and did indeed lead to stairs heading up, but the stairwell was completely dark. Jada shivered in the damp air and let the door close by itself. "Emily, it's creepy down here." "Well, we'll be leaving soon. Hang on." Emily looked at a clock embedded in the frame surrounding the elevator. It had a double digital readout, and the first white number was 17:08:02 and counting upward, the green number beneath it was 00:14:07 and counting downward. There was also a small notice below the clocks stating that the maximum capacity of the elevator was eighteen people. Emily glanced at her watch and thought the time was accurate. It had taken them a half hour to walk here from the parking lot. It was over two kilometers of walking, but they appeared to have made their goal with a little time to spare. She smiled happily and poured a second hot chocolate and handed it to Jada. Jada took a sip and frowned. "Yuck. It tastes like metal." "What? Mine doesn't." Emily grabbed Jada's cup and took a long, slow sip. She shook her head. "You don't taste it?" "It tastes like dark chocolate. I love it." Emily handed the cup back to Jada. Jada plucked a cube from an ice bucket to rinse out her mouth. She sucked for a few seconds and then spat the cube into her cup. "Oh hell! I think it's in the ice too." Preoccupied with her drink, she failed to notice the elevator control light flicker on. Emily picked up another cube from the same bucket, licked it lightly, and then crunched and ate it. "Jada, are you playing with me?" "No, I swear. There's a salty metallic taste. Maybe it's faint but it's there." "Oh Jada, it's just the tap water." Emily returned to reading their latest instructions. "There seem to be six party themes. They're all disco oldies. We get to choose which party we like." "Yeah? How strange." Jada looked at the selection list. 1) It's My Party 2) Great Balls of Fire, 3) House of the Rising Sun 4) I Can See Clearly Now, 5) In the Year 2525, and 6) Stairway to Heaven. "This is ridiculous!" she said turning to Emily and laughing. Emily was grinning too. "Wow, I haven't heard Zager and Evans sing that chestnut since junior high." "Yeah well, 2525 is the only one I don't like. Pick something else." Jada studied the instructions for a moment, muttering to herself. "This is so absurd! Twenty-character access codes to ride in an elevator?!" "And where do we enter them?" Emily muttered back. There was only the single lit button recessed in the wall, and Emily pushed it. The elevator door obediently slid open and she entered. It was a cavernous elevator obviously designed of holding large freight, almost three meters wide by four meters deep. Emily thought it was capable of holding eighteen people easily. "In here!" she called out. Jada entered the elevator and saw a small keyboard protruding from the wall on her left. There were absolutely no other controls inside the elevator, and the setup was so odd that the lack of an emergency call system and fireman's override went unnoticed. Jada idly typed randomly on the keyboard, filling a one-line display with characters until she stuck her twentieth key, at which time the keyboard gave an angry beep and the display reset to empty. "Is this some kind of joke?" she wondered. Emily walked outside the elevator and after a moment called out, "Type C V 5 W..." "What?" "I'm giving you the access code for It's My Party." "You actually want to try this?" Jada called back as a silent fleeting thought crossed her mind. "What the hell are we getting into?" "Sure!" "Emily..." A second fleeting thought and shiver: "This is so incredibly absurd!" "Come on Jada! C V 5 W..." A third and final fleeting thought: "Oh, what could possibly happen? Just do it." Jada typed and called back, "Entered C V 5 W." " B H D Y..." "What do you want to bet all six codes go to the same place?" "We're running out of time! B H D Y..." "Entered B H D Y. And that place is right here. The elevator doesn't move." "S Z 9 K..." "This is so stupid ... Entered S C 9 K." "What?! The second letter, did you say Z or C?" "I typed C as in cat." "It should have been a Z as in zebra." "Emily, there's no backspace on this keyboard." Emily glanced at the green display counting down to zero and grunted. "Come on Jada! Just type in garbage and start over! C V 5 W..." On a hunch Jada tried a blue key at the far left of the keyboard and saw all her previous typing disappear. She was finding it very hard not to laugh. "Let's forget the elevator. How about we try walking up the Stairway to Heaven instead? We could use your cell phone for a light." "Jada! C V 5 W!" A moment later Emily entered the elevator as Jada typed in the last four keys of a correct code. The elevator door closed silently behind them. The small display started flashing two blue sets of numbers, a static 037:110 and what appeared to be a time index of 00:03:28 that was counting down in one-second intervals. "Oww," cried Jada. "I'm feeling a headache, really painful. What the hell is happening?!" She stumbled, almost spilling her drink and looking as if she wanted to lie on the floor. The pain was so intense she dimly wondered if she would vomit. It was a terrible and uniquely tearing pain, as if her mind were being pulled apart from the inside. Emily petted on friend in compassion and then held her to keep her from falling. "You want me to help you sit down?" "I want this pain to end! Oww!" "Try taking a drink!" Jada did what her friend suggested, taking a big gulp before remembering that she didn't like the taste. The effect was immediate and profound. Within seconds all of her pain disappeared. "You look like you're feeling better?" Jada blinked at her friend and then stared at the cup in her hands. "I feel fine. No pain at all. That was so randomly bizarre. How did you know I should drink?" "I feel it too, a slight decrease in pressure. I think the elevator is rising." "What?!" Jada looked at her friend totally bewildered. "It didn't feel like ear pressure." "Huh? It didn't?" "No, not at all. Emily, what the hell is going on?!" Emily looked very confused and shrugged. "I was always pretty good at sensing pressure changes. I think we're rising, a lot too." "But that's impossible. Emily, this is a shopping mall, not a skyscraper." There was a long moment of silence. "Yeah, I know. Well, what do you think the elevator is doing?" It was Jada's turn to consider. The sensation of movement was subtle, a vague feeling of motion without any mechanical vibration. "If I had to guess, I think we're heading down, very slowly. And ... Oh, this is so absurd. I've also have this feeling of great speed at the same time. Don't ask me to explain it. It's just a ... Do you feel any vibrations? I don't." Emily shook her head. "No, and we're not going down. We were underground already. We can't be going down. Besides, my ears don't lie." "Oh Emily, I know you're not lying. But maybe your ears are being deceived. Why did we ever get into this trap?!" Jada looked around critically, for the first time awakening to the possibility of danger. "This setup is ridiculous! There are no safety features at all. Look at this thing! No phone, no emergency stop button. My gosh, look at the ceiling! And the floor!" The floor looked like a single piece of polished stone, and the ceiling was one smooth steel plate with dimples for the white diodes. "There's no escape hatch! Who would ever build something like this?!" "Do you think this elevator is a prank?" The question brought Jada up short. "I hadn't thought of that." She looked around for a moment and considered. "There's absolutely nothing amateurish about its construction. Look how the keyboard flows out of the wall. It's a beautifully integrated design. Could a bunch of frat boys build something like this?" Emily ran her hand across the wall and door. The interior cage was rock solid, huge, and seemed to be constructed of several different alloys of burnished metal. The net effect was one of unique power and beauty. "No. This elevator is no hack job. I don't understand..." "Neither do I. It's beautiful precision engineering but without safety features." Emily grimaced. "Which should be impossible! Nobody builds like this! How could we have been so stupid?" Jada thought for a moment and remembered something from her one elective course this term. It covered the history of science. "I think it's our culture. We rely on technology for everything. We've learned to trust it, and our trust has become blind. We never saw the danger. If Vermont Power & Light has a blackout right now, we'll be in really serious trouble. Nobody even knows we're down here." "Oh, don't go there. Jada, when we leave the party, we'll take another way back to my car, okay?" "Absolutely. We'll take the stairs." There was nothing else to do but wait, and the wait wasn't long. After a short period of time, the counter reached zero and the two women jumped when the side wall opposite the keyboard began to slide open. ------- Chapter 3 Jada and Emily were somewhat amazed to see a normal-looking party before them. People were chatting spread out over a very comfortable and well appointed lounge area. The area was pleasantly heated and very spacious, and the two women gladly took off their coats. Jada guessed the lounge to be about 240 square meters in area. It had very square proportions except for two slightly beveled corners on the wall containing the elevator. Jada turned around and studied the elevator as its door closed. Exiting 90 degrees from the direction they had entered surprised her greatly. She had been in numerous elevators in her life which opened on both ends, but never one like this. Facing the elevator, she also noticed a door to its left. Jada assumed it would lead to the stairwell she saw in the basement. Jada turned around again and joined Emily in examining the room and the party. It looked like a very nice place. There were generous four-meter ceilings in the lounge and also in a huge kitchen area further on. Jada took a few steps and paused. She felt a bit light on her feet, a little out of balance. She took another few steps and sensed her body adjusting. After a moment everything seemed fine. Jada shrugged and thought it night be an aftereffect of the strange and terrible pain. Meanwhile Emily had done a quick headcount and was standing there frowning. There were a lot fewer people here than she had been expecting. Besides Jada and herself, there were perhaps a dozen women and only three guys, with everyone looking about undergraduate age. She sighed in disappointment and examined the room again. There was some soft disco music coming from an impressive sound system along the wall behind them, and a very expansive buffet was laid out on their right alongside a long bank of dark windows. The food smelled enticing, enough to make Emily feel hungry. A handsome young guy noticed the new arrivals and came over to greet them. "Welcome to Kappa Alpha land. I'm Mark." Jada had a good first impression of the man. He was polite, very good looking, tall, and most importantly his eyes were both cheerful and respectful. Jada nodded at him but felt compelled to complain. "Thanks for having us. I'm Jada and this is my roommate Emily. Mark, we really have to mention your idea of an elevator is horrible." Mark raised his eyebrows. "Oh sorry! I didn't mean to deceive you. I'm not from Kappa Alpha. We just got here ten minutes ago. Are you that car that pulled in behind us?" Emily cocked her head. "Uh huh. Us?" Mark turned to Emily. "I came with my younger sister and two of her friends. They're all seniors at BHS." Mark turned back to Jada and gave her a long, curious look. "Do I know you from somewhere?" Jada laughed. "Oh, I've heard that pickup line before!" She was surprised to see Mark give a genuine blush. Emily spoke up, coming to Mark's rescue. "BHS?" "Uh, yeah, Burlington High School. And I agree with you, that elevator is one weird piece of work." Emily nodded and then recognized a couple of her classmates getting seconds from the buffet. She excused herself and wandered over to say hello. Three other young women came by and said brief hellos to Jada but seemed more interested in the elevator. Mark filled Jada in. "We were just having a discussion when you arrived, what would happen when the countdown hits zero. This is my sister Madison, and her friends Ashley and Hannah." "I'm betting the boys of Kappa Alpha finally appear," said Madison. "We've been asking around. Everyone here is a visitor. No one has seen a host yet." "Really?" replied Jada. "That sounds so odd." She turned and looked back at the elevator. In the frame was a triple digital display, somewhat similar to what was in the basement below. The white number was now registering 17:20:35, the green number 00:01:34, and there was also a static blue number registering 037:112. Jada felt a shiver as she watched the green number count down. She had the weirdest feeling her last chance to escape was somehow slipping away. She looked at Madison. "Well, we'll find out soon enough. So you think we'll meet our hosts, huh?" Ashley piped up. "My guess all the lights will go out and we find out how haunted this" "Oh, knock it off Ashley! I don't want to hear it!" Jada turned to Hannah. "You're worried?" Hannah blushed. "Just a little. That elevator ride was creepy!" Jada nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, it really was." They waited around for another minute, watching the final seconds expire. Zero hour was a bit of a disappointment. The only visible change was that the green number changed to red and remained a static 00:00:00. Curious to see what would happen, Jada pushed the button to open the elevator and it opened immediately. After stepping inside, she tried the keyboard console and found it was without power. Suddenly feeling nervous she quickly left the enclosed space. A few seconds later the door silently slid closed. They chatted for a few minutes and then headed over to the buffet. The food selections were fabulous, fresh shrimp and lobster, chicken and prime rib, and an unusual seafood entrée that tasted somewhat like a scallop but was the size and color of a golden pancake. There were also platters offering a great variety of tasty vegetables and delicate sauces. Jada and her new acquaintances loaded up their plates and sat down, and then enjoyed their meal so much little was said until they were finished eating. After a bit of persuasion by Madison, she and her two friends began busing a large pile of used dishes into the nearly kitchen. "That was remarkable," Jada finally commented. Mark nodded and looked up fondly from his empty plate. "Yes, exceptional. Madison and I spend summer vacations in Europe with our parents. We've eaten at The Fat Duck in Berkshire, El Bulli in Spain, Pierre Gagnaire and the Guy Savoy in Paris, nothing was ever better than this." "Really? But who could cater something like this here?" "I don't think this was catered. Look at these serving trays. See the Kappa Alpha logo? I think the trays all came from the frat's kitchen." Mark thought for a moment. "Maybe Kappa Alpha has a world-class culinary prodigy." He blinked his eyes. "And that large golden scallop, I've never tasted anything like it. Fabulous stuff." Jada laughed. "I know nothing of gourmet food! I agree, the dinner was great and redeems the frat from their horrid elevator. But I was commenting on the fact that your sister persuaded her friends to help clean up." Mark smiled and shrugged. "Well, our parents taught us to be considerate. I feel like helping out myself." Mark looked around at the lounge. "Wow. This place is a real mystery." Jada studied their sofa for a moment and nodded. "Is this genuine leather? It looks very expensive." "Yeah, and not just the sofa. Look at this place! It's a beautiful palace, not at all what I was expecting from a frat house. And the fact that no one from the frat is here..." "Yes, it really is bizarre, isn't it? Aren't they worried some uncouth guests will start trashing the place?" Jada paused for a moment, her hand on the sofa idly stroking the soft luxuriant surface. "Were you serious about helping to clean up?" "Sure." A moment later they joined the clean-up crew in the kitchen. In its own way, the kitchen was just as opulent as the lounge room, though half the size. Like the party room, the kitchen ran the full width of the building, Jada guessed about sixteen meters, and its depth was about eight meters. On both of the long ends of the kitchen were pleasant eating areas adjacent to large banks of windows. Between the two eating areas was a fabulously well-appointed kitchen. There were polished granite counters, gleaming stainless steel sinks, restaurant-grade appliances and sparkling white and blue and gold tiles everywhere. Jada and Mark started telling each other about their lives as they worked with his sister and friends. Mark talked first, describing growing up in a rich section of Burlington. He was now a junior at the university majoring in physics and was an avid amateur astronomer. After the girls left, Jada gave back a little of her own history as she dried dished with Mark, talking about growing up in a poor section of central Indiana. She avoided telling him about the horrific family experiences of her high school years. "So you're only eighteen and already a sophomore?" he asked. "I'm impressed. That's my sister's age, her two friends too." Jada nodded. "Yep, that's me. I'm a millennium baby. January 1, 2000." Jada gave a yawn and stretched, realizing she felt a little ... what? Sleepy? No, not exactly, though the thought of cuddling in a warm blanket seemed to have an unexpected appeal to it. She looked at the kitchen clock, 18:57:01, certainly too early for her to be tired. But she wasn't tired, not exactly. She paused from her work and took a moment to stroll to the windows, trying to figure out what her body wanted. It was very dark outside, with perhaps a lit walkway somewhere in the distance. Beyond that Jada stopped paying attention. She felt a little sleepy, but not exactly sleepy, a little tense, a little ... a little what? Excited? Yes, sort of, but it felt like a child's excitement, awaiting the coming of tomorrow's birthday presents. Jada blinked in surprise. She hadn't felt like this in years. She felt eager, a child's eagerness clear and strong, as if she couldn't wait for the future to unfold. Meanwhile Mark had finished putting away the last of the dishes. He then opened a large walk-in refrigerator and peered inside. "Almost full," he called out, "but still a bit of space. How about we save the rest of the buffet? That stuff is so good, it would be a crime to let it go to waste." He gazed at Jada kindly for a moment as she stared out the window. She appeared to be preoccupied. "Jada?" "Huh? Oh yeah, sure. Save the buffet. Good idea." Taking down the large buffet was a bit of a job. As they worked, Jada commented how much she liked the food storage facilities of the kitchen. It wasn't just the walk-in refrigerator and freezer. There were numerous shining metal cabinets that closed with a positive hiss and snap vaguely electrical in nature. They seemed superbly designed to seal their contents. After working for about a half hour, Hannah wandered back into the kitchen looking a little flushed. She offered to help. They were a cheerful team for a while, and then Hannah started flirting with Mark, nothing outrageous, just bumping into him, putting her hand on his arm or shoulder as she passed near him. Mark looked surprised at first and then just amused at how affectionate Hannah was becoming. And then Hannah took the flirting to the next level. The pats on his arm became caresses, and Hannah would lean on him looking as if she expected to be kissed. Jada didn't understand the dynamics of what was going on. Mark's facial expressions were very hard to read. It seemed he was looking for some polite way to tell Hannah to cool it while simultaneously desiring to accept her advances. Jada began to feel she was intruding on a complex emotional situation, and was just coming up with a polite way to excuse herself when Hannah reached over and hugged Mark and held him tightly to the front of her body, grabbing him low on his butt and pressing her pelvis against his, making a slow sensual gyration with her pubis directly against his groin. The gesture was lewd and the proposition unmistakable. Mark groaned with desire, grabbing the sides of Hannah's hips to lock her position. He arched his back to thrust his hips forward and grind into this delightful vixen. But then he gave a strange cough, gave Hannah's butt a playful swat instead, and pulled away from her grip. They stared into each other's eyes for a brief moment. "Hannah, what the hell are we doing?" Hannah was panting with sexual desire, but her face was a mask of confusion. "Yeah. I'm so sorry Mark. I'm acting like a clown." "No, it's okay." "No it's not." Hannah took a deep breath and shook her head. "I'm heading back to the lounge," she said abruptly. A moment later Jada and Mark were along again in the kitchen. Jada cocked her head. "What was that all about?" Mark looked truly bewildered. "I honestly don't know." "Are you two going together?" Deep in thought, he just stood there motionless. "Did you ever?" Jada's persistent questioning seemed to wake Mark out of a daze. "Huh? With Hannah?! No, not at all. She's just my sister's friend." He paused. "She's is a wonderful person. Maybe a little shy socially, but ... Hell, what just happened here is way out of character for her." He took a moment to shudder. "And the strangest part is..." "Yes?" Mark looked directly into Jada's eyes with his own eyes somehow asking for forgiveness. "For a moment I wanted her." Jada shrugged. "Well, she is a very pretty girl." "Oh, it's not that. I know the true Hannah. She thinks of me as an older brother. The true Hannah would be horrified if I..." Mark seemed to have trouble completing the thought. Jada smiled slightly as she heard this. The feeling of eagerness was back, stronger than ever. Her body felt tense, excited... "Excited?" she thought. "Am I hot for Mark too? My God, am I?!" She said out loud, "It seems a little stuffy in here. Do you feel it?" Mark looked at her and blinked. "Yeah, I guess I do. It's a bit hot ... I feel revved up ... a little strange actually. My mind doesn't want to let go..." He didn't finish the thought. "Want to head back to the lounge?" "Uh, yeah." Mark shook his head as if to clear it. "If you don't mind, I'd like to keep an eye on Hannah for a while. Want to sit together?" Jada felt her heart race as she heard his question. "I'd love to," she blurted out immediately. "Jada!" she thought to herself angrily. "Don't act so easy! You'll scare him off!" And then she paused for a moment astonished. "Scare him off?! Why did I think that? What am I afraid of?" She tried to reflect for a moment. "What do I want?" She grabbed a drink of water by the sink and took a moment to think. Her mind seemed to be going in unexpected directions. "I've only just met him. What am I expecting?" She felt confused, and just hoped again she didn't sound too eager. Mark brushed his hand against hers as he walked by, and Jada put down her glass and happily accepted the offer, glad to have latched onto one of the few guys at the party, and this one was such a nice one. Hand in hand, they walked back to the lounge. Jada and Mark were surprised to see the party was almost over. Both the music and lights were turned down low, and the few remaining people were drifting off through the door to the left of the elevator. Hannah was near the music console chatting with Ashley, and Madison and Emily were sitting with another woman Jada didn't know. Everybody else was leaving. Jada and Mark found an empty sofa across from Hannah and Ashley and sat down. And the evening wore on. Mark and Jada continued to hold hands as they chatted with each other. Both seemed tired, and when Mark finally put his arm around Jada she accepted his affections at once, snuggling into his arm and wrapping her arm around the front of his waist. She sighed in contentment and nestled her head into his side. They shared a first kiss, and then spent some quiet time engaging in gentle foreplay, simple caresses and kisses, nothing overtly sexual, not in the demanding sense. Everything was light and playful. Mark caressed Jada's cheek with his fingers for a while. He was smiling at her, his eyes full of hope. After a while Jada leaned back and the arm behind her head became a comfortable pillow. Mark other arm came to hold her body, caressing her lightly by the side of her ribs. He was delighted by the feel of her muscular body. "You are so incredibly beautiful," he mumbled as he petted her. Jada giggled. "Oh, I bet you tell that to all the girls you make out with!" But she was pleased with his comment, and she sighed and reached up and gave Mark a long sleepy kiss. Her kiss wandered, ending in a dry tongue that licked his ear, long soft strokes up and down the ridge of his ear. Mark shivered with the ticklish sensations. And then her teeth finished the job by giving a playful nip to his earlobe. It was all the approval he needed. A moment later his caressing hand wandered up and cupped a soft breast. Jada sucked in a deep breath, held it a long time and then let it out very slowly as Mark fondled her. Her body was in an extremely unusual state, her mind almost asleep and free of inhibitions, yet her body was in an advanced state of sexual arousal. In a dreamlike state, Jada's hand dropped to Mark's groin and her fingers traced the full erection beneath his pants. Light as feathers, her fingers danced around his stiff cock. "Such a nice daydream," she thought lazily. "And where will it go?" "Do you like this?" she asked in a teasing floating voice as she slowly pinched the end of his cock. She purred happily as Mark nodded. He thought her purr was the sexiest sound imaginable. His hips began to rock back and forth uncontrollably as Jada continued to tease his cock. Mark was signaling he wanted more stimulation on his groin, and Jada rewarded him by pushing in with her fingertips with increasing pressure. His lips sought hers again and found them eager for more contact. Their tongues playfully danced with each other as their hands fumbled with each other's clothes. There was no concern at all for exposing themselves to the other people still in the room. Jada's dress had buttons up the front, and after a moment of fumbling, Mark had her dress open and his hand squeezed in up against her bra, feeling the firm flesh through the soft cotton, rubbing and cupping the tips of her breasts with the palm of his hand, feeling her nipples swell and harden from the stimulation. "Like my bra?" asked Jada dreamily. "It was a present ... Hmmm ... That feels so nice..." One of her aroused nipples was now caught in a vise at the bottom of Mark's index and middle fingers. He was giving her rhythmic squeezes, and she thought it felt as if she were being milked by a baby ... or a lover... "Do you like my bra?" Jada asked again. There was no verbal response, just Mark's fingers caressing the soft undersides of her breasts. She drifted, feeling his fingers probe into her flesh, down at the bottom seam of the bra where it met the top of her ribs. He pushed underneath the seam, searching for her naked flesh. Jada sighed deeply and put her arms behind her head, taking a deep breath, displaying and offering her breasts to Mark. She hoped he would find them attractive. And his caresses felt so nice. "Like my bra?" she mumbled. Jada's sleepy thoughts were filled with affection and desire. She loved how gentle Mark was being with his advances, loved seeing his smiles and sighs as she accepted him as her lover. She was delighted by his happiness, and soon the room's cool air was brushing against her naked breasts. "The clever boy must have found the clasp," she thought dreamily. Jada wondered briefly where her bra could be now, but then the delightful warmth of Mark's hand cupped her, his flesh against hers, and then his wet tongue. The last thought of her bra flew from her mind as Jada hissed and kicked off her shoes. She arched her back and presented her breasts for suckling, deliriously happy with the feel and the sexuality. Her left nipple felt super sensitive and was being pulled high and tight against the roof of Mark's mouth. His tongued pulsed along the underside of her breast and nipple, and Jada dreamed of her milk flowing into his greedy mouth. Her hands meanwhile worked and managed to free Mark's erection from his clothing. At last! It came out of his pants with a pop. She glanced down. His head was in her lap, suckling her from below. And his penis looked so beautiful, felt so velvety and sexy. She was smiling brightly that he was allowing her to hold it. So velvety soft and firm, both at the same time. Such a wonder... Jada stroked his penis as he suckled her, alternating firm grips with light caresses, matching the suckling pull on her breast. Her sleepy mind filled with fantasies of two lovers synchronizing their rhythms before copulation. After a timeless period of floating, she bent her head down and felt her wet nipple pop out of Mark's mouth. He groaned in disappointment for a moment, but then sighed deeply as Jada returned a suckle of her own. The feel of the penis head against her lips and tongue felt magical. Jada shook her head briefly with the penis half in her mouth. She felt so sleepy it was difficult to concentrate. She blinked her eyes trying to stay awake and decided to swallow his penis, pulling it into her mouth with a suckle as far as she could without choking. She curled her tongue and licked the penis as it slid in and out of her mouth, tracing a large vein on its underside with the tip of her tongue. Mark was shuddering and gasping in pleasure. Jada re-coupled the penis to her mouth, sucking greedily until she felt his glans at the back of her throat. She could actually feel the beat of his heart with her tongue, and then she licked upward to the tip, kissing the penis head as it left her mouth. Mark's cock was now super slick, covered with her saliva. It trembled in her hands and she began to play with it. She was delighted Mark was allowing her to fondle his sex organ and tease him, and she squeezed the top of his sensitive glans with her strong fingers until she popped open his urethra slit. She lapped into the opening and tasted a salty drop of pre-cum leaking from him, and then she pushed the tip of her tongue directly into the tiny opening. Mark began to shake from the stimulation on the super sensitive skin. And the time drifted by. Jada was floating from dream to dream. She had a vague feeling of watching a delightful series of erotic movies, each movie building layer after layer of sexual tension within her mind and body. And then she blinked and half woke up, as if from a long sleep. Her hip muscles felt a bit tired, as if she had been thrusting for a long time, but it was so hard to remember what had just happened. Jada was flat on her back on the sofa, a pillow under her butt, her socks were off and her bare legs raised high. Her labia and anus felt sopping wet, and she had dim memories of an intense orgasm with Mark's head between her legs. She thought it was a dream... But it was no dream. And now Mark was mounting her, lying between her legs, his pants and boxers down around his ankles. He was kissing and nibbling on her neck, and through her pubic fur a stiff and eager penis was sliding back and forth, wet from her vaginal flow. Mark was breathing in gasps, and Jada could feel his desire for her, feel his eagerness to couple. Jada was eager too. Yes! This was what her eagerness was for. Of course! She blinked again and stared up at her toes. They were high above her head, and they were curling in sheer pleasure with each penile thrust against her pubis. The rhythmic pulses of pressure against her uterus were slowly driving her to another orgasm. And for this one, Jada definitely wanted Mark to be inside of her. Her mind was totally without concerns or inhibitions, wondering only briefly if she would stain the expensive sofa when Mark entered her virgin body. She happily smiled the thought away and lifted her pelvis, giving him the perfect angle to couple. She would accept this handsome male above her into the core of her womanhood. She would accept him now. Mark groaned as the head of his penis slid down through the folds of her wet labia, parting the soft and silky lips. He pushed hard and felt the wet knob of his cock slide down and nestle into the moisture around Jada's anus. Jada grunted at the pressure and shook her head no. Mark grunted too and pulled back as Jada lowered her legs slightly. He thrust again. This time the angle was perfect. He felt his cockhead slide down the open folds of her labia and notch into her vaginal opening. He cried out in pleasure at the feel of the moist, silky heat, and shifted his body so he could work himself in. Jada gasped and smiled and nodded, spreading her thighs wide open to show she was ready. And then Mark felt the tight barrier and gasped at the shock that Jada was offering her virginity to him. The vision of his cock sinking into her played out in his mind. One powerful thrust and he would break her, penetrate her deep and tight until he pushed up against her virgin cervix. His cock would be buried inside her, coated with blood from her torn hymen. Mark gasped and cried as he looked upon her face. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing in great gulps of air. And her toes were curled, her feet lifted high and her powerful legs tense with the anticipation of being deflowered. The realization that this sweet and precious creature beneath him was offering him her virginity finally broke through Mark's dreamlike trance. He groaned and lifted his weight off her, supporting himself on one elbow. With his free hand he gently pulled down Jada's bunched-up dress, covering her exposed sex. With infinite tenderness he kissed her. Jada whimpered in dismay and lifted her dress back up, thrusting upward with her naked hips into the open air, trying to encourage him to couple. "Take me," she swooned. "You won't be sorry." And her sleepy thoughts were filled with fantasies of sexual frolics and delight. Mark shuddered and cried softly and then lifted from his mount position. Both of Jada's bare legs were now lifted right in front of him, and he gently grabbed her right ankle and left calf with his hands. He gently but firmly nudged her legs down and to his right, kissing the shapely calf as he swung it across his body. Her legs lowered, he laid himself down behind her and by her side. Jada whimpered in dismay at the delay and tried to lift her leg back up to offer him a side entry point for copulation, but Mark pushed her leg back down. His hand affectionately lowered her dress again and then he hugged and petted her from behind, pressing against her womb through her dress with the palm of his hand. "Jada?" "Hmmm?" "I'm so sleepy ... This doesn't seem right..." "I love you..." she mumbled in her dream, " ... and I want you inside me." There, she said it. He had her permission. Jada took a deep breath and held it, waiting to let it out slowly once Mark started sliding up inside of her. She wanted him so badly. She began to tremble from her eagerness. She heard a deep sigh, and then the wonderful male hand stroked down to caress her bare inner thigh. She opened her legs immediately, hoping he would stroke her sex, and then the hand drifted up to cup her womb, this time underneath her dress, fingers sliding lovingly in the silky pubic curls and then holding her, the strong fingers pressing down against her womb, the palm pressing up against her open sex. She sighed happily, unaware she was nodding her head in encouragement. She drifted in her arousal. "Hmmm, that feels so nice ... Will you drop down a bit?" The wonderful fingers honored her request. They slid between her legs and began to play with her, seeking her, exploring the folds and the hood just above her vagina. "That's right. Yes, right there, on the clit ... That feels so nice ... Don't stop..." She gasped and cried and shivered as the wet finger picked up moisture along her inner folds and then stoked her exposed clitoris again. She felt the finger start to drill her, try to wiggle under the protective hood at the top of her labia. She wiggled back in dreamy anticipation, helping the wet finger find its target. Her coming orgasm would be tremendous. "That's right ... Right there ... Drive me..." A tender voice at her ear, "I'm so sleepy ... I don't understand ... Later?" "Hmmm ... You mean for sex? No! I want you now..." So sexy, the wiggling finger was pushing her down the chute for sexual release, and Jada was breathing in gasps, eager for the ride to begin. She felt her clitoris pull away from the intense stimulation, felt a lifting sensation in her groin that she knew was a sign of extreme arousal. Jada was almost at the tipping point where her orgasm would become unstoppable, and she dimly thought she was in the dream of a perfect orgasm. "My handsome male," she mumbled, "mine..." "This feels wrong ... Jada ... Are we drunk?" "Hmm?!" The direct question shocked Jada's mind, pushing her from her dream. Her mind fought and won a brief fierce battle, raising her equilibrium point to halfway between awake and asleep. She was now slightly more awake than before, still floating but now able to consider Mark's question. And her semi-awake mind realized the victory over sleep would not last. "Mark ... Have you ever been drunk?" "No." "I have, once. My parents forced me. We're not drunk. This feels different ... a lot different ... so sexy ... Oh no! Don't stop! Please don't stop!" The sexy finger that had been fondling the area around her aroused clitoris had left her. Jada heard great tenderness in Mark's sleepy voice. "Your parents got you drunk?" She cried, "What?! Yes, once ... Oh, please come back! I don't want to remember! Not that, not now! Please come back, please!" "Jada..." Lots of soft kisses on her cheek and the side of her nose, but still no finger returning to her clit. Jada whimpered in dismay. Mark pulled up his hand and sniffed it. His fingers were wet with Jada's vaginal flow and the smell was intoxicating. His mind drifted. Intoxicating? Jada's parents got her drunk? "My beautiful Jada ... An accident?" Her mind drifted against her will, reliving the awful memory. "No, they did it on purpose, forced the bottle into my mouth ... it burned my throat ... vodka ... then gin ... up my nose ... It was horrible!" Great tears began to fall from Jada's eyes and she sobbed uncontrollably. Mark gave a strangled cry. "Oh why..." A scene Jada had tried to bury for the last two years began to play in her mind. It was unstoppable, as if she were being forced to watch the ghastly memories against her will. "To blame me," she sobbed. "For something they did ... something awful ... I was so ashamed ... I never told anybody ... not the police ... not even Emily..." "I remember ... Emily..." "Yes," Jada cried through her tears. "Someone loves me now! And I love her ... but I've kept silent..." Jada gave a deep sigh, her sleepy mind floating in the conversation. "But I'm telling you. Isn't that strange?" A gentle hand was holding her and caressing her body, breast to stomach, slow and caring strokes. But it no longer felt arousing to Jada, just infinitely tender. She felt like a young child, an infant, ancient memories buried for so many years. She was being cradled. She felt loved and cradled, and she began to unwind slightly, still deeply aroused but falling away from the need for sex. Mark lips were at her ear, her check, her lips, kissing her. "Yes, strange ... Why tell me?" Jada gave him a dreamy giggle. "Hmmm? Because I trust you ... And I think I ... Oh, I'm so sleepy. I can't believe I'm telling you this." "Tell me what?" There was a sleepy pause. "Will I scare you away?" "Hmmm?" "I don't want to scare you away. Oh no, I don't want that." "You won't. I promise." "You sure? Will I scare you away, if I tell you I love you?" "You do?" "Uh huh. Are you scared away?" Jada's lips began to tremble. There was a long moment of silence, and then Mark stirred. "No. I think I love you too..." Jada whimpered. "Then love me for real. Mount me, come inside me..." She cried softly, "You don't think I'm pretty?" Soft kisses began to cover her naked breasts and nipples. "You are so incredibly beautiful ... Sweet Jada, we should wait... :" Jada frowned, her mind reacting with the directness of a child. All the adult layers of social politeness had been polished away. She whined, "But I want you now!" More kisses at her breasts, tasting her nipples and then drifting up to her throat, and then to her ear. A gentle whisper, "Later ... Please?" "Hmmm..." Jada felt her body and mind sinking into a deeper sleep. She would soon lose what little consciousness she had. She made one last struggle for consciousness and found herself gazing into Mark's eyes, and then his tenderness somehow made the need for sex unnecessary. But the core prize of love was still in need of being captured. "Well, okay I guess. Promise?" A big yawn. "So sleepy ... Yes, I promise ... So sleepy ... Promise what?" "It's a promise now, a promise to love me." Mark was rapidly sliding into his own state of deep sleep. "Yes ... to love you..." "Okay ... Don't forget ... ever..." In her dream, Jada tried to say something more, but the battle was over, and everything became softness and love and peace. ------- Chapter 4 Mark woke with a slow blink of his eyes, his mind barely making it to consciousness. There was bright, early-morning orange sunlight shining on the northern wall of the lounge. It was coming in horizontally from the southeast through the long row of windows across the room, behind where the buffet had been. The light had forced his mind awake. Mark glanced up to one of several digital clocks mounted in the walls of the lounge area, just a few minutes before eight o'clock in the morning, somehow a tad later than he would have guessed. He turned his head away from the light, and his mind started to drift back to sleep immediately. He sighed in contentment and smiled in his dream. He was cuddling with a delightfully feminine creature. He could feel the warmth of her body in his arms as he slept, and holding her felt absolutely wonderful. Mark blinked again, becoming instantly and fully awake. It was now close to 8:30 AM, and the first thing he saw was that some high clouds had moved in and were obscuring the morning sun. He turned his head and looked about the room. Hannah and Ashley were lying on a nearby sofa entwined with each other. And across the room his sister Madison has sleeping with Emily and the other woman Mark did not know. Mark felt a rush of embarrassment. He was surrounded by half-nude sleeping women. And he hadn't seen his sister's naked breasts and pubis since ages ago, when he walked into what he thought was an empty bathroom just as she was stepping out of a shower. So long ago ... Mark tore his eyes away after several seconds of staring. He had not realized how cute his sister had become. And her pubic fur, such a natural lovely and unusual color... And Jada! She was lying cradled in his arms, sleeping peacefully, the front of her dress knotted from their earlier sexual play. Her breasts were completely out in the open. His mind wandered to the previous night. "Where the hell is her bra? Probably on the floor somewhere. Oh my God, what is she going to think?!" Mark had a beautiful girl lying bare-breasted in his arms, peacefully sleeping. Such a lovely face, so beautiful, framed with soft curly dark hair tied in a simple ponytail. Mark remembered her gentle laughter and smiles when he stroked her hair during their earlier foreplay, so soft and clean... Silent, frantic thoughts filled his mind. "Oh my God Jada! I hardly know you!" He worked the problem of how to wake Jada without embarrassing her. Could he untangle himself from her without waking her up? It didn't seem likely. One of his arms was a pillow for her, and the other tucked under her dress and legs tight against her butt. He could feel the warmth of her bare butt and the backs of her thighs against his arm. And the side of her hip was resting against his naked groin. Hell, his pants were down around his ankles! He had to do something! But what? Mark looked at Jada and was relieved to see her dress was covering her hips and legs almost to her knees. Except for the skin contact, at least she was semi-decent now. But he remembered everything from the previous night, everything, including her bright joyful smile and dreamy laugh when he took her panties off, and how she cried out when he first lapped her labia with his tongue, how she gripped his head with her thighs. He remembered everything, how tightly she held him with her thighs, how she gasped as he licked her, how salty she tasted, oh the overwhelming emotions of tasting her ... and the heady scent of her flow... Mark gazed upon her, this beautiful, precious creature. Was there any way to wake her without embarrassing her? Mark stared at her breasts for a moment. So beautiful ... He watched their quiet rise and fall. So beautiful ... He was lost in their beauty. And then he saw her breath catch, her breasts tremble. His gaze lifted to her face. Her eyes were open. She had been watching him stare at her exposed breasts. "I..." Mark was deeply chagrined, at a total loss for words. Jada gave him a hard frown. Mark finally managed a hoarse whisper. "Can we leave without waking the others? I don't want to embarrass my sister." Jada sat up, looked around and realized what Mark was talking about. She gave him a stiff nod while still glaring at him, her jaw clenched in obvious fury. She got up, bared her teeth in revulsion at the sight of his limp penis, and then spun around and grabbed her purse and shoes and panties. She took one last look at Mark and then stormed off into the kitchen, her taut breasts bouncing slightly as she almost ran. Mark got up and found her bra behind the sofa. He quickly followed her, pulling up his boxers and pants from his ankles and forgetting about everything else. Jada walked across the width of the large kitchen and left through an opposite door. Mark walked through the door a few seconds later and found himself in a large empty pantry room. There were metal storage cabinets everywhere, similar to what was in the kitchen, and also a row of what looked like washers and driers for clothes on the left. There were also a few chairs by a table at the windows on the right. But where was Jada? There was another door ahead, and Mark went through it and entered a large and opulent bathing area, with numerous sinks, toilets, shower areas and even a full sized Jacuzzi as the centerpiece of the room. Mark had a fleeting thought that it might be a women's bathroom. He didn't see any urinals. What he did see was the back of Jada, the top of her dress still twisted in a knot by her shoulders. As the door from the pantry swung closed behind Mark, Jada whip-turned to face him. Her breasts were flying with her dress still fully open across her chest. She hissed, "You! You monster! I remember last night! I remember everything! I have never been so humiliated!" Mark walked to her and held out the bra sheepishly. "I found this." Jada snatched it out of his hands with a lightning snap of her arm and she shook her closed fist at him angrily. "You!!!" she screamed. "Who do you think you are?! I'm going to prosecute! I'm going straight to the police! You violated me!" "Hey, wait a minute! Jada, it wasn't me!" "Like hell! I remember what you were doing last night! Are you claiming I wasn't drugged?!" "No, of course you were! I was too! Jada, I'll go to the police with you. I'm a victim too!" His plea of innocence brought her up short. "What?" she hissed. "Are you claiming you knew nothing about this?!" "Absolutely!" He paused to catch his breath and thoughts. "Jada, think. My own sister was drugged. I think we all were. I'm not responsible for this. You've got to believe me!" A long moment of silence passed. Mark maintained eye contact, determined not to glance down at her bare chest and ruin everything. Jada's eyes finally softened. "Well, perhaps ... And if I've accused you unfairly, I apologize. How much do you remember about last night?" "The same as you. Absolutely everything." Jada frowned. "My gosh..." Another long pause. "Everything?" she whispered. Mark nodded and couldn't stop his eyes. He glanced at the lovely breasts before him. Jada glanced down and seemed to realize for the first time that she was still indecent on top. "Oh hell!" She turned around on the spotless tile and faced away from him and then slipped on her panties under her dress. Next she tried to put on the bra, but her dress was twisted in a knot and to straighten it she needed to pull it off first. Mark couldn't help but admire her beautiful, athletic body. Clad only in panties with her back to Mark, she quickly put on her bra. Both her panties and bra were a royal shade of blue, a recent gift from Emily and matching the print of Jada's dress. She looked as if she were dressed in a swimsuit, and Mark gave a small cry of recognition as he snapped his fingers. "Of course! You're Jada Horowitz, aren't you? The star of the women's swim team!" Jada turned to face him, her face blushing, her dress still bunched up in her hands. "Well, I'm not exactly ... I mean yes, I'm the one who won the Conference All-around this year, but..." "I knew it! I knew you looked familiar! I've seen all your meets!" he blurted out. "Last night, I just didn't recognize you with your clothes on!" Mark gasped as he realized how he must have sounded and he turned a beet red. Jada's jaw dropped. She stared at him in astonishment for a moment and then grinned, and then she broke into a cheerful laugh. Mark thought he never heard a sweeter sound. "Oh, this is so ridiculous Mark!" He nodded and finally remembered to turn around, giving Jada some privacy to finish putting on her dress. "Thank you for believing me." "Yeah..." Jada turned and glanced at him as she dressed, admiring his muscular back. He was wearing only a pair of pants, and she decided he looked very handsomely fit. Still, she decided, those were thoughts for another time and place. "Okay. I'm dressed now. Mark, do you have a cell phone? I still want to call the police." He turned and faced her. "Yeah, I sure do. And I'll back you up with what's happened here." Mark reached back into his pants pocket and pulled out a rather large portable phone, staring down at it for a moment. Jada gave a nervous frown. "Don't tell me. Let me guess. No signal, right?" "Oh, this phone is never without good reception." Mark handed the phone to Jada. "Really? How's that?" "It's one of the new Leophones." Jada stared at him blankly. "Leophone, you know, Low Earth Orbit. It's a satellite phone. You must have heard the Leophone jingle on TV." Jada shrugged. "I don't watch TV." She looked down at the phone. It felt much heavier than Emily's. "This thing looks incredibly expensive." Mark shrugged back and nervously tried to sing. He was a bit off-key. "The Leophone, ta-da, the Leophone, ta-da, the size of a cell, ta-da, but raised to the power, cha-cha, raised to the power of the skies, cha-cha-cha!" Jada grinned at his performance and said with playful mock sorrow, "No, I guess that's one ad I've missed." She opened the phone but before she could dial 911, the phone started ringing on its own. Without thinking, she answered the call. "Hello?' "Jada? Is that you? I was expecting my brother. Where are you?" It was Madison's voice. Jada replied, "We're a couple of rooms away on the other side of the kitchen. Mark's right here with me. Hold on." She handed the phone to Mark, and he put on the speakerphone so they could both hear. Madison spoke up. "Great! We were all wondering where you were. Jada, can you come back to the lounge? Fatima was down in the underground tunnel before the party started. We were talking last night. There's something you should know." Mark guessed that was the name of the other woman he saw sleeping with his sister. "Yeah, okay Maddy, we'll be there in just a minute." Madison acknowledged and signed off. Mark saw Jada staring at him quizzically as he closed the Leophone. He shrugged in apology. "Uh sorry, I have to take a leak." "Oh. Yeah, good idea. Me too." Jada decided to put off her 911 call for a few minutes. She turned around and walked into one of the toilet stalls and calmly closed the door. After a second, Mark walked into another a few stalls away. As he heard Jada start to urinate, he realized that by sharing a bathroom with him, Jada was offering him a large token of trust. He sighed and relaxed and voided his own bladder. A minute later Mark and Jada returned to the lounge and met Fatima, the woman who had slept with Emily and Madison. Mark collected the rest of his clothes and finished dressing, and after brief introductions, Fatima began telling her story. "My friends and I arrived at the tunnel downstairs a few minutes before 2 PM yesterday, just before the elevator started working. There was a huge line of people in front of us, over a hundred. We were all waiting to be let in. There was a large sign saying the parties would open at 1:57 PM." "I didn't see any sign," said Jada. "No, there was a large crowd of fraternity boys from Beta Sigma Rho, twenty of them in all. They took the sign with them. They were crashing the party." "You know exactly how many there were?" asked Jada. "Oh, it was easy to keep track." Fatima paused for a moment and then added, "It got a bit ugly down there waiting for the doors to open." "What do you mean?" asked Hannah. "The frat boys were roving the line, intimidating the few other guys there and asking the girls if they'd like a good time. I think about nine or ten actually said yes. I can't imagine why. Their behavior was so lewd, ogling the girls who refused them. The frat boys also brought along a few dates." Fatima sighed. "It was a large crowd, a very rowdy bunch. It was pretty obvious they'd been drinking." Mark frowned. Beta Sigma Rho had a campus reputation for being a magnet for professional party goers. "I'm surprised there were that many still on campus." Fatima shrugged. "They were the second group of people to leave via the elevator. Almost everybody else in the line was a woman. We were all relieved when they left." "But the elevator only holds eighteen," said Ashley. Fatima paused to take a breath. "Yep, they made two trips to party #5, 2525. The elevator was packed both times." She looked around the empty room. "It's a pity Husna left. She knows the people who came here a lot better than I do, the people that came to It's My Party I mean." Ashley looked bewildered. "Huh?" "The first people in line were twenty students from the School of Nursing, all fifth years I think, eighteen women and two men. The Beta Sigma Rho boys almost picked a fight over using the elevator first, but the nursing students held their ground. My friend Husna negotiated a compromise. Eighteen of the first group got to ride first, and the remaining two men joined my group at the end of the line. The two men wanted to rejoin their nursing group, so my group picked It's My Party too, just to keep a fight from starting between the nurses and the frat boys. It all seems so ridiculous now." Fatima looked around at her new friends. "And that's the way it worked. The rest of us in the line organized into groups going to the different parties. That's what took most of the time, deciding who was going where and typing in the stupid access codes. I think the elevator would return within a couple of minutes after leaving. I was very surprised my trip took so long, three and a half minutes. It was a little scary. There was no sense of motion at all. We all thought the elevator had broken. I was very surprised the door opened when our countdown hit zero." Madison asked, "So the other parties got eighteen people each?" "From the initial crowd, yes, the other four besides parties #1 and #5. People split up just to fill the slots and get out of the basement. There were four guys and eight other women with me in our ride to It's My Party. We were the last ones to leave the downstairs hall. There was no one behind us at the time. We got up here about 2:30." Fatima adjusted her headscarf. "The eighteen women from the first ride were here. They were the only ones. They said they found this place deserted." Jada and Mark glanced at each other. Jada asked, "Wait a minute. You're saying this place was deserted from the start? No one ever saw anyone from Kappa Alpha?" Fatima shook her head. "No. The first group was upset by the elevator ride, upset with themselves really. None of them realized until they got here that there was no return code given for getting back to where they started. My group didn't think of that either. I guess none of us were taking the access-code business too seriously." Mark nodded, remembering his own experience of typing in the code as a game. "It's not our fault for not seeing the danger. Being in a building that you don't know how to get out of is an unheard of experience. It's such a criminal violation of fire codes. No wonder we didn't recognize the danger." Mark tried to picture the scene Fatima was describing. The University of Vermont had an intensive five-year nursing program granting RN degrees after four years and Master of Nursing degrees in five. He could easily imagine that twenty people who were already Registered Nursing and starting their professional careers would not put up with the childish and dangerous prank Kappa Alpha appeared to be playing. Mark wondered if the first group was also drugged. He asked Fatima, "Do you know if they ate from the buffet?" She thought for a moment and then nodded. "I'm almost sure, yes. I saw a bunch of used plates when I arrived." "Actually," Jada chimed in, "I suspect the drug was in the soft drinks at the other side of the elevator." She briefly described her experience making the trip. Emily backed up Jada's story and then prodded Fatima to continue. "Well, we only met the women nursing students briefly. They all wanted out of here. I think they were only waiting for someone from Kappa Alpha to show up so they could yell at them, and then when we showed up they gave up. They left almost immediately, certainly before 3 PM, the two male nurses too, through the door by the elevator, saying they were going back to the parking lot." "Tell them the last piece, what you told us last night," prodded Madison. "One of the men mentioned they came in four Land Rovers." Mark's sister turned to him and raised her eyebrows. "Sound familiar?" "Yeah, I think I remember you making a comment. Weren't there four Land Rovers in the spots closest to the drawbridge?" Madison nodded. "Which means the group never made it back to their vans, after an hour and a half of trying!" She whined at her brother. "Mark! What the hell is going on here?!" The group stood in tense silence for several seconds pondering Madison's question. Then Hannah gave a small shriek. "My God, my God, my parents! They are absolutely going to kill me!" She ran and got her own cell phone and then stared at it in dismay. "Hell! Zero bars!" Mark handed her his Leophone. "Here. Try mine." Hannah spent the next few minutes dialing and redialing her home number, becoming more frantic with each redial. She finally shouted to the crowd, "Hey everybody, Listen to this!" as she redialed and put on the speaker phone. The group heard a recorded voice say in a flat tone, "All satellite circuits busy. Your call can not be completed as dialed. Please try again later. Error code sixty-three G." There was brief second of silence. Ashley pulled out her own Leophone and tried dialing. After a moment she said, "Hell. My dad spent a fortune for this phone. This is not supposed to happen." She added sarcastically, "But at least we know it's error code sixty-three G. That's something I guess." Madison felt like snapping back with, "Oh, cool it Ashley!" but then saw Ashley's attempt at humor seemed to relieve some of the group's tension. Madison dialed Hannah's cell with her own Leophone. There was no response. Then she dialed Ashley's Leophone. It rang at once, and they briefly tested the connection. Then Madison tried dialing her own parents. Her grim face required no explanation. She finally closed her phone and said to her brother, "But we can dial each other!" "Don't you remember? Leophones have local switching and walkie-talkie ability. Our phones are synching directly with each other, not going through the satellite at all." Jada tried dialing 911 on Mark's phone and got the same error response. She handed the phone back to Mark. He took it and said, "It sounds like the satellite network is..." "Down?" asked Fatima. Mark shrugged. "I don't know. All circuits busy? What could cause that? Maybe clogged is a better word." He tried his phone for a moment, repeating Jada's attempt. "And 911 isn't working either." "Yeah," Jada replied. "How can they not give priority to 911 calls?" Mark sighed. "Oh, it'll handle 911 calls, but Skylands warns you when you buy the phone they're exempt from national regulations. It's an international phone, not a cell phone." He looked down and noticed his battery was almost drained. "Hey Sis, do you have your charger?" "Sure do." She ran to her purse and got it. A moment later Mark's phone gave a happy chirp to indicate it was being recharged. No one else had spoken for the last minute. Mark looked around the lounge and then at the group of six women, wondering what they wanted to do next. Everybody looked lost in their own thoughts. Understandable, thought Mark, but not very productive. The realization brought him up short. What should they be doing? Try to get back to their cars? Of course, but how? Follow in the footsteps of the people who didn't make it? Or maybe they should they stay put for a while, concentrate on contacting the police. What should they do? Pondering the question, Mark wandered over to the bank of windows where the buffet used to be. He looked outside. After a few moments, the women followed him. The bank of windows looked out from the corner of a trapezoidal park. The lounge room was on the second floor of a great two-story building which had the park as an enclosed courtyard. They were above the corner of a peaceful forest garden, with numerous pines and spruces and cobblestone walkways and even a few sturdy benches and tables scattered about. The park looked inviting, very pleasantly laid out. Mark sighed and looked up at the sky. Clouds were moving in. They had already obliterated the sun. Hannah commented, "There was a weather report yesterday, we might get six to eight inches later this afternoon. Hell, can you imagine trying to drive through that awful forest road with eight inches of snow on the ground?" Mark shrugged. "Right now I wish that was our problem. Don't worry about the snow. Let's see ... I know I saw the sun coming through these windows when I woke up earlier. Let's call this direction east, which puts the elevator south and the kitchen to the north of us." Ashley and Fatima walked across the lounge to the western windows. After a few seconds the rest of the group followed. It looked like another enclosed park, a mirror image of the trapezoidal forest park, but this one made entirely of sand. A few volleyball nets were set up nearby. Jada gasped. "I do believe that is a genuine Olympic swimming pool. Amazing!" In the center of the sand mark was a stone perimeter around what was apparently a 50 meter by 25 meter covered pool, all bedded down for the winter. Ashley squinted and called out, "Are those shuffleboard courts at the other end?" "Yes, and bocce too I think!" replied Fatima. "This would be a very nice place to live." Mark nodded. "I had no idea the residential areas would be so extensive. I thought this was mostly a shopping mall." He turned to the six women. "So, folks, what do we do next?" Hannah stared at him. "What do you mean, what do we do? Isn't it obvious?! We leave this place. Now!" Mark turned to her. "How?" "Well, through that door of course." She pointed to the exit to the left of the elevator. "Is there another way? You want to try jumping out a window?" "Well, not jump. We could probably make something to climb down though. It's a possibility. There's also a pantry and then a bath area beyond the kitchen, and a door out of that leading who knows where." Hannah frowned and shook her head. "But that's heading north. Our cars are at the southern end of the mall, aren't they?" Ashley chimed in. "She's right Mark." "I know. But we have some evidence another group tried to leave by going south and didn't make it. Doesn't that count for something?" Ashley gave a deep frown. "Well, I'm not going north. No way! Mark, it's the Christmas holidays. This place will probably be deserted for the rest of the year! I feel lost now, and if we start heading north now, it'll just get worse. We've got to head south and find your car before it starts snowing. We've got to get out of here!" Madison spoke up. "We could split up, explore two or even three paths and keep in touch by Leophone." "No!" said Hannah almost shouting. "I do not want us to split up!" Ashley also shouted. "Well I don't care what you want! I am definitely not going north!" "Excuse me people!" said Fatima loudly, "but I'd like to point out we are lacking something we badly need, something we have the power to find." "A map of the mall?" asked Hannah. Fatima gave a quick laugh. "Well, that would be nice too. But I was thinking of a leader." The other six people stared at her. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not soliciting for the job. But I am a political science major. It's obvious to me we need a leader. We'll fall apart without one." Most of the group seemed to take her suggestion to heart but Ashley gave a deep frown. "Oh hell Fatima, I don't know. Part of my reason for coming to this party was to get away from my parents for a while. Are you saying we should elect someone I'll have to obey?" Fatima nodded, "Within reason, yes, as long as you want to be a part of this group." "Well I nominate my brother," said Madison. "He was an Eagle Scout." "Maddy..." whispered Mark with a grin. Fatima shook her head. "Don't choose on survival skills, or even the person with the best sense of direction. That person can be our chief guide perhaps. But our leader should be the person with the best leadership skills." Hannah looked interested but uncertain. "Which are?" Fatima shrugged. "It's a complex skill set. Pick someone who can lead us, keep us working as a group and inspire us to do our best. Pick someone with good emotional stability, good negotiation skills, pick someone who can make level-headed decisions in an emergency." "Do you want the job?" asked Hannah. Fatima paused for a long moment. "Well, if elected I would do my best. It's a position of trust. Perhaps ... Is everybody agreeable to having an election?" "Secret ballot?" asked Jada. "Oh, I don't know. Is that necessary? The important thing is we have to pull together as an organized group. We might find a better leader by explaining our choices to everybody. I think we should try to reach a consensus." Mark nodded his approval. "That's a very good point. Let's try keeping the votes public." Emily spoke up. "Fatima, how about you chair a meeting, with the agenda of us picking a leader by open discussion. Everybody agree?" There were quick nods all around. "Okay, excellent," said Fatima. They took a moment to all sit down in a circle, and then Fatima cleared her throat. "This meeting is now in order. I am the moderator. To speak, raise your hand and wait to be recognized. Now, this may sound very formal, but I think the first thing we should do is appoint a recording secretary. Any volunteers?" "Oh, I'll do it," Emily said immediately as she raised her hand. Fatima nodded and Emily got up and hurried to her purse. She came back and sat down a moment later with a small sketchpad and a pen. Fatima continued. "I'll get right to the point. I am entertaining nominations for leader, and you can nominate yourself if you wish. Be prepared to say why you think your choice would be the best person to lead us. I'm going to start off being as liberal as possible, no time limits on speaking. Just have your say. Nominations are now open to the floor." "Huh?" said Hannah looking down. "What does the floor ... Oh, I get it. Never mind." Fatima gave her a kind smile and reminder. "Thanks right Hannah, everyone here is the floor except me. And I can recognize myself if I want, step outside my role of moderator if I want to nominate someone. Raise your hand if you want to talk, wait for me to recognize you." Hannah nodded. Madison was the first to raise her hand, and after being recognized stood up and said, "I'd still like to nominate my brother. He's a hell of a nice guy, very smart, and kind and considerate. He's a great listener, never bosses me around, and always gives me his full attention whenever I want to speak with him. And sometimes I even manage to change his opinion about something, which shows he has an open mind. He is absolutely unflappable in tense situations, extremely level-headed. We were right next to a car accident in Portugal a few years ago, and while other people were still screaming, Mark rushed in and helped a person out of a wreck before it caught fire. Vote for my brother, you won't be sorry." Madison looked at Fatima and sat down, nodding that she was finished. Fatima nodded back her approval. "An excellent nomination Madison. Speeches like this are exactly what I'm hoping for. Mark, do you accept the nomination?" Mark was blushing from his sister's praise, but he spoke with a calm voice. "Yes. I'd like to add that if I'm elected, I'll do my best to deserve your votes." He paused for a moment and noticed Ashley and Hannah were nervously holding hands together. "Heck folks, I don't know why those nursing students never made it back to their vans, but I'm still hoping we'll be back at our cars in a few hours. How difficult can it be?" Emily wrote furiously and then waved her hand. After being recognized she stood up and said, "I nominate my roommate Jada. Everything Madison said about Mark, Jada is also. I think she is the wisest counselor I've ever met. I've come to rely heavily on her level-headed judgment. She'll be a fantastic leader, and besides..." Emily looked Mark directly in the eyes. "I don't mean to insult you Mark, but our group of seven is six women and one man. Can you imagine the reverse, six men and one woman electing the woman as leader? Can you?" Mark frowned and looked at Fatima, who confirmed first with Emily that Emily was finished. Fatima then nodded that Mark could reply. He stood up and turned in a circle, making eye contact with the women for a moment and then clearing his throat. "I didn't create our culture. I try not to have a gender bias, not when it harms the rights of other people, but ... But yeah, I know it's there." He took a deep breath. "I've got a few ideas of what we should do next, and I'm happy to share my ideas with whoever the next leader is. And I agree with you Emily. I think Jada would make a fine leader. I still want to run for the job though." After he sat down Fatima asked, "Jada, do you accept the nomination?" Jada looked at both Emily and Mark for a long moment before she stood up. "I do accept it, and like Mark I'll do be best if elected. I would also like to add that I'll be voting for Mark." "What?!" shouted Emily. "Out of order," said Fatima. "Emily, please wait to be recognized before speaking. I promise, I won't try to limit the debate." Seeing that Emily did not raise her hand, Fatima continued, "Are there additional nominations from the floor?" She paused for a long moment. "Hearing none, do I hear a motion to close the nominations?" "So moved!" said Hannah. "I second!" said Madison. Fatima called the vote on the motion to close the nominations and it passed unanimously. "Do I hear a motion to call for the vote for leader?" she asked next. A moment later they voted. Six hands went up for Mark, followed a few seconds later by Emily's. Seeing the unanimous vote, Fatima didn't bother for a show of hands for Jada. She asked instead for a motion to close the meeting. "Wait?" asked Mark, waving his hand. Fatima smiled at him. "The chair recognizes our leader Mark." "I'd like to make a motion that Jada be second in command." Fatima nodded. "Yes, a good idea. We have a motion to" "I second the motion!" shouted Emily, again not waiting to be recognized. Fatima let the intrusion go. "We have a second. All in favor?" The vote was again unanimous. Fatima then closed the meeting. Mark immediately called the group around him to discuss their situation. He looked at each of the women for a moment, especially Emily, and was relieved to see her give him a respectful nod back. Taking a deep breath, he began to speak. "Right, first things first. Phones! How many do we have, and how many do we have chargers for?" After a few minutes, they determined that Emily, Fatima, and Hannah had cell phones all reading zero bars, and Mark, Madison, and Ashley had Leophones that were all somewhat low on power. They only had one charger that would fit the Leophones. Mark asked his sister to plug in and keep dialing 911. He asked the others to turn off their phones to conserve power. He then addressed the group. "I think our three priorities should be: 1) We stay safe, 2) We stay together..." He heard Hannah give an audible sigh of relief. "and 3) We work to get the heck out of here and back to our cars." He looked at a lounge clock and saw it was 9:10 AM. "If I remember correctly, sunset today will be around 4:15 PM, plus or minus a few minutes. That means we have seven hours to leave this place in full daylight. Forget about the snow. Once we're back at the parking lot, we can hike to Lost Nation Road on foot if we have to and ask for help at a house." He took a deep breath. "In the interest of working to get out of here, I'm going to stretch the point about what it means to stay together. I want everyone in the group to always be within hearing range of each other, and let's all try to stay within sight of each other too if possible." He paused and added, "And I think we need to do a little exploring before we choose our route out of here. So, Emily, Ashley, you're with me. Jada, will you stand by the door near the elevator and watch us? We won't go far. I just want to see what's on the other side." Jada nodded. A moment later Mark, Emily, and Ashley walked south through a short vestibule alongside the elevator core, approximately one meter by three with a slanting wall opposite them showing another door. They walked through the vestibule, the elevator core on their right, a deep closet on their left, and a few white diodes high above them providing adequate light. They went through another door and found themselves standing at the vertex of a long walkway running roughly east-west but also bending back north in both directions. The walkway was about three meters across and had a high oval ceiling which was as clear as glass. Before them to the south was a third enclosed park, and this one was enormous. They were behind the goal of the largest soccer pitch Mark had ever seen. He estimated the playing field was about 120 meters long and 90 meters wide, with the many-sided perimeter buildings providing a huge open area around the pitch. The goal nets were up and the court lines brightly painted in white. It appeared to be a natural-grass field, and it looked ready for play. Mark turned and waved for Jada to join them. Fatima took Jada's place at the door. The four stared at the field in silence. Emily finally commented, "Boy, not what I was expecting." They all realized that their lounge area was at the top of a broad architectural arrowhead, with the top arrowhead being the walkways to their left and right and the stem of the arrow being the rooms behind them running north. "I know what this is!" shouted Emily. "My God, this is so majestic! See how the soccer park is enclosed by a twelve-sided building? Imagine a hexagonal honeycomb. Pick and remove one vertex and the three line segments attached to it. Don't you see? Each line segment is shared by a pair of hexagons. That's what we're looking at here, three hexagons joined together by the lack of a vertex and those three line segments. We're standing at the vertex north of the vertex that was removed. This is so vast! My God, what a concept!" Mark nodded slowly. "Yes. I'm guessing about a hundred meters for the length of the unit hexagonal line segments." Emily nodded back happily. "Yep. I think that's just about right." Jada's face turned into a deep frown as she stared at the soccer field. "I'm confused. I remember the tunnel we walked through to reach the elevator. It must run directly underneath this field. And yet ... I don't remember the tunnel being this long, not at all. What do you think Emily, how far to the other side?" Emily was still smiling, overwhelmed by the architectural marvel and not paying too much attention to what her roommate was saying. "Oh, that's easy. Assume the line segments really are a hundred meters. Remember the structure of a perfect hexagon? It's made up of six isosceles triangles. Thus it's a hundred meters south of here to the vertex which isn't there, plus another two triangle lengths to the vertex which is there. Opposite vertices of a perfect hexagon are always separated by two triangle lengths. So the distance south to the far vertex is ... three hundred meters..." Mark turned and stared at Jada. "You're right. The tunnel last night was long, but it sure as hell wasn't three hundred meters. What's going on? This should be impossible." "Wait a minute everybody," said Emily. "You guys are forgetting something. The elevator last night had that weird ninety-degree bend in it, remember? We actually approached..." she pointed due east, " ... from that direction." Emily thought for a moment as she thought about the problem and stared at the opposite face of the opened eastern hexagon. "Well, that helps somewhat. Opposite faces of a regular hexagon are separated by a side length times ... square root three. So, a hundred seventy-some meters ... Hell, you're right Mark, that's still way too long, isn't it?" She took a deep breath. "I'm thinking maybe it wasn't just a simple elevator. Maybe it moved horizontally as well. It did go to all the different parties, and the trip did take a long time, what, three and half minutes, remember? Uh, fearless leader?" Mark grinned. "Yeah?" "Did you feel any horizontal motion on your elevator ride?" Mark pondered the question. "Uh, no. My group did think it was a bizarre ride though. We even thought it might be a prank. But I didn't feel any motion at all, up, down, sideways, not even a vibration." He took a deep breath and sighed, staring at the field for a while. "I'm confused too. The human body is very sensitive to sideways motion. I can't imagine we could take a horizontal trip without knowing about it. And yet, here is the field ... Wait a minute. Ashley, last night, didn't you say you thought the elevator was going down very slowly, right at the beginning of the ride?" "Yeah, I think so..." Her nervous, squeaking voice tried to sound hopeful. "The tunnel..." She pointed across the grass to the vertex due east. "I guess it could have been as long as this field..." Emily and Jada stared at each other, both trying hard not to laugh. Emily then turned to Ashley and worked hard to keep derisive astonishment from her voice. In a neutral tone she asked, "Close to two hundred meters, you think so?" "Well..." Ashley squirmed. "Could the elevator have turned while we were in it? We went through so many turns getting here ... I remember the darkness, and the moonlight. Then we came to the stairwell and walked down to the tunnel, and then..." Her face lit up. "I know! The access tunnel doesn't run east! It runs north, in the direction of the kitchen! The elevator did a slow quarter spin as it ascended!" Mark grinned at the thought. Emily could no longer contain her laughter. "No way! I can just see myself suggesting that in one of my design courses. Hey Professor Collins, let's take out this spiral staircase and put in a spiraling elevator instead. Ashley, the guy would send me back to kindergarten." "Oh, don't be too hard on her Emily," Jada chided her roommate as she looked across the eastern expanse. "I can't imagine the tunnel we walked through was as long as this field. What other explanation is there? Wait a minute! Where the hell are the other parties?!" She turned around and looked through the clear glass oval. "Look! There are no floors above us! Could the other five parties all be on the first floor? Is that possible?" Emily dismissed Jada's question. "No idea. But the answer is not a spiraling elevator. Can you imagine how complicated that would be? You'd be twisting the lifting cables. It would be a terrible idea." "I know!" Ashley replied. "How about the other parties led to different underground levels?" "Oh Ashley," said Emily dismissively, "No residential building goes that deep." Mark sighed as he listened to the argument. It was fun physics, but it just wasn't getting them anywhere. He looked down the long corridors towards northerly east and northerly west for a moment. They were standing at the southern vertex of a vast hexagon. "I was hoping we could do a little more exploring, but it's a hundred meters in either direction to the next junction. I don't want to wander that far from the rest of the group." He paused and added, "Emily, you're our architecture expert. Do you see what I see, how strange this setup is without stairs?" Emily nodded as she frowned. "Oh yeah, I sure do. This place is a firetrap! There are no stairwells in sight on this level. Who would build like this? How could a zoning board approve this? Why didn't the building inspectors object? These are major-league code violations, red flag. It makes no sense!" "I agree," said Mark. "And there's something else to. These walkways remind me of a precision optical bench. They're works of art. My eye can't pick up any imperfection at all. You're right, who builds like this? It reminds me of the elevator. Masterful, precise engineering but without the most basic of safety features. Bizarre." Ashley made a small whining sound. "Mark, you're scaring me." Jada added another thought. "And the temperature in here. It's pleasant, almost as warm as the lounge, quite a contrast to our trip on the other side of the elevator. Walking here last night, I thought the place was months away from opening. Look at the size of this corridor! Why spend a fortune heating it now?" Ashley was almost crying as she whispered, "Well, maybe there are stairs in the other direction ... I know! We saw lots of unfinished stairs last night. Maybe they have plans for stairs here. They're just not built yet." Emily didn't seem to realize how emotionally upset Ashley was getting. She dismissed Ashley's idea out-of-hand. "No. Stairwells are basic features, visible right from the start. You don't complete everything else and then cut the stairs in later." Ashley just stood there trembling. Mark touched her shoulder and she leaned against him. They gazed for another minute at the huge field and darkening clouds and then turned back to the short corridor. "Mark, look," said Ashley. "There's no handle on this side of the door." Mark paused for a second and nodded. If Jada hadn't been holding the door open, they would have needed someone from the inside to let them in. "No luck at all Mark," a worried Madison said as they returned to the lounge. "I've tried voice, text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, nothing's getting through. It's frustrating." Her brother nodded and then noticed how upset his sister and her two classmates seemed. "Uh, I think we should give ourselves a little preparation time before we leave this place. Maddy, keep dialing and switch with someone when you get tired. Everybody else, there's a great kitchen and bathroom nearby. Let's spend a half hour to unwind and have some breakfast. We'll move out at 10 AM." ------- Chapter 5 The R & R time was taking a bit longer than Mark had first estimated, but he was sure he was making the right decision. It was now 10:15 AM, and his sister and two classmates were happily finishing their showers together in the large bathroom. Emily stood by the open door in the connecting pantry, acting as the link that kept the group connected. Jada and Fatima stood a few feet away. Jada had Madison's phone plugged into a nearby outlet, and she was idly typing 911 every twenty seconds or so. So far there was still no luck with making contact with the outside. As they waited, Mark wandered the length of the pantry. There were a few chairs and a small eating table at the eastern end, and he gazed at the pine and spruce park through the window. After a moment Fatima walked over and joined him. She seemed a little shy at first, but then they made eye contact and held it for a long moment. Fatima grinned and said, "Interesting choice you made, giving the group this much time to relax." Mark looked at her. She had on her headscarf again, but he remembered her from early this morning. Such pretty chestnut hair ... Mark cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. I thought my sister and her friends..." He looked at Fatima's thoughtful nod and realized he didn't have to finish his sentence. Fatima gave him a kind smile. "Oh, I'm not complaining. I have to hand it to you Mark. When you first suggested it, I wouldn't have dreamed people would want to shower in such a strange place. But now I can't wait for my own shower. A common theme in both our religions I think, using water to wash away our sins." Mark nodded, thinking about how they all were struggling with what happened last night. The plan was for Emily, Jada, and Fatima to take a shower next, then Mark alone with Madison at the doorway, and then they would all finally head out. Mark still wasn't sure which direction he wanted to pick. Nobody seemed to have much of an opinion anymore. So far they hadn't done any exploring further north except to poke a head out of the other door of the bathroom. It led to a long carpeted corridor three meters wide with eight doors on each side and pleasant skylights in the ceiling. There was also a seventeenth door at the far end. Maybe he would pick that. The large soccer field was to the south in the direction of the cars, but somehow that just seemed the wrong direction to take. The huge multi-hexagonal soccer park just looked so unfamiliar. He thought again of his sister and friends and replied to Fatima's earlier comment. "It's not just that. My sister, Ashley and Hannah too, they're great people, but they've never been on their own. My parents are rich, and Ashley's and Hannah's are even richer. All three of them are still in high school. I'm not trying to hide anything from them, just giving them a little extra time to adjust. They've led very sheltered lives, and our situation ... seems so damn strange." Fatima nodded back. "I think it's a great decision to rest and take the time to consider our next move. I wouldn't have thought of this. You're taking very good care of us Mark." He grinned at the compliment. She paused. "How much danger do you think we're in?" Mark frowned. "I hate to say it, but maybe quite a bit. The drug that was used against us, I've never heard of anything like it, a total suppression of our social inhibitions. Our primal fears were in complete control." Fatima looked thoughtful. "Not just fears Mark. I think our primal hopes were in control too. The drug did not turn us into monsters. It just ... released us somehow. I think it made us show the world who we truly are, in a way we normally never dare." She paused and frowned. "But I think I agree with you on one point. We survived last night and we survived well. My guilt is only from sexual frolic, and I suspect that's true of the others as well. Our gentle natures saved us Mark. But the drug in the body of an angry and cruel person, someone who can not see the value in others, the drug there might indeed create a monster." Mark sighed. "Yes, and the people who did this to us, I think of them as monsters too, don't you? They drugged us without our consent, without even our knowledge. It was an awful crime..." He stared at Fatima facial expression. "You don't think so?" Fatima shrugged. "We understand almost nothing about this place, and what we do know doesn't make any sense. I'd rather keep an open mind about the motivations of the people who drugged us." Mark was silent for a long moment, considering her point, and then he slowly nodded. "Yes, I agree with you. You've changed my mind." He looked at her gratefully. "Thanks!" "My pleasure!" "Fatima, you're a foreign exchange student, aren't you?" "Yep, from Kuwait." Mark's face froze. "Kuwait? Ah..." Fatima nodded. "It's really not that surprising anymore. There've been tremendous changes in the last four years ... since the war." Mark's eyes were full of sympathy. "Yes, the war. What a tragedy. Were you there when the bombs went off?" "Yes, with my family." In great tenderness, Mark asked. "Did they survive?" "Yes. In Allah's mercy, we were upwind of the fallout pattern." She gave a deep sigh. "It's amazing looking back, how much power the governments let the militias have. We all thought the bombs were meant for Israel." Mark was about to reply when his sister and friends came out of the bathroom dressed, smiling and chatting and drying their hair. The time to unwind had worked wonders. Mark talked with them as the other three women bathed. Time: Saturday, 10:43 AM EST, December 22, 2018 With an moderately good charge in both Mark's and Madison's phones, the group set out north carrying everything they arrived with, plus some food and bottles of water from the kitchen. Their first stop was to check out the rooms off the main corridor north of the bathroom. They appeared to be typical though expensive fraternity dorm rooms. The rooms were a bit of a puzzle. Like the lounge, they were very spacious, approximately six meters square. They had top-of-the-line furnishings and beautiful gleaming hardwood floors. Large desks, beds beyond king-size, ample shelves for books and closets and chests for clothing, the rooms had all the basic needs plus very pleasant views of the forest or sand parks below. But had anybody ever lived here? The drawers held piles of fresh towels and linens but no individual clothing and all the book shelves were bare. There were also no decorations on the wall. Each room had distinctive desk lamps and a throw rug or two, but they all looked brand new. It was the group's consensus that the rooms had never been occupied. At the northern edge of the corridor of rooms they came to an end wall that had a slightly inward curvature. Outside the building they were about halfway down the lengths of the two enclosed trapezoidal parks. Jada went first through the end door and there they finally found their first stairway, and it was magnificent. It was a great circular room sixteen meters in diameter, with a dome directly above them of sparkling clear glass supported by ribbing of a golden alloy. There was a four-meter wide annulus of polished stone for the floor, and then a circular open vista with an eight-meter diameter spiraling staircase below. Through the glass they could see that further north the sand and forest parks joined, separated only by a pink cobblestone walkway. The walls and stair treads appeared to be a combination of a blue and white marble and dark gray granite, with the circular stairs spiraling down. Emily couldn't help herself. She fell in love with the design. She peered over the annulus railing and exclaimed. "Look how far down it goes! Way below ground level, twenty meters at least! And I think we have access to the parks!" They hiked down to ground level, a second four-meter circular annulus, and had their first choice to make. There were three possibilities of where to go next, north through an outside door to the cobblestone walkway, around the annulus to a southern door leading to the floor before where they had been, or to continue further down the stairwell. Jada walked around the stone annulus to the southern door and looked back at Mark. He nodded and she entered. The group followed a few seconds later. It was a game room, and it was huge, the same size of the lounge except for the fact that half the great cylinder of the stairwell room was jugging into it to form the fourth wall. It took Mark a moment to realize what else was so unusual about the room. It appeared to have no electronic games. But there were chess and card tables arranged in several sitting areas and the walls were covered by shelves holding many hundreds, no, it must be thousands of board games. There were also a few ultra-comfortable looking recliners scattered about that looked more suited for taking a nap as opposed to serious reading. And near the windows by the pine tree park stood a massive and gleaming pool table. The room was an open invitation for care-free play and vegetation. And the window views of the adjacent parks and swimming pool were lovely. There was also an opposite door leading further south, but Mark didn't want to spend too much time exploring on this level. If the frat boys had been here, Mark couldn't imagine them not leaving the room a mess. The first floor seemed pristine and deserted, and the stairwell down had piqued his curiosity. "Come on," he called. "Let's check outside and then see what's below." A moment later the group was standing on the path of pink cobblestones. "Of course, of course," said Emily. The two parks, they form the two halves of the basic hexagonal unit. The circular well, it's dead center in the middle of the hexagon." Mark nodded as he agreed with her. It was a hundred meters back south to the vertex with the elevator, and a hundred meters further north along the cobblestones to the opposite vertex at the far end of the two parks. A door to enter the northern vertex was clearly visible. "Wow, feel how warm it is," commented Hannah. "Definitely above freezing. I think we'll be getting rain, not snow." All eyes went to the clouds above them. They looked very turbulent and had an unusual rolling motion to them. Jada commented and agreed with Hannah's guess. She thought the temperature was four or five degrees Celsius and was surprised the weather prediction could be off by that much. The forecast from yesterday was for a moderate snowstorm, with temperatures definitely staying below freezing. Ashley pushed her arms out wide and took a deep breath, savoring the smells of the pines and the damp earth. "Wow, we haven't had weather this nice in weeks, and smell how clean the air is! I wouldn't mind grabbing a book and just reading out here for a while." She stared at the clouds above and added, "as long as doesn't rain." After a few minutes of stretching and enjoying the fresh air, the group went back inside and continued their circular descent. The dome above provided a lot of light, even with the clouds, and there was also recessed lighting built into the circular wall. There was a single large metal door at the bottom of the well, facing south back in the direction of the lounge. "I think this is a very encouraging sign," Madison said to Emily, trying to sound hopeful. "We're at the right level and facing the right direction to return to the underground tunnel. Remember the T-junction in the room by the elevator? It could easily lead right here. It all fits. Sort of..." "What about the soccer pitch?" Jada thought silently. "If that tunnel last night was more than a hundred meters, I'll..." She didn't finish the thought. Hannah joined in Madison's optimism. "Maybe Kappa Alpha called this stairwell the Stairway To Heaven. It is very beautiful." Emily blew a load of air through her cheeks, "But that's not what the instructions said. It didn't say go down the tunnel on your right for party #6. I still don't get it." She took another deep breath. "I'll say one thing though. You guys get me to where we got on the elevator, I'll get us the rest of the way to our cars, no problem. That's the core issue. The elevator ride is the one part of our journey that I don't know how to retrace." Emily walked to the door and placed her hand upon it. It looked and felt very solid, and there were adjacent eyebolts in the door and frame. The door could easily be pinned shut from this direction. "Fearless leader, do you want to do the honors?" Wondering if it would open, Mark walked up to the door and also put his hand upon it, feeling the cool metal. Then he turned the handle and pulled. The door opened easily and silently. Mark went in first. Each person felt a bit of a shock as they walked through. What was on the other side was the last thing they were expecting. The door was a portal through the back wall of a simple changing booth, the second of five along a flat wall on the other side of their entrance well. The new place was reasonably well lit, and Mark went first down a short corridor. He turned and found himself in a women's clothing store. Hannah was right behind him, and she was so surprised she bumped into Mark as she came out of the changing area. "My gosh!" she said laughing in disbelief. "It's a Dress Barn!" Mark nodded numbly and took a few steps This was so different than all the empty shells of stores they passed last night. This store was packed with clothes and looked ready for business. The only thing missing were the employees and muzak. But except for themselves, the only other noise was the faint white noise of the ventilation. Otherwise the place was silent and deserted. And it was an oddly shaped store with shoebox proportions. Mark estimated about seven by thirty meters. The changing rooms and a set of stairs heading down ran along the length of one of the walls along the long axis. Except for the crazy door through the changing booth, the stairs were their only means to leave. He thought to look at the time, 11:07 AM, and then stared in amazement at his sister. The college women were still staring around the room amazed, but his sister and her two high school friends were already looking through the racks of merchandise with obvious interest. Madison was inspecting a selection of blouses. "Hey Ashley! They've got some nice stuff in here!" Mark cleared his throat loudly. "People, please! This is no time to shop!" Chagrinned, the group followed him down the stairs. They walked through the lower level of the store and through an exit and then... They were back at the mall! Or at least some part of it. The Dress Barn exit led to what appeared to be an extremely long underground shopping corridor. It was impossible to tell exactly how far it extended. The corridor was gently curved, and the curve eventually cut off visibility in both directions. Leaning up against the wall of the outside curve, Mark thought he could see over a hundred meters along the inside curve and twice that on the outside curve. The vastness of the place was incredible. Mark shook his head in disbelief. The group paused for a moment as they stared at the mall. Everything was brightly lit and open. The nearby shops were bursting with merchandise and seemed open for business. And their openness was in profound contrast with the silence of the mall. The place seemed deserted. Fatima startled everybody by giving a loud yodeling yell with a distinctly Middle Eastern sound, and then she waited for a response. Nothing. "Oh Fatima," Jada said nervously. "Please don't do that again. We don't know what's down here. We might not want to be attracting attention." Fatima turned to her and looked a little confused. "Okay," she said simply. "This is impossible," muttered Mark. He turned to Jada. "Do you remember what the mall looked like, on the other side of the elevator?" "Yeah, I sure do. The stores were all empty shells. "This ... This is crazy! I think I can see a hundred stores just from where I'm standing! Maybe more, and everything is open and ready for business. This place is huge!" Jada examined the entrance to the Dress Barn closely and then the candy store across from it. The walls separating the store interiors from the central corridor were about 20 cm in thickness. In the archways of the stores about chest high was a circular indentation about 5 cm in diameter and 5 cm deep. "Mark, I think there's a button here in the arch. Okay to push it?" "Yeah, good idea. Maybe it'll activate something that will show up on mall security." Jada nodded and pushed the button. A thick clear barrier began to descend from the ceiling. Jada pushed at it with her fingers on the way down. It felt like stiff but very flexible plastic. After about 10 seconds the barrier completed its four-meter drop to the floor. There was a faint hiss and snap noise, and the barrier appeared very faintly luminescent. Mark and Emily walked up to Jada's side, and all three pressed their hands against the barrier. "Wow, it's changed," comment Jada. "It feels as hard as stone now. Believe me, it felt soft before, like plastic." Mark nodded. He saw there was a half-oval cutout in the side of the barrier, aligned so that the indentation in the archway was still available. Mark reached in and pushed the button. The barrier lost its luminescence and a second later began to rise at the same rate it had come down. Mark pressed his fingers against the material as it rose, and could indeed feel a faint sponginess now. "Some kind of lock might fit into that indentation," commented Emily. "It would be a very effective way to close up." She turned and stared down the long corridor. "But for some crazy reason, all these stores have been left open." Incredibly, the mall corridor ran east-west, perpendicular to the direction they were trying to take. They checked out the candy store across from the Dress Barn but it had a plain back wall on both its first and second levels. The group was at least sixty meters north of where they wanted to be with no way to get there. "I love to shop," Ashley giggled nervously as she stared down the corridor and surveyed the great variety of stores. "Just turn on the muzak and I'd think I'd gone to heaven." She reached out and offered to hold hands with Madison. Madison accepted her hand and then turned to her brother. "Can we explore this place? Do you think it's safe? We're so far underground. What if the power fails? We'll be lost in pitch blackness down here." Mark had been considering the same question as he stood outside the entrance to the Dress Barn. "Yeah, good point. I suppose our phones might give a little light, but we'll have to limit our exploration time down here. Everybody, remember this location, the Dress Barn across from Candy Warehouse. It's our route out of here if we have to backtrack. Hey! Is that a hardware store?! Up ahead on the outside curve..." He was standing in front of the Dress Barn and pointing down the corridor to his left, to a store about a hundred meters away. Hannah's face brightened. "Yes! Batteries, flashlights, yeah! Let's check it out!" They quickly walked east down the corridor, the gentle counter-clockwise curve barely discernable, their footfalls echoing faintly on the stone floor. It was indeed an Ace Hardware store, with letters from floor to ceiling advertising its presence. And as they entered, they saw it was packed with merchandise. On the upper level they found a shelf with a great assortment of flashlights. Surprisingly, they all were rechargeable with interior sealed batteries. They all appeared to be holding a good charge. Mark insisted everyone take at least two, a small one and a larger one. As they were about to leave the store, they had a curious moral decision to make. How could they pay for what they were taking? Try to leave cash out in the open? None of the merchandise was even priced. Mark finally left a note by the cashier's station, listing his name and phone number and the items they had taken. "This still feels vaguely like stealing," Hannah commented as they left the store. Emily shrugged. "Right now I wouldn't mind being hassled by mall police, would you?" Ashley was even more upset. "All of these stores are unlocked!" She looked further up the curve. There were many new stores to see, and no end of the curve in sight. "What are we looking at here, hundreds of stores, maybe more?! Millions, billions of dollars of merchandise?! Why aren't these stores locked? How can they leave everything out in the open like this?!" Hannah answered. "Well, the mall is probably locked from the outside. Ashley, we're not supposed to be in here." "Then what are we doing here?!" Ashley replied in a half shout. "Trying to leave!" Madison shouted back. "People!" interrupted Mark. "We have to start acting like a team. Try not to shout at each other." Madison gave a small shriek. Mark frowned at her, but then she said, "No, I wasn't complaining. Look! I think it's a Radio Shack!" She was pointing to a store perhaps another hundred meters away." "So?" "So, more chargers for the phones!" The group walked further along the arc at a brisk pace. It took a half-hour to set up, including a quick trip back to Ace Hardware for a long extension cord, but by 11:50 AM, Mark thought they were making some progress, and they still had about four and a half hours till sunset. His group was currently camped out in the mall corridor outside the Radio Shack. They had a long extension cord charging all six of their phones, even the cells, and three people were calmly trying to dial 911 a few times a minute on the Leophones. The message was still saying that all satellite circuits were busy, but all they needed was one hit to talk to the outside world. Ashley also had picked out a portable radio but was getting absolutely nothing on it. Mark wondered about that but wasn't too concerned. They were quite a bit below ground, and maybe the ceiling supports had a lot of shielding metal in them. But the sat-phones were still managing to reach the satellite. It was a bit strange... Mark waited with the group till noontime, and then got up and wandered a few stores further up the corridor, thinking of the time and how far this corridor might last. Emily came and joined him, giving him a small smile as they met. They idly wandered up another couple of stores until they came to The Old Towne Spice Shoppe." "Notice the setup for the food storage?" Emily asked. "It's the same as in the Candy Warehouse and in Kappa Alpha's kitchen. Everything is sealed in metal cabinets that hiss and snap when you close them. A rat doesn't stand a chance down here." Mark nodded and looked back down the corridor. They were standing five stores over and on the other side of the corridor from Radio Shack, perhaps a hundred meters away but still in sight of the rest of the group. Mark considered the geometry of the mall for a moment and then commented, "This layout makes very little sense." Emily grunted and replied sarcastically, "Duh, yah think?!" The total cross-sectional width of the underground tunnel including the stores seemed to be twenty meters. There were seven meters of depth for the stores on both the inside and outside sides of the arc including the thickness of the walls between the stores and the corridor, and finally six meters of width in the central corridor itself. The floors in the stores came in all sorts of colors and materials. The corridor floor was a uniform dull gray, except for a thin ten-centimeter line of a bright reddish stone running down the centerline, allowing for three meters of width to support the pedestrian traffic in each direction. It was ample space for their group, but for a large crowd, with all these stores, Mark thought it was way too narrow. He could envision a nightmare of human gridlock. And the stores, they were so strange, and not just that they were open. It was their orientation. Each store interior was less than seven meters deep, fairly shallow, and would run in units of ten meters along the corridor. Each store seemed to have an upper and lower level, and twenty, thirty, and forty meters were the most common store lengths. Ace Hardware was currently the largest store they had seen at sixty meters, and they passed a place labeled Zonko's Joke Shoppe that was only ten meters in length. Mark was staring up the corridor and then felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and found Emily giving him a friendly but worried smile. She gave him a brief pat before lowering her arm. "Have you noticed, how difficult it would be to restock this place? The Dress Barn has that crazy backdoor, but for everything else, you'd have to restock through this corridor at night. I can't imagine the mall managers would allow pallets being trucked down these narrow corridors while the mall was open." Mark frowned. "That was one particular piece of insanity I hadn't considered. Thanks Emily." "Yeah..." Another pat on his arm, near his wrist now, and this time her hand lingered. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier Mark, about the voting I mean. I think you're doing a fine job." He blushed. "Hey, it really was okay. You had a point. I shouldn't be in charge just because I'm a guy. Emily?" She lowered her arm. "Uh huh?" "From the curvature of the mall, I'm estimating a circumference of about ten kilometers, assuming it makes a complete circle. Do you agree?" Emily stared for a long moment with a critical architectural eye. The corridor was a long tube six meters wide and eight meters high, providing ample height for both levels of the stores. Long rows of recessed lighting were providing pleasant and very adequate illumination. Emily stared down the corridor worked to estimate the circumference from the curvature of the bend. "Yeah, you're close, just a little light. I'm guessing the radius of curvature just over two kilometers ... That would make the circumference ... Wow, twelve kilometers plus ... Wow..." Mark stared at her. "I'm very impressed. You can judge it that closely?" "Uh huh. I have very good spatial relations. Seriously, if it were an Olympic sport, I'd be competing for the gold medal." "Yeah? Seriously back, I'm impressed." It was Emily's turn to blush. "Well, I can't imagine it actually goes that far, twelve kilometers of mall?!" She gave a small laugh at the thought and then sighed. "When Ashley first saw this place, she thought she had gone to shoppers' heaven. But to me it's an architectural nightmare. Why spread everything out this much? And remember how deep we are? Building like this is hugely expensive. It's such a waste of money." Mark nodded. "Exactly! Usually it's the mall frontage which is at a premium. But here, the stores are fairly shallow with lots of frontage, just the opposite of how it should be laid out. What's the point?" Emily raised her eyebrows. "Well, it'll certainly slow down shopping. You have to walk more than in a normal mall, a lot more..." She shrugged and pondered for a moment. "I really can't think of a reason." After another moment she looked at him thoughtfully and said, "So, what's the plan?" "Well, I thought we'd wait by Radio Shack for another ten minutes or so, give the phones a chance to charge up a bit and then move on. We'll hike until we find an exit." Emily seemed skeptical. "You're that confident we'll find one?" "It's hard to imagine not to..." and then he grinned back. "But not impossible, not with this place. But what would that mean? A circular twelve-kilometer double track of stores, with the only entrance through the dressing booth at the Dress Barn?" Mark started laughing. "Nobody builds that crazy!" An idea suddenly occurred to Emily. "Are you sure that's the only entrance we passed? I mean, I think every store I've seen has a second level." She pointed to the rear stairs in the store before them. "This one does over there. Take a look." Mark's eyes went wide at his oversight. "My gosh. It would take forever to search every store. Is that what you're suggesting?" Emily thought for a moment. "No, not now. Not every store anyway. But maybe if we're stopped somewhere, we could do a little snooping." Her hand came to his wrist again, giving him a light squeeze. "Mark, can I ask you some personal questions?" "Hmm? Yeah, sure. I don't know if I'll answer though." Emily seemed to ignore his last comment. "Jada's been very quiet this morning. Last night ... She was the only woman in our group that spent last night with a guy. I'm not asking you to be explicit about what you did with her, but ... you didn't hurt her, did you?" The hand remained around his wrist. "I uh ... no, I didn't hurt her." "Do you know she's giving you long, thoughtful looks while we hike?" "She is?" "Uh huh. Her eyes almost never leave you. Mark, if you hurt her last night, I could forgive you. None of us were responsible for what we were doing. But there's something you should know about Jada. I don't think she dated last year, nothing serious anyway and she certainly wasn't dating this term. She's told me a little of her life. She had a really rough time in high school. She was abandoned by her parents." "Ah ... Yeah. She told me a little something about that." "She did? When?" "Last night ... late last night. The drug, it's almost like a truth serum, it makes you speak straight from your heart..." Emily looked thoughtful and sighed. "Yeah, that's a good way to put it. You know something? I don't think the drug is completely out of our systems yet. Perhaps it never will be. I'm finding it a lot easier to talk and act straight from my heart, aren't you?" "Emily, what are you trying to say?" "Mark, Jada is like a sister to me. She's very protective of me, and I feel the same way about her. Last night I can forgive, but now it's the day after and I think she's still giving you long puppy-love looks. I guess what I'm trying to say is, well..." "Go on." Emily's eyes bore deep into his. "Whether you want to date her or not is up to you. But if you pump and dump her, I am going to be royally pissed." Mark's blushed slightly at Emily's language but then he smiled, patting the hand that was still holding his wrist. "I won't. You have my word." Emily nodded and let go. They turned and walked back to the group. ------- Chapter 6 Time: Saturday, December 22, 2018 1:49 PM Mark glanced at the time on his phone and frowned. Two and a half hours till sunset at most, and his earlier optimism for reaching the cars by then was starting to seem ridiculous. But who could have foreseen a mall this crazy? "Certainly not me, that's for sure." Mark thought glumly. "Am I the best person to be leading this group? Fatima reminded me a while ago, not to make assumptions about this place. And did I listen to her?" He looked idly at a few more stores as they passed. "At least no one is blaming me for the spot we're in. That's something I guess." By counting stores and store lengths, the group was now estimating they had just passed the three kilometer mark down the length of the corridor. The reason it wasn't more started a kilometer back, at an Eastern Mountain Sports store they had stopped for supplies. It was a great place and they were now all outfitted with rugged backpacks, hiking boots, and first-rate precision binoculars. Coming out of Eastern Mountain, Fatima asked if the group could talk about what they were doing. It seemed impossible to Fatima that the mall would run for two kilometers from the Dress Barn without another way in or out. Mark suggested Emily's earlier idea that they take the time to explore both levels of the stores they were passing and search for other exits. They had a brief and intense debate whether to have two search teams and speed up the search. But being on isolated second-floor levels of different stores seemed to Mark to be too much like splitting up, even if they tried to keep in touch by phone. Could they even hear a scream over such a distance? Maybe not. So they searched over a dozen stores as a single group of seven. The problem was that almost all the stores had back storage space, often on both levels. Testing for hidden doorways took several minutes per store, even with the entire group testing the walls. Before giving up, they had probably spent an extra hour in search mode and had found zilch as far as an exit was concerned. Mark felt awful, wishing they had that hour back. Jada was walking directly in front of Mark when she pulled up straight and suddenly stood shock still. "Shit!" she exclaimed. Mark was deep in thought about their situation and almost walked straight into Jada's backpack, stopping just in time. "Huh?" Jada didn't reply for a moment. She took her binoculars and stared down the tunnel, and then turned around and stared the other way. "How could I be so stupid?!" she exclaimed with a growl. "Shit!" Mark was standing by her side. "Jada, what?" "This corridor, the arc isn't constant. It's lengthening out." "What?!" It took Mark several seconds to realize what she was talking about. "My gosh, a spiral?" Jada nodded her head vigorously. "Yes! We're walking down a spiral." Mark frowned and then realized the implication. "Hell! Then we've picked the wrong direction!" Emily by this time had her own binoculars out and was confirming Jada's observation. "She's right Mark. The circumference of this arc is huge, maybe nineteen kilometers now. Wait a minute! There is no true circumference, not in a spiral. SHIT!" she cried, repeating Jada's sentiment. She turned to Mark with a guilty face. "I let you down. I should have spotted this hours ago." Mark dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand. "We have to turn around." Emily nodded at once. "Yes, I agree." "Huh?" asked Fatima. "Won't we lose a lot of time if we backtrack? What difference does it make, whether we travel up or down a spiral?" The three high-school seniors also looked confused. Emily answered. "Where's the end of an outward spiral? Maybe it goes on forever." She gave a nervous laugh. "But walking inward along the spiral, it has to end at a center point. That's where we should be." Hannah meanwhile was leaning against the wall and surveying the corridor down-spiral with her binoculars, searching for an exit and giving the stores they would never pass a quick examination. She startled everybody by giving a yip of joy. "No, no everybody! We have to keep going this way!" Fatima was by her side. "You see an exit?" "No! But use your binoculars. Take a look on the outside arc, near the limit of what you can see. It's a bike shop!" Time: Saturday, December 22, 2018 2:28 PM They spent a full half hour in the bike store and Mark thought it was an excellent use of their time. They had found a fantastic selection of bikes, mountain bikes, tandem bikes, urban street bikes, racing bikes. Upstairs there were even two bikes complete with attachable side cars that could be used to haul freight or another person. They all picked a bike they felt comfortable with. Jada also surprised Mark by putting several Kryptonite locks into her backpack. Why would she want to bike with all that weight? He decided he would have to ask her sometime. Emily surprised Mark too, by choosing an ultra high-tech bike meant for professional racers. As he walked out of the store with his own bike, he saw her leaning against the outside arc of the spiral and making careful observations with her binoculars. She was also busy making notes in her sketchbook. "I want to make some measurements as we go back," she informed Mark as he approached. He nodded. "Yah, Okay. How often?" "How does every kilometer sound?" "Sure..." Mark and Emily looked at each other directly in the eyes for a moment. "Emily, you're not expecting to leave here today, are you?" "Castle Commonwealth? Hah! Come on Mark, what do you think? This mall is right out of The Twilight Zone. I think we need to collect some data on what this spiral is like." "What kind of data?" "One simple measurement, the visible length of the inside arc, measured as close to the outside arc as I can get leaning against it with my binoculars. At the bike shop here, I'm getting a reading of 191 meters." Mark sighed and nodded. "How long do you need to make your measurement?" "Maybe a minute or less. I count the stores and their lengths. I'll try to be as fast as I can." "Hey, it's okay. These bikes have really opened up our options. We can afford the time." Emily grinned. "Maybe we won't have to lose any time. I'm a demon biker. I'll speed ahead and stop for my measurements. The rest of you can bike more slowly. We can leapfrog our positions. I'll keep up, don't worry." The rest of the team was now out of the store, everyone wearing helmets. Mark pondered Emily's suggestion and they discussed her idea with Jada. A minute later the main group turned around and began to bike back up the spiral at a decent pace, Mark thought about 25 kph. He grinned as he noticed they had mindlessly switched to the opposite side of the red centerline. Old habits die hard. But it would also give him and Emily a nice passing lane on the left. A moment later Mark and Emily started out racing together and testing Emily's leap-frog idea. Emily really was a speed demon, hitting sixty kph on her one-kilometer sprint. It was faster than Mark was capable of, and Emily would be out in front of him by fifty meters or so before she started to slow down. She was very adept at making quick stops and immediately beginning her measurement of the mall's curvature. The rest of the team would ride by and shout hellos as they passed. Emily managed to get her observations done in quick time, leaning against the outside edge of the corridor arc with her binoculars and carefully counting the store lengths along the visible inside edge. The group learned to balance their leap-frogs and were never more than a few hundred meters away from each other. Mark thought they were pushing the limit of staying together but the two groups were always more or less within sight of each other and he decided it was okay. On their third stop, their familiar Radio Shack was just two stores ahead of them. Emily muttered as she made her measurement, "Yep, 160 meters now. The change in the arc is so obvious. How could I have missed this?" "Emily, it's not your fault. Who the hell builds a mall in spirals?" "The builders of Castle Commonwealth," she said under her breath, "that's who. I remember a spiral motif in the floor yesterday when Jada and I came here, on the other side of the elevator." "Yeah, I remember, by the hexagonal food court." "Exactly. That just looked normal. This though..." Emily sighed in wonder. "Wow Mark, this is incredible." The rest of the team started to cycle past them single file with Jada in the lead. "We meet at the Dress Barn, right?" she called out as she flew by. "Right!" Mark shouted after her. Emily was just finishing her measurement. Mark asked her, "How close do you think you're making your measurements at one-kilometer increments?" "Me? I'm spot on, within a fraction of a meter. I'm counting the store lengths as I pass them, all the ten-meter additions. It's not that hard. So far it's been thirty stores on each side for each kilometer. I think it might be a fixed attribute of the mall." Mark looked back and forth at the corridor. "But the lengths look random." "It may look that way, but for every kilometer, there are always three 10-meter stores, six 20-meter stores, seven for both 30-meter and 40-meter, six for 50-meter, and one 60-meter store. For each of the last three kilometers, it's always been the same." Emily kicked off and began pedaling before Mark could express his admiration that she could keep track of such details as she biked. Then he began the hopeless task of trying to catch her. A couple hundred meters later, they all pulled up to the Dress Barn at about the same time. Emily and then Mark were in the passing lane, everyone else was on the right. Fatima was smiling brightly from the exercise and she dismounted her bike and took off her helmet. "You know, this is kind of fun!" Jada flashed Fatima a quick smile and nod and then knelt down and felt the floor with her hand. It was a neutral grayish color. "This floor is really remarkable. It's smooth but not slippery, the perfect material to bike on. I didn't notice while we were walking, but I don't think I felt one seam in three kilometers of biking." Her knowledge of mechanical engineering was leaving her confused. "It's a perfectly uniform floor. How did they make this, pour the whole floor at once?" Mark shrugged as he looked at his phone, 2:42 PM. Jada's point was troubling, but on the optimistic side, what a difference the bikes were making, more than three kilometers in less than ten minutes. They left their bikes in the corridor and entered the store. A moment later the group was in the small dressing alcove on the second floor. Mark opened the second booth and walked inside, the other six women standing right behind him. Mark stared at the back wall of the booth. "Hell, look at this. I didn't realize how perfectly it was camouflaged when we left. There doesn't seem to be a door here at all." Hannah barely managed to avoid whimpering. She gritted her teeth and said nothing. She had an awful fear that the doorway had disappeared, trapping them forever in this insane mall. Mark pushed on the wall with his hand for a moment. It felt rock solid. But then his hand came to the place where a doorknob to the door should be. He pushed and heard a very faint click and then the door swung open on silent hinges. Everyone let out audible sighs of relief. A moment later the group was standing at the bottom of the circular stairwell, the great dome of glass and golden ribbed alloy thirty meters above their heads. "It looks like it might be raining outside," commented Madison. "Kind of hard to tell without going upstairs." She looked around at the quiet stairwell. There was pleasant recessed lighting illuminating both the dome and the various granites and marbles of the well. "You know, this place would be quite beautiful if it weren't such a horror." She turned to her brother. "So, what now Mark? You want to give up on the mall, try to head south past the soccer field?" "Boy, that's a tough call Maddy. We only have an hour and a half of daylight left. What's your opinion?" "Well, it'll be much easier to explore above ground while it's still light. The mall we can explore anytime." "Madison," asked Fatima, "Are you assuming the mall's lights aren't on a timer? Do you think Castle Commonwealth keeps the place lit twenty-four hours a day?" Madison blinked and was still for a moment. Mark turned to the group and said, "Bottom line, we really don't know which direction is better. I think I would like to be above ground by sunset. But for now, want to try some collective wisdom here? How about we vote on which path to take, majority wins?" Ashley voted immediately to return to the mall. The others joined her choice a few seconds later, and two minutes after that they were back on the spiral, biking the curve in the clockwise direction, seeing the arc slowly tighten as the kilometers flew by. Mark decided on a short break at 3 PM just as he and Emily biked up to their nine-kilometer mark from the bike shop. They were in front of a public restroom. While Emily worked on her measurement, Mark waited and waved at Jada and the rest of the team to stop. At 3:04 PM they entered the restroom. It was an interesting setup. The signs for lavatories on the outside led to a spacious workout center on the first floor, treadmills and cross trainers and stair-masters and various weight machines spread over the fifty-meter length of "store". But it wasn't a store at all. The layout was that of a functioning gym. Upstairs there were ample shower and toilet facilities, complete with cabinets holding soaps and fresh towels and even several washers and driers for cleaning clothes. Mark headed for a bank of urinals while the women gratefully headed to a long row of stalls. A few minutes later Madison came out of her stall adjusting her dress and re-slinging her backpack. "Mark, how can they do this? I mean, I don't mind sharing a bathroom with you. You're my brother. But look at this place! I think it's a unisex bathroom, right in the middle of a public mall! I think they're expecting men and women to use side-by-side stalls!" Mark was noticing the same thing and pointed back to his urinal at the other end of the room opposite the shower area. "I know. You have a set of urinals for guys over there, adjacent to the area with all the mirrors that looks so feminine. And the shower area! It looks comfortable enough, but there's no privacy at all. Do they expect men and women, total strangers, to shower together?! In a public mall?! What a joke!" Fatima walked out of her own stall and nodded, looking more than a bit sheepish. "Yes, I agree," she said in a chirping voice. A minute later everyone else was finished, and they were back on the spiral trail immediately. Mark glanced at his phone as they left the gym. It was 3:12 PM. Emily had mounted her bike but was looking at her notes. The rest of the group waved goodbye and took off. Mark walked up to Emily and mounted his own bike. "How does it look?" "Sixty-three meters visible on the inside edge, it's really collapsing now." she replied. "At the bike shop it was 191." "So, almost there." Emily laughed. "Oh yeah! I can't imagine this trip lasting more than another kilometer. The stores on the inside and outside edges will start overlapping their positions if the spiral winds too tightly. I think we're almost there." Mark nodded his agreement. "Come on then. Let's catch up before the others get there." They sped off in pursuit and quickly overtook the slower group, but rather than passing they paced the slower bikers on the left side of the corridor. The end came as they had expected. The spiral began collapsing rapidly. Mark thought they had biked about 800 meters when the stores on the inside arc suddenly disappeared. The central corridor continued with the inside wall a smooth featureless surface the same color as the floor. They biked more slowly but did not stop. The curve continued to collapse and they could only see twenty meters ahead. The end came very rapidly. The stores on the outside arc disappeared, and ten seconds later in the tightening curve they could see the end of the spiral. They emerged into an open area at a very shallow angle and fell into a moment of utter silence, trying to grasp the implications of what they were seeing. They were in a great hall the shape of a perfect hexagon, with each of its six sides twenty-four meters in length. The walls rose vertically for eight meters, and then six great triangular slabs formed a vaulted ceiling above them, sixteen meters above the stone floor at the geometric center point of the hexagon. There was ample recessed lighting in the walls which appeared to be made of several types of very fine quality marbles. The hall was grand and beautiful. Mark walked his bike to the geometric center and reached down to touch the floor. At the very center of the hexagonal floor was a small six-sided keystone of metal, each side about two centimeters in length. It had the rich glow of 24K gold. Mark idly wondered if it were real gold. It certainly looked like it. He rose and slowly turned and thought about the implications of what he was seeing. Mark was surrounded by six exit spirals, a different corridor stretching off into the distance from each face of the hexagon. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the branch they had come from. The dull gray floors of each branch changed to a lighter gray at the entrance to the great hall, and their centerlines continued with six ten-centimeter wide ribbons of colored stone thinning and completing several final revolutions of spiral through the floor before gracefully joining the six faces of the gold keystone as six thin threads of color. One nice thing Mark noticed was that each branch had its own distinctive color for its centerline, red for their branch, and then in clockwise order white, blue, green, black, and a butter yellow. At least it would be easy to recognize which branch you were in if you were ever lost down here. What an incredible place. His mind worked to grasp its majesty. Forgetting the need to stay together, he biked down the entrance of the corridor with the blue centerline. About sixty meters later he came to the first pairs of stores on the outside arc. There was a B&H camera store and a Victoria's Secret further down. Back in the central hall, Emily was keeping herself busy. She was making visual sightings down the corridors, and then careful measurements of the lengths of both the hexagonal faces and the wide openings the corridors made as they cut into the faces with their shallow angles. "They all appear similar," she called out to no one in particular. "We have three and a half complete rotations of the spirals within the hall, from the keystone out to the six corridors. All the corridors are curving counter-clockwise, I think at the same angle. I mark the central keystone at ten kilometers even from the bike shop, measured along the path of the spiral. The Dress Barn is 6.7 kilometers from here." She paused and added in a nervous voice, "This is so amazing." Madison biked down the corridor to the left of their own until coming to the entrances of the first two stores, a small place called Amber Jewelry on the outside arc followed by a CVS Pharmacy. She peered in and saw the Rx drug shelves fully loaded and completely unguarded. Madison felt a chill even though her body was warm from the exercise. "Follow the yellow brick road," she mumbled as she stared at the centerline spiraling into the distance. Suddenly feeling alone and vulnerable, she turned around and quickly biked back to the center hall. Jada pursued Mark down the blue line and pulled up beside him. "Six tunnels, six parties. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He turned and nodded. "The thought did occur to me. But that would imply the elevator was real in the selection process. It actually took you to six different parties. I'm talking about six very different horizontal locations." He frowned in distress. "Was that possible?" "It must have Mark. What other explanation is there? We must have moved horizontally. It must have been hundreds of meters..." "How could we not feel that?" "Yeah, I know. I'm a Mech-E major and the question is torturing me too. But we must have moved horizontally. We must have." Jada stared at the spiraling blue line for a moment. "I know! Maybe the drug deadened our sense of balance. That's it, we didn't feel the motion." "You think so?" Mark looked very skeptical. "But if the ground moves and we don't feel it, don't we fall over? That's what balance is for." "Uh ... yeah, that's a good point ... Well, maybe our subconscious still keeps the balance, but the drug makes us unaware of the motion at a conscious level ... I know that sounds..." "Oh, I don't know Jada. I remember being alert when I took the ride. What you're describing sounds like much later in the evening." "Well..." Jada sounded desperate to make her idea work. "Truthfully, I remember being a little light-headed when I got off the elevator, a little light-footed actually." "Light footed?" "I felt a little light on my feet. See, that's like balance, isn't it? And think of the soccer pitch. What other explanation is there?" She paused and challenged Mark with a stare to debate her. Mark stared down the spiraling blue line and partially conceded the point. "Well, okay. This mall is real. I'm not convinced ... but okay, I'll assume the elevator is capable of moving..." Mark paused for a moment, unsure of what he wanted to say. Jada dismissed his doubt. "Which implies there really were six parties. Mark, remember Fatima's description of all the people. We have no evidence of anyone picking a different party and still coming to our lounge. And think of the number of cars in the parking lot compared to the number of people that showed up at It's My Party. Mark, it all fits. There were six parties, agreed?" He nodded after a slight hesitation. "Agreed." "And what do you want to bet that the mall entrance from the other five party locations isn't just as hidden as ours is?" Mark sighed. "No bet." She asked in a quiet whisper, "Do you think we should be careful about revealing how we get down here?" She stared again down the mall and the blue centerline and shuddered. "Did you see the eyelets in the door and frame, at the bottom of our circular well? It would be very easy to lock the door from the stairwell side. I've got some locks." "Yeah, I know. I saw you pick them up. Jada, what the heck? Why should we try to hide our location from other people trapped here?" Jada frowned. "I know ... Still ... Somehow I feel we might want to consider that. Once we let our secret out, there's no going back." Mark stared at her. "Jada, what are you afraid of?" She stared back and offered him her hand. He accepted the invitation and she gave his hand a brief squeeze. "Everything," she whispered back. ------- Chapter 7 Time: Saturday, December 22, 2018 3:52 PM They had a very quiet and somber ride back through Red Mall. They passed by the Dress Barn briefly and retrieved the note Mark had left at Ace Hardware, and then they headed for the surface complex that was strangely starting to feel like home. The team members looked a bit surprised when Mark asked them not to leave any indication they were passing through the Dress Barn, but they complied without comment. Once in the circular well, Mark looked at his phone and noted the time at 3:52 PM. He raced up to the top and did a critical survey of the sky. It was still cloudy, but the rain had stopped, and he thought the sky had the typical lighting pattern of being twenty minutes before sunset, right on schedule. He breathed a huge sigh of relief. Everything in this place seemed so crazy, but at least the rest of the universe seemed okay. Meanwhile Jada was fitting the door to the mall with a Kryptonite lock. Emily stood next to her wondering what she was doing but decided not to comment. She said instead, "Just think, twenty-four hours ago we were peacefully driving along Lost Nation Road. It seems like an eternity ago." "Yeah..." Jada turned and saw Mark returning to the bottom of the well. She called out to him, "This last lock is a perfect fit. Want to test it?" The lock Jada had chosen had a thick 3-cm thick core of hardened steel, and it was a precision fit to the thick eye-bolt just above the door handle. With the lock in place, the door couldn't move a micron. Mark removed the lock and walked through the door, then Jada locked the door again behind him. He tried the door and felt nothing but a solid wall. There was not even a faint click. A moment later Jada let him out. The rest of the group looked at them wondering why they were doing this, but no one asked any questions. The door issue resolved, the group left their bikes at the bottom of the stairwell and retired to the lounge. It had been an exciting day, and the comfort of their temporary home was very welcome. Mark sat by the western windows overlooking the sand park and announced he was going to watch the unfolding of twilight and see if there were anything unusual about it. Emily got busy analyzing the data she had collected. The others got busy plugging in their phones for additional charging and using the three Leophones to call 911 again. Madison was the first to try. "Hey everybody, listen to this!" she yelled. She put her phone on speakerphone and redialed 911. A recorded voice said, "Due to unprecedented call volume, the Skylands network is currently unable to place your call. Please try again later, and please limit your dialing to emergencies and other essential calls. Please keep calls brief, otherwise time limits will become mandatory." "Holy shit!" shouted Hannah, using language very untypical for her. "It's not just us. The rest of the world seems to be having strange times too!" Ashley stared at Hannah and shouted back, "And did you notice they didn't bother with an error code? That's downright ominous!" Jada sat down by Mark's side on the sofa. "What do you think it means Mark? Sounds like a widespread problem to me." He nodded. "Unprecedented call volume? Yeah..." Fatima came over and stood before them. "I did a brief inspection of the lounge. I've found something new, something interesting." "Someone's been here?!" Jada asked with a raised voice. "Huh? Oh no, sorry Jada. I didn't mean to be misleading. The blue numbers on the elevator display, they're now reading 029:108." She sat down on the other side of Mark. Jada blinked. "Ah ... Last night they were, what, 037:112 I think." Fatima nodded. "After I took my ride here, I thought the numbers might represent the number of men and women that came to the parties. When my group of thirteen came through the elevator, the numbers changed from 032:094 to 036:103, and there where four men with us. It was also the right ratio for what I saw in the tunnel." Mark added, "That's consistent with what my group did. We pushed it from 36:107 to 37:110." Ashley was listening from nearby. "Mark, that means there must have been another four women who came to parties, sometime between Fatima's ride and ours. I wonder which party they went to." "It wasn't It's My Party," said Fatima. "I would have seen them." Jada finished the thought. "And Emily and I pushed the numbers to 37:112, the final total of 149. We were definitely the last ones to ride. Our trip barely managed to meet the deadline." She frowned. "What are we saying? Do we really think the elevator could count not just the number of people but also count by sex?" Mark shrugged. "It's not that far fetched. Facial recognition software could do that easily." Jada frowned. "So we were being scanned. I guess I'm not surprised." "The point," said Fatima, "is how should we interpret the current value of 29:108, a total of 137? I'm thinking perhaps twelve people have managed to find their way out of here." "Interesting conjecture," said Mark. "Sounds reasonable." "Pleasant conjecture," said Jada. "Too pleasant. Without evidence of what it means, it's dangerous for us to be optimists." "Dangerous?" Fatima tilted her head. "What do you mean?" "If we indulge in pleasant fantasies, we'll let down our guard." Jada gave a deep frown. "This place gives me the creeps. For all we know, we are all being hunted down by bug-eyed monsters. Perhaps the bugs have already bagged their first dozen meals." "Uh..." Fatima laughed nervously, "Well, yeah, that's true. I keep reminding myself not to make assumptions about this place." Jada nodded and tried dialing 911. She waited a minute and tried again. Fatima gave Mark a friendly pat on his leg and got up and went over to talk with Emily. Mark leaned back on the sofa and also tried dialing the police. He kept a close eye on the time and a critical eye on the evening sky as twilight fell. Time: 4:31 PM "So, fearless leader," said Emily as she plopped herself down close by Mark's side. "I see you're enjoying the views of the evening." He grinned. "As a matter of fact, I am. Sunset was right on schedule, and the twilight is falling at just the right rate. Yep, very enjoyable." Emily looked around. Hannah was close by but out of earshot for a whisper. Emily moved very close to Mark and asked quietly, "My gosh Mark. Alien abduction to another planet? Are you really worried about that?" Mark gave a small shrug and tried to hide how uncomfortable the question made him. "Well, if you put it like that, no, I guess not." Emily's eyes shifted to her sketchbook. "Want to see some numbers?" Mark gave her a happy smile. "Spiral numbers? I saw you busy with your calculator. Sure, what have you got?" Emily opened her sketchbook onto Mark's lap. But before Mark could study her work, Emily put her hand over it and said with a grin, "So, let's see what kind of mathematician you are, Mr. Two-And-A-Half-Years-In-College! Just from your observations in the mall, what kind of spiral are we working with here?" Mark grinned. "Ah, I love a good math challenge. Okay!" He thought for a long moment. "Not an Archimedes spiral. For a fixed displacement along the path of the spiral, that would have the delta-r on an asymptote to zero." Emily gave him a beaming smile. "Excellent! But you still haven't solved the problem." Jada had been walking to them and she interrupted. "Uh, I'm not too familiar with spirals, not by their names anyway." Mark looked up and explained. "An Archimedes is where both angle and radius are linearly increasing in time. Try to visualize it Jada. The theta velocity is linearly increasing with R. The radial velocity is a constant, because by definition dr/dt is a constant. So the motion approaches pure angular velocity as you travel the spiral." Jada mind worked to follow his explanation. "Yes, got it. Thanks!" Mark went on. "But here the delta-r was far from zero even far out in the spiral, hmmm..." He sat there motionless, lost in thought until he suddenly turned to Emily. "Of course! The view at the central hall gives it all away! It's an exponential increase of r with theta, isn't it, d log(r) / d theta is a constant. It's a Bernoulli spiral!" "My gosh, that exactly right! Mark, I feel I have found a kindred spirit!" Without thinking, Emily leaned over and gave Mark a quick kiss on his cheek. Jada felt an instant flash of jealousy which her conscious mind then dismissed as ridiculous. "Mark, I should warn you about my roommate. The way to the woman's heart is through her math. Plus her desire to party of course." Mark grinned and nodded, then took another long look at the twilight outside and grinned again. "This twilight is behaving exactly the way it should." Emily looked at him curiously. "Yes, and I remember what you said before Jada showed up. So why is the twilight still so important to you?" Mark paused for a long moment. "I'm not sure exactly. I have a vague memory of waking up this morning and thinking something wasn't quite right about the morning, close but not quite right. I just can't remember ... It must be nothing. Emily! Have you managed to tease anything else from the spiral data?" "Oh, I sure have! I think the radius is proportional to exp(theta/pi), maybe exactly, with theta linear with time. The radius of curvature grows two e-fold for every two-pi revolution. That's what fits my data. It's a perfect match." Emily turned the page in her sketchbook and showed a plot of the spiral. I think we traveled almost 828 degrees of rotation from the Dress Barn to the entrance of Hex Hall." Mark grinned. "Hex Hall? Good name." Emily grinned back. "I'm calculating that gold keystone is a little over two kilometers from here, 626 meters west and 1967 meters north of our entry point, measured from the centerline outside the mall entrance to the Dress Barn." Jada let her amazement show. "How in the world did you get it so exactly?" "Hex Hall told me how to do this. It's so incredible. There's a full three and a half revolutions inside the hall, a final seven e-folding of the collapsing distances. I'm basing everything on the fact that the side length of Hex Hall is exactly twenty-four meters. Collapse that by e to the seventh, you get just over two centimeters, exactly what the gold keystone looked like. The six openings in Hex Hall faces are almost twenty meters across the face, exactly what you'd expect for a six-meter corridor following an exp(theta/pi) spiral cutting into a 24-meter hexagon. Mark, everything fits my observations of visible length along the arc of the spiral. It all fits perfectly." "My God..." Mark mumbled. "This is really great work Emily..." He stared at her plots for a moment and asked, "It's interesting, isn't it, that you have our red centerline curling around and hitting the keystone from due east?" "Yes. Red Mall enters Hex Hall on its western face and after three and a half revolutions end at the eastern face of the keystone. Measured from Hex Hall, our location here is on an angle about eighteen degrees east of due south. The exact angle is atan(1/pi). That's the angle where the loop makes its maximum dip south before turning back north. Red mall is running purely east-west at this location." "Yeah, I see it. Great work..." "See this same eighteen degrees on my graph here? It's also the shallow angle that the mall paths cut into the six face of Hex Hall. And remember the lack of stores on the inside arc? That occurs for the final 240 degrees of spiral before Hex Hall, 191 meters along the spiral path. The outside arc of stores disappears at the 120 degree mark, 65 meters from Hex Hall along the spiral." "Uh huh. Otherwise the stores on the inside and outside arcs of adjoining malls would start to overlap, right?" "Yep." Emily paused for a moment. "Mark, do you think there's a grand symmetry here?" "Uh, what do you mean?" "Think of the grand design of this place. It's madness but it's also mad genius. Both Hex Hall and the keystone have the same orientation as our hexagon here. We have opposite vertices aligned north-south and opposite faces aligned east-west, the same as in Hex Hall and the keystone." Mark stared at Emily without understanding. "And your point is?" "My point is that I think we should look for grand symmetries. I mean, perhaps the mall opposite ours, the green centerline, also has its entrance 6.7 kilometers down its spiral. That would be over four kilometers from here. And perhaps its circular well has an annex attached to a northern vertex, compared to our attachment to a southern vertex. Maybe there are six circular staircases, forming the vertices of a grand super-hexagon over two kilometers for each side. Mark, we might know where to search for the exits in the other spirals. Search the inside arcs 6.7 kilometers from Hex Hall." Jada shrugged. "It's just one possibility. Something we might want to check out though." Mark shook his head in disbelief. "Emily, you're implying our elevator ride took us for a two kilometer trip in less than four minutes. That's not very likely, is it?" Emily frowned. "Uh, no. It would be impossible not to feel that. But maybe there's an asymmetry there. Maybe our ride was short, and the Green Mall party went four kilometers." Mark looked very unconvinced. "Not very likely, is it? Four kilometers in 3.5 minutes? Would have been a hell of a ride!" Emily replied defensively, "Well, who said their rides took the same time as ours? Maybe their rides took longer!" Mark nodded, conceding the point for the moment. "And how far away is the bike shop from the keystone?" "Well, I can give you two precise answers. Along the centerline, it is 9989 meters from the bike entrance to our entrance to Hex Hall. If you walked directly to the keystone from the entrance, it's about another 21 meters. If you walked the final 1280 degrees of spiral inside Hex Hall, it's about another 68 meters."" "Emily, the point I'm trying to make is that if all the spirals were doing this, it would be what, over sixty kilometers of mall, right? Over sixty kilometers of mall?! And some of those spirals must be hitting the lake!" Emily began to squirm. "Yeah, I know ... Our spiral doesn't hit the lake, but the others, yeah, I know ... Going under the lake, yeah, I know..." "Emily, how could Castle Commonwealth built a mall like this? Sixty kilometers of mall would be what, five thousand stores?" Emily's lower lip quivered for a moment and then she cried out, "I know, I know! What am I supposed to do Mark, believe my common sense or my own two eyes?!" ------- Chapter 8 Time: Saturday, December 22, 2018 5:02 PM Hannah was just about to give up dialing 911 and hand Ashley's Leophone back to its owner. Wondering if the group would like her to make something for dinner, she punched the phone for one last try and then gasped as she heard the ringing query of her call waiting to be completed. "Hey everybody, I've got something! Listen to this!" Hannah switched to speakerphone just as a weary voice came from her phone. "Burlington Police Department. What is your emergency?" There were amazed sighs and giggles of relief all around the room. "This is Jada Horowitz," Jada began. "I'm with a group of six other people. We're trapped in the Castle Commonwealth mall. We can't find our way out. The buildings here are bizarre." The next two minutes were filled with the weirdest conversation Jada had ever experienced. Her group and the police officer were constantly talking through each other, neither seeming to understand what the other was alluding to. Finally the exasperated policeman started yelling at them for calling 911 when they were not in imminent danger. "But we can't find our way back to the parking lot!" shouted Jada. "You don't realize how crazy it is here!" "So what lady? It's crazy everywhere now. How can you be so selfish? We're in the mother of all national emergencies, over half my force is staying home to be with their families, and you idiots are complaining that you can't find your way out of a building that you shouldn't be in anyway?! Who the hell do you think you are?" "What?! What are you talking about?!"" cried Hannah. "My parents are probably worried sick about me! They're probably searching the mall right now." "I doubt it," replied the officer. "Not with the roads closed..." The light finally dawned. "What the ... My God, you kids don't know, do you? The news broke yesterday evening. Where've you all been, Mars?!" "Good guess," said Mark, "but no." "Just turn on the damn TV and call back tomorrow ... if there is a tomorrow." And with that, the police dispatcher hung up on them. "What?! The bastard!" shouted Hannah in very uncharacteristic language. "He hung up on us! Shit! He didn't even get my name. My parents!" Mark felt totally bewildered. "If there is a tomorrow? What the hell did he mean by that?" " ... just turn on the damn TV..." Ashley's eyes went wide and she turned to her friends. "Heck, why not?! There's a P.C. Richards about halfway between here and the bike store, remember?" But it turned out it wasn't necessary to enter the mall again. Acting on a hunch, Mark decided to check out the first floor below them. Directly south and adjacent to the non-electronic game room was a multi-media room, the same massive size as the lounge upstairs and complete with a TV screen so large it felt like being in a theater watching it. Madison turned the set on. They were in luck. It seemed that some sort of news interview was just starting. " ... and joining us now is Dr. Kissoff, visiting professor of physics at Yale University. He will interpret the latest data for us. Thank you for joining us Dr..." The newswoman giggled nervously. "Professor, am I saying your name correctly?" The man ignored her question and went right to his presentation. "As you can see from the diagram here, The Intruder is just over one billion kilometers from the sun right now. To put that into perspective, that's equivalent to about halfway between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter. And as you can see from the diagram, it's coming in almost perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. Earth is actually closer to The Intruder right now than any of the outer planets." There was a large diagram of the solar system behind him, with a straight line shooting through the sun from the bottom up. "Mark," Madison whispered. "What the heck is this?" "Quiet Maddy..." The professor continued. "The new data from NASA is giving us a much cleaner estimate of Intruder velocity compared to what we had this morning. The original estimates are confirmed. The Intruder is moving 7.7% to 7.8% of the speed of light relative to the sun. The best estimate for impact is still between 6 AM and 7 AM Eastern Standard Time, but the new data has dropped that by about twenty minutes. Solar impact is now estimated at 6:10 AM, give or take a minute or two. That's the time impact will be observed on Earth. Actual impact will have occurred eight minutes previously." "Solar impact?" whispered Fatima. "Is there any hope Professor?" the newswoman asked. The man gave a beaming smile. "Yes! The new data is strongly suggesting The Intruder will miss the core areas of the sun. If this new orbit holds up, The Intruder will penetrate only the outer solar layers and not to the radiative layer and definitely not the core. It might not even touch the convective layer. We'll know more in a few hours. Best estimate now has it exiting the chromosphere twenty to thirty seconds after penetration. I think the Earth can survive that, and survive it very well." "What?!" exclaimed Ashley in a hoarse shout. "Tell me Professor, how was it possible for The Intruder to get this close to our solar system without being observed years ago? How?" "Well, a neutron star is..." Mark leaped out of his chair. "WHAT?!" he screamed, his face one of utter incredulity. "Hush Mark," whispered Madison. " ... well, a very unusual type of star. We still can't see it, not directly. We think its radius is only about ten to eleven kilometers. And it's cold, deep space cold, the result of billions of years of irradiative cooling, first from neutrinos and then from photons. This star is ancient." "But still Professor, how did it sneak up on us?" "Well, remember the only way we're observing it even now is through the gravitational lensing of the light around it. The Intruder approached our solar system from a very dark and little watched position of the sky not far from the south pole. It's tragic, but it was less than forty-eight hours ago when the slight shift of distant starlight was finally noticed by the observation team in New Zealand. Remember, it's winter solstice now in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, the south polar sky is filled with sunlight. The Intruder approached us at the worst possible time and angle to be detected early. Not that we could have done anything." "Nothing at all? But I've heard earlier reports today say that it's only the size of a large mountain." "Yes, that is correct." "So couldn't we have sent a nuclear missile or something to try to blow it up or knock it off course?" The professor stared at the woman as if she had just crawled out from underneath a rock. "No." "But why wasn't the public informed a day earlier?" "Well, it took the New Zealanders over twelve hours just to be sure the light shifting wasn't due to a simple optical imperfection in their mirror. The actual cause was so completely unexpected. Then there were several hours when they were asking for confirmation from other observatories. Then there was more testing, and the time to do the first estimate of the orbit. And then, well, the world's governments did sit on the news for a short time. They never did have to officially release it. The rumors got out first." "Yes, I know," the newswoman said proudly. "We at WCAX were among the first stations in the world to break the news at 5:03 PM yesterday. But you were saying the Intruder is still not visible to the naked eye?" "It never will be. It's not directly visible even with the best telescopes. Even without its super gravity sucking in the light, The Intruder is a perfect Black Body." "Is that like a Black Hole that so many people are talking about?" "No, this is completely different. I mean nothing is being reflected by the star. Nothing's being emitted either, except for the gravitational field of course. That's what's bending the light." The newswoman shook her head in confusion. "Professor, you said earlier there's reason to be optimistic?" "There is now, yes. The first orbital estimate had The Intruder on a bull's-eye collision course with the core of the sun. The new track shows a much more glancing stellar collision. It makes all the difference in the world." He took a deep breath. "Let me explain. As we've all heard countless times today, The Intruder consists of about 1.5 solar masses of degenerate neutrons, theoretically a typical size for a neutron star. Having it enter the solar system at all would normally be an absolute extinction event for Earth. All the planets' orbits would be disrupted, including Earth's. But this Intruder is coming in fast and it will leave fast. There will be some orbital perturbations but they will be things we can live with. You've heard the expression, speed kills? Well, in this case, speed saves!" As another diagram was displayed showing the detailed structure of the sun, the professor paused to sip some water. "As you can see from this diagram, The Intruder's radius compared to the sun is infinitesimal. If all we had to worry about was The Intruder drilling out a core of the sun ten to eleven kilometers in radius, it would be a complete non-event. The problem, of course, is the immense gravitational field near the neutron star. At its surface, we're estimating two hundred billion Earth gravities." "Yes, we've been hearing that number all day. It's beyond comprehension." "Indeed. Now, as I was saying, the one saving feature of the Intruder's presence is its speed. If the sun were homogeneous, then The Intruder collision though the sun's center would probably be survivable. Rough estimates used to tune the real models have The Intruder grabbing about 3% of the sun's mass in the sixty seconds it would be inside our star." "Of course, the sun isn't homogeneous at all. The surface conditions are like a super hot vacuum while the deep core is estimated to have a density a hundred and sixty times that of water. The neutron star passing through the core would be star-killing event. Models are indicating 40% or more of the sun would be absorbed by the Intruder. It's a difficult calculation to make. That much mass exchange would slow the Intruder down, giving it more time to feed." "However, the newest data show that's not going to happen. The Intruder will only pass through relatively low density regions of the outer sun. Mass exchange will be on the order of 1% of solar mass in the twenty to thirty seconds The Intruder will be inside our sun, perhaps even less if we're lucky. The risks are still there of course, just how violent a phenomenon this will turn out to be, but" "Excuse me Professor Kissoff, but we have the mayor about to give us an update on the downtown riots. We now turn..." Hannah had been dialing her parents' number while listening to the news report. She jumped out of her chair and shouted, "I've gotten through again! I've got my parents!" Madison turned off the TV so they could all be in on the conversation. ------- Chapter 9 Five hours later. Time: Saturday, December 22, 2018 10:23 PM "Hi. Maddy said I'd find you here. Mind if I join you?" Mark looked up at Jada and waved his arm to the vacant part of the bench. He was sitting near the center of the pine and spruce park about forty meters east of the circular stairwell. Jada sat on the small bench beside him, quietly holding a plate of food. "Here, try this. You've had nothing to eat since lunchtime." Mark accepted the plate and sandwich without comment and held it on his lap. His gaze returned to the dark overcast skies above. His face was streaked with tears, but as he sighed he spoke with a calm voice. "Unfortunate about the clouds. It would be nice to see the stars. I spent so many hours as a boy in my backyard with my telescope. I miss seeing the stars one last time." Jada sighed back. "I take it you're not as optimistic as the scientists on TV?" Mark shook his head no, sighed again and glanced down at the sandwich. After a moment he took a bite. "Hey, this is good." Another bite. "What's in it?" "Ah, a secret." Another bite. "Yeah?" "Well, not really. It's a Jada Special with chicken and lots of shredded carrot. There are also chopped scallions and I like to mix tarragon and mustard and a few other things into a spread." "You did a great job." "Oh, it was easy. The kitchen upstairs is really a dream. It has everything." She saw Mark staring at her in the dim lights from the buildings. It looked almost like pity. "Mark, what?" "Oh ... Well, truthfully? I was just thinking it was kind of sad. We all got a chance to call someone, got a chance to call loved ones and say goodbye, everyone but you." "Yeah, I'm kind of on my own. I would have wanted to call Emily, but she's already here with me. Don't pity me Mark. I am loved, and I have the person who loves me right here with me. Perhaps I should be the one pitying you." She paused for a moment and looked around the park. It was filled with the dark shadows of the pine trees. "It is pretty here. Do you think you'll be staying out all night?" Mark sighed but didn't answer. He returned to looking at the dark sky and took a deep breath of the cool night air. "Wonderful air tonight. I don't think I've been taking enough time these last few years, time to savor how beautiful the Earth is." Jada inched closer to him. She looked up and breathed deeply herself, and then took a chance and let her open hand rest lightly on Mark's thigh. A moment later she felt his hand in hers. "You're cold Mark! You should put your gloves on." "Yeah. They're back in the lounge somewhere I guess." The time passed quietly. Mark squeezed Jada's hand affectionately. Jada squeezed back. "As your second-in-command, I held a short meeting with the group around ten o'clock." "Hmmm?" "We've all decided to follow your lead. No one wants to spend the last hours of her life watching TV. We turned it off. We've all decided to rest, make use of the dorm rooms on the second floor. They're really lovely rooms." "Do you think you can sleep tonight?" "Well, no, probably not. But I'll try to rest. I was raised Jewish. I'll also try to pray." Jada sighed deeply and looked at the sky again. "That's something I haven't done in years, but I think this is might be good night to start again, huh?" Mark squeezed her hand in reply. She turned to him, moving her head closer to his. "Our plan is to meet at 5 AM in the lounge. Maybe get up earlier and shower or eat something if we want, but for everyone to meet at 5 AM. We're going to have a prayer service. Fatima offered to lead us and we agreed. Do you want to come?" Mark looked at her and nodded. "I'd like that very much." "I've also made a bed up for you, up on the second floor. It's next to the double room Emily and I are sharing." There was another long period of silence. Jada rested her head against his shoulder and sighed. A stiff breeze was blowing through the pine needles, and the night wind sang to them of the beauty of the world and of life. "Mark?" Jada whispered. "Hmmm?" "If you want, I'll stay out here with you tonight." Mark turned and kissed the head that was lying on his shoulder. "That's very sweet of you. But I think you're right, lying down in a warm and comfortable bed sounds nice. Thanks for making one up for me." "Oh, it was my pleasure. Come on, I'll show you your room." Walking hand in hand, the couple left the park. Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 2:47 AM Mark turned uneasily in his sleep, turned again and opened his eyes. He blinked. Jada was sitting in a chair near his bed dressed in a bathrobe. Her eyes were closed, and Mark was just beginning to wonder if she were asleep when she turned her head and gave him a timid hi. Mark smiled at her. "How's it going?" "Oh, I'm okay. I just took another shower. Emily is out like a light. It's very impressive. I promised to wake her at 4:30." She smiled at him. "I saw you managed some sleep too." Mark turned and stared at a clock. "Wow, almost 3 AM. Yeah, I guess I did. I was having the strangest dream ... Hard to remember now..." He looked up at Jada. "You're really okay? Is there anything I can do?" "Well, actually, if you don't mind ... Could you scoot over? Could we lie together?" "Sure. Uh ... I'm not wearing anything." "Oh, I don't mind." Mark moved over under the covers to one side of the large bed, Jada climbed in on the other side and kept a semi-chaste distance away from him. She gave him another timid smile. He smiled back. "So, anyone else asleep besides Emily?" "I don't think so. I'm not sure about Fatima. Her light is on though. I think she's still working on her prayer service. She found pen and paper in a desk at the lounge. And as for your sister and friends, all three of them are back in the TV room catching the latest and greatest. Maddy made some popcorn." Mark grinned. "Yeah, that sounds like Maddy. Anything exciting on at this hour?" Jada gave a quiet laugh. "Right. I was there about an hour ago. The Intruder was approaching three hundred million kilometers from impact. There are some new ideas about how it got this close without being observed. It's not bending the light around it as people expected. There's more bending very close in, and very little bending beyond a hundred kilometers, much less than people expected. "Wow. So it might not be a neutron star?" "Oh, it's a neutron star all right. Small planetary perturbations are already being measured all over the solar system. They're consistent with The Intruder have a mass 1.5 times that of the sun. That Yale guy earlier was right. The speed of this thing will keep orbital damage minimal. If it weren't colliding with the sun, we might actually be okay." Mark saw the sadness in her eyes and kissed her. Jada kissed back and continued. "The afternoon estimate was confirmed, a glancing twenty-second solar impact around 6:11 AM this morning. I think I agree with you Mark. All this optimism is starting to sound like a put-on." They petted each other for a while. Mark tried to absorb what Jada had told him. "Well, I guess there is some reason to hope. That business with the light bending. It seems we don't understand the basic physics of what's about to happen. Maybe we'll get lucky." "Hmmm?" Jada had her eyes closed but she opened them to listen to Mark. "The unexpected lensing of light you mentioned. I'm sure scientists are working on how to interpret the effect. Super gravity is so difficult to theorize about. It's non-linear." "Uh, what do you mean?" "Well, you know how to calculate the energy densities of electric and magnetic fields." "Sure, square the amplitudes." "Yeah, but what's the energy density of a gravitational field? From Einstein, an energy density is a matter density, and matter creates its own gravity. You don't get this in E&M. The equations for light are linear because the photon is not a charged particle. But gravity can create its own gravity. There's never been a way to observe how that non-linearity plays out in reality ... Not until now." Jada gave a deep frown. "I still think we're being deceived about the danger." He took a slow, deep breath. "Yeah. So, how's the world taking it?" "Badly. It's very sad. There's lots of looting and vandalism everywhere, and worse. Estimates are that millions of people are probably already dead. Millions of people, can you imagine? If we survive this, there's going to be an enormous job trying to put things back together. And there's actually a religious war breaking out in the Middle East, different factions trying to be in possession of holy places when the end comes. It's so insane Mark. I don't think our species deserves any divine mercy, not any more." Mark grimaced at the news as raised his arm outside the covers. He began to stroke Jada's hair and head very lightly. Jada looked into his eyes and saw the petting for what it was, an expression of pure affection. She smiled and kissed his hand as it petted near her cheek. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "Hmmm? About what?" "Oh, lots of things. But mostly I'm thinking of things that might have been. I'm thinking of all the time we might have had together, all the joy of getting to know each other and ... Oh Mark, I don't want to die." Her lips trembled and he moved and hugged her, holding her tightly in her bathrobe. Mark began to cry, and Jada joined him. They lay there locked in a fierce embrace, their tears wetting each other's cheeks. And then miraculously, the anguish seemed to pass. They found a profound peace in each other's arms. The softest whisper. "Mark?" "Hmmm?" "Do you want to make love with me?" Mark's eyes blinked open and he gave a soft whimper. "Jada?" "It's our one chance Mark." "I ... Oh ... I don't know ... how I'd perform..." Jada giggled and grabbed the stiff penis pressing into the side of her hip. "Oh, don't worry about that!" "My gosh. I had no idea ... Jada, do you want to?" Jada propped herself up on her elbow and smiled at him. "Sort of. If we do, could you try not to get me pregnant? I might be fertile now. I know it would be a mindless few cells, only an hour or two old, but still, I don't want to create the promise of a new life if I can't fulfill the promise." Mark nodded and raised his hand, caressing the back of Jada's neck and whispering, "My beautiful Jada." She leaned over and rested her head against his chest, her arm draping across his waist. She took a deep breath and then let it out very slowly. "I remember everything, absolutely everything about last night..." "I do too ... It's so strange. The actual experience was so fuzzy, but the memories of it are crystal clear. He sighed and added, "exactly the opposite of how memories usually work." She nodded against his chest and yawned. "I remember your promise Mark." "I do too. It came straight from my heart." "I know. I think my heart realized that immediately and accepted your promise as soon as you gave it. My brain took a little longer. Yesterday morning, can you forgive me for accusing you?" "Sweet Jada, there's nothing to forgive." "I was angry, caught up in a moment of confusion, and you were the only target around that I could park my anger on. But I didn't fear you. I remember being in the bathroom with you, yelling at you, trying to park my anger on you, and there was no fear at all. Stupid me. I should have realized ... that my heart had already accepted your promise. My heart was telling me that there was no need to fear, no reason to run away." Mark stroked her and nodded. "The drug is like a window cleaner. It lets us peer into each other's souls. No lies can exist in such clarity. Jada?" Another yawn from Jada, deeper this time. "Hmmm? Such a privilege Mark, to be loved by two people now..." Her voice was swooning. "There should be no fear of death ... don't you think? ... when you're surrounded by love ... Hmmm, that feels so nice..." Mark was caressing her head and the back of her neck. The moments became a waterfall, a gentle cascade of tenderness and affection and acceptance falling back upon themselves, reflecting and magnifying, creating a bond that reached far beyond their sleepy comprehensions. Jada stirred once, mumbling something unintelligible. Mark thought she was trying to say that she loved him. And then she nestled her head against his chest one last time and did not move again. Her breathing became deep and slow. "Asleep?" Mark whispered after a while. There was no response. His fingers were lightly caressing her back, just below her neck. He stopped the motion and sighed, loving the feel of Jada's soft hair across his chest and the warmth of her body. He closed his eyes and whispered, "My precious love, three's the charm ... Another promise. Ask me again," he yawned, "if there is a future. I won't refuse you a third time." Another yawn and he realized he was falling asleep himself, and with the most beautiful woman in the world. He chuckled to himself. "Wow, two nights in a row. It feels so incredible to sleep with her." He was almost asleep, but one important thought still felt in need of being formed. "I think I disagree with you Jada. Perhaps we don't deserve divine mercy, but we should still ask for it. We have been commissioned to hope, under a mantel of mercy..." It was his last conscious thought before joining Jada in her dreams. ------- Chapter 10 Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 4:48 AM At eighty-three minutes before impact, The Intruder's distance to the sun was the same as Venus's, slightly over 108 million kilometers. Further out in the solar wind, massive changes were already occurring, but at the sun's surface and interior, the effects of the visitor were still quite subtle. A theoretical mass at the surface of the sun would experience a force almost 28 Earth gravities pulling down, balanced by a combined mass and radiation pressure gradient pushing outward. The pull of The Intruder was miniscule in comparison, 0.0017 Earth gravities. But the sun's internal structure was in harmony with its gravity, while The Intruder's gravity was a linear wave-front cutting across all the solar layers of radial symmetry. The sun began to grumble at the disturbance. Under the urgings of the rest of the group, Mark had come from his shower directly to the lounge dressed in only a bathrobe from his bedroom linen supply. Fatima had showered just before him and was still in her dorm room. Everyone else was waiting, five young women in white bathrobes. Mark sat down on the floor and helped form a large circle, Jada on his left and Madison on his right. He grinned as he looked around at his friends. "Looks as if we're creating a new world religion, the Order of the White Robes." Madison lightly punched his right arm. "Oh come on Mark. Do you really want to get back into used clothes, considering what's about to happen?" Mark blinked and looked around the circle. This felt so incredibly unique. He thought that all their deaths were almost certainly approaching, and yet everyone around him seemed calm and at peace and even playful. He made a promise to himself that he would say nothing that would break the magic. Hannah spoke up. "We were watching the news last night. WCAX was having quite a time of it. They lost power twice due to the rioting. We finally switched to WABC from New York. The scientists spent their time talking about what the long-term impact of The Intruder's visit would be. The station kept stressing the scenario of a 1% loss of solar mass." Hannah's eyes filled with desperate hope. "They kept showing plots of the sun's structure. The Intruder might not even reach the convective zone. It'll spend all its twenty seconds in the chromosphere layers, maybe a few seconds in the photosphere. That's not so bad, is it Mark? They say the Intruder won't get within a half million kilometers of the sun's core. That's more than the distance between the Earth and moon. That's a huge distance to miss by, isn't it Mark?" Ashley spoke up before Mark could answer. She appeared eager to join in the conversation. "Net power output of the sun is going to stabilize at a value about 4% less than what it is now. And Earth was scheduled for solar perihelion at 10 AM our time, January 3rd next year. That'll happen later now. The Earth is keeping its angular momentum but getting a small radial kick inward from the brief presence of The Intruder. Perihelion will now occur later in the year, and Earth's orbit will be slightly more elliptical, and a bit farther out on average due to the sun's decreased mass. A radial kick at perihelion or aphelion, that what makes the orbit more elliptic. If The Intruder had come in early April or October, it might have made our orbit more circular." Hannah finished the summary. "And our orbital period should increase slightly. We might need leap years more often. Should be interesting, working out the new calendar, don't you think? And the net effect will be a cooler Earth. There were a number of scientists saying The Intruder will undo all the effects of global warming over the last century, maybe even overshoot just a little bit beyond it. That doesn't sound so bad, does it Mark? My parents have a vacation home in Florida, at Playalinda Beach. It's so beautiful there, so nice and warm. We're gonna be okay, aren't we Mark?" Mark stared at her and gulped, desperate not to reveal his own near certainty that they were entering the last hour of their lives. "Uh, yeah. It sounds like we might be okay." Fatima showed up a minute later. It was just before 5 AM and she was carrying some notes. Mark blinked. She was wearing a big, fluffy bathrobe, just like the rest of them, bare lower calves and feet, thick chestnut hair falling to her shoulders. She glanced at Mark staring at her and grinned back as she sat down, tucking her legs underneath her. "I knew you'd be surprised Mark, but I've thought about this quite a bit last night. I thought that in this last hour before impact, it's appropriate for me to accept you all as family. You are my brother and sisters. My lack of a headscarf is a symbol of this." She looked around the group. "Okay to begin?" Getting nods back, she turned to look at her notes but then changed her mind, putting them aside and beginning to speak from her heart. "During the night, I found my mind turning to thoughts of the world's religions, all our different ways of building a relationship with our Creator. I got to thinking about our differences and our common ground, both in our doctrines and in our governance. Somehow ... Somehow the world seems to focus only on the differences. And I think that's tragic." "I'd like to tell you about my religion. Islam comes from the Arabic root Salema. It's a word combining the concepts of peace, purity, and obedience to God. I know that a lot of Westerners snicker at this definition, and given the wonton violence being done in the name of Islam, I think their ridicule has some validity. The lovers of death and brutality, they have lost the true meaning of their creed." "So, I start with Islam and see the principle of Salema. I look at Judaism and see the principle of justice, grounding our lives in goodness and law. I look at Christianity and see the principles of forgiveness and redemption, grounding our lives in love and appreciation of the value of and in ourselves and our neighbors. I have a close friend who is a Buddhist. There I see the principle of letting go, seeking spiritual freedom by renouncing our jealousies and our fixations on possessions." "My brother and sisters, aren't we all seeking the same God? We have a different focus perhaps, and a different way of joining our beliefs to our social contract. But think! All the principles I've mentioned are at the cores of all of our faiths. We pick different perspectives and customs, and then we start fighting over our differences. How can we do this? Why do we give in to our base desires to form tribes? Think of all the joy we can share in our common ground." Fatima gave a sigh so deep it sounded almost like a mournful cry. "How can we be so petty? How can we be so cruel that we mock one another over our differences? We should be rejoicing in our diversity, and looking for the best our different creeds have to offer. But in reality we degrade the people outside of our religions, using words like Gentile or Heathen or Infidel. And even within our religions, we degrade people who try to critique our beliefs. We use words like heretic and apostate." Fatima looked around the circle and gulped. She realized she had everyone's rapt attention. She took a second to glance out the windows at the pitch black night outside. "So, I thought in this hour of darkness, I would tell you of my faith journey, spend a few minutes and tell you as my dear brother and sisters about my relationship with my Creator and Lord. And then I'd like for us to go around the circle and for everyone to do the same. My prayer is that in the next hour, we will find our common ground. We will then face our Creator's judgment as one family, at peace and united in the common ground of our purity and obedience." Fatima took a deep breath and began talking of her life as the young daughter of farmers, growing up in the northern town of Abdali, Kuwait with the Iraq war just next door. Time: 5:30 AM As observed from Earth, The Intruder was 57 million kilometers from sun, the average radius of the orbit of Mercury. Its presence was felt by the sun as a gravitational pull of 0.6% Earth gravity, probably below the threshold of what most people would notice in a vertically upward force. But The Intruder's gravitational pull was combining with its electromagnetic fields and triggering a feedback loop between the sun's top layers and the much thicker convective zone beneath. The combined fields provided the tipping force needed to trigger a self-organizing plasma phenomenon. Much earlier than the Earth scientists had anticipated, a massive solar flare erupted outward from the sun's surface nearest The Intruder, driven not by gravity but by the clash of the two stars' electromagnetic fields. An intense linear beam of x-rays was launched by the solar phenomenon, radiation destined to be focused into the Intruder's gravity well three minutes later. The ionized particles of the solar flare were traveling much more slowly, a mere 2000 km/sec, and were still being driven by the eruption of electromagnetic forces. The domination of these forces would not last. At the same moment, Jada finished her speech. She had been crying and holding hands tightly with Mark for the last several minutes, revealing things she had thought she had buried forever. Wiping the tears from her eyes on the sleeve of her bathrobe, she leaned on Mark and nodded to him that she was finished. He put his arm around her and began to talk. Time: 5:53 PM Twenty-five million kilometers above its impact point with the solar surface, The Intruder began to awaken from its ageless slumber. The massive hard x-ray flux from the rupturing sun was being Doppler shifted towards gamma-ray energies by The Intruder's gravitational well. Energy lost for billions of years was suddenly available again, and great resonance waves within the degenerate neutrons began to form. The quantum-coupled waves on the spherical surface were mountainous by neutron star standards. They were almost a millimeter high. And above the surface of the sun, the leading tip of the solar flare was now almost three million kilometers above the surface of the sun. The flare had grown in unprecedented speed and size, and was driven by the electromagnetic polarity between the two stars. The particles within the flare were actually still accelerating, their equations of motion dominated by bi-stellar self-focusing magnetic flux. The lead particles at the front of the flare were still within the domain of the sun's gravity well. They had 1.3 Earth gravities urging them to return to the sun, and 0.04 Earth gravities urging them upward. Ashley was the last speaker, and she had just finished a very short speech. She was sitting motionless looking miserable. She had only said a few sentences and felt deeply distressed she had nothing more to say. Her parents had once told her the names of the denominations they were raised in, names she had long since forgotten. That was sum total of her religious training. She couldn't remember her parents ever wanting to go to a worship service. For her speech she tried to say a few words about how she would make moral decisions when she had to. Mark had never seen anyone looking more embarrassed. He got up and sat right in front of her and hugged her around the shoulders and upper back. "Hey Ashley, it's okay." He moved in very close, and whispered something for her ear alone. "The time for shame is over. We're facing the future as one family now. Whatever happens next, it happens to all of us together." "You really think so Mark? Are you really that sure?" she whispered back. She looked at him, and then Jada and Fatima who had gathered round and placed hands upon her shoulders. "You people seemed to have your act so much more together..." She gave a quiet sob. "Yeah, I'm sure." Inside his mind Mark was in brief turmoil over Ashley's question. The concept of intercessory prayer was something Mark stayed from in his spiritual life. He had tried to tackle the issue once in high school, wondering about the idea of one person's faith making another person acceptable to God. In the end, he came away with was the conviction that he just wouldn't try to place limits on God's understanding of mercy and justice. But this was not the time for that discussion, not with Ashley trembling in his arms. In all purity, he kissed her cheek and said, "Is there anything we can do to make this easier for you?" She looked up again and nodded immediately. "I feel so blind here. We're all cut off in this stupid mall. Could we go see how the rest of the world is doing?" "Yeah," added Hannah. "I'd like to know too." Madison also nodded. Mark looked and Fatima and Jada and Emily and got brief nods. It was not how they would have chosen to spend their last moments, but as a gift to the three youngest members of their group, they all headed down to the TV room. Time: 6:04 AM The Intruder was ten million kilometers and seven minutes from its impact with the sun's chromosphere, as viewed by an observer on Earth. The tip of the sun's flare now formed an arc halfway between the two mismatched stars. The lead particles were still traveling at non-relativistic speeds, 3000 km/sec, much slower than oncoming Intruder velocity of 23,000 km/sec. But a great cosmic vacuum cleaner was on a direct collision course with the flare. The particle wave-front was about to undergo a profound transformation. Jada looked around the multi-media room as Madison began working the TV controls. It was much more than a TV room, she realized. At the opposite side of the room near the pine trees, there was a small raised amateur stage. People could give small recitals or plays here if they wanted. There was also a small piano nearby, or perhaps it was a harpsichord. Jada looked at the north and south walls of the room. They were covered with sound diffusers. She decided that perhaps the area was designed to be a music room, in spite of the super-sized TV. After some fiddling, Madison found Burlington's local TV stations were off the air, and shockingly so were the major news channels of New York. But WGBH of Boston was still available. The group sat comfortably on the firm, slightly springy floor and quickly became mesmerized by the drama before them. " ... like the feeder bands of a hurricane! Great waves of x-rays are blasting the atmosphere here above London at this very moment. Are you still receiving my signal Chet?" "Yes Roland. The satellites are out but the undersea cable is still working. And we're still getting the visuals from the Cambridge University telescope courtesy of the BBC. My God, what a sight! That flare is what, four times the length of the diameter of the sun?!" "Yes, that's what the newsroom here is telling me. And remember, what we're seeing now is what has happened eight minutes ago. At the sun itself, The Intruder has already exited the sun a minute ago. Somehow I find that comforting. The worst is yet to come, yet in a sense the worst is already over!" "Comforting words indeed Roland. And I'm amazed again by the number of people still in the streets of London. It's hard to imagine there were evacuation riots there yesterday." "I know. What a tragic loss of life. And the scientists are saying it was completely unnecessary. They say the atmosphere is a superb insulator against the radiation from this phenomenon. There's very little ... Wow!!! Look at that!" "What that flash real Roland?" "I believe it was! For just a second, the northern part of the London sky was lit up like the aurora borealis, and it's after 10 AM here! These x-ray bursts must really be something!" Time 6:08 AM From Earth's perspective, The Intruder was still four million kilometers and three minutes from impact with the solar chromosphere, but it already had a direct pipeline to solar material. The ejected material from the sun was becoming moderately relativistic as it gained more than 20% light velocity before slamming into the oncoming impenetrable neutron floor at the bottom of the gravitational well. Hidden in the maelstrom was an emergent phenomenon totally unexpected by Earth's scientists, the bifurcation into helical spirals of the solar flare in its last ten kilometers above The Intruder's surface. The phenomenon was rooted in quantum gravity and driven by the astronomical entropy gradient of the solar flare collapsing into The Intruder's voracious funnel. The phenomenon could never be witnessed by a human. It could only be created in conditions that would instantly kill any human with lethal radiation and gravity. But if a human could witness such a sight, perhaps he would say it resembled a set of coiled springs, waiting to be unleashed. Mark had his left arm around Jada and his right around his sister Madison. Ashley frowned and pushed her way in, resting her head in Mark's lap, still looking glued to the events unfolding on the TV. She nestled her head into the comfort of his lap, and then glanced up briefly, her eyes asking permission if this were okay. Mark nodded yes. Time: 06:10:20 AM, forty-three seconds before baseline solar impact, viewed from an observer on Earth The Intruder was one million kilometers away from the original unperturbed surface of the sun. The distance was less than one solar diameter, and there was approximate gravitational parity in the region of closest contact. Freed at last from its gravitational prison, the chromosphere was exploding upward into the waiting embrace of the gravity well above. Great shifts were occurring in both stars as additional exotic quantum-gravity resonance phenomena began to unfold. Time 60:10:50 AM "Wow! Did you see that?! The whole sky was lit up by a blinding flash of green! And the air! It's so amazing. The air here is filled with the sound of rolling thunder, and I smell ozone. The odor is very sharp." "Roland, take care of yourself. Do you have shelter nearby?" "Oh, we're only seconds from the scheduled impact time. It's too late now. I can see so many people in the streets below. It looks like they're running for shelter! My God! Did you see that?! The biggest one yet! My God! And another!" ... A screaming shout at the top of his lungs, "MY GOD!" There was a burning image of the man trying to duck down, his face contorted in pain, his body melting, and then the transmission failed. "Mark!" wailed Hannah. She had been sitting behind him, and she threw her arms around him, hugging him to tightly he could hardy breath. She began sobbing heavily, pressing her face against the back of his bathrobe. Mark felt great shudders rack her body. "I'm so sorry Mark!" "Sorry for what?" Mark thought frantically, "dragging us down here to watch this?!" "Find peace Hannah!" he managed to shout. It was the only thing he could think of saying. Impact Time: The Intruder plunged into the raised and torn surface of the chromosphere. Matter interface and flow rates increased a thousand fold. The super-charged entropy flows unleashed the graviton-degenerate springs coiled at The Intruder's surface. The coils aligned with the sun's gravitational gradients and were at the sun's core seconds after solar impact, and by this time they were thicker than the diameter of the Earth, great pulsing tendrils of kink-mode self-focusing quantum-graviton flows. The image that would perhaps come to a human mind would be that of a small whaling boat harpooning a much larger whale with multiple lines. In this case the whaling boat was the neutron star and the whale the core of the sun. The tendrils eagerly sought and embedded themselves into the rich dense mass of the stellar core, deep in the very heart of the sun. And then the tendrils allowed a momentum interchange based on a quantum-graviton resonance unknown to Earth scientists. The millimeter sized mountains at The Intruder's surface beneath the tendrils bulged to meter heights as the tiny star began to brake and turn, pivoting against the spiraling bands of tendrils, locking the sun with an irresistible embrace. There was stone silence in the WGBH newsroom in Boston, staring at the dead feed from the BBC London office. The Boston offices faced east. They were still an hour from sunrise, still almost a half hour from the beginning of predawn twilight. Suddenly the eastern horizon and then the entire Boston sky were the brightest, bluest color imaginable. The world for an instant was a universe of sparkling blue clarity, and then everything in the scene including the people seemed to turn into translucent crystals. An instant later the transmission ended. "Great God, accept us!" cried Jada. The group of seven collapsed into a tight ball of frightened humanity, arms and legs stretching out to lock with all the others as quickly and completely as possible. Fatima's prayer had become physical reality. They would meet God as one united family. They struggled in the few seconds they had remaining, hands reaching out, desperate to hold shoulders and waists, feet and legs stretching to lock with each other. Mark's right hand was free. A foot was dangling nearby. He reached out and gently held the foot. It was warm and relaxed, a foot without fear. "Fatima," he thought instantly. He was absolutely sure of it. How he knew he wasn't certain, but it was her foot. There was no doubt at all. Miraculously they were being granted a few extra seconds to complete the inter-shield they were attempting to make. They would shield each other with their bodies from the blinding blue light of harvest. From a physical perspective, the gesture was absolute futility. But from a spiritual perspective, Mark felt it was the most righteous and correct decision he had ever made. It was the final gift he would ever make, gifting his body to shield his beloved family around him, and accepting the gifts of their shielding bodies in return. Mark took a final deep breath and focused on a profound thought from Jada, that there should be no fear of death when you are surrounded by love. The woman he had known and loved for such a short time was pressing fiercely against his left side, and they would shield each other into eternity. Mark realized his heart was at peace. He waited for eternity to come. ------- Chapter 11 Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 6:11 AM And they waited. Mark was near the center of the pile, and as the seconds quietly ticked by, he began to get a bit warm from the surrounding female mass of humanity. Miracle upon miracle, he was even being given time to grin. Death might not be pleasant, but what the heck, he was checking out while being hugged by six young and beautiful women, and they were wearing only bathrobes! He grinned again and dared the universe to come up with a nicer way for a guy to go. Apparently the universe couldn't come up with anything, not anything at all, not a nicer way to go, not even this way to go. The ground floor windows remained black, the world outside quiet and peaceful. A tree outside swayed in the wind for a moment, but then the motion died down. Mark became aware he was absentmindedly caressing a foot with his right hand. "Oh yeah," he thought, "Fatima." He had his thumb over the top of the foot, and his other fingers were rubbing her instep up and down. The toes on the foot were curling to the rhythm of his caress. Mark didn't know if Fatima liked was he was doing, or was being tickled by it and was too polite to protest. He let go of the foot. The toes curled very deliberately one more time, and then the foot moved away. Mark thought for a moment how to interpret the gesture. He finally decided that the toes were waving goodbye to him. Hannah released her death grip on his chest and was the first to stand up. Mark took a deep breath and was the second. He looked down and saw a mass of cute female bodies struggling to untangle themselves. "Strange how the mind works," he thought. "A moment ago this was the most righteous act imaginable, but now I'm noticing a bunch of cute legs." Mark turned around and smiled at Hannah and gave the other women some privacy until they stood up. He grinned at Hannah and sighed, thinking that perhaps there was a minor problem with Fatima's religion. "Purity might be a divinely noble goal, but darn it, the male human mind just doesn't seem wired to keep it for any length of time." Hannah stared at him. "So Mark, you're the physics major. What's going on?" "No idea. He walked to the window and looked out. "The sky is still very dark. I can see a little light reflecting off the clouds, either from the buildings here or Burlington. I would guess it's from Burlington." He paused for a moment. "I think the wind changed direction. I think it's blowing in from the east now." "A lot of turbulence from the east?" Emily called out in a worried voice. "No. From the east, but it looks fairly peaceful. The pine trees are barely moving." He paused. "The skies look as if they might be clearing. Maybe we'll see the stars soon." Ashley echoed Hannah's question. "So how come we're not dead?" "Yeah. Honestly Ashley, I don't know." Madison was deep in thought, and then she blurted out, "Mark, could it have been a hoax?" Mark blinked. It had seemed so real. What a question! "Sis, try reaching mom on the phone." Ashley piped up. "If it were a hoax, it's not just us being duped. My parents believed in the neutron star yesterday. They wouldn't lie to me." "Mine neither," said Hannah firmly. Mark frowned. "I don't think it was a hoax. That last image, I'll remember it forever. I think I could see the skeletal frames of the people right through their bodies. The awful blue light was that intense." "Oh, you could fake an effect like that very easily," countered Madison. "And it wouldn't be that hard to fake voices on phone calls either," said Jada as she straightened her bathrobe. Mark turned to her. "Yikes! That's a horrible thought Jada. I spoke to both my parents last night." Jada countered, "Or you only thought you did." Mark felt a rising tide of distress. "Hell, it seems so paranoid to think like that. It implies a massive conspiracy. The planning, the preparation ... Jada, do you really think we're being duped?" She turned and faced him directly. "Well, look at it this way, there either was or was not a neutron star. Okay?" "Yeah, okay. Can't argue with that." "If there really were a neutron star, and we thought the Earth was toast and we saw the Earth being toasted, then this place is a fake Earth. It's not Earth. However, if the neutron star scenario from the TV and phone calls were faked, then this is Earth and we've been had." "Oh hell..." "Exactly Mark. Which scenario is more believable? What's easier to fake, a new world, or TV images and a few phone calls?" Emily piped up. "Jada, you're forgetting how whacky the underground mall is. I said this to Mark yesterday, the place is right out of The Twilight Zone." Mark didn't know what to think. He turned to his sister. "Any luck with mom?" Madison shook her head no, and then dialed again. Ashley's phone started ringing. It was Madison testing the line. "We still have local service Mark, but when I try to dial Burlington, I get a dead response. This is different than before. There's no ring tone, no error message, nothing." "Yeah, okay." "Mark," asked Fatima. "How much farther are we away from sunrise here, compared to Boston?" "Uh, let me think ... We're about three hundred kilometers from Boston. This time of year, I would guess sunrise here might be, gee, I don't know, fifteen minutes later? Just a guess." "Mark, I spoke to my brother Amjad last night. We made references to some very personal family history. It is incomprehensible to me that the person I was talking to was not my brother." "Yeah. I feel the same way about talking to my mom and dad. But Jada has a good point." Fatima shook her head. "I just can't accept that. I think somewhere in that fifteen minutes, that 300 km, the blue light stopped." "Well..." Mark felt deeply troubled. The light was moving so fast. It had seemed to travel from the Boston horizon to filling the sky in a second's time. Could such an explosive shock wave of light really attenuate so quickly as to leave the Burlington area in peace? Somehow it seemed extremely unlikely. While they were speaking, Ashley flopped down into one of the plush TV lounge couches and closed her eyes, groaning slightly. Madison looked at her. "Hey Ashley, you okay?" Ashley closed her eyes and groaned slightly. "I feel as if I've hit a brick wall. And maybe I ate too much..." She suddenly stopped and gave what appeared to be a painful burp, and then tried to make a joke of it. "Memo to self," she announced. "Never face death with a stomach full of popcorn." Madison also felt groggy and she rubbed her eyes. "Yeah," she replied, "I'm beat myself." Madison looked around the room. "Did anybody get any sleep last night?" Emily, Jada, and Mark raised their hands. Madison smiled and bowed to them. "Amazing. The wisdom of the aged." "Yeah," answered her brother. He studied his sister closely. "You look pretty tired sis. Why don't you try to get some rest?" Madison nodded and yawned. "That sounds like a really good idea. I've pulled all-nighters before," another yawn, "but never anything like this. What an emotional roller-coaster. And now the ride has ended." Madison looked around and yawned a third time. "Hey Ashley, move over." Madison flopped down next to her friend and leaned against her. Mark thought both women looked desperate for some sleep. Hannah and Fatima were also looking beat. So... Time for a meeting! "Everybody, please, gather round. I'll try to keep this short." Mark gave everyone the option of sacking out till noon time, with Mark staying up and keeping guard. Everyone except Emily and Jada gratefully accepted. They talked briefly about relaxing the rules for staying together, and how the people staying awake might pick up some fresh clothes for everybody from the mall. Emily recorded a few clothes sizes, and then Mark closed the meeting. By 6:40 AM, four sleepy members were back in their beds while the remaining three where in the west end of the pantry washing everyone's clothes in two the industrial sized washers. Jada stared thoughtfully at the churning masses of clothes through the clear glass. "You know, these Kappa Alpha boys must be incredibly rich. Everything about this place is beyond first-class. These washers, they're better than anything I've ever seen in Laundromats. This is what I'd expect to see in the White House basement or something..." She turned to her friends. "And do you notice we still have power? Does anybody know, is this mall supposed to have its own power supply?" Mark answered. "I don't know. But the idea of a mall this size having backup power sounds reasonable. Can you imagine crowds of people down below and then the lights go out?" Emily stared at him as if he had just lost his mind. "Mark?!" Mark paused and shook his head and accepted the rebuke. "What I'm I saying?! That place is unreal no matter how you look at it." Emily sighed. "One thing for sure though, the mall is an incredibly useful resource now. It represents a huge store of supplies. Assuming the neutron star was real, this place is going to be a key hub for getting the surrounding area back on it's ... Shit! Why the hell aren't there National Guard troops here to stop looting?! They must know how extensively this mall is packed!" Jada shivered. "Another reason to doubt everything and assume nothing while we're here. This place still gives me the creeps." But Mark rather enjoyed Emily's idea. "It's probably not that surprising the troops aren't here yet. It's only been thirty minutes since zero hour. But maybe all we have to do is wait for them." "Don't make assumptions Mark," Jada warned. Emily felt so confused she decided to try to end the debate. "So, what's next?" Mark smiled cheerfully. "Well, I know what I want to do." "Sleep?" asked Emily. Mark shook his head and looked at the clock, 6:43 AM. "Predawn twilight should start in a few minutes. Let's grab some chairs and watch the return of an old friend." A few minutes they got glasses of fresh orange juice from the kitchen frig and sat down in a comfortable dining area by the kitchen's eastern windows. Time: 7:07 AM "What do you think Mark?" asked Emily. "Anything at all? I think maybe I'm seeing something." Mark had a very worried look on his face. "I think we should be twenty minutes till sunrise. Unbelievable. This doesn't look anything like twenty minutes to sunrise." Jada tried to sound optimistic. "I think I agree with Emily. The southeastern horizon has a touch of light to it." Mark shook his head. "Nowhere near as much as it should." He looked at the kitchen clock, and then checked his phone. "Hey! The kitchen clock is running two minutes faster than my Leophone's clock." Emily looked at him. "So?" "Well, when we were coming to the party, Madison and Ashley had a short debate about which party to pick. I amused myself by synching my phone to the clock on the elevator. Now I'm..." He punched a few buttons. " ... one minute and forty-six seconds slow, compared to mall time." Jada looked at him. "I think I agree with Emily. So what?" "Uh, I'm not sure. But I'm losing about a minute a day. That's a lot, don't you think?" Jada shrugged. "Better that than losing eternity by losing the sun." Time: 7:52 AM "Looks as if dawn is breaking just about now," Mark whispered. "Just give it a few more minutes, and the sun should clear the buildings." Mark, Jada, and Emily were standing at the southern vertex just to the south of the lounge, staring intently at the southeastern sky. Sunrise was at least twenty minutes overdue, but it was finally happening. The group thought the southern vertex location would give the best view of the celestial event. Jada had propped a chair to hold the vestibule door open so they could get back inside. "Look how pretty the sky is," remarked Jada. "It's not just the normal blue, not all of it anyway. We have shades of teal and pastel greens mixed in. It's quite lovely." Emily nodded. "I take it everybody noticed the blue numbers on the elevator? The displaying is reading 028:108. The first number dropped by one." Jada sighed. "I wonder if our conjecture about the numbers meaning the number of men and women here at the mall is correct. We started out with 037:112, and now it's 028:108. Is the implication that guys are having an easier time leaving this place than women?" Emily nodded. "Yeah, and another mystery, think of all the people that left It's My Party. It's been a day and a half and not one of them has come back. But they didn't all leave the mall either, not if the numbers mean what we think they mean. So where are they?" Mark answered. "Oh, it's not hard to imagine. All it would take would be one door that only opens from one side. Maybe they're locked out of coming back. Hell, here's a one-way door right outside our lounge. For all we know, maybe they did come back and we never knew it." Jada frowned. "You think they were right outside? You're saying they just wandered off again?" "Why not? Folks, we'll have to be very careful if we start exploring above ground. Maybe we should take a bunch of wooden sticks with us when we do, something to prop doors open. Look! I can see the tip of the sun through the oval walkway! What a great sight!" Jada ignored the view. "Mark, before we start exploring what's outside this hexagon, don't you think we should finish seeing what's downstairs?" "Yes, absolutely. I'm in no rush to start wandering this maze," he replied, idly waving his hand at the walkways before them. His mind was becoming puzzled by the sun. "I agree," added Emily. She paused for a moment. "This sunrise really is quite beautiful. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning, right? Look how the oranges are mixing in with the teals. This is really a picture postcard sunrise, so unusual." She turned to Mark. "So, fearless leader, what's on the agenda for today?" "Well, waiting around a bit for the National Guard to show up might be a reasonable plan." Mark frowned and turned his head to the side. He raised his hand and tried to get a closer look at the sunrise. "And perhaps one of us could stand guard while the other two make a quick trip to the mall down below. There's a Sports Authority next to Candy Warehouse." His frown deepened. "Maybe we could pickup some knock-around clothes for everybody ... Jada? Emily?" "Hmmm?" Jada replied. "Is it the glass? The sun seems too big." They were observing the first light of the rising through a transparent walkway perhaps two hundred meters away. The sun was just cresting over the oval glass. "My gosh, you're right. I don't see how it could be the glass." Emily spoke up. "We'll see better in another minute. Mark?" "Yeah?" "There's another reason our party might not have returned here. Maybe they're simply lost. The human mind is used to thinking in orthogonal east-west, north-south orientations. Wandering around on a hexagonal grid, you're always making sixty-degree turns, never ninety-degree turns. And they wandered off before the drug hit ... hit them ... Oh my God Mark!" she screamed. "Look at the sun!" The sun was huge. It was cresting above the top of the glass walkway now and giving a clear view of its curvature. The apparent diameter was double that of the normal sun. And its color was noticeably more orange. It was still golden sunlight, but not the butter yellow they were used to. This morning's light had a definite tint of reddish orange mixed in with the butter yellow. The net effect was quite striking against the teal colors of the sky. Then the last of the haze cleared and the sun became too bright to look at directly. "What do you think it means Mark?" Jada whispered. "This is no fake," he whispered back. "Which means the neutron star was no fake." He paused and then hissed, "My gosh, look at the size of that thing!" ------- Chapter 12 Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 9:21 AM "So what's it going to be Emily, the yellow sweatshirt or the red one?" Mark was on the first floor of the Sport's Authority store, rooting through racks of clothes and speaking on his phone. Jada was hunting on the floor above him for some other items. "Oh, it's so difficult to decide without seeing them," Emily replied in a teasing tone of voice. Mark thought he could hear her grinning over the phone. "Emily, you are more difficult to shop for than my sister." Emily laughed. "You know what I look like Mark. What do you think?" "Seriously? I think you'd look great in either." "Really? Okay, that settles it. Bring both." "You got it." Mark added the two items to his backpack. He was also carrying two large duffle bags that were almost full. "Everything still peaceful up there?" "Yeah. More than peaceful actually. Gorgeous." Emily had spent the last forty minutes around the great circular stairwell of their new home, idly walking the stairs and acting as a guard for the people sleeping upstairs and also as a bridge to the team below. She had walked outside to the cobblestones on the first floor exit and was staring at the huge swimming pool to the west. Her walkway was separated from the pool's stone perimeter by only thirty meters of fine sand. "You wouldn't believe how nice it's getting out here Mark. The sun is warm, the air is super nice to breath, and the temperature must be pushing 15C. If it gets any warmer, I going to be tempting to uncover the pool and dive in." Mark laughed. "Dress and all?" "Actually, I've got my dress open on top now. I'm down to my bra." Mark couldn't help but grin at the image. "Wow, aren't you cold?" "Nah. Before my parents died, I lived in Alaska. Mark, the sun feels really nice, maybe even better than before." "That's an interesting comment. One second, I found my last item for Hannah ... Okay, what do you mean by better?" "I get sunburn easily. I can feel it when I've had enough sun. I feel tingly. But I've been out here now for a while and my skin is just loving this." Mark sighed. "I still can't believe the sun stabilized so quickly after its encounter with The Intruder. I would have guessed a hundred thousand of years to settle down, given what we were seeing in London and Boston." "Wow, that long?" "I think so. It really should take that long to reestablish the radial layers and their equilibrium with the radiative pressure." "So what do you think happened?" "I'm baffled. There must be some major-league physics going on here that nobody knows anything about. From the color of the sun, I'm guessing it's running at a lower temperature than before. I'm flabbergasted that the sun has gotten so large, and absolutely astonished with its stability." "So we got lucky, huh?" "Yeah, I guess." "Mark, there's something by the pool." Mark's heart froze for a second, and then he realized Emily was speaking in an easy, unconcerned voice. "Oh, you mean those boxy things?" "Uh huh. I thought they might be barbeque grills from upstairs. But now that I'm this close, I don't think that's it. I'm tempted to go over and take a look." "Uh, wait till we get back, okay?" They had talked about this before Mark and Jada went back into Red Mall. They would relax their rules about staying together a bit, but do no new exploring without the full team present. They hadn't even checked out the remainder of the first floor. Mark had that planned as an early afternoon activity, assuming the National Guard didn't show up first. Emily agreed to Mark's request. "Yeah, okay. I'm telling you Mark, it's gonna be a warm one today." "There are some bathing suits upstairs with Jada. Want her to pick one out for you?" "Wow, seriously?!" Mark had actually been joking, but he thought for a moment and answered, "Sure, why not?" "Okay! Jada knows my tastes. Ask her to find me a bikini, nothing too risqué though." "Right. We're nearly finished. See you soon." A half hour later... Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 9:54 AM Jada locked the door to the mall and hiked up the stairwell with Mark. They met Emily by the first floor exit to the parks. Mark was momentarily struck with both disappointment and relief when he saw that Emily had her party dress back on. But then she started taking their bundles, and he didn't have time to sort out the strange collisions in his emotions. Emily gave them both a cheerful smile and said, "I'll carry all this up the rest of the way. Why don't you two step outside for a moment and see how nice it is?" Jada nodded. "Okay, thanks. Most of your stuff is in the red duffle." A moment later Emily gave a last wave from the second story and Mark and Jada stepped outside. They walked into the soft sand and just enjoyed the fresh air and the warm sunlight for a long moment. Mark finally broke the silence. "Emily was right. It is gorgeous out here." Jada gave a quick nod without looking at him. "I agree, I would guess almost 15C. Mark?" He took another deep breath, enjoying the sweet air. "Hmmm?" "Two days ago, I didn't even know you." Mark turned and looked at Jada closely. "Yes, I know. And I think I know what you want to say..." "I don't want to diminish anything that's between ... anything that's happened. It's just that it's been such a roller-coaster. I'm feeling really strange emotionally. I was wondering..." Mark gulped as his heart seemed to skip a beat. There as a long moment of silence that seemed to stretch on forever. He finally said, "Jada, it's okay. We're under no obligations to each other." "Oh, it's not that, not exactly ... Well, maybe it is. Oh hell, am I making any sense?" Mark grinned in spite of his fear. "I think I understand. Do you want to try ... just being friends for a while?" It hurt him to ask this, but he tried to say it in a neutral tone. "Oh no, not unless you want to. I guess what I'm trying to say is, can we just try to slow things down a little?" She stared into Mark's eyes. And saw his eyes become filled with hope. "Sure. Can I still think of you as my girlfriend?" "Of course, assuming ... My gosh Mark, do you really want me that much?" He nodded with a big grin on his face. Jada gave a timid smile back. "You don't know the baggage I'm carrying." Mark gave a brief frown. "Well, maybe I don't know the baggage you think you're carrying. Jada, I've had the privilege to see into your soul. In all honestly, everything I saw was beautiful." His happy grin was back. And the grin was contagious. Jada finally laughed back. "Oh, I bet you tell that to all the girls you sleep with!" "As a matter of fact, you're right. But it's also true you're the first one." Jada took a deep breath, feeling unexpectedly pleased with this revelation. "I am huh? Can I ask? Are you a virgin?" He nodded. "I've have dated, and gotten a bit sexy with ... Well, nothing like our first night together." "Have you ever gotten serious with a girl? About marriage I mean." Mark paused for a moment and idly kicked some sand off the cobblestones with his foot. He decided to be completely honest. "There was one. We dated a lot in high school. I thought maybe we would marry one day. But..." "Yeah?" "It didn't last. She went off the Boston University. We wrote letters for a while. I came to realize I was expecting a lot more things from her than she was from me." "Ah. Yeah, that happens. I was dating in high school too. I got rejected too, under some really bizarre circumstances. I know how much that can hurt. But now I have you as my boyfriend?" She tried to ask in a neutral voice, but her eyes betrayed her. Mark gave her a big grin and nod. She smiled back and offered her hand. "Good! Let's take it from there and see what happens." Hand in hand, they turned around and headed back to the second level. Time: 1:02 PM Except for the lack of anybody showing up, Mark thought the day was progressing well. The rest of the team looked very refreshed from their large morning naps. Mark wanted to explore the first floor right after lunch, but he gave in to satisfying Emily's curiosity first. Two minutes after 1 PM, the entire group was standing on the three-meter stone perimeter around the outside pool. Emily with Madison as an assistant was investigating one of the "boxy things." Mark stretched in the open air and commented to Jada. "Oh, this is so nice, 16C, maybe even 17C now." "Oh yeah, easily." Jada stared at the pool and shook her head in disbelief. "It really is Olympic size. These Kappa Alpha boys must be sons of billionaires." "Well, the place doesn't have everything," Mark replied with a knowing smile. "You think so? What more could you possibly want out here, besides a place to park a car maybe?" Mark raised his eyebrows playfully. "I'll give you a hint. What's Irish and should stay out here by the pool day and night, even in the rain?" "Huh? I don't know. What?" "Paddy O'Furniture." Jada groaned. "Mark, are you sure you're a junior in college? That was so sophomoric." "Hey everybody," Emily called out. "Come look at this. I think this is some kind of control system for the pool. It looks tied to some sort of intranet." The rest of the team gathered around immediately. "You mean Castle Commonwealth?" asked Madison. "No. The logo is two blurry Greek letters. This looks like a control system of Kappa Alpha." "What sort of controls?" asked Ashley. "All sorts of things. It looks like you can give the command to uncover the pool, change its temperature, control the sand filtering and the PH. According to the specs here, this pool is deep, my gosh, it says twelve and a half meters!" Mark commented. "That's interesting. We've measured the stairwell as twenty meters below ground level, and that gets us to the second floor of the mall. The mall runs east-west here." He thought for a moment. "I think the southern half of this pool is directly over the Sports Authority on the inside curve and The Gap and Payless Shoes on the outside curve, the stores right after the Dress Barn as you head to Hex Hall." He thought for a moment and frowned. "That would put the roof of the mall three and a half meters below the bottom of the pool." Mark shuddered at the thought of an earthquake cracking the pool's foundation and draining all that water into the mall below. The vision was horrific. "Interesting dimensions for the pool, don't you think?" asked Fatima. "Fifty meters by twenty-five meters by twelve and a half. Emily, you say you can pull back the cover and open the pool?" "I think so. These controls say that's its swimmable now too. It has acceptable PH and cleanliness, and its temperature is set at 22C. Neat. A bit on the cool side but nice!" Emily turned to Mark. "Is it okay if I try to give some commands? There's a control here to pull back the cover." Mark thought for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah, go ahead." "Wait," warned Hannah. "What if there's a gigantic octopus or something trapped just below the cover, and it's really, really hungry?" Emily stared at her. "Are you serious?" Hannah smiled back. "Well, you people are constantly scaring me and reminding each other how weird this place is and how not to make assumptions. I ... Hey, okay, okay! Ashley! Can't you take a joke?!" Ashley was kicking sand at Hannah. "Okay, stand back everybody," Emily called out. She gulped a bit when everyone followed her advice, leaving her as the only person still on the stone perimeter. Emily tried to give the command to retract the cover. The system gave an angry beep. "Was there a problem?" asked Madison. "I don't know. Give me a second." She typed some more. Mark came up as she did and stood by her side, observing what she was doing. After a minute of typing, Emily was ready to give up. "What do you think Mark? Any way to get around this?" "You've tried everything I would have. It seems to be saying only an authorized person can make such commands, and somehow the system knows you're not that person." "Yeah. So what now? You want to play some bocce or volleyball, or get back to exploring?" Mark grinned at Emily. "Come on. Let's see what's on the first floor." Their investigation showed a continuation of play areas. The room after the music and multi-media room was a completely open area 14 by 16 meters. Except around the doors, mirrors and balance bars ran the entire lengths of the north and south walls. The east and west walls were almost entirely made of glass from floor to ceiling. "A dance area?" Hannah asked as they passed through the room. "A dojo, I think," replied Mark. "Feel how springy the floor is." He couldn't resist. He tucked his head and sprang into a forward roll, coming up and stepping and then rolling on his other side. The entire maneuver was one flowing movement that ended with him standing up gracefully several meters away. "Wow, this floor is nice!" "Oh, that was smooth," Jada commented with wide eyes. Mark looked at her. She was smiling at him in approval. "My brother knows judo, a nidan black belt," boasted Madison. "Be great for practicing floor exercises too," added Ashley, studying the floor. She was on the BHS varsity gym team. Emily's critical eyes were studying the dimensions of the room. "I calculate this room's southern wall is forty-eight meters north of the lounge's southern wall. I'm guessing three big rooms left to go." The next room supported Emily's conjecture. It was a wide open workout area, and except for the width of the walls a full 16 by 16 meters. The western side of the room by the sand park was filled with various pieces of training equipment. The right side was reserved for table-tennis, with a wide open area around the single five-foot by nine-foot table. As before, there was a single door in the center of the southern wall leading to the next room. What came next was totally unexpected. It was more than a first-aid station, more than a clinical office. It looked like a compact but fully functional hospital emergency area, and its 16 by 16-meter complex was packed with equipment at numerous treatment stations. There were alcoves for diagnosis and recovery, a complete dental-care setup, and shockingly, something that appeared to be a compact surgery room. The group looked around in wonder but didn't touch anything. "See that?" asked Emily, pointing to two handicapped bathrooms on opposite sides of the small central nursing station. "That's the first sign I've seen of an accessibility consideration this side of our elevator rides. How Castle Commonwealth got away with not meeting modern building codes ... It boggles the mind." Jada's mechanical engineering training picked up another anomaly. "Take a look at these treatment stations. Almost all the medical devices have servos attached to them, the diagnostics and even the ... My gosh, take a look at the surgery room. It looks like you could do an entire operation by remote control in there." "Maybe in the dental chair too," added Madison who was taking a second look at the dental alcove. "Look at the mechanical arms. It looks like something out of a horror movie." There was yet another door in the center of the southern wall, and at last they came to the final room. It was a library with the same dimensions as the lounge and directly underneath it. It even had the small bevels at the southeast and northeast corners of the room needed for the hexagonal walkways outside. There were study tables and computer stations scattered about the room, and except for the elevator entrance and the door to its left, the northern and southern walls were covered with shelves packed with books. Ignoring the room for the moment, the group walked over to the elevator and door. "Look at the numbers," Fatima commented immediately. "Has another man found his way out of here?" The bottom blue number was reading 027:108. Mark shrugged and opened the door adjacent to the elevator. It was a small vestibule, identical in appearance to the one above. He walked through with half the team and saw similar corridors running northerly east and northerly west as before. On this level, the group also had the option of continuing south. There was a door leading to the inviting grass of the huge open area and soccer pitch outside. Fatima tested the door to the outside. It allowed passage in both directions. The vestibule entrance though was the same as upstairs. It had to be opened from the inside. After a moment of admiring the open space, the group turned around and went back to the library. Fatima then tested the elevator. She was mildly surprised it was working, and entered the carriage as soon as the door opened. After a few seconds she call out, "Hey everybody, come and see this!" The group crowded inside and gaped at an unfamiliar twenty-character code being displayed above the keyboard. "Quick, somebody write it down!" said Jada. Emily did. Nobody was sure what to try next. They decided to leave the elevator, and a few seconds later the door closed. Fatima reentered and informed everyone the display was now dark, and the keyboard was unresponsive. A few other members of the group also tried typing on it but to no avail. Meanwhile Emily was busy typing on one of the library computer consoles. Jada was looking over her shoulder. The console was one of two distinctive setups, a great semi-circular desk supporting a large monitor near the beveled wall in the southwest corner of the room. A similar station existed by the southeast bevel. Jada spoke to the group returning from the elevator. "We found another link to the Kappa Alpha intranet. This one seems more extensive than the one by the pool." Emily was seated and searching through the screen menus, and she soon had six pairs of eyes peering over her shoulders as she typed. ------- Chapter 13 Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 2:10 PM The time passed quietly. Occasionally somebody would volunteer a helpful comment, but Emily was mostly exploring the Kappa Alpha intranet on her own. The searching lead to some discoveries and insights, but was also full of dead ends. The principal discoveries were that almost all requests for information and control required the approval of authorized Kappa Alpha employees. It seemed even the simple ability of turning on the lights in a bedroom or opening its door could be taken away from them if a janitor showed up and blocked out the control functions. "Do you see the structure Mark?" Emily asked. "Yeah, I sure do. There are all these references to seven sections of command and control." "Yeah, and all the really interesting stuff seems to be reserved for Section Zero. That area seems to be red-flagged with additional security locks." He sighed. "I've noticed." "The other six sections seem subservient to section zero. Six sub-sections, six malls, six parties, the great love of Kappa Alpha for symmetric hexagons, what do you think Mark?" "Yeah, it's a good bet. We're in one of the six subsections." Emily nodded absentmindedly, her thoughts intent on a new thread to explore. More time passed. Emily was typing intently for several minutes in silence when she suddenly shouted, "Whoa! Look at this!" Fatima's eyes went wide. "An employment section?!" "Sure looks like it! Let's check it out!" Emily gave a small laugh. "I wonder if I could apply online?" The next ten minutes were a combination of revelations and frustrations. There appeared to be numerous job openings, but they were all flagged as "applications currently not accepted." Emily was about to branch back up to the top level when a blue flag caught her eye in a sea of orange. "Yes!" she cried. She had found the top level of the application process for Section Two Janitor. Emily clicked the APPLY button. DISPLAY: "You are not a member of Section Two nor a member of Section Zero. Application denied." Emily felt her heart gripped by a brief burst of fear. "Yikes," she whispered. "Does this system know who's typing?" "Why don't you ask it?" offered Jada. "Yeah, good idea," mumbled Emily in reply. With nervous fingers, she typed a simple query into the input field. DISPLAY: "Yes." Emily: "Who do you think I am?" DISPLAY: "Citizen ID Tag 148 with free will assignment to Section One." Mark whispered, "Great work Emily. You're finding a gold mine of knowledge for us." "It thinks I'm a citizen? A citizen of what?" Emily muttered. She typed: "How many citizens are there?" DISPLAY: "Question ill formed. Kindly rephrase." Emily typed: "How many citizens are there here at Castle Commonwealth?" DISPLAY: "Question ill formed. Kindly rephrase." Emily typed: "How many citizens are there in Kappa Alpha land?" DISPLAY: "Question oddly formed but intent understood. Current number is 135." "I knew it!" cried Emily. She typed: "27 men and 108 women?" DISPLAY: "Question oddly formed but linking intent to previous response understood. Correct." Emily: "And there were originally 149, correct?" DISPLAY: "Question ill formed. Kindly rephrase." Emily: "There were originally 37 men and 112 women who came to the six parties of Kappa Alpha, correct?" DISPLAY: "Correct." Emily: "How did the people who left manage to leave Kappa Alpha?" DISPLAY: "Question oddly formed but linking intent to previous original and current numbers understood. You are not authorized to receive that information." Mark whispered, "Ask it for the current population of Section One." "Yeah, good idea." Emily typed the query, trying to define the question as rigorously as she could. DISPLAY: "You are not authorized to receive that information." "I've got an idea," said Emily. She typed: "List all the jobs in Section One currently accepting applications," and then stared at the screen. DISPLAY: "Currently one job: Section One Janitor." Emily typed: "Why just one? And please refrain from commenting on how oddly I'm typing my questions if you understand me anyway." DISPLAY: "Interactive mode transfer request accepted. Available janitorial position must be filled before additional Section One jobs become available. Other constraints apply." "Huh?" Emily mumbled, and then she typed: "What other constraints?" DISPLAY: "You are not authorized to receive that information." Emily typed: "I hereby apply for the position of Section One Janitor." Her finger hung over the enter key. "You okay with this, fearless leader?" Mark grinned. "Yeah, go for it." He stretched and looked at the time, 3:52 PM. He had been standing in one spot for almost an hour. He glanced through the western windows. The sand courtyard was already filled with shadows, and they were noticeably deeper than a few minutes ago. The end of daylight was fast approaching. He walked over to the eastern windows and looked outside. A band of orange sunlight was climbing the eastern part of the hexagon across the park. The sun was near the horizon to the southwest and making a striking contrast of shadow and light. Mark stretched and went back to Emily. Emily was rapidly clicking ACCEPT through a series of explanations of how she would be tested for her job application. And then suddenly the test began. "My God," Emily whispered. "It's starting to ask me about different cleaning agents." The questions were numerous, and there was no feedback given on how she was doing. She was asked to explain what cleaning agents should be used in specific situations, comment on safety issues, biological and fire hazards, environmental impact issues. Emily had no idea the application would be this complex. And the testing seemed to last forever. Emily was clearly doing the best she could, but she felt out of her league when the testing moved to hazardous waste disposal issues. She had never realized being a janitor could be so complicated. Her responses to questions on disposal of PH versus enzyme strippers were complete guesses. Then there were practical questions on the tradeoffs of sweeping, dry mopping, wet mopping, and vacuuming. She thought she did fairly well on that. But then the topic switched to maintenance. She did okay for a while and then blinked in surprise when the system asked her a detailed question about the layout of an elevator keyboard. "Oh hell, how am I supposed to remember a think like that? How about you Jada?" It was Jada who had done the typing on their trip to It's My Party. "Uh, I think the override key it's talking about is the upper blue key, upper left. That's my guess." "Okay, thanks." Emily typed in Jada's response. The system gave an angry beep. DISPLAY: "Applicant has cheated. Application for job terminated. Application for job denied." "What?!" Emily let out an explosive gasp and typed with trembling fingers: "You knew I asked Jada a question?" DISPLAY: "Citizen ID Tag 149, yes." Emily: "Are you monitoring me?" DISPLAY: "Yes." The screen flashed to a form filled with text. "This is the page you accepted detailing system observations performed during application testing." Emily looked up at the astonished faces around her, and she was the first to guess what to try next. "Time to eat humble pie," she announced. Emily started typing rapidly: "I'm so sorry. It was a moment of forgetfulness on my part. Jada is my mentor, and I often ask her for advice. I forgot I was being tested on my abilities alone, and I should have read the test descriptions more closely." She hit enter and waited. There was no response. Madison sighed heavily. "Well, it was worth a try." Emily nodded. "Yeah. Damn. And I thought I was doing okay too." "Emily," said Fatima. "You didn't explicitly ask to be forgiven." "Huh? Oh yeah." Emily typed: "So, can I have another chance?" DISPLAY: "Apology judged sincere. Apology accepted. Testing will continue provided applicant agrees that response to previous question will be graded incorrect. Further cheating will not be tolerated." "Huh? Oh yeah, yeah..." Emily started typing again, and after a moment the testing continued. Another long hour passed. The other team members drifted of to other parts of the library but no one left the room. Jada wandered over to Mark who was reading a book while sitting in a comfortable chair in the northeast corner of the room. "This seems so insane," she whispered. He nodded. "Yes, and thus a perfect fit to this place. But I've got a big gut feeling we're doing exactly the right thing spending our time on this." "Yeah, me too. It's funny. I feel tense, but I also feel like laughing about this. Emily apologizing to a computer?!" Mark chuckled. "A very unusual interface." "That's putting it mildly." He grinned as he replied. "One thing's for sure. I'll never think condescending thoughts about janitors again." He glanced up and out the window. "See anything?" "The stars are coming out. Can't see much of anything from here. But it'll be nice to take a good look at the sky after we leave." The window was in the shallow angle of the trapezoidal park and provided a very poor angle for stargazing. It was well after 6 PM when the testing finally ended. The verdict was immediate. "Hey everybody! Come and see this!" Emily called out in a loud voice. DISPLAY: "Applicant judged marginally proficient. Application for position of Section One Janitor accepted with condition that provisional employee complete Level-1 training program." Emily typed: "Okay, agreed. As a janitor, will I have the power to lock and unlock doors?" DISPLAY: "Extrapolation heuristics now in use. In Section One, yes, provided training program is successfully completed. Lock states should be changed only for maintenance or diagnostic reasons. " "Bravo Emily," whispered Mark. Emily smiled and typed: "Would I have to use this keyboard to enter the commands?" DISPLAY: "Verbal commands are acceptable regardless of availability of keyboard." "Huh?" Emily said, and then she gasped. "Kappa Alpha computer," she said out loud, "Please respond verbally to all my future questions." SYSTEM SPEAKERS: "Request accepted." Fatima shook her head in wonder. "Talk about making assumptions!" Emily shivered and then groaned. "Unbelievable. All those grueling hours of typing, and I could have simply spoken my answers. Is that right?" SYSTEM SPEAKERS: "That is correct." Emily blew a load of air through her cheeks and asked, "So, what's the schedule for training?" SYSTEM SPEAKERS: "Standard course training is six hours a day, three two-hour periods separated by one-hour intermissions. Courses are programmed to begin at 9 AM." Emily shook her head in disbelief. "Six hours a day huh? Why am I not surprised?" SYSTEM SPEAKERS: "Question ill formed. Kindly rephrase." "Oh, never mind." Emily turned to Fatima and joked, "Well, I guess I always wondered what a nine-to-five job would be like." Emily didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She finally decided to laugh. ------- Chapter 14 Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 6:37 PM Ten minutes after Emily had finished her testing, the group was still milling around the library, talking about dinner and having a final look around before taking off. Jada was walking across the elevator threshold and on a whim decided to satisfy her curiosity. She pushed the lit button. The door opened at once and she entered and took a look at the keyboard. It was still without power, and the override button was where she remembered it. Suddenly a swift shock of fear and premonition hit her, and she ran out of the elevator towards the opposite door across the room. "Emily! Ashley! Please, come with me! You other people stay here!" Emily blinked in surprise and then started to chase her roommate with Ashley. The remaining people looked at each other in confusion. They didn't have long to wait. Less than two minutes later Mark's phone rang. "Hello Mark?" It was Emily's voice on Ashley's Leophone. "Yeah, hi. What's going on?" "Mark, can someone down there in the library try to open the elevator?" "Yeah, sure ... Okay, it's open now." "Right now it's open? You can see inside?" Mark thought he could hear the strain in Emily's voice. "Yes. I'm just outside and can see the keyboard right now." Mark heard both Emily and Jada give tiny whimpers. "Mark, everybody," said Jada, "Can you guys come up here? The elevator is open on our level too. There are two carriages in the same shaft, one right on the top of the other." Mark shivered as he realized the implications. "Yeah, we'll be right there." A minute later the rest of the group started walking into the second-floor lounge from the kitchen. There were hugs all around. Madison spoke up first. "Why is everybody so nervous? All this proves is that this isn't an elevator at all. Each portal is more like a train station. Isn't that what we were suspecting?" She looked around surprised. "Hey! Where's my brother?" The six women blinked. "Who saw him last?" asked Jada. "He was right behind me downstairs," replied Hannah. "Remember? He was holding the door open for us in the game room." The group found him standing outside on the pink cobblestone walkway that separated the two small parks. He was staring north and almost straight up into the star-filled sky. Jada touched his arm. "Mark?" For a moment there was no response, and then in a calm, quiet voice, "Take a good look Jada. See anything you recognize, anything at all?" Time: Sunday, December 23, 2018 11:30 PM Jada gently knocked on Mark's bedroom door. He called out for her to come in. Mark was sitting lotus fashion on the floor, quietly watching a small weight tied to a thin string suspended between two bookshelves. The weight was slowly swinging back and forth, and Mark was timing the swings using his phone as a stopwatch. "Just give me another minute," he asked. Jada sat on the floor nearby and waited patiently. She noticed that Mark's eyes were very red. A short while later he punched the timer on his phone and recorded his observation. Then he looked up and tried to smile at Jada. Jada tried to smile back. "I know what you're doing. So, what's the gravity here?" Mark nodded. "It's a two-meter pendulum. I think I've got it to within a millimeter between the center of mass and the pivot point. I timed a hundred swings three times and got 285.2, 285.4, and 285.3 seconds." Jada stared at the tiny weight and sighed. "The motion looks normal to my eye. Where'd you get the weight?" "Oh, I rooted around the hospital room downstairs. And you're right, the motion looks normal. It's only about a half a percent difference from what it should be. With Earth gravity, I should measure 283.8 seconds." "So, it's a half a percent difference in frequency, which is proportional to square root of gravity, so ... a one percent difference in gravity, right? It's a decrease for here." "Yep, 9.7 meters per second squared, as near as I can measure it." "I knew it! I knew I felt a little lighter walking out of that elevator two days ago." Mark blinked in surprise. "Has it really been just two days ago?" Jada ignored his comment. "And the pressure! I'm guessing it's a little thinner than what we're used to. Emily thought we were rising in the elevator. This planet has a thinner atmosphere, doesn't it?" "Well, I wouldn't go that far. Burlington, Vermont was about a hundred meters above sea level. Perhaps we're at a higher elevation here, that's all." "Assuming this planet has seas, you mean." "Oh, I'm pretty sure about that. The climate is too nice for it not to." Jada nodded. She was sitting close by, wearing a set of long-sleeve pajamas. Mark was too. She scooted over and sat right beside him and offered her hand, and then gave a smile when it was accepted. She squeezed his hand. "This changes ... everything! I've noticed you said Burlington WAS a hundred meters above sea level, not IS a hundred meters above sea level." "I know. My mind is grieving. My parents, all my friends, my cousins..." Mark gave a huge sigh and wiped his wet eyes on his pajama sleeve. "Maddy and I, we have ... we had an older sister. Her name was..." He couldn't go on. After a moment he started to cry, very softly. In great tenderness, Jada touched his shoulder. "Do you want to be alone?" she whispered. Mark shook his head no. He looked absolutely miserable. "Come on. Lie down with me." A moment later Mark was sprawled on his bed, with Jada perched on the edge, her hand gently touching the top of his head. "I was trying to do some experiments, keep my mind busy..." "It's okay Mark. I understand." "Jada!" he wailed between sobs. "Everyone, all at once! I really think The Intruder was real!" "I know. I do too. The Intruder was real." "And..." But the words just wouldn't come. He howled, "Our beautiful Earth?! All the people! My family!" Jada said nothing at first. She just held Mark in her arms and rocked him as he cried. "Try to rest Mark," she whispered. "I'll stay with you." He nodded and closed his eyes. Jada reached over and killed the lights. She lay with him for a long while, not saying anything, not doing anything except thinking and maintaining a gentle contact, a simple touch on his head with her hand. And the time passed. Eventually Jada's eyes blinked open and her body jerked. She realized she was chilly. She covered Mark and herself with a blanket and returned to a very troubled dream. Monday, December 24, 2018 8:08 AM Jada cried out as she awoke. She blinked and looked around. She was still in Mark's bed. He was lying next to her with a concerned look on his face. "Jada, you okay?" She looked at the time, looked at the sunlight coming into the window horizontally from the southeast, and then looked at the clock again. "The sun is rising later today than it did yesterday, isn't it?" "Yes, from the clock here about eight minutes, quite a jump for one day." "What could cause that?" Mark shrugged and tried to make a small joke. "The usual suspects, the tilt of the planet, the phase of the year, whatever our latitude is here. I'm guessing it's a natural phenomenon. Jada, how are you feeling?" She took the question seriously and thought for a moment. "I feel ... funny. A little tired, a little nervous." She paused. "Maybe a little hungry. Eating something might help." She tried to smile at him. "Why do you ask?" "It looked as if you were having a really bad dream." Jada was silent for a long moment. She turned and lay back down flat on her back and stared at the high ceiling above. "You're right. I was. I was being abandoned. In my dream, I was being abandoned." Mark reached out and gently touched her head, mirroring her gesture from the previous night. "Ah. Your parents?" A long period of silence followed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry." Jada blinked. "You're not prying. It's all me. I don't know whether I've got the guts to tell you." She looked at him and saw only puzzlement. "Sweet Mark, don't you see? In my dream, I was being abandoned by you." He gulped. "Me? Hey, you're my girl. I wouldn't do a thing like that." "You haven't thought this through yet, have you?" He stared at her, his eyes still asking her what she was talking about. "You big, sweet oaf! You really don't see it yet, do you?" "Huh?" "Okay, I'll spell it out for you in two easy numbers, 27 and 108. Mark, there are four women here for every guy." Mark said nothing for a moment, and then lay down flat on his back alongside Jada. "Oh boy, I really can be dense sometimes, can't I?" Jada let loose a small giggle. "Well, to your credit, this is the first time I've seen it." They lay there together quietly, the walls of the bedroom washed by the light and shadows of the orange sun. Eventually Mark's hand sought Jada's, and they lay there in silence, each person using their thumb to gently caress the palm of the other. "Jada," Mark began. Jada turned swiftly and pressed her middle and index fingers against her lover's lips. "Mark, allow me to stop you from promising something," she took a deep breath, "that one day may become inappropriate." They looked deeply into each other's eyes. "Your soul," Mark whispered. "I can still see it." "You think so?" She batted her eyes at him. "Well, maybe you can. Come on. I'll make you some breakfast." They met Emily in the kitchen. She was already dressed and munching on a bagel, with a big quarter-full glass of orange juice nearby. Mark noticed Emily's eyes were red from crying, but she tried to put on a brave face. As Mark and Jada greeted her, she got up and said, "You guys like bagels, right? I want you to try something." She prepared two more bagels in a toaster and served them a few minutes later. "What do you think?" "It's a great bagel, the same as yesterday," said Jada between bites. "Exactly! This bagel should be at least three days old, but it tastes as if it were baked an hour ago." Mark nodded thoughtfully as he looked around the kitchen and bit into his own bagel. "These strange metal cabinets, the ones that hiss and snap when you close them. What are you thinking Emily?" "Just guessing, but it might be interesting to do some experiments, maybe even put a phone inside a cabinet for a while." Jada managed a puzzled frown. "You want to test if the phone will ring inside a cabinet?" Emily looked at her intently. "No, something much more grandiose. I was wondering if the phone's clock would slow down, maybe even stop." Jada stared back. "Emily! Time dilation?! In a kitchen cabinet?!" "Yeah I know. It sounds so crazy. But think of the abilities our hosts have already demonstrated. We arrived here three and half minutes after leaving a basement near Burlington. We had phone conversations in real time with people back on Earth. What do you think Mark, some kind of wormhole technology to send the communications back and forth? Is that how it was done?" "You're asking me? I have no idea. And uh, what little I know of wormhole theories, I don't think they would support the coherence needed for real-time communications. Hey, that reminds me..." Mark pulled out his phone and compared the time to a kitchen clock. "Hey, look at this! The kitchen clock has gained another fifty-three seconds on my phone from last night. It must happen all at once. From yesterday morning to late yesterday night, they were perfectly in synch." Emily sniffled and looked at the clock. "Well, I best be off to work. Somebody has to be the breadwinner around here you know." Jada smiled at her friend. "You still have a little time." "Well, this is my first day on the job," Emily said rising. "I want to make a good impression." Jada chuckled as she also rose, wanting to stop by the bathroom. "Emily, you're trying to impress a computer?" Emily looked thoughtful. "Is it a computer? What do you think Mark?" "Hmmm? Well, I've seen interactive interfaces before. This one though, I don't know. If it is a computer, it's certainly adaptive logic beyond anything we've ever experienced." Jada and Mark shared a brief kiss, and Jada walked to the door to the pantry and then paused. "I was particularly impressed when it said it judged Emily's apology sincere. Those types of judgments, the ones that balance mercy and justice..." Mark nodded. "Yes, exactly. That's not something a computer should be capable of doing." "Mercy and justice," muttered Jada. "That's really the prime question, isn't it? What is the motivation of our hosts?" She looked around the kitchen and waved her arm. "What is this place? A beautiful lifeboat to save our species from total extinction, or a zoo to preserve a few specimens after the main herd was exterminated." Mark was silent for a moment and then asked quietly, "You're suggesting the neutron star was guided to collide with our sun, aren't you?" "Well, it is a possibility, isn't it?" He gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes. "Yes. It is." Jada frowned and left the room. Emily sighed and sniffled as she stood by her chair. "Well, off to work. Wish me luck." Mark stood up to say goodbye. "Okay. Good luck Emily. Take care." They were standing right next to each other, and an instant later they were in each other's arms. Emily pressed the side of her face into Mark's chest and gave a soft bleat. "Oh Mark, everything's gone! All our friends!" She started to shake. Mark held her head lightly against his chest and throat. He petted her back and her shoulders as she sobbed. "Don't cry Emily," he whispered. "How does it go Mark?" she whispered back, and then sucked in a deep breath. "It's My Party, and I'll cry if I want to." Mark grinned in spite of the tenderness of the moment. He kissed the top of Emily's head. "Your mind is so incredible. It's an honor to know you Emily." No more words were spoken for a long moment. They continued to hug, and Emily nestled her head against him. Being held helped Emily stop crying, and Mark felt the tension leave her body as she finally relaxed. Eventually she released her grip and Mark also let go. Emily gathered her things and went to the pantry door. She turned at the threshold and said, "Thanks Mark," and was gone before he could reply. ------- Chapter 15 Time: Monday, December 24, 2018 11:00 AM Fatima and Mark walked into the downstairs library just as Emily was stretching from her first two-hour training session. "How's it going Emily? Like your new job?" Fatima called out. "Oh hi. Yeah, it's okay I guess." Emily sighed as she noticed only Fatima at first. "The job doesn't pay much, but I guess I'm in it for the fringe benefits. Oh hi Mark! Having a good day?" She gave Mark a cheerful smile, and he was glad to see her eyes weren't red. "Yeah, I guess, been taking it easy actually, just checking things out. The rest of the team is down in the mall right now." Emily blinked and then said playfully, "Oh yeah? Jada went shopping without me?" "Not exactly shopping. Jada was very curious to see how far past the bike shop the mall runs. She and Hannah are biking down the spiral, have been for the last hour. Madison and Ashley are keeping a lookout at the Dress Barn." "Wow. Jada and Hannah could be cut off," said Emily. "I know," replied Mark. "Thank God we have three Leophones. At least we could warn them." "Still sounds a bit risky." "Oh yeah." Mark shrugged. "Exploration is a risky business. That's the tradeoff between safety and knowledge." He paused. "Do you think I did the right thing?" "Yep, I do. But what will Maddy and Ashley do if they see someone?" "Call both of us first. Making contact is a big unknown. It's Madison's decision, but she'll probably make contact with a single person and try to hide our presence if it's a large group." Mark's Leophone started to ring. "Hi Jada!" he said as he answered the call. "I'm with Emily and Fatima. Let me put you on speakerphone." "Hi guys!" said Jada's voice. She had just stopped and was still panting slightly. "This place is mind-boggling incredible. Hannah and I have been counting. We think we've just made a three-hundred degree revolution since the Dress Barn. According to Emily's equations, that would put us at 1128 degrees and just past the thirty-six-kilometer mark from Hex Hall. And Mark, that also puts us just over ten line-of-sight kilometers from home." "Fantastic!" said Mark. "This is absolute proof the Leophones are not using their walkie-talkie mode for linking to each other, not over that distance." "That makes sense," replied Hannah. "Given what we know now, something must have carried our signal back to the satellite, back when it was in Earth's orbit." She added quietly, " ... back when there was an Earth." "Jada, Hannah, notice any change in the mall?" asked Emily. Jada answered. "Everything's about the same, maybe a few more liquor stores in the area we're in right now. There are also some other shops, adult entertainment. It's pretty embarrassing. I'll tell you about it later." Hannah added, "The corridor is tremendous. We can see almost four hundred meters on the inside arc now." "Not quite that much," Jada corrected. "I've just sighted with the binoculars. I'm reading 360 meters." "Anyway," said Hannah, "It's an awesome sight, frightening too." Emily shook her head in wonder. "How far will you go?" Jada replied. "We want to test your conjecture from last night, that there are three and a half revolutions between the keystone and the outer faces of Hex Hall, so maybe there are another three and a half revolutions for the malls. I agree with you Emily. There's a certain elegance to the idea. In a sense, Hex Hall would be a mirrored map of what the real mall is like. Biking to angle 1260 will be another thirty-nine kilometers. Emily, we should know within two hours if you are correct." "Okay, be careful. Remember there are no ambulances down there." "Yeah, I know. I was thinking the same thing. Mark?" "Hi Jada." "About a kilometer past the bike ship, shortly before the eleven-kilometer mark, we found a locksmith store that has thousands of mushroom shaped locks. I think they would fit the indentations in the archways down here. I'm thinking on the return trip, I could try to lock the bike shop, pull down the overhead door and secure it with one of the mushroom locks. Hannah and I will bring a couple of locks back with us too. What do you think?" "Hmmm. See any other bike shops?" "Nope. The one at kilometer eleven is the only one we've seen so far." "Okay. Use your judgment Jada. I have no objection to locking up the bikes. One thing though. Practice locking and unlocking a store we don't need first." "Oh, very good point, will do. I'll call you in an hour. Jada out!" Mark then called Madison and checked that everything was okay. As the second call finished, Emily reached out and offered her hand to Mark. He helped her stand up from the testing console. Mark looked around the library. "Emily, you feel okay down here by yourself?" "Yeah, I guess so. The vestibule doesn't open from the outside. I feel safe enough. Why? Do you want to keep me company?" "Maybe." He motioned his head to the southeast corner of the room. "I was thinking of doing a bit of exploring with the second workstation. Emily, do you still have your sketchbook? I thought it might be useful if we recorded Fatima's account of what the other elevator trips were like. She remembers quite a bit of detail." "Sure, good idea." A moment later they were sitting in three comfortable chairs around a library table. Emily was staring at her sketchbook. "You know, when I volunteered to be the group's recording secretary, I had no idea how extensive the job would be." Mark nodded. "Yeah. Our first meeting, it seems like so long ago." "Uh huh. And if I play my cards right, this sketchbook here might be in a museum someday. I'm thinking center stage under a really big dome, sealed and preserved in pure helium for posterity. Thousands of years from now, I'll be remembered as the recording secretary mother of the nation, and this sketchbook will be a priceless treasure." Emily stared at the book and then blinked. "Yikes! I was trying to make a joke, but maybe it'll all come true." "So do you think you're ready, Madam Recording Secretary?" asked Fatima with a playful grin. "Yeah, go ahead," replied Emily writing. "I'm making a note that it was on this auspicious date of December 24, 2018 that you've finally learned to address me by my proper title." "Right! Anyway, let me go over what we talked about on Saturday morning. The first elevator trip was to Party #1, It's My Party, eighteen women nurses. The next two trips went to Party #5, 2525, thirty-six people in all, twenty fraternity guys from Beta Sigma Rho and sixteen women. I think about half were women that joined them on the spur of the moment, and the other half were dates that they had brought with them. I could be off a little, but about half and half." "Okay," said Emily. "Got it." Fatima took a deep breath. "You have no idea how much the atmosphere changed after the frat guys left. What a relief. The remaining line became much more cooperative. We reorganized and forgot about our old places in line. Nine couples who were just coming to socialize, not prospect for a date ... uh, Emily, do you know what I mean?" "Sure. Go on." "They were the next group to leave, nine men and nine women went to Party #6. After that, there were only three guys left outside of my group. Sixteen women and two guys went to Party #2, seventeen women and one guy to Party #3, and then an all-women group of eighteen went to Party #4. Finally my group of four guys and nine women joined Party #1. All this took a little over half an hour." Emily wrote quickly. "Okay. I'm recording Mark's and my own trip too. The only thing we don't know is where the extra four women went, the ones ... Fatima, do you remember how many parking spaces were still available after you parked?" "I think so. There was still one open space in the back, next to where we parked. Everything else was full." "I took the last spot," said Mark. Emily nodded. "And I parked on the grass. So it appears our unknown group of four women arrived in one car. I'm guessing they all picked one party to go to." Fatima nodded. "Sounds very reasonable. The setup was so bizarre, I can't imagine a single woman wanting to either ride alone or remain behind alone. Splitting up two by two is barely possible I guess, but I doubt it. None of them came to Party #1, I know that." Mark added, "And the numbers have decreased, from 037:112 to 027:108. There's definitely a bias for the guy number to go down. Emily, the change is too extreme for it to be a random fluctuation, don't you think?" "Oh yeah. You know, when we first saw the decrease, we thought it might represent the people who made it back to Burlington. But given what we know now, where the hell are these people going?" Just then Mark's phone rang. He gave a quick frown. The ring tone identified it as Jada's phone, and he wasn't expecting her to report in again so soon. He answered the phone. "You guys okay?" "Yes, don't worry, we're fine. We have something interesting to report. We've been staring at it for the last few hundred meters. There are two sixty-meter food stores here that partially overlap in the position along the spiral. Their doors are about thirty meters away from each other, the Wing Yip Superstore on the inside arc, and the Wild Oats Health Food Store on the outside." "Yeah, okay." "Mark, I think there's a sky-bridge connecting the two stores, a walkway above the corridor connecting the second floors of the two stores. That's what I'm guessing anyway. It's the same color as the floor and walls. I can't see inside." Mark nodded. "I take it you want to investigate." Jada replied. "Oh, you bet! Hannah too." Mark sighed. "Okay. Jada, use your judgment. Back out if you don' like the risk. What's your position on the spiral?" "Just passed thirty-seven and a half kilometers I think. We might be exactly halfway down the spiral if Emily's conjecture is correct. Going in now." A tense minute passed as Jada and Hannah described parking their bikes in the health food store and climbing the stairs to the second floor. A moment later Hannah exclaimed, "It's an elevator! In the middle of the sky bridge! Like the one at the lounge, same size, about three meters by four meters. Both doors are open. I can see right through to the store on the inside arc." "Be careful!" "We are. Mark, there's a twenty-character access code displayed above the keyboard." "Quick!" shouted Emily as she reached for her pen. "Read it to me!" Jada did. As she and Hannah left the elevator, they noticed the display turned dark. They reentered and discovered the keyboard and display remained without power. They continued to the other food store, down the stairs and down the corridor to the health food store and their bikes. There seemed nothing further to explore. They signed off and continued their journey. Time: Monday, December 24, 2018 2:02 PM It was mid afternoon in the library. Mark and Emily were working quietly at their stations. Jada and Hannah had reported more than an hour before that they had reached the end of Red Mall. Just as Emily had conjectured, the end came three and a half revolutions from the entrance to Hex Hall, which Emily calculated to be 75,078 meters. The end was intriguing. The corridor ended at the entrance of a gigantic food mart called the Nutrition Superstore. It was twenty meters wide, a continuation of the width of the Red Mall including the stores, plus 68.5 meters deep, the length of the spirals within Hex Hall. In a mathematical sense, Emily thought it was a very fitting ending to the grand design. On the second floor of the superstore, the two explorers found another elevator, and there was a new access code in the display which Hannah carefully read to Emily. Jada then asked permission to enter the code for the elevator for the sky bridge by the heath food store. Mark agreed. Jada typed the first character code on the keyboard and the display and keyboard immediately lost power. The expedition chatted with their home base for another few minutes, doing a rough inventory of the store. There were vast quantities of foodstuffs stored in the strange metallic cabinets. If the food continued not to perish, the supplies would last them for many years. Jada and Hannah took one last quick look around and then started heading back home around 12:40 PM. Mark glanced at his phone as he worked. It was now just after 2 PM, and he thought Jada and Hannah might be home in another two hours. He was so intent in his interaction with the library workstation that he didn't sense anyone behind him until a pair of hands gripped his shoulders. He reached up and took off his headphones and smiled as Emily started massaging his neck muscles. "You are so tense!" she exclaimed. Yeah, I was concentrating..." "That's no excuse. And I thought you Gung Fu masters had eyes in the back of your head. Admit it Mark. I snuck up on you." Mark grinned. "Ah, you're thinking of Shaolin. Judo black belts are mere mortals. I did recognize your touch though. Do you notice you're still standing?" Emily could tell by Mark's tone of voice that he was playing. "Oh my gosh! I didn't think of that!" she said laughing. "Making any progress?" "Yes. It's an amazing interface. I'm constantly getting the feeling that I'm interacting with a person." Mark paused, enjoying both the muscle massage and the tenderness of Emily's hands on his shoulders. "And how are you coming along with your first day in the labor market? Working hard?" "Nah. I went on strike more than an hour ago for better health benefits. I spent my time electing myself president of the USJ, Local 001." Mark laughed though he tried hard not to. In the past three days, he had come to understand Emily's sense of humor. He didn't have to ask if USJ stood for United Sisterhood of Janitors. Emily continued to knead his muscles in his upper back. "Good! I can feel you starting to unwind." "It does feel very nice." Mark sighed. "Much appreciated." "Mark, I know what you mean about this interface. My first two-hour session this morning..." "Yeah?" "I was still crying a bit when I got here. The interface asked me what was wrong. I told it I was grieving, and why. My God Mark! It became sympathetic. It was so eerie. It said not to worry about performance, agreed immediately when I asked if I could have tomorrow off for Christmas, and I swear, it reorganized its training schedule to give me something concrete I could accomplish today." Mark gave a soft whistle. "Compassion and creativity, and an adaptive understanding of emotional needs. Those abilities are so unlike what a computer should be capable of doing." "Yes, I know. I still don't think it's alive, not in the sense we think of life. But it's not a computer either. Some kind of hybrid maybe, something in between..." Mark was silent for a moment, pondering Emily's new conjecture. He finally sighed again and relaxed completely under the magic of her probing fingers. "So what's your new lesson plan?" "By 5 PM today, I hope to be certified to operate the pool." "My gosh. I don't know how that's going to help us, but it's still impressive. Congratulations." "Thanks. And how has your work been? What are you trying to do?" "I'm shooting for the moon, trying to convince the interface to let me apply for a Section Zero director job." "What?! Really?" "I'm not joking. My target position is Section Zero Managing Director of Astronomy." Emily frowned. "I've looked through Section Zero. The interface says all those jobs are not scheduled to accept applications for several years." "I know, but I'm trying to convince the interface I'm the perfect match for the job, so why wait?" Emily's industrious fingers continued to work their magic on Mark's upper back. She laughed. "Wow Mark, you're still not joking, are you?" "No. I think I've made a lot of progress. We've moved from an absolute no to where we're just chatting about astrophysics. I'm describing what I know, my love for the science, all the time I spent observing as a boy, and some of my conjectures. I swear, I can almost feel the interface laughing at my ideas sometime, but at least it's listening to me. It almost feels as if we're developing a friendship. You're quite right. It can be very disconcerting." Emily did not reply for a while. Her thumbs returned to massage the muscles in the back of Mark's neck. "Amazing to think," thought Emily silently. "We've known each other for just a few days, there's such a bond of trust between us already ... and affection..." "Mark?" she asked out loud, and she let go of his neck and walked to stand by his side. "Hmmm?" He turned and looked at her, and gazed into her eyes. Their gazes locked, and time seemed to stand still. "My God Mark!" Emily blurted out, turning her head and breaking the visual contact. She gasped. "Do you really think I'm that pretty?!" "Huh?! I didn't say anything." "You didn't?" Emily paused and looked confused. "No, I guess maybe not. But you didn't have to. I could see it in your eyes." "You could?" Mark felt embarrassed. "What did you see?" "All sorts of things. Can I be blunt? This might be..." "Disconcerting?" "Very! And speaking of disconcerting, could I ask you a few personal questions first?" "Uh ... Yeah, go ahead. I'll answer anything you want to know." Emily raised her eyebrows. "Really? Anything at all?" "Uh huh. I trust you." "Well, it's not really questions actually. Jada and I ... Jada was waiting for me when I headed off for work this morning, in the bathroom. We had a very intense five-minute conversation. It was about you." "Oh ... I think I know the topic." "You do? Good. That'll save some time. Mark, I think Jada is the most amazing person I've ever met. She's a true visionary. She can see what the destination has to look like before I even realize there's a need for a journey. Do you know what I mean?" Mark took a deep breath. "I do." "And like most grand visionaries, Jada sometimes skips over the small details. I think she might be skipping over an important one now. Human emotions, especially in matters of people pairing off to become couples, well, a part of that is a feeling of jealousy ... And it's normal ... Uh, maybe the word I want is possessiveness." Mark nodded. "I understand what you're saying. And you're right. The response seems hard-wired into our brains." "Mark, Jada has a vision of the both of us being your ... well, if you're willing of course. But bonding that way ... Oh hell, this is so difficult to put into words!" "Emily, if the numbers are what they think they are, there are twenty-six guys here besides me." Emily laughed. "Uh huh. And to hear Fatima tell it, twenty of those twenty-six are total losers, and I've come to trust Fatima's judgment quite a bit. I think you've misunderstood me, and the reason is I'm having a mucking hard time getting out what I want to say." "Emily, what are you trying to say?" There was a pregnant moment of silence, and then Emily took a deep breath. "A minute ago ago, when we were looking into each other's eyes, I saw all sorts of things. It was as if I could see your thoughts Mark, layer after layer of desire for me. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. It was the kind of desire a woman dreams of getting from a man. Desire for friendship, desire for sex, desire to care, desire to share..." Mark whispered, "You saw all this from just my eyes?" "You can't lie to me Mark, not when I can see your eyes. Did I misunderstand?" Mark trembled for a moment and then whispered, "No." Emily took a deep breath and nodded. "A desire to share everything! Hopes, fears, tenderness, sexuality, my God Mark, it was all there. And I want to say ... I guess what I want to say..." Emily trembled for a moment and then blurted out, "Mark, I feel the same way. I find you attractive. There! It's out in the open at last." Mark felt stunned. Emily took another deep breath. "But I want to wait. Can we just be friends for a while? Even if we wind up abandoning our..." There was another difficult pause. Mark tried to help her out again. He smiled at her kindly and said, "Our desires for monogamy?" "Exactly! I still feel man-woman relationships have to form one pair at a time. Figure out where you and Jada are going first. Until then, can we just be friends?" They locked eyes again. Their compassion for each other took away the tension and the intense shyness they were both feeling. A moment later they were hugging, a pure exchange of affection and admiration. "Emily," Mark whispered as he held her, "I think you are one of the wisest people I've ever met, more than wise. You are righteous, in the old sense of the word." Emily sighed in the contentment of the hug. "You think so? Sometimes I feel so awkward with people, so unsure of myself. I'm not really the party animal I pretend to be. And there's so much here I don't understand." Mark didn't respond in words. He simply nestled his head against the top of Emily's. They both realized the conversation was over. Emily gave one last affectionate squeeze and pulled away. "Say, you feel like a little exercise?" Mark grinned. "What do you have in mind?" "I took ballet as a child. Want to try out the room you call the dojo with me?" Mark stretched his arms. Their next lessons weren't scheduled to start until 3 PM. "Sure, sounds good." Mark walked over and held the door open, and together they left the library. ------- Chapter 16 Time: Monday, December 24, 2018 5:14 PM Everyone except Emily was standing by the covered pool, waiting for its grand opening. Through the windows, they followed their Janitor-in-training make her way through the first floor rooms to join them. Mark thought sunset today occurred exactly at 4 PM or maybe even a minute before. It was remarkable to think of the changes occurring so quickly. From some preliminary observations yesterday night, he had already found a new star that would serve as a pole star and had approximated their latitude at forty-five degrees, very similar to what it was at Burlington, Vermont. But as for the tilt of the planet and its orbital period around the orange sun, those topics still required more observations. Jada and Hannah had gotten back late, less than half an hour ago. Jada had given him a cryptic comment that they had some last-minute Christmas shopping to do. Jada also had found that the mushroom locks were superbly designed to lock a mall door with a simple twisting insert. It took a bit of experimenting, but Jada and Hannah finally figured out how to make the locks work. There were six tumblers in the fat part of the mushroom that stayed outside the indentation. When unlocked, the tumbles could be programmed with a small electronic key to accept any six two-digit configuration. The simple, rugged devices allowed for a trillion possibilities for the correct code. Jada had picked 26-53-58-97-93-23 for the dozen locks she had set, including the one on the locksmith store itself. Emily had laughed in approval when she heard of the combination. She was the only one at home to recognize that Jada had picked the next twelve digits of pi after skipping the first six of 3.14159. "Hi everybody," Emily called out as she approached the pool. "Sorry I took so long to change. Should I just open the pool?" She paused and then teased. "I thought maybe I should make a speech first." "Emily, it's a little chilly out here!" said Hannah shivering. Like everyone else, she was standing barefoot in the sand wearing just a bathrobe covering her bathing suit. After a high of 19C that afternoon, the temperature had fallen about 3C and there was also a cool night breeze blowing. Emily nodded and got right to work. Within seconds after typing at the console, the great cover quickly retracted. Emily also activated the great underwater lights. The pool was beautifully finished in smooth mosaic tile similar to Islamic geometric designs. Hannah tested the water with her foot and then shed her robe and dived into the sparkling blue water, followed quickly by Jada and then Emily. Jada went for a deep dive. The other two women broke the surface almost immediately. "Wow," said Emily. "Nice! A bit on the cool side though!" She climbed out and shivered as she ran to the console. "I'm changing the water temp from 22C to 24C. According to my lessons, it should only take ten minutes." "What?!" blurted Mark. His mind tried to estimate the power required for such a feat. "That'll make a difference. Bravo Emily!" Hannah called out. Jada broke the surface. "Oh wow, this is wonderful. There's nothing like the feel of swimming in deep water! Smooth as silk!" The remaining four members shed their robes and a moment later all seven were playing under the star-filled sky. Five hours later... 10:09 PM There was a knock on Mark's bedroom door and second later Jada poked her head in. "Hi! I saw your light on outside. Waiting up for Santa Claus tonight?" Mark smiled and shook his head. "Just till midnight. I want to watch my phone clock and the house clock when the day turns over. Jada, don't you get cold walking around outside in just pajamas?" "Oh, a little. I think I'm more chilly from my swim actually. Got any heat?" Over the next two hours, Mark thought he had perhaps the most enjoyable moments of his life. He and Jada cuddled on his bed for a while, warming each other with their bodies. It was an amazingly easy and relaxing time, a time to get to know each other and test the bonds that were forming between them. There was gentle petting and foreplay, but it was all done in a spirit of playfulness and affection. By unspoken mutual agreement, they knew nothing overtly physical would happen tonight. Their caresses explored the boundaries of sexual appreciation but did not cross over into sexual arousal. And otherwise they just talked, talked about everything great and small. And as midnight neared, they sat together on the floor, intently watching both clocks. "There! Did you see it Mark? Just before it should have turned to 23:59:07, the house clock turned to 00:00:00." "Yes! And I agree, it was almost a full second, but maybe just a hair faster. Call it a 53.1 second jump. My conjecture is this planet is spinning just a bit faster than Earth did, and the house clock is showing us by how much." Mark sighed and put his arm around Jada's shoulders. She hugged him by the waist. "Merry Christmas Mark. Or am I a bit early?" "No. Adopting the local time zone seems the right thing to do. Merry Christmas Jada, and a belated happy festival of lights." They shared a long kiss and the Jada felt a brief tension in her lover's body. "What Mark?" "Oh, I was just reminiscing. I suspect this planet has a faster orbital period than Earth. That's why the lengths of the day are changing so rapidly. This might be the very last time we celebrate a December 25'th." "Ah. Yes..." They lost themselves in another kiss. All sense of time disappeared. Somehow they found themselves lying on the floor, hands inside each other's pajamas. "My beautiful Jada," Mark whispered. He was gazing at her in pure adoration, his hand inside her pajama bottoms, gripping the flesh of her hip on the left side of her pelvis, his forearm brushing against the curls of her pubic fur. Jada became aware of her surroundings when she tore her eyes away from the depths of Mark's gaze. She realized she was panting and whispered, "The sleeping tigress we talked about earlier Mark. She's almost awake, and it's too soon." Mark was panting too, and his eyes were blazing with hope and affection. "Such strong forces Jada..." "Yes, strong forces, strong and beautiful." She gave him a sexy purring sound. "But my love..." "Yes, I know. You're right. We should wait." Mark sighed heavily and kissed Jada's cheek. "I think that's the first time you called me My Love." Jada smiled and traced his cheek with the pads of her fingers. "It's very late, and I can feel my will power slipping away." She sighed. "So goodnight Mark. Thank you for an enchanting evening." They shared one last kiss and were both in their own beds a minute later. Time: Tuesday, December 25, 2018 9:00 AM It was a delightful Christmas morning. It seemed that everybody had managed to find a little time for present shopping in the great mall below, and in the dead of night Madison, Hannah, and Ashley had gotten up and decorated the lounge for Christmas. Everybody was up by dawn, which was recorded in Emily's sketchbook as occurring at 8:08 AM. They all had breakfast by the tables at the kitchen's eastern windows, cleaned up and were ready to open presents by 9 AM. Mark's eyes were on a huge package meant for him. He recognized Jada's handwriting. He tore the wrapping paper and his eyes lit up brighter than the Christmas tree. "Jada! How?!" She laughed and clapped her hands at his delight. "If you're thinking of the weight, we used the bike with the side-car attachment. It's a wonderful way to transport heavy cargo." He nodded as he continued to unwrap his present. "Where did you get it?" "There is a specialty optics store just beyond the locksmith, about a kilometer past the bike shop. It wasn't hard." Mark finished unwrapping his present, a 12-inch top-of-the-line Meade reflecting telescope. He then hopped over and gave Jada a very affectionate kiss. And the present openings continued. Mark had picked jewelry for everyone. It had felt a little strange yesterday, walking around in a nearby store in the mall below, just taking things he thought his new friends would like, but it was all he had time for, pins and necklaces for everyone except Jada who got a ring. It wasn't too pretentious, a simple gold ring with small diamonds and amethysts. Jada seemed very pleased with her gift as she put it on. Mark was the first and last person to open a present, one last compact but heavy wooden box from Hannah. He opened it up and looked inside and gave a small smile. He reached inside and picked up one of the dozen four-sided black steel spikes, chiseled on one end to an ultra-sharp beveled point. The spikes were very thin, about 18 cm in length and 150 grams in weight. He looked at Hannah and said, "How did you know?" Hannah just grinned in reply. Fatima was staring at the spike. "Is that a weapon?" Mark nodded. "The name is Bo Shuriken, literally hand hidden blade. A few years ago in my summer between high school and college, I had the privilege to study the art of jiki da-ho with a truly exceptional sensei." Mark hefted the spike. "These seem very well balanced for throwing, and ... amazingly dense." Hannah nodded. "Yes, Madison and I noticed that too, much heavier than solid steel would be. What do you think Mark, depleted uranium core or something?" Mark chuckled. "God, I hope not." Fatima was staring at the spikes and asked, "Are you any good at it?" Mark blushed. "Truthfully? No." He asked again, "Hannah, how did you know?" Hannah laughed. "I called up Madison when we reached the end of Red Mall. There was a small martial arts store past the seventy-five kilometer mark, the very last store of the mall on the outside arc before the final food store. They also had swords, but Madison said you'd probably impale yourself if I got you one of those." Mark laughed. "She did, huh? She's probably right. Thanks Hannah. This is a very thoughtful present." Hannah came over and they shared a chaste kiss. "So, can you give us a demo?" It took a while to set up, but an hour later they had some plywood from ACE Hardware set up as a target. It was propped up in the sand park, with rough circles drawn around a bulls-eye. With the women standing nearby, Mark faced the target from a distance of eight meters, his hands empty, the spike holstered in a sheath strapped to his chest opposite his throwing arm. "Give the word Maddy." "Go!" Mark was a blur of motion, his arm sweeping his body and then whip-snapping forward as he turned side-body to the target, the thin spike sliding smoothly through his fingers. It sailed straight point-first without rotation and hit the perfect center of the bulls-eye, right where Ashley had drawn the crosshairs. The beveled steel tip punched through the quarter-inch plywood with a loud bang and the spike landed in the sand behind the target. Fatima gave a small strangled cry, "You call this not good?!" Mark looked shocked. "Wow! That was probably the best throw I've ever made!" Over the next several minutes, he threw the remaining eleven spikes. Three rotated so badly they bounced against the target with their blunt end, three others hit point first but so poorly they also bounced, and five punched through cleanly, two hits very close to his dead-center original throw and three hits that had the correct azimuth but were up well above the bulls-eye. "Well," said Mark, "three decent hits out of twelve, about what I was hoping for. Thanks Hannah! I'm going to have a lot of fun practicing." An hour later, shortly before noon and after an early lunch and showers, they all headed off for their work item for the day. It had been Jada's idea and they had discussed and agreed to it the previous evening. The AM/PM Locksmith shop at the eleven-kilometer mark had several thousand of the mushroom locks, and Jada thought it would only take about 650 to lock every single door from the locksmith shop all the way down to Hex Hall. The two bicycles with side-cars would provide key transport for the weight of the locks down the long corridors. Ashley and Hannah biked towards the locksmith shop as door closers, biking down the inside and outside arcs and stopping just long enough to push the button in the archways leading to the stores. Fatima and Mark took identical jobs biking down to Hex Hall. They quickly got so good at closing the doors that they didn't even have to stop. Ashley thought pushing the archway button was a little like grabbing the brass ring at an old merry-go-round. Emily, Jada, and Madison biked straight to the AM/PM Locksmith, stopping only once at Cole Haan Totes & Bags near the nine-kilometer mark to pick up bundles of simple canvas tote bags that would fit in their bikes' front luggage basket. They then went to the locksmith shop and began programming the mushrooms and loading them into the bags, thirty for each. Each lock weighted 420 grams, making the bags a bit heavy, but they would lighten as the locks were used. By 12:40 PM, Ashley and Hannah joined the group at the store, just in time to see the other team members loading a pile of the filled bags into the two bike side-cars. Ashley and Hannah each grabbed a sack and began biking back towards Hex Hall, setting the locks in the indentations by each of the closed doors. Jada and Madison pulled ahead of them with their side-cars loaded with ten bags each, and they dropped off a full canvas bag on the floor every kilometer. Emily traveled with Jada and Madison on her own bike. It was an extremely smooth and well-run operation. The mushrooms would snap and lock into the indentations with one easy twisting motion. They found that two people could lock both sides of a kilometer length of mall in less than thirty minutes. The teams kept in touch by Leophone and at 1:10 PM at kilometer-mark three, Jada, Emily, and Madison met Mark and Fatima returning from the end of Red Mall, having completed closing the rest of the store doors. The side-car team took two full canvas sacks and handed them to Mark and Fatima. They had skipped the drop-off at the six-kilometer mark, and the plan was for Mark and Fatima to work their way back up the spiral and meet up with Ashley and Hannah at the six-kilometer mark. Meanwhile Emily, Jada, and Madison would finish the bottom three kilometers. Jada unhitched her side-car and worked locking the stores with Emily. Madison biked and ported the remaining sacks further up the spiral in her side-car. By 2:30 PM, the three women were just finishing up, locking six extra locks in the corner of the last store on the outside arc, a sixty-meter Banana Republic Men's Clothing Store with its entrance just 120 degrees of arc and 65 meters from Hex Hall. Madison called her brother and found out the other teams were in sight of each other and just a few minutes from being finished. She asked her brother if she could check out Hex Hall before returning. "Uh, okay I guess. You're not feeling more ambitious, are you?" "No, we won't go further than Hex Hall." "Okay. How about you keep your phone on?" Madison checked her battery level. "Sure, good idea." The three women left their bikes and began to hike the short curving path. Jada pulled up short when the hall came into view, followed by the abrupt stop of Madison and Emily a second later. "Mark," whispered Madison. "We're about twenty meters from the entrance to Hex Hall. There's a woman sitting right on top of the keystone in Hex Hall. She's staring right back at us." "Okay," Mark whispered back. "Don't get any closer. It might be a trap. We're on our way, be there in ten minutes, less. Leave the line open." "Yeah, okay. Watch out for our bikes outside the Banana Republic. We left them in the corridor." The three women and the stranger exchanged stares for a long, awkward moment. "What do you think Jada?" whispered Madison. "Does she look like bait for a trap?" "I don't think so," Jada whispered back. She raised her arm and waved and tried to look friendly. The stranger responded by rising and walking slowly towards them. "Don't back up," whispered Jada. "That would come across as really weird." The woman kept approaching until she was only five meters away. "Are you store employees?" she asked in a strained voice. Emily was struck with a wave of compassion. For the woman to ask such a question, Emily guessed she had no knowledge of The Intruder and the destruction of Earth. Emily replied, "Hi. No. We're some of the people that came to the Kappa Alpha parties Friday night." The woman's eyes lit up and she broke into a relieved smile. "Really?! Me too! I can't tell you how glad I am to see you! My name's Aggie. I went to I Can See Clearly Now. Which party are you from?" ------- Chapter 17 Eight hours later... Time: Tuesday, December 25, 2018 10:40 PM "The symmetry of Red and Green Mall is so strong," said Jada's voice over the speakerphone. "The Party entry location, the bike shop, and the AM/PM Locksmith, they're all at the same positions, just on the opposite sides of the corridor. Maybe you were right Emily." Mark and Emily were the only two people at the Red Mall home complex, and they were sitting on Jada's bed in Jada's and Emily's huge corner bedroom. "Well," replied Emily, "remember you've also noticed a number of non-similarities. We should still treat the super symmetry idea as a conjecture." "Take some credit Emily," came Hannah's voice over the phone. "Your conjectures so far have been right on the money." "Thanks. Are you sure you guys don't need any help locking down Green Mall?" "Emily, are you trying to get out of janitor training again?" teased Ashley. "Relax! We're a well oiled machine now. We plan to start right after breakfast tomorrow and will be back home by noon, Aggie too." Jada spoke up. "The AM/PM Locksmith shop here at Green Mall, we did an inventory. It has exactly 4500 of the mushroom locks. Mark, Emily, we're guessing that might be exactly the right number to lock all the stores, in one spiral I mean, not all six." Aggie added, "We found something else very interesting too. Underneath your mushrooms from Red Mall, there's a thin red thread of color. The mushrooms here in Green Mall have a green thread. And guess what?" Mark spoke without hesitation, "The locks are specific to their malls?" "Yep! We tried one of the red mushrooms here. It rotates in okay but it just doesn't snap and lock." A worried voice came over the Leophone. "Emily, Mark, this is Fatima. I've just gotten back from the lounge here. The population counter has dropped to 024:105. Can you confirm the reading?" Mark and Emily walked briefly to their lounge above Red Mall and confirmed the lower numbers. The drop was their last topic of conversation and they said their goodnights to their friends at Green Mall and hung up as they walked back to the bedroom. Mark sat down on Jada's bed again to put on his shoes, and was mildly surprised when Emily sat down next to him Emily stretched and yawned and gave Mark a friendly smile. "Well, I'm turning in. How about you? You're getting dressed?" Mark yawned too. "I'll turn in pretty soon. I want to make one last check on how the telescope is running and then call it quits." It was an excellent night for observations, clear and calm, and Mark had an entire night of work loaded into the telescope's programmable control system. He yawned again. "What a day. I guess this morning felt like Christmas, but the rest, especially the lower numbers..." He frowned. "I can't shake the feeling that people are dying off, that something is picking us off one by one." Emily grunted and gave a deep sigh. "Oh, don't say that. The lower numbers can mean anything. Mark?" Mark looked at Emily, their gazes locked, and time seemed to stand still. "You want to sleep here tonight?" Emily thought as her hand patted the mattress she was sitting on. "Not for sex, here in Jada's bed I mean, just for companionship. I'm afraid, and it'll help me sleep." Mark thought back, "Yes, I'd like that very much. I'm sure Jada won't mind. Thank you for wanting me." Emily smiled and coughed, breaking the eye contact. She suddenly blushed and looked embarrassed. "Hell, what did I just say? Mark, I wasn't being too forward, was I?" The experience had felt so natural, neither she nor Mark realized that their previous communication had been completely non-verbal. "No, not at all. Don't be afraid Emily." "Huh? Did I say I was afraid?" "Didn't you?" He blinked as he realized he had no specific memory of what Emily had said. He got up and stretched nervously. "Uh, sorry, I must have been daydreaming." Mark felt intensely embarrassed. He mumbled, "Back in a few minutes," and left the room. By the time he returned, the room was dark, but there was enough starlight coming through the eastern windows to see. Mark climbed into Jada's bed and turned to say goodnight to Emily, but he realized by her even breathing that she was already asleep. She was lying on her side away from him, and Mark stared at her for a while, deep in thought, his mind idly admiring the curve of her hips beneath the thin covers. Then Mark turned around and tried to get some sleep. His drifting mind returned to Aggie. "Where did she say she was from? Oh yeah, Hungary, that's right..." Aggie had been one of eighteen women on the seventh elevator trip to the Kappa Alpha parties, leaving directly before Fatima's ride. Like the trips to It's My Party, Aggie's ride to Party #4 also lasted three and a half minutes, and her group had entered an exactly mirrored lounge of Party #1. They arrived at their deserted destination a few minutes before 2:30 PM. They wandered about puzzled for a bit, very surprised there were no hosts. The group began to explore the second floor of the complex, marveling at the beauty and opulence of the circular stairwell at the southern end of the building, and they were awed by the grand design of the pool and the two trapezoidal parks. The women ate the feast, enjoying the delicious food while remarking how incredibly bizarre their situation was, and as 4 PM approached their bewilderment began to change to worry. Where the hell were they? The sun was invisible in the cloudy sky, but the reality that it was about to set in the southwestern sky was not. The fact that it was setting eight minutes later than its scheduled time on that day went completely unnoticed. Around ten minutes after four o'clock, the group decided to make their way south and get back to the parking lot. They traveled the pink cobblestone walkway between the two parks to the southern end of their hexagon and started walking through the door. Aggie was the last person in line and was the only person to realize that once the door closed, they would not be able to get back to the lounge. The group had an argument by the door as the light was fading from the sky. Aggie was very reluctant to give up the option of returning to the lounge, and the rest of the group thought she was crazy for worrying about such a thing since they had no intention of ever coming back. They finally promised to return for her once they had traced a route back to the parking lot, and Aggie promised to wait by the southern door and let them in if they wanted to return to the lounge. The other seventeen women departed, taking the west-southwest branch of the corridor. That was the last Aggie ever saw of them. She had a strange, troubled night by the door, filled with disjointed dreams, and finally returned to the lounge shivering and collapsing sometime in the middle of the night, she wasn't exactly sure when. She found the underground mall Saturday night and started exploring it on Sunday. Her entrance from the surface led to the first floor of a Barnes & Noble bookstore on the outside arc of Green Mall. Over the next two days, the views of the strange sun and unfamiliar stars made her think she had lost her mind. Aggie confessed she felt close to breaking down when she finally met her new friends on Christmas afternoon. She was a senior at the University, majoring in environmental sciences and involved with a project on Lake Champlain. Aggie had not turned on the TV and knew nothing of The Intruder. She felt shell-shocked by the news. Fatima had come up with the idea of the group being guests of Aggie's mall tonight as a way of making the social adjustment a little easier for her. Mark and Emily went back to their home in Red Mall for the night, but everyone else was sleeping in what had become Aggie's home in Green Mall. There were about 13.5 kilometers of spiral and 4.2 kilometers of straight-line distance separating the two locations. The six women there planned to spend the next day locking down the local segment of Green Mall just as they had for Red. In addition to the extra security, the group thought the work would be therapeutic for Aggie. Mark turned and looked at the clock, and then waited until he saw the daily jump across the last 53 seconds. Emily was very happy about the jump. Her theory was that perhaps the beings who built the mall were godlike perfectionists, and if they could have made this planet spin exactly like Earth, they would have. And if they didn't have the power to change a planet's spin, then they probably didn't have the power to alter the path of a neutron star. Perhaps this world was a lifeboat after all, and not a zoo. Mark sighed deeply, finally feeling sleepy. "Nice theory Emily," he thought, "but Jada isn't buying it, not yet anyway. And as for me ... Oh, I don't know." He mind wandered. Sunrise tomorrow would be at 8:16 AM and sunset at 3:43 PM, as near as he could figure it. One nice thing about this planet's orbit, the quick changes certainly made life interesting, and currently the short days provided a lot of time for sleep. Mark's tired eyes rested on Emily as he drifted off, his mind floating with half-formed dreams of petting her. Six days later, midday December 31'st In the days after meeting Aggie, everyone except Mark, Aggie, and Emily worked full time locking down the first 25 kilometers of the six spirals. By 5 PM on the last day of the year, each spiral leg would have 1500 mushroom locks in use, and another 3000 in storage at each of the AM/PM Locksmith stores. Jada made the suggestion of picking a different combination for each spiral, and Emily had the idea of letting the sixth digit of the combination be nine minus the Party number of the spiral, thus eight for Red Mall (Party #1) and five for Green Mall (Party #4). Similarly, the twelfth digit would be two plus the Party number. The obvious question was, which of the remaining four colors in the Mall went with which Party? Standing on the keystone, the colors in clockwise order were red, white, blue, green, black, and yellow. With their cultural bias of reading left to right, they chose that direction to guess the order of the Parties. Fatima gave a slight shiver when they finished the discussion, commenting that she thought it would be darkly fitting if the frat boys had picked the Black Mall. Emily had abandoned her idea of hexagonal super-symmetry for the Party placements. The group had spent the entire day on Wednesday the 26th searching White, Blue, Black, and Yellow Malls near the 828 degree rotation mark, inside and outside arcs, upper and lower levels, absolutely nothing was found. And all four stores looked pristine. If there were Party home complexes above the stores, it appeared none of them had discovered the Mall entrances. Several members wondered about the morality of locking down the stores in the other spirals, especially near the 828 degree mark. If there were secret entrances they had missed, their lock would prevent a Party from using their spiral of the mall. But Jada pushed hard for a full and symmetric lockdown of all six spirals, and in the end she prevailed. As a compromise, they left notes on dozens of second floors explaining the friendliness of the group and their willingness to share the mall, asking people to just paste a note on the store's entrance door and ask to be let out. In their break hour before lunch today, Emily, Aggie, and Mark had done an experiment in the hexagonal walkways surrounding their home at Red Mall. Using laser range-finders from ACE hardware, they had made precise measurements from the centerline positions at each of the six vertices. The number was always the same, 100.00 meters, exactly one hundred meters to within an error of a small fraction of a centimeter. When combined with earlier measurements of Hex Hall being exactly twenty-four meters to a side, the conclusion seemed inescapable. The environment around them had been designed and constructed in metric units. But that seemed so strange. Why would aliens bother to adopt metric units? Just a coincidence? The issue remained a puzzle. Time: Monday, December 31, 2018 2:38 PM "Whoa Mark! How hot are you making this?!" Aggie shivered as she smelled the spicy stuffing dish Mark was preparing for their end-of-year dinner banquet. "Well yeah, pretty hot I guess. But I thought you Hungarian types liked spicy food." Aggie laughed. "That's true for paprika. But habaneros are in another league entirely." She playfully bumped Mark away from the stove and took a deep smell of his culinary effort, chopped celery and scallions and spiced bread crumbs sautéed in butter, along with a variety of nuts and dried cranberries and the ultra-finely chopped tiny orange pepper. Aggie delivered her verdict. "Lethal but intriguing." Mark grinned. "Well, that's why it's a side dish. I wouldn't stuff the bird with this." They shared a brief glance and then both turned away blushing. "Thanks for all your help Aggie, giving up your break hour like this. I don't think the turkey would even be in the oven if you weren't here." She grinned and tried to make a joke. "Oh, don't thank me. I was looking forward to this. It's a great break from being citizen ID-Tag 117 earning my Bachelor of Janitor Arts." Aggie paused and sighed. "You and Emily seem so comfortable with the interface, but it still gives me the creeps." She glanced out the kitchen's western windows to the deep shadows in the sand park. "Just twenty minutes till sunset, right?" Mark glanced at the clock. "Today? Yeah." Aggie added thoughtfully. "Six hours of light a day now, and the decrease isn't slowing down. Want to give me an early clue of what the new calendar will look like?" Mark gave a small chuckle and shook his head no. "Jada would never forgive me if I did that." "Oh, I won't tell her." Aggie raised her eyebrows and joked in a whisper, "I trained in Hungary as a spy. You can be assured of my secrecy." Mark howled with laughter. "Aggie, that makes no sense!" "It doesn't?" she replied with fake innocence. Mark continued to chuckle as he stirred the stuffing. "As a matter of fact, I do trust you Aggie, but that's not the point." She brushed against him again and asked playfully, "So what is the point?" "That I find it impossible to keep any secrets from Jada, anything at all." Mark turned to smile at Aggie. Their eyes locked. "Sure you won't tell me?" thought Aggie. "I'll let you take me, any way you want." She rocked her hips slightly back and forth, an open invitation for Mark to mount her. "Aggie!" Mark thought, and then they both blushed and turned away, breaking the eye contact. "My God! I can't believe I just suggested that," whispered Aggie. She then hiccupped and struggled to speak. "Apologies Mark." They shared a chaste affectionate hug. Mark sighed. "It's the damn drug, the one we got when we came here. We've all noticed the effect. I don't know if I'm saying this the right way ... But the drug encourages us to express our desires in a very open manner. Telling a lie is almost impossible." "I know. That's still no excuse for me to ... I'm so sorry Mark. Playing around is one thing..." She grimaced. "Being lewd is something else. Forgive me?" Mark gave a final pat to her back and they both let go of their hug. "Aggie, what's to forgive? The drug ... the directness is pushing up against what our social norms used to be. We're all making adjustments. Want to know something?" Aggie nodded and got back to her cooking, giving her companion a thankful grin. "Ah, do I sense a confession coming up?" "Yep. Yesterday morning, I didn't realize Maddy was taking a shower. She must have turned off the water just before I entered the bathroom." Aggie's eyes went wide as she realized Mark's discomfort. "You propositioned your own sister?!" "Sort of, it's hard to remember exactly what we said. I think we propositioned each other. An instant later we were falling over each other with apologies. Both of us even started hiccupping, just as you did now. I guess it was from the embarrassment. It was very strange." Mark stood still for a moment and then shuddered. Aggie had a perceptive insight. She reached across and gently touched his arm. "Mark, there's something else here that's still bothering you, isn't there?" "Well..." "Tell me? In all seriousness, maybe I can help." "I..." He paused for a long moment before speaking. "You're very sweet Aggie. It's ... well ... it's emotional." "Huh?" "When I'm alone with Jada, alone with Emily, even alone with you ... Most of the time I'm fine. I'm with friends and we're either chatting or working together or just being playful with each other..." Aggie looked at him closely for a long moment, her hand never releasing the gentle hold on his arm. "Most of the time? And what's it like for the rest?" Mark squirmed for a minute and then confessed. "Desires, such strong desires Aggie, and a shocking lack of inhibitions." "Oh." She was quiet for a while as she took this in. "I think I know what you mean. A few minutes ago when I propositioned you, my desire for sex, it was so strong, so pure, so ... unconstrained. The desire seemed to come out of nowhere. And all of my social skills, my responsibilities, my moral understanding not to get pregnant through frivolous sex ... For a moment, nothing mattered anymore. My God Mark, it's as if for an instant all my morals disappeared." She came close and hugged him. "And that's from a woman's perspective. I think I can imagine what it would be like for a man. I think I know what you're afraid of. You're worried about raping me, aren't you?" They hugged in silence for a moment, and then Aggie felt Mark nod his head against hers. "I know you too well Mark. I'm sure you wouldn't do it. I don't care what drug you've been exposed to. And if I trust you, you should trust yourself. Stop worrying." "The desires," he replied in a whisper. "They seem like a pit, a bottomless pit. I have this horrible nightmare of falling in and finding there's no way out." Aggie shook her head. "I refuse to believe that. We're not robots." She leaned up and affectionately kissed his cheek. "And there's too much goodness in both of us to worry that we'll start abusing each other. May I be blunt?" "Hmmm?" Mark's eyes were closed as he enjoyed Aggie's hug. "Sure." "Think Mark. Besides our desires for sex, we're practically falling over trying to be gentle and forgiving with each other, right?" "Uh ... yeah." "Being kind and gentle with me, doesn't that give you as much pleasure as having sex with me would? Especially if the sex were forced?" A deep sigh and then a nod. "Yes, of course. More." "Yes, more for me too. So relax Mark, relax." Aggie glanced at the clock. It was time for her to rejoin Emily in the library and resume the janitor training. She gave Mark one last kiss on his cheek and then took off. After dinner that evening... Time: Monday, December 31, 2018 7:20 PM Fatima was the last to arrive at the meeting, taking the last open chair around a large table in the lower level music room. She opened the meeting cheerfully and then said, "Daily evening report, population numbers are still at 024:105." Emily dutifully made a note in her log. The various project leaders made their reports. The first phase of mall lock-down was complete. The next logical step would be to transport all the remaining mushroom locks, 3000 in each of the six AM/PM Locksmith stores, to the last locked store in each spiral, staging the lock supply to extend the locked areas. Jada pushed for an immediate vote for a timetable, but the discussion was tabled until the end of the meeting. Emily spoke next about her janitor training progress. The interface still was non-committal on how long the training would last, but Emily thought there were a few vague references she was about half-way finished. She did get a confirmation today that as Section One Janitor, she would be able to wander Section One at will, able to unlock any door by voice command. She also got a clear answer on the status of the mall. All six spirals and Hex Hall were designated as Section Zero territory. She would have no special authority there. Aggie spoke next on her study to be a Section Four Janitor. Since both workstations here were often taken by Mark and Emily, she would often commute by bike to her old home complex above Green Mall, and she would do so tomorrow. And then it was Mark's turn to speak. All eyes were on him, and Mark was bursting with a smile. "Right. First off, some really great news! The interface has promised to help in my training by giving me limited control of an orbital telescope, probably in a week or two." Mark waved his hands joyously. "Ta-da! The interface will have complete oversight and veto authority over anything I try, but still, this is huge!" Seven pairs of eyes politely congratulated him. Mark gave a short frown and then laughed. "People! You're not thinking this one through! What can I use an orbiting telescope for?" Emily saw the implication first and let out a war whoop. "You can look at the planet!" "Yes! We can get a global map, understand our world, and even better, maybe get a bird's eye view of what this great complex is like. I'm hoping I can make an aerial map that'll help us search for all the missing partygoers." Mark took a deep breath. "And now for the topic I've promised you. What are the orbital dynamics of this planet? What is the climate like? I'd like to start off with a mini science lesson. Does everybody know what the plane of the ecliptic is?" "Sure," said Madison. "You taught me that when I was six years old. It's the plane that contains Earth's orbit ... err, this planet's orbit around its sun. It's called the plane of the ecliptic because the moon had to be in the plane for a lunar or solar eclipse to occur." Mark nodded. "That's right. Now imagine a planet unfortunate enough that its axis of rotation lies in the plane of the ecliptic, rather than mostly perpendicular to it. Earth had a moderate tilt of about twenty-four degrees and that's what gave us the seasons, but here I'm talking about a full ninety degree tilt. Imagine first what an observer would see on the equator. At the spring and fall equinoxes, the day would be the same as an observer on Earth during the equinoxes. But at the solstices, things would be very different. A person at the equator would see the sun motionless on the horizon for an entire day, either due north or due south, depending on which half of the year it was." Mark smiled and added, "And there's one more fascinating difference. For a planet with a ninety degree tilt, the solstice time at the equator would be the time when night and day changed places. If the sun rose at noon and set at midnight for half the year, then it would be just the reverse for the second half, until the next solstice." He continued. "To finish this up, the two poles of such a planet would have incredible swings in temperature. Averaged over a year, it would get far more heat than Earth's equator ever got, and even worse, it would get the heat in a lethal concentration at the summer solstice. The sun would spin on the horizon during the equinox, and then slowly spiral into the sky, never setting, until it was directly overhead a quarter year later." "So to conclude this, a ninety-degree tilt dumps most of the heat a planet receives at its poles, the equator gets comparatively little, and the poles get absolutely fried during summers." "Now image a planet with no tilt. The equator is hot. Noontime sun is directly overhead every day of the year. And at the poles, the sun is always on the horizon, giving almost no heat. Any heat that does reach the poles would have to be carried there by convection of the atmosphere. It would be frightfully cold at the poles, more severe than anything we ever saw on Earth." "And now we have this planet. I've got a precise measurement of its tilt from the Meade telescope. It's 45.5 degrees, just about double Earth's tilt." "Yikes, so much?!" blurted out Aggie. Mark laughed. "Yeah, that was my first reaction too. But then I started thinking about it. Forty-five degrees is a wonderful tilt for a planet to have. Earth's poles were frigid with a 24-degree tilt. This planet gets much more heat at its poles, and much less at its equator. In fact, it's very nearly equal. Averaged over a year, every latitude of this planet gets about the same amount of heat. My guess is that the planet has a temperate climate everywhere, with bigger seasonal swings at the poles but still nothing of the extremes that Earth had." "And there's a second factor that keeps the climate nice, a fast orbital period. I calculate this planet orbits its star once every 167.9 Earth days, or 168.0 local days." Several of the women looked startled. "Why so fast?" asked Ashley. "Because we're much closer in," replied Mark. "That's why the sun looks so large. From my orbital observations, I estimate this star has 71% of a standard solar mass, and that this planet is getting about 90% of the power per unit area that Earth got from the sun. A 10% drop is a lot, and yet it's not very cold here at all. Somehow this planet is more efficient in capturing the star's heat than Earth was." Aggie chimed in. "Well, with a solstice blast of heat at the poles, maybe there are no reflecting icecaps. That would be a huge difference." Mark nodded. "Aggie, that's a great observation. And remember, the annual cycle is 168 days rather than 365 days. There's much less time for the climate to drift due to seasonal changes. And now, for my grand finale, a new calendar! Anybody got any ideas for how to make a neat calendar using only 168 days?" "Well," said Emily, "168 equals 8 times 21, so you have three factors of two, plus a seven and a three..." Her eyes lit up. "Ho ho Mark! I think I can guess where you're heading. With the three and two twos, we can preserve a twelve month calendar, and with the seven, we can align the calendar with a seven-day week." "Yep, that's my suggestion. I'd like to suggest we keep our old naming convention to honor our heritage, twelve months January through December, and each month would have two seven-day weeks." Mark paused for a deep breath and continued. "I'd also be inclined to have next year be 2019. Somehow it seems right, to keep the memory of where we came from. After today, we have seventeen more days to the winter solstice. Notice how 17 plus 14 equals 31? Here's my suggestion. For 2019, January will be a transition month and have 31 days, just like we're used to. All future months will have 14 days. That'll make January 1st of 2020 fall on the winter solstice a year from now. We'll have aligned all future years to start at the winter solstice." Fatima looked very thoughtful for a moment and then her eyes lit up. "A Friday! After January of 2019, all future months and weeks will start on a Friday! Could we make it our common prayer day?" Mark nodded. "Something to consider, that's for sure. I guess it's a bit of a trade-off with both social and religious perspectives. Socially, our old system had the months and weeks sliding in and out of alignment with each other. With this system, it'll be much easier to align weekly and seasonal activity. It might also be a little more boring, but what the heck, it's just a naming convention. And religiously..." "Yes?" asked Fatima. "Well, we're abandoning the Hijri." Mark glanced at Hannah and Ashley and saw they were staring at him blankly. "That's the lunar Islamic calendar. I'm suggesting we adopt a solar-based calendar in the tradition of Christians and Jews. Personally, I have no objection to moving our day of reflection and prayer to a Friday." Mark looked around at the group members. They all appeared deep in thought. "Something to think about anyway. My gosh people, there are so few of us! Doesn't coming together religiously make sense? Remember what Fatima talked about just before we all thought we were going to die? Remember our goal of common ground?" "I'll consider it," said Emily. "Changing the day of the Sabbath though, wow..." Mark laughed. "I know. I feel the same way about Sundays." "Mark," asked Jada. "What about birthdays? What about how old we are?" "Yeah, I know," said Mark, happy to get off the sensitive topic of worship days. "We'll have a lot of adjustments to make. With the new calendar, people can hope to live two hundred years, which would be ninety-two years in the old system. In terms of birthdays, I guess it would make sense to calculate when your birthday occurred in the 168-day cycle and go with that ... I don't know. Any ideas?" "Mark?" asked Madison. "Are we in the land of the midnight sun?" He nodded. "Just barely, but yes. Our latitude is 44.53 degrees, exactly what it was in Burlington, Vermont. Add the tilt of 45.5 degrees and we're just over the ninety degree requirement for midnight sun. I think we'll have a single day at the summer solstice where the sun is directly overhead at noon and has a horizontal kiss with the northern horizon at midnight. The winter solstice will be the mirror opposite, one day with just predawn twilight and the sun barely below the southern horizon at noontime. Just wait a couple of weeks. You'll see." And the conversation continued. Further lockdown of the malls was the last topic they discussed, and the debate and subsequent planning lasted well over an hour. ------- Chapter 18 New Year's Day. The group of six, everyone except Emily and Aggie, began their trek shortly before 8 AM, six bicyclists all with side-cars. They reached their destination a little more than an hour later, the Hot Toys and Hobby Shop at the 25.1-kilometer mark of Black Mall. It was the last locked store of the black spiral, and the location where they had the remaining 3,000 black mushrooms locked in storage. Like no other Mall, the black spiral gave Mark the creeps. His hair felt raised on the back of his neck, and he had been nervously watching the corridor ahead the entire time they'd been biking. One nice thing about the locked stores, there was no place for a hostile group to hide in ambush. By the time they neared the Hobby Shop, the view of the inside arc expanded to 300 meters, and double that on the outside. Mark took some comfort from the fact that they had a small cushion of time to turn the bikes around and out-pedal anyone who might try to catch them on foot. He looked at his phone as they reached their destination, 9:07 AM. He gave a small grin as he realized that dawn was just breaking now twenty-four meters above. Once Ashley opened the Hobby Shop, all six team members began loading the already packed tote bags of locks into the six side-cars. The cars could comfortably hold ten bags each, 300 locks, so four more pickups would be required later to move all the locks down spiral. The side-cars were designed to fit a bicycle on the bike's right-hand side, so it was relatively easy for riders to close the doors on the inside arc of the spiral as they traveled outward, riding single file along the inside arc with the back riders closing any doors the forward riders happened to miss. Mark and Jada rode nearer the outside arc, Mark scouting the corridor ahead and Jada counting the stores and distance. The four riders on the inside arc closed the doors. Ashley was the last rider and also dropped two sacks on the floor every kilometer. After her fifth drop she turned around and began biking back to the Hobby Shop for a second load. Fatima was the next rider to be last and did a similar maneuver for the next five kilometers. At 10:15 AM the final four riders reached their destination, the 37.6-kilometer mark of Black Mall, 11.6 kilometers and about 700 stores from the Hobby Shop. Their new depot for the locks turned out to be Rubin's Kosher Deli on the inside arc and the Modern Coin Superstore on the outside. Jada raised her eyebrows and commented that perhaps she would pick up some deli items for the return trip. As they had hoped, there was a sky bridge connecting the second floors of the Deli with the coin store on the opposite arc. Madison stood next to the outside arc and trained her binoculars down the corridor, dialing Mark's and Emily's phones and setting up a three-way bridge. Hannah began unloading the forty bags from the four side-cars while Mark and Jada climbed the stairs to the second floor of the Deli. And there it was, a new elevator taking up most of the length of the short six-meter sky bridge. Mark was extremely relieved to see an access code brightly displayed above the keyboard. He took that as a sign that the mall in this area was pristine. They were the first group to reach here. Jada read the code to Emily over the phone. They both wrote it down and the confirmed the sequence twice by repeating it to each other. Mark and Jada then left the elevator and saw the sequence blink out of existence. Feeling the riskiest part of the mission was almost over, Mark and Jada continued their walk across the sky bridge and entered the second floor of the coin shop. Like the sky-bridge stores in the other spirals, both these stores were sixty meters in length, with their two entrances separated by about thirty meters of spiral distance. This particular store had a huge inventory of modern coins and currency from every nation Mark could think of. It was a little disconcerting seeing all the money lying around in the open. Their old habits and attitudes would not die easily. Something on a display counter caught Mark's eye. "Hey, look at this Jada! It's a tube of $50 Gold Eagles, minted in 1986. Feel how heavy it is." Jada paused for a moment and sighed as she opened the tube and poured out a handful of the shining coins, gazing at them thoughtfully. "They are very beautiful, I admit. Kind of useless now though, huh?" "Oh no, not at all. You'll see". Mark rolled some of the coins back into their container and kept the rest in his hand. He and Jada then descended to the first floor and then left the coin store. As they walked along the corridor, Mark counted out and dropped a number of the coins haphazardly on the floor. They next spent some time helping Hannah unload the last of the tote bags. Afterwards they unhooked two of the side-cars and placed them on top of the other two. Mark and Jada began biking back up the spiral along the outside arc, closing the doors as they passed. Hannah began biking down the inside arc without her side-car and locking the doors as she also returned. Madison kept her sentry position alone at the Deli, carefully watching the spiral beyond. Mark and Jada returned to the Hot Toys and Hobby Shop at 10:50 AM after waving at Ashley and then Fatima who were headed to the Deli with new loads. Mark and Jada left the two extra side-cars by the Hobby Shop and loaded the last twenty bags into their side-cars and then headed back and reached the Deli at 11:20 AM. They were on the last leg of the mission. The team members worked in pairs, one carrying the two side-cars and locking doors on the outside arc, while their partner with just a bicycle inserted the mushroom locks on the inside arc. By 1 PM they were all back at the Hobby Shop with a full half of Black Mall locked down. Jada looked over her team members. It had been a solid five hours of biking, porting and locking and most of them were looking tired. She turned to Mark. "I don't suppose we can do Blue Mall today too, can we?" Hannah stretched and gave a soft groan. Mark took a moment to reflect on his authority. They had discussed this last night, and everyone including Aggie had agreed that with their present form of government, Mark was an absolute dictator and could rule by decree, even though they had meetings and Mark tried hard to work towards consensus. Some time in the future they would have to work on a permanent government, but for now it was Mark's decision whether to follow Jada's desire. Should he push the limits of physical exhaustion with the group with a two-mall-a-day schedule or just stop at one? It wasn't an easy decision to make. Mark realized that taking it easy now might be a decision they would regret bitterly in the future. Still, the group looked tired, and did he really want to meet up with a potentially hostile group of people in Blue Mall with his own team exhausted from an overly strenuous work day? "I see your point Jada, and timeliness is a valid concern. But..." Mark didn't have to finish. There were several audible sighs of relief. They took a very easy pace home, stopping for lunch and restrooms about halfway there, and got back home at 2:33 PM, in time for Mark to take a quick shower and start his 3 PM astronomy lesson on time. Six days later. Time: Wednesday, January 7, 2019 Asleep in his room in the nighttime darkness, Mark felt his hair being ruffled. "Hey, sleepyhead! Are you planning on spending the whole day in bed?" Mark looked at the clock and yawned. "Jada, what? It's two hours before the crack of dawn!" Jada laughed. "Yep, 8:04 AM." Mark sighed. "I love sleeping in late." She gave him an affectionate kiss. "Come on. This is Emily's and Aggie's big day." "Did the away team get off away?" "Oh yes, Maddy's Marauders took off well before 7 AM." Mark gave a brief laughing gasp. "So early?" "Oh yeah. They have a very ambitious schedule today, and they were bitten by the lockdown bug. I could tell. I'm very familiar with the symptoms." "Right. Hmmm..." Jada and Mark shared a long kiss and hug that got Mark fully awake. Jada was so wiggly that the contact also started getting him erect. Jada laughed and pushed him away when his hands started to wander. "Come on, it's time for breakfast, not sex!" Mark grinned and got up and began to dress. Jada turned on the lights and helped him pick out his clothes, completely at ease with his nakedness. It had been an extremely busy week. Mark sometimes wondered what it would be like to hold down two jobs, and now he thought he knew. The routine for the last six days had been up at 7 AM, a quick shower right after the women were finished with the bathroom, then breakfast and leaving before 8 AM for a strenuous workout biking and porting locks and locking down another spiral piece of the Mall. Mark would return with the group shortly after 2 PM, in time for another shower and to share going to class with Emily 3 PM to 5 PM in the downstairs library. Then an hour for dinner, sharing a class with Aggie 6 PM to 8 PM, the group's nightly meeting 8 PM to 9 PM, and then his final two-hour class of the day 9 PM to 11 PM, usually with another woman hanging around the library to keep him company. Then there was a final climb to his bedroom where Jada would pet him until he fall asleep bone tired. Yesterday the schedule finally eased up a bit. They completed the half-lockdown of their own Red Mall which chopped off almost 26 kilometers of biking compared to their routine of locking down the other spirals. And this morning would be delightful. It was probably going to be a little too cold for swimming, but shooting pool with Jada in the game room would be nice, and maybe even cuddling with her over a movie in the music room after a leisurely lunch. Nothing serious was scheduled for either of them until 2 PM. Marvelous! Some R&R at last! Six hours later. Time: Monday, January 7, 2019 1:55 PM The last of the orange light left the top the eastern wall of the forest park. Mark briefly made an entry in Emily's master log of the time. Sunset was right on schedule. Amazing how precious the daylight had become, he thought, once there was so little of it. One thing for sure, it made his decision about the rest of the day very easy. There was no way they would try to explore above ground at night. Emily's and Aggie's final exams were scheduled to end at 2 PM. This was their final class. There were several bikes in the library in anticipation of what would come next, along with Jada who was trying to relax with an art book. Scoring results were displayed immediately after the exams ended. Emily and Aggie both pumped their fists into the air at becoming Kappa Alpha employees. There was a minute of joyful hugs and celebration with Mark and Jada, and then Emily walked over the library elevator and opened the door. The unpowered keyboard and display were clearly visible to all four people in the room. "Interface," commanded Emily, "Restore power to this elevator, and have it display its access code." The group howled with approval as the display lit up with a twenty-character code. She and Mark then entered the elevator with their bikes. Jada was on a Leophone and confirmed that Fatima and Ashley were in the sky bridge of Red Mall. "Wish us luck," said Mark to Jada and Aggie as Emily typed in a new access code. As soon as she entered the last keystroke, the large door along the four-meter side began to close. Less than a second after it completed closing, both adjacent three-meter sides began to open. A few seconds later they were hugging Fatima and Ashley. "Well?" said Jada over the phone. "My gosh Jada! It worked! We're in the health food store by the sky bridge, ten kilometers in an instant!" He could hear her give a small cry of overwhelming relief. And then she laughed. "This is going to take so much time getting used to! And the question of the hour is, can you get back?" "Yeah." That uncertainty was why they had taken the bikes." Hang on, we just want to look around a bit." They left their bikes in the elevator for a moment and slowly walked slowly to the second floor of the Wild Oats health food store, looking around in wonder. Emily ran downstairs and came back up moment later carrying a small package of food. Then they went back to the sky bridge for their return trip. Mark kept Jada and Aggie up to date over the phone. "Okay, we're back in the elevator. Emily's training information seems to be accurate. Once powered up by a reception, an elevator stays active unless it's on a shutdown timer. We're typing in the return code now. The door is closing..." Mark blinked in surprise as the door closed and the other door on his side began to slide open immediately. They were back home. "I have proof of our journey!" Emily shouted in laughter. "Look at this bag of organic rice!" She tossed her first-floor pickup to a grinning Jada. "You ready guys?" asked Emily. "Next stop, the end of Red Mall!" A few seconds later Mark and Emily were standing in front of Madison and Hannah on the second floor of the great food store. "Boy, great timing!" said Madison panting as she hugged her brother. We got here less than a minute ago." Mark walked downstairs and looked down the long corridor out the front entrance, the incredibly long spiral that was the end of Red Mall. All the store doors in sight were closed but there were no mushrooms locking them. Mark whistled in appreciation. "You got them all?" "Yep. And everything is locked down up until kilometer mark 58.6. We have just this final 16.5 kilometers to install the locks on, and then Red Mall will be a complete desert for anybody who doesn't know the combination." A minute later Mark was looking with some interest at the martial arts store where Hannah had picked up his Christmas present. They all hoped the elevator would soon take them home. It would be many kilometers of biking if it did not. Mark grabbed a judo gi, and then thought what the heck and grabbed three more. He was about to leave when he noticed the rack of swords Hannah had mentioned on Christmas day. On a whim Mark took a sword off the rack and unsheathed it. What he saw took his breath away. The sword was museum quality, superbly balanced and with a quality of steel beyond belief. Its surfaces were polished to mirror perfection. Mark couldn't resist. He practiced a few elementary strokes and blocks. The sword seemed to be an extension of his arm. To put it back became unthinkable. He picked up his workout clothing and left the store. The rest of the team had been shopping to restock their home pantry. When Mark returned, they all went upstairs to the elevator and Emily typed in their home library access code. A moment later they were unloading groceries in their kitchen. Over the next half hour they visited the other sky bridges and were very glad to see their scatterings of irresistible gold coins still present under all the sky bridge locations. It was Mark's idea on New Year's Day to leave nine $50 Gold Eagles lying scattered under each sky bridge. The coins were easily visible from both stores connected by the sky bridges, and served as bait to show the presence of unknown people. Mark thought wanderers would find the beautiful coins irresistible and impossible not to pick up. Their breakthrough with the elevators had increased their capabilities tremendously. They now had instant access to the midpoints of all the spirals, assuming they were all the same length as Red Mall. Emily even got the access code for their second-floor lounge elevator, their old friend CV5W-BHDY-SZ9K-9ZD2-WYXA. Once the elevator was active, she used her authority to issue it a new twenty-character ID. Their concern was that another group might have had the old code from when it was posted in the tunnel at Castle Commonwealth. "Any way to know if someone has already tried to use it?" asked Jada as she stood in the lounge with Emily. Emily shook her head. "Not that I know of." Jada nodded. "Fatima said her friend Husna wrote down all six Party access codes while they were waiting for their ride. I wish I thought of that." Emily nodded in agreement. They had discussed the implications of this before. If they had the old Party codes, they could use them to travel to the other Party locations, assuming the elevators there had not been issued a new ID. There was still a lot of time in the day, and the group was fired up from their success and eager to capitalize on it. Jada and Aggie took off with their bikes to the home complex of Green Mall. Mark settled down in the library to begin his 3 PM lesson. The remaining five women jumped to the Red Mall sky bridge and started carrying all the remaining locks there up the stairs and then through the elevator to the end of Red Mall. After picking up their very last Red Mall mushrooms locks stored at the Banana Republic, Jada and Aggie biked the Green Mall until the reached Aggie's home complex. There they procured both elevators codes and Aggie used her authority to assign the lounge elevator a new ID. They jumped home to leave a copy of the new codes and the last of the Red Mall locks with Mark and then jumped again to the Green Mall sky bridge. The two stores connected by the sky bridge there shared a common theme. There was Blazo's Art Gallery on the outside arc and a Mister Art Supply Store on the inside arc. Aggie made a comment that the spacious gallery on the second floor of Blazo's would be an ideal place to garage the bike side-cars. "All twelve of them?" asked Jada. They looked around as they walked their bikes towards the stairs. There were hundreds of bicycles in the bike stores but each store had only two side-cars. Jada took a last look around the gallery before heading down. It was a spacious sixty meter by seven meter room with paintings on the walls, a truly cavernous open area. "Use this place as a depot you mean?" "Uh huh. This way everybody would know where to go for a side-car if they needed one. Maybe we could bring a few extra bikes up here too." A minute later after relocking the gallery, the two women began their long journey to the end of Green Mall, reaching in and pushing the close buttons on all the archways as they passed. "How fast are we doing this?" Aggie asked after a while. "Right now? About eight kilometers an hour I think. We'll switch sides every half hour or so. It helps prevent your button finger from getting stiff." Aggie did the math. "Yikes. It'll be 9 PM before we're finished." Jada laughed. "We'll be finished by eight, even with rest stops. You'll see. You'll find the rhythm of punching the button cleanly as you ride by. You should see Maddy's Marauders in action, Maddy and Fatima in particular. They can lock down a kilometer of Mall in nine minutes now if the lock bags are positioned properly." "What? How is that possible?" "They don't have to stop. They've perfected a bull's eye hit and twist motion with the mushrooms. If you get a chance, try to see them when they're on their game. They are a sight to behold." Four hours later. Time: Monday, January 7, 2019 7:57 PM At the end of Green Mall was a terminal food store identical in size to the one in Red Mall, but having a more European selection of foods. Jada and Aggie were overjoyed to find another elevator on the store's second floor. They both wrote down the displayed code and then Jada said, "and now we go home." She typed in the first character for the new code for Red Mall lounge. The display immediately went dark. "Huh?! Oh yeah. I forgot how this works." Feeling a bit sheepish, the two women left the elevator and Jada called Madison and gave her the code for their current location. A moment later the elevator opened with a smiling Maddy inside. Then they all went home. Fifteen minutes later. "It's true Mark," Ashley said over a bite of dinner. "The side-cars can be linked nose to tail." "Would it be safe biking like that? You'd be a locomotive for a train." "Well, it would probably take a while to come to a sudden stop, but why would I want to do that? Hannah and I can bike three side-cars each. All we have to do is load twelve bags per car instead of ten, and we'll do the entire half of Green Mall in a single pass." Mark looked somewhat skeptical. "I really want to try some topside exploration tomorrow." Emily's and Aggie's certifications had finally given him enough confidence for exploring the surface areas around their two home locations. Mark looked at Maddy's crew and added, "And the windows for daylight are getting so small. I don't want to miss the time." "You won't have to Mark," said Fatima. She looked at Madison and her two high school friends. "The four of us can stage everything before daybreak, a half hour maybe, daisy-chain six side-cars to two bikes and have everything loaded and ready to go just inside the door of the art gallery. What time does the sun set tomorrow?" "1:45 PM." "So you'll be back from exploring the surface by 2 PM, right?" Mark nodded. "Before sundown actually. I don't want to push things, especially not the first day." "So we'll plan to start at 2 PM, well after dusk. We can lockdown Green Mall in a single pass, use the end elevator to return the bikes and cars to the art gallery and then come home. We'll be back by eight in time for dinner with the entire length of Green Mall completely buttoned down." Mark nodded slowly. He glanced at Jada and saw nothing but approval in her eyes. He sighed. Tomorrow was going to be a very big day. ------- Chapter 19 Interlude: At another Mall, that same evening. For such a large and fearsome looking man, Mandy thought, the guy could be surprisingly gentle at times, and she allowed him to lift her leg without protest. She was lying on her side in his enormous bed, her eyes closed, her unaroused vulva completely exposed. She imagined his eyes inspecting her and she shuddered a bit, and then worked to keep herself under control. It was the same as last night. He started playing with her with the back of his hand, brushing lightly against her closed labia and petting her pubic fur. His fingers began to play around with her clitoris, nothing painful, modest pushes and probes, quick nipping pinches. Mandy thought the guy might actually be trying to get her aroused. And then the hand moved away for a moment. Mandy heard the click of a container being opened. And then the hand returned, firmly pushing the folds of her labia open and aside. Mandy sucked in a deep breath as the cold KY jelly was stroked into her slit, and then gasped again as another generous dollop was smeared across her anus. "It's just like last night," she thought firmly. "The lube on my butthole is just a tease. He doesn't mean it." The man was curling up behind her now, kissing the back of her neck, stroking her breasts, fitting his body to hers. A thick and eager cock began sliding between the top insides of her thighs, picking up the slick moisture of the jelly from her labia. Mandy took several deep breaths and tried to relax. The man stroked his cock between her legs with increasing tempo, petting and pinching and pulling on her breasts until the nipples hardened. The man pulled back to give his cock a new upward angle and then returned to thrusting, this time letting his member ride and slide between Mandy's butt cheeks. The extra generous amount of lube at her anus soon turned her crack into a slick channel. And then the man turned again, a third angle for his cock, this time straight towards Mandy, so that when he pumped again his penis head pushed between the soft ass cheeks and nailed her at her sphincter. Mandy gulped at the pressure on her anus and she lifted her leg immediately, signaling and pleading with her body for vaginal penetration instead. The man complied without hesitation. The pressure on her butt disappeared and the cock returned to sliding along her labia. But the sliding was different now. Mandy could feel the man's eagerness for her. His desire was almost desperate in its intensity. She kept her leg raised high, and heard the man gasp in pleasure at the feel of his cockhead cupping into the vaginal entrance. He was more gentle than last night, lots of little humps and pullbacks, allowing the ample lubrication to work itself up into her vagina along with his cock. Mandy's mind drifted as the man fucked her. The thrusting was energetic but not deep or sadistically fast, and Mandy knew from the length of the cock and the power of the man's hips, he could make it be both if he desired. More petting on her breasts, her stomach, and then the hand pressed down on her pubis as the cock slid in and butted against her cervix. And Mandy could feel the hot breaths and hear the grunts of the man's arousal. He had a firm grip on her pubis and with his hand he could feel himself sliding into her pelvic cavity on each thrust of his hips. He withdrew and pushed Mandy onto her back, kneeling between her thighs and lifting her shapely legs at the back of her knees. The man recoupled and then lay on her, surprisingly light. Mandy was startled to realize he was again allowing her to breathe easily by supporting his upper weight with his elbows. Her pelvis was the receptacle of a long series of eager shoves. And there were kisses, lots of kisses and small licks on her face, her cheeks, her lips, her nose. The licks on her nose were disconcerting, so when the lips returned to brush against hers, Mandy tried to give a few kisses back. The man cheerfully accepted everything she gave, and Mandy noticed he was giving her small breaks in the fucking to adjust her position and try to get more comfortable. And then his hot eagerness for her returned. The penis lengthened within her vagina and the man pumped fast for a short time and then reduced his tempo, slow rocking thrusts against her cervix, with the penis remaining fully sheathed, an eager, squirming, slippery animal inside her, pulsing and quivering. Mandy knew his cock was seconds from exploding with his load. "Oh, please, please," Mandy thought silently, and then she whispered. "Please, cum outside me, like before ... Please?" "Lock me?" the man whispered. Mandy nodded, hiding her surprise that he made it sound so much like a question. Last night it was more like a command. But she knew what he liked. She crossed her legs behind his muscular butt and pushed down with her heels, pushing and holding the man to her. Her arms came up and gripped him across his back, holding him down and pressing him against her breasts. The man grunted his approval and returned to more slow rocking. Mandy held still during the strokes, and then felt the penis lengthen and thin even more. He started to groan and slide down the chute of his orgasm. Mandy grimaced at the thought of the splashes she thought were coming inside her. The man was so high and tight, his semen would be all over her back walls. But then there was a sharp pull breaking the lock of her legs and a grunting man unloading on her belly. The first spurt was so energetic, it shot between their two sweaty bodies and splashed against the underside of her breast. Mandy lay there motionless. The man had bothered to bring some damp washcloths into the room earlier, and now he cleaned her as she lay, cool damp cloth cleaning her belly and breasts, and then another clean cloth washing her pubis. Such a strange experience, Mandy thought. The man curled up and petted her for a while, nothing awful, simple gentle strokes of her head and shoulders, an occasional pat of her hip. Still, Mandy would have preferred not to have the contact. She turned to him. "Want a backrub?" "Oh wow, really? Sure." He stretched out flat. Mandy sat and massaged his impressive muscles in the quiet bedroom, and the man started to drift in the pleasure she was giving him. "Butt too?" he asked dreamily, and he wriggled his rear end in anticipation. "Sure." Mandy's hands descended and massaged and petted his ass. The man sighed deeply again and again, eventually stretching out and parting his legs. He seemed half asleep, and on a whim of curiosity at what would happen, Mandy let her hands drop and cup his sac. She let her fingers penetrate a bit, separating the two testes and letting them fall to either side of her stiff supporting fingers. She stared at the vulnerable orbs, thinking how their loads of semen had pooled in her navel and not her cervix. The man jerked awake and moved with lightning speed away from Mandy to the far side of the bed, staring at her. Mandy blurted out, "I was just ... I don't know, just playing I guess, curious. I wasn't going to hurt you. I really wasn't." He surprised her greatly by blushing a deep red and almost apologizing for not trusting her. It was so strange. They wound up curling and cuddling again, just two sleepy and tired people. Mandy had no worry that he wanted more sex. She started to fall asleep. Lazy circles of petting on her body, his hands asking nothing, just petting her, starting and stopping as the time passed. They finally came to rest holding her waist. Mandy was almost asleep when she felt the man shake and sit up behind her. "What the hell am I doing?" he asked rhetorically. "I've got to put you back in the barn." And then Mandy blinked as he added, "Sorry." "Oh, I don't mind," Mandy answered, in her sleepiness indulging in a rare moment of complete honesty. "That's where I want to be." Time: The next morning, Tuesday, January 8, 2019 10:00 AM Their first surface expedition consisted of Fatima, Mark, Madison, and of course Emily who would provide vital control for unlocking doors. The other four members of the group would stay at home and act as a reserve if a rescue attempt were needed. Fatima paced back and forth in the glass vertex just south of the Red Mall lounge. She was very eager to get going. "Nervous?" asked Madison. "Anxious," replied Fatima. "So many of my friends walked through this door eighteen days ago." She paused for a moment. "Mark, is this light enough to get started?" Mark studied the southeastern sky. The sun was taking remarkably low tracks across the sky this past week. It was like a thief, hugging the horizon and eager to disappear again. In other week the sun's appearance would be so brief, expeditions would be impossible. But the shallow angle of the sun with the horizon did have the benefit of extended twilight periods. Visibility was decent now. "Yeah, I think so," he said replying to Fatima's question. "Emily, take us out of here." Their understanding of the topside environment was incredibly limited. They knew that the six corridors of their home hexagon had courtesy lights on both floors, while the next line segments did not. They knew the hexagon directly to their east appeared to contain an apple orchard, while the hexagon due west was a grove of pecan trees. For no reason Emily could verbalize, she chose the east northeast path, with the plan of working her way south as soon as they cleared the soccer area. South was the logical direction for the original group to take as they tried to get back to their cars. After traveling just two line segments, they came to an interesting decision. They were at a three way junction, with the option of heading due south or cutting back to the east northeast again. Emily would have automatically taken the southern route, but there were also stairs leading down to the first level. "What do you think Mark? It's approaching three o'clock on December 21st. You're trying to get to your car and you think maybe it'll take you a half hour to get here. Do you go downstairs or stay on this level?" Mark pondered for a moment. "They had no knowledge of how bizarre this place is. They were still thinking in terms of buildings, not mazes. Maybe we should head down." Emily nodded. "Good thinking. Their assumption would be they might have more choices for direction on the ground floor. They'd have the option of leaving the buildings. Let's head down." The door at the ground level exiting the stairwell turned out to be a one-way door. It could only be opened from inside the well. This early in their journey to their cars, Mark thought the original group received their first evidence they would not be able to return to the lounge. Would they have cared, he wondered. Probably not. At this time, they would have no inkling that they would ever want to come back. Emily tested her command authority by going through the one-way door and then returning without the assistance of the group still in the stairwell. A moment later they left the hexagonal path system and entered the southern end of the apple orchard. Madison walked up and inspected a few of the trees. The trees had already shed their leaves and were neatly bedded down with a layer of rich mulch with a sprinkling of hay for their winter slumber. "They seem extremely healthy," commented Madison. "Look how many buds they have." "I was trained in how the trees are maintained," said Emily. "Do you see all the hatches around the perimeter? They're for the servo mechanisms that maintain the orchard. Not for harvesting. We'll have to do the picking if we want the apples. But the orchard will be well tended. We won't have to care for it, not unless I order the servos to shut down." "Do you think they'll do well here?" asked Fatima. "To suddenly switch to a 168-day cycle when its genes are geared for a 365-day cycle, that must cause a tremendous amount of stress in the plant." "And yet," said Mark. "I agree with Maddy. These trees appear to be in great shape. Surely if they couldn't handle the new cycle, they wouldn't look like this." Madison nodded while she stared long and hard at the trees. "Everybody, are you seeing what I'm seeing? These are mature trees, not all of them but a lot of them anyway. This orchard was years in the making." Fatima shook her head. "Maddy, we can't assume that." "Look at the trees." "We don't know the abilities of the ... of the entities who build this place and grew these trees." "You think they could grow trees ultra fast?" Fatima nodded. "From what else I've seen, maybe. Think of our food storage cabinets. The food doesn't seem to age. Once you assume that ability, why not assume the reverse also? And..." She paused for a moment. "It's hard to explain why exactly, but my sense of the party invitations was that they were done in great haste, perhaps even frantic haste." Madison frowned. "But building the malls below!" She turned to Emily. "Emily, that would take years, right?" Emily gave a quick laugh. "Well, for mortals, sure. Somehow I agree with Fatima on this one. That's my hope anyway. The party invitations were done in great haste. Perhaps that added to the bizarre nature of how they were done." The morning sunlight was clearly visible now, pretty yellow-orange light mixing with the soft blues and teals of the sky. "Come on," said Mark. "Time to head south." "Wait Mark," Madison called out. She was pointing to the vertex two line segments over to the northeast. "Is that an elevator?" They walked through the orchard, finding as the walked that there was a cobblestone path beneath all the fallen leaves. It was indeed an elevator, and after they entered they saw a blank display above the keyboard. Emily ordered the elevator to activate and a moment later they returned to the lounge and said brief hellos to their other team members. A moment later they were back in the apple orchard. "You know," said Madison. "I cringe very time I ride in these things. I have the awful feeling that one of these days, the door will open and there will be some horrible alien monster outside who considers me the arrival of his Domino pizza." Fatima gave a brief sigh and frown. "Uh Maddy, I wish you hadn't said that..." "Sorry." The hexagon on the other side of the apple orchard past the elevator was an enormous warehouse, and the group spent several minutes exploring it. Some sort of lumber depot, Mark thought at first, but then he changed his mind. The section they were in was a fantastic collection of fencing, wooden posts and rail, picket fencing, chain-link fencing, and a huge assortment of barb wire, all neatly bundled and color coded. The group shook their heads in wonder and then realized exploring the warehouse fully would take hours. They turned around and returned to the apple orchard. They continued their journey south. Mark originally had hoped to keep a clear course to the south, walking the hexagon segments in a triplet pattern of southeast, south, and southwest line segments, but that proved impossible. Sometimes the segments ended in dead ends, in which case they had to backtrack. Sometimes their choice was to backtrack or take a stairwell back to the second floor or even go below ground. Sometimes the simple corridors would expand to the widths of actual buildings, and they'd have to wander from room to room to make any progress. Emily kept detailed notes of their journey, drawing maps of what they were discovering. As the sun traced its low arc in the southern sky, they searching many kilometers of paths and managed to get more than two kilometers of straight line distance from home. Shortly after noon, they came to an area where the ground fell away, leaving them one floor above ground-level with what was now a third story still above them. They wandered southward for several segments looking for a way down without success, and then they came to a very strange door in the middle of the corridor. After staring at it for a moment, they realized it was an airlock with transparent walls and doors. It also had dead-man's switches for operating the lock. "Emily," asked Mark, "can you order both doors to open at the same time?" She shook her head. "I'm afraid not. My lessons talked about these types of doors. It's not a question of locking or unlocked. The system is functioning now and is considered unlocked." She reached over and held a wall mounted button down. The airlock door nearer them slid open. "The way this works," Emily continued, "is that the second button inside the chamber will only open the second door when the first door is closed. If we want to go any farther, two people will have to stay behind on this side, one person to enter the airlock and let the returning group into the airlock, and a second person on this side to let everybody out of the airlock. Fatima turned to Emily and asked, "Could you order the airlock to shut down with its second door open? That would mean only one person would have to stay behind." Mark was frowning. "I'm not sure I want to split up at all." Emily was also frowning. "That's kind of a fuzzy question Fatima. I'm a janitor, not a security director. In my immediate presence I could do that no problem. It's part of my job responsibilities to troubleshoot. But leaving an airlock in a state like that would be a security violation. I guess if I were to remain here, it would be no problem. I could let the rest of you go on." Mark looked at the time. It was 12:21 PM. They had eighty-four minutes till sunset. He sighed. "There's no way I want to be wandering around without you Emily. Let's backtrack and see if we can find another way." Twenty minutes and eight segments later, their new corridor ended in a large restroom which seemed to have only one entrance. They took a few minutes to use the facilities and then met outside and backtracked to their previous junction. Madison examined the local corridors and commented, "Do you notice that none of these corridors have lights?" Emily nodded. "The corridors of our home hexagon do, but yeah, most of them don't." Madison sighed as she stared at the walkways for a long moment. "I don't think they came this way." Emily tilted her head. "Why do you say that?" "Everything seems so pristine. It's spotless here. We're talking about a group of thirty people that left It's My Party. Wouldn't somebody have dropped a candy or a gum wrapper or something?" Emily shook her head. "Oh, they might have. These corridors are very well maintained by servo cleaners. Anything that was judged trash would be eliminated." Madison eyes went wide. "My God! What if the thirty people took a nap in the corridor?! Would they be judged trash?" Emily smiled and shook her head. "Absolutely not. It's a very sophisticated system. It maintains the Malls too, and the stores." Madison's quick mind jumped to an extrapolation. "But the tote bags with mushroom locks, we drop them on the floor from the side-cars. Are you saying the servos might consider them trash?" Emily shook her head again. "It's a very sophisticated pattern matching system. One tote bag might be flagged as forgotten if it were left unattended long enough, but a whole series of bags shows purpose and intent, and the servos respect that intent. I thought Mark's gold coins under the sky bridges were a really interesting test of their logic. One coin or even one scattering of coins would be scooped up I think, but Mark laid out six different piles. I think the cleaning servos are leaving the coins alone because they're honoring Mark's intent for placing them." Madison shivered. "My gosh. A computer can have that kind of judgment?" Emily shivered back. "Who said the servos had the mind of a computer?" "So what WOULD they clean up?" "Oh, spills, stuff that's broken, things like that. You take a shit on the floor, I'd be very surprised if they didn't clean it up as soon as you were out of sight." "Why would I have to leave?" "The servos have a very deep rule for being discreet. Think of them as super intelligent cockroaches that really hate being noticed." "Yuck! They look like cockroaches?!" Emily laughed. "More like mechanical spiders. Actually, they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes." "And these things keep the stores clean too?" "Yep, and they'll even remove damaged merchandise. They won't restock though. The store system is vast but if we use something up or destroy it, it's gone." Mark broke into the conversation. "Emily, how far are we from home?" "Let me check." She stared at her notes for a minute. "Call it 2.1 kilometers straight line, and... 3.6 kilometers to retrace the shortest path back, which is probably what you want to know." Mark nodded. "Then we should start heading back. We only have a tiny buffer to return before sundown." Fatima looked both agitated and disappointed. "But we can try again tomorrow right? And with bicycles?" Mark sighed. "Actually, Aggie made an interesting comment to me last night. Green Mall's party location is only about four kilometers north and one kilometer west of home. The seventeen women who left Aggie's Party #4, perhaps they're trapped somewhere between the two complexes. Aggie suggested she join us tomorrow and we try to head south from Party #4's location. I think it's a good idea." Mark looked with compassion at Fatima's distress and asked, "Perhaps we could continue the search here on Thursday. Would that be okay?" Fatima sighed at looked Mark in the eyes. For an instant, time seemed to freeze. "Yes, thank you Mark. You're very kind." she thought. A second later they all turned around and started heading home. Emily and Madison were vaguely troubled that Fatima was not polite enough to answer Mark's question. Later that evening. Time: Tuesday, January 8, 2019 9:40 PM "Aha! I have you at last!" chortled Mark softly as he sacrificed a rook for a bishop on his fourteenth move. He and Jada were playing chess in the first floor game room. Their nightly planning meeting had ended an hour ago and the rest of the crowd had retired for the night. Jada studied the position for only a few seconds before moving. Capturing the impudent white rook with her pawn was absolutely unavoidable. "Nice move," she admitted, "but I still think Black's position is tenable." "Well, we'll see," said Mark smiling. They had played a dozen chess games over the past two weeks, and Jada when Black had chosen the Sicilian Defense every time Mark had opened with his king pawn. This game was no exception, and tonight Jada had selected the Najdorf variation, pushing her queen knight pawn on move six and setting up a complex position with a great potential for tactical fireworks. The defense had netted her a win and a draw the two previous times she had used it. But not tonight. On move 21, Mark planted his remaining rook on D6, and it stayed there for the rest of the game with a crushing influence on Black's defenses. On her twenty-eighth move Jada resigned. "Excellent game. Thanks," she said as she started to put away the pieces. They went upstairs to their bedrooms to change and get ready for bed. And as Jada had done for the last few nights, she came over to Mark's bedroom. Their hours together before bed were quiet, easy times, with lots of light petting but more affectionate than sexual. They both knew they were making major adjustments to their dreams and ideals of what dating should be like, the fantasies of being a monogamous couple crashing against the reality of their situation. And tonight was no different. For the first time since their third night here, Jada crawled into bed with Mark, but he knew it was not for sex. Jada looked exhausted. He lay on his side and lightly stroked her hair. She gave him a thin smile. "This is so..." "Difficult?" he whispered. She nodded. "I'm not blaming you. None of this is your fault. But to have you for myself like this, and know it's not going to last. It just feels so strange." "I know." Mark paused for a long moment and then sighed. "I thought at first this would be every guy's dream, being sought after by a group of beautiful and accomplished women. And you are all wonderful, each of you. I couldn't ask for a nicer bunch of people to be with. But..." Jada grinned. "Yeah?" "Sometimes I feel I'm an elephant seal, a beach master. In theory this is a guy's perfect fantasy, but in reality ... My gosh Jada, you're all real people, not sex objects. I don't want to destroy anyone's happiness, or their dreams of having a faithful husband!" "Ah ... That's interesting. I have to admit, I've been getting a little jealous of you. You're not part of a group of men competing for my attention." "Oh hell, Jada. I don't want this to be competitive at all." "I know. None of us would have chosen this. Still, I should try to do a better job understanding your perspective. Being here with you ... I sometimes get flashes of ... I don't know. It feels vaguely like guilt." "Huh? Oh. You mean cheating the others?" "Yeah." Mark sighed. "I guess that's understandable. Want to call it a night?" "Hmmm? No, not yet. It's too nice to cuddle with you. And I am grateful to you Mark, truly grateful that you haven't pressured me for sex. It just seems we have so much to figure out first." Mark took a deep breath. "All this uncertainty is unsettling." "Oh yes. I'm on a journey with you, and I can't see what the destination is going to look like." Mark petted her for a long time, neither of them speaking. "I love you," he whispered at last. "And I love you. That's what makes this all possible." Jada sighed deeply. Her eyes were closed, her body deeply relaxed. "The promise you made to me, our first night together..." She was then still and silent for so long Mark thought she was asleep, but then she murmured, "Your promise, it's everything I've got..." Her breathing became slow and even. Near midnight Mark blinked his eyes awake long enough to kill the lights and cover the two of them with a sheet and blanket. And then they slept peacefully, sharing each other's warmth and softness and dreams. ------- Chapter 20 Interlude: At another Mall, in the dead of night. The roar of a big cat shook Sandra from her sleep. "Not close," she thought as she slowly awakened. "No danger. Who's on guard duty now? Oh yeah, Derrick." She took a moment to reflect on the previous day. "My God, what a meeting. He was one step away from challenging my authority. What a mess that would have been." Sandra stretched and sighed, looking at her watch and seeing that she would be relieving Derrick in ten minutes. It was not enough time to try to get back to sleep, and her active mind soon returned to its favorite pastime, reviewing their experiences since coming to Castle Commonwealth and trying to find a clue that would lead them out of this nightmare. Fifteen other women and one man had pledged to follow her leadership, though after so many days of zero progress, the group's unity was beginning to unravel. But what else could she do? Sandra stretched in the warm darkness, listening to the sounds of the jungle outside their shelter. Just one colossal mistake, she thought, on their second day here. That's all it took. And it really wasn't their fault. "How strange," she thought. "Less than three weeks? Is that all? Is that possible?" She sighed and let the memories run in her mind. She wouldn't have even come to this party, except for the fact her parents called from Boston on the 20'th and said something came up. They asked if they could they pick her up on Saturday rather than Friday. Sure, she had replied, what's one extra day? Sandra remembered the cold and gray December sky and how Amy had shouted when she saw the dirt road. Sandra remembered the incredibly whacky treasure-hunt path down to the elevator. What a scene! Those fraternity boys were acting so sure of themselves. It really was rather pathetic to watch them argue with the nurses ahead of them in line. What a relief when they finally took off. By the time Sandra's group left, they were all in good spirits. Several of the girls were already flirting with the two boys with them, and Sandra could remember how they sang their Party theme as they rode on the elevator. "You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain. Too much love drives a man insane. You broke my will, oh what a thrill." At this point Amy and Patrick were bumping the sides of their hips together, nothing lewd, just being playful. "Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!" Another roar of the big cats brought Sandra out of her memories. She grimaced at the thought of their deadly power. They had killed Patrick the day before Christmas, or more precisely, Patrick had sacrificed himself so that Sandra and two other college women would have a chance to escape. Such nobility, Sandra thought, and from someone who was almost a stranger. Sandra still felt unworthy of the gift. Shrugging off the lingering feelings of guilt, she got up and stretched and then went to relieve Derrick a few minutes early. Time: Wednesday, January 9, 2019 10:05 AM Mark and Jada quietly walked the dark cobblestone path south. They were at the home hexagon complex of Green Mall at it was still twenty minutes before dawn. The air was quite chilly, cold enough for snow, and the southern sky had a faint pink glow to it but was without warmth. Winter was fast approaching. It had proven surprisingly difficult to coax the interface to change the time of his training program, but Mark finally got it to agree to a 8 AM to 10 AM, 2 PM to 4 PM, and 5 PM to 7 PM schedule. The change would allow him to still participate in the short excursions around noontime and free him from being in classes late in the evening. The couple met Aggie and Emily at the southern vertex. There were brief hugs all around. "How was your class?" asked Aggie. Mark stretched. "The interface was putting me through my paces on Hertzprung-Russell diagrams, or at least that's what I used to call them." "What's that?" asked Emily. "Plots of solar luminosity versus temperature. We've got a great example right here coming out of the southern sky. Radiant output is down a factor of four compared to our old sun, which means the color temperature of the light is down a thousand degrees Kelvin. We're still on the main sequence for solar evolution though." Emily nodded. "Just lower down on the totem pole?" "Exactly." In the dim predawn twilight, the group started making their way south. Two hours later... Mark looked at the sun and cracked his first smile in over an hour. He was about to call it high noon, but the sun was only three or four degrees above the southern horizon. He decided the correct term would be low noon. Taking the bikes had been a mini-disaster. The surface features south of Green Mall's home complex were very different than Red Mall's. Fewer straight corridors, many more mandatory stairwells where they were forced to change levels, and somewhat interesting, large areas where the topology was reversed. They had entered an area with soft sand paths between large hexagonal buildings. "What do you think is inside?" Jada asked gesturing to the buildings. They had just turned sixty degrees to walk due south. Mark stared at the frosted windows. "Can't see much from here. More warehouses I guess. Want to go inside?" Jada thought for a moment. "Not this trip. We haven't got the time." Mark grunted his agreement. He was carrying two bicycles while Emily charted their course. The surface underfoot was too soft to bike, and even when they could ride, Emily still needed time to draw the maps she was making. She did that easily on foot the previous day as they walked, but she certainly couldn't do it while biking. Mark silently decided he would abandon the idea of using bikes for surface exploration. The topology switched again and they found corridors they could bike for a while by ascending to the second floor. But it didn't last. Soon they took another stairwell down to ground level and exited to a hexagonal zigzag of sandy roads heading in all directions. Mark sighed and carried two bicycles again as they trekked south. Ten minutes later they came to a major wall running east-west. It was a uniform six meters in height and had the look and texture of a blue translucent glass. A hundred meters to the west there appeared to be an archway through the wall, and the group hiked to it. Emily and Aggie both frowned when they saw a pictogram by the archway. Mark thought it looked like a broken Y lying on its side. "It's a warning," said Aggie. "The most severe there is. That's the code for mortal danger." She suddenly felt a bit like sneezing and wondered if she were smelling something irritating. The four of them walked to the threshold of the archway and looked inside. Before them was a vast open courtyard perhaps a hundred meters in width and running east and west as far as the eye could see. Beyond the archway was about ten meters of sand, a twelve-meter wide walkway (four meters each of yellow, then red, then black cobblestones), and finally about eighty meters of vegetation. It looked like a single species of plant, a dense ground cover with extremely thick, dark green leaves. There was another blue glass wall beyond the vegetation, and this time it was truly immense. The wall was a full twelve meters in height. "I don't like the setup," Aggie said quietly. "We shouldn't be here." She gave a small sneeze. "Come on," said Mark. "The cobblestones might be a good bike path." But they were most certainly not. The yellow cobblestones seemed intentionally laid to make walking on them very difficult, the red stones were even worse, and the black stones had many razor sharp edges. Mark wondered if the stones were some kind of cleaved flint. The jagged surface was so bad it would ruin a bicycle tire instantly if someone were idiotic enough to try to ride here. Standing a meter from the vegetation, Mark bent down and examined the plants. After a moment Aggie joined him. She stared intently into the foliage. The leaves looked vaguely like holly but were attached to long thin vines. Mark thought it was unusual to see broad leaves looking so healthy in such coldness. He guessed the temperature was about -2C. Meanwhile Aggie was swatting very quietly by his side and gave another small sneeze. She then gave a soft gasp and backed off the cobblestones. She called out in a tense, flat and very quiet voice, "Mark, stand up slowly and back away, no sudden motions. Come all the way back to the sand, as quietly as you can." "Hmmm?" "Do it. These plants are dangerous. Get off the cobblestones. Now, as quietly as you can." Mark turned slowly and walked across the stones, walking carefully over the bumpy surfaces. He asked in a quiet voice, "Aggie, what's up?" "Wicked curved thorns along the vines Mark, like needles." "Yeah, I saw them. I have good boots on." "I saw the vines twitch." "What? You mean from the wind?" "No. It looked much more organized than that. Several vines twitched, just when I sneezed. It was exactly as if they heard me, moving slightly towards my sound. Then other vines in contact with the first ones reacted to the motion, jerking and wiggling from the disturbance." Mark turned and stared at the greenery. "You think the ivy can hear us? This is a plant, right?" Aggie whispered, "Maybe not just a plant. I'm telling you, I saw the vines move and wiggle. My impression was that of lots of green garden snakes with thorns, or cats with retractable claws. They wiggled! The motions had purpose! It was ... scary." Jada stared at the lush foliage. "I could throw my water bottle in, see what happens." Emily frowned. "I'd be inclined not to do anything." "Me too," added Aggie. She shivered, and it was not from the cold. "Seriously. We do not want to cause a disturbance here." Meanwhile Jada had turned to her roommate and locked eyes and thought, "My dear friend, you've learned caution at last!" Emily mouth formed a thin smile as she thought back, "Some life lessons you just can't ignore." Then she hiccupped and broke the connection. Mark was staring down the length at the long glass wall beyond the plants. He asked quietly, "Hex Hall is directly under this wall, isn't it?" Emily turned away from Jada and looked at her map sketches and nodded, pointing to her left as she faced the southern wall. She answered quietly, "I think so. That way, about four hundred meters maybe." She pointed across the ivy. "That wall, I'm guessing it's a boundary between the surface areas of Red and Green Mall." She then stared east to the spot above where Hex Hall would be. "I don't see anything special. Do you want to hike down and take a look?" Mark heard the worry in Emily's voice. She would follow him in obedience if he decided to explore further, but he could clearly hear her desire to go back. He glanced at his phone for the time. "No, I guess not. We should turn around. We'll barely make it back before dark." He locked eyes with their newest member and thought, "Sorry Aggie." She nodded sadly and gave Mark a brief hug, acknowledging they would not find her lost group today. The next morning. Time: Thursday, January 10, 2019 10:30 AM According to his calculations, sunrise today would occur in five minutes, but you could never tell it from the scene outside the glass walkways. Mark, Emily, Jada, and Aggie were standing at the southern vertex of their home above Red Mall, and the weather outside was frightful. The temperature had actually risen during the night, and the outside sensor Emily had activated was reading a temperature of +0.7C. There was also lots of precipitation, and it was cycling every ten minutes or so between freezing rain and big wet flakes. If they were back in Vermont, the precipitation would have been called a classic New England wintery mix. "Is it my imagination, or is it colder in here than usual?" asked Jada was she stared into the predawn grayness. The opposite end of the soccer pitch was completely invisible. Emily issued a voice command for the interface to report the corridor temperature, and then grinned at Jada. "I guess it's your imagination." "The corridors are always 15C?" asked Aggie. Emily shook her head. "The corridors are at a minimum of 15C in winter and a maximum of 20C in summer. They'll feel really pleasant in the summer heat." "Ah, thanks," said Aggie. "Is that true for the buildings too?" "No. Building temperature depends on whether the interface considers them occupied. Occupied buildings are kept in a range of 18C to 20C, towards the cool end at night. It's the same in the malls. Unoccupied buildings are kept at 10C year round, even in the summertime." Aggie looked somewhat surprised. "Wow. So when we enter a building, the system will automatically heat it for us?" "Well, sort of, not exactly. Just entering a building doesn't flag it as occupied. If we stayed for more than an hour though, or started making frequent trips to it, the complex would start to raise its temperature." Mark was paying scant attention to this conversation. His mind was elsewhere, weighing the risks the group was taking yesterday and today, risks with the underground Mall, not the surface excursions. Today they would be spending a couple of hours checking out some nearby buildings that appeared to be warehouses. That seemed fairly low risk as long as they didn't get careless with their observations. Mark was more concerned with how aggressive the rest of the group seemed to be in locking down the malls below. Two nights ago on Tuesday evening, the entire group had lobbied for a major excursion into White Mall, a combination exploration and lockdown maneuver identical to the procedure that had locked Green Mall. Mark finally capitulated on the issue when he realized that he was the only member of the group that saw this as a high risk activity After the surface expedition returned about 1:30 PM yesterday, Mark and Aggie stayed at home while the other six team members explored the remaining length of White Mall without incident. It was now totally locked down with its terminal food store and elevator safely added to their inventory. And today they had the same plans for Yellow Mall, or as Madison was fond of calling it, "Yellow Brick Road". The basis for their aggressiveness was the assumption that Yellow and White Malls belonged to Party #6 and #2 or Party #2 and #6, and thus belonged to women groups and were low risk to explore. Mark still felt queasy about making this assumption, but the time to press the issue was Tuesday evening. The question Mark was struggling with now was, what next? Jada gave Mark a playful nudge. "What do you think? Time to get going?" Mark returned her smile. "Probably as bright as it's going to get. Let's move out." Ten hours later... With Mark's assistance, Aggie had prepared a fine ethnic banquet for the team returning from Yellow Mall, delicious arpagyongy kremleves (cream of pearl barley soup), cucumber salad, sweet rolls, beef stroganoff, and amas retes (apple strudel) for dessert. Mark allowed himself a small grin afterwards as they were sitting down for their nightly conference meeting. Perhaps the only thing wrong with the dinner was it seemed difficult to worry about anything now. Thoughts of a good night sleep seemed very enticing, especially if Jada would stop by for some affectionate cuddling time. Mark looked at her and smiled. Jada squinted her eyebrows. "And what are you grinning at?" Mark shrugged. "Oh, just enjoying life, I guess. Fabulous dinner Aggie." Aggie cracked a bright smile at the compliment. "You did half the work. Ever think of going professional with your cooking skills Mark?" Fatima called the meeting to order before Mark could reply. Mark and Jada gave a brief description of the progress of their noontime surface expedition from Red Mall. They had explored three hexagonal buildings less than a kilometer away. The nearest one was a cavernous indoor gym, with basketball and volleyball courts surrounded by a 400-meter indoor oval track running alongside the inside hexagonal perimeter. The other two buildings were warehouses, one filled with vast storage rooms of metal ingots, and another with an incredible collection of all types of hardwood stock. They also mapped what appeared to be another hexagonal fruit orchard four hexagons from their home. The trees seemed very unusual. They were all convinced they were not a species native to Earth. Madison gave a brief summary of locking down Yellow Mall. Her team had found the spiral deserted and their work was without incident. They now had two surface complexes, four terminal food stores and elevators, and all six central sky bridges under their control. Four of the six spirals were completely locked down, as were the central halves of Blue Mall and Black Mall. Mark went next and gave an update on his studies. "Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, I think I'm very close to getting managing control of the orbital telescope." Ashley nodded. "Does that mean you'll be a Section Zero employee?" "Well, not exactly. The interface and I, we have sort of a don't ask, don't tell policy going. If I ask it if I am a director, I think it would have to say no. But if I don't ask, it'll let me use the telescope as part of my training." "But won't it get suspicious if you point it down to the planet?" "Oh, there are no secrets. It knows my desires. I think it's trying to help me as much as it can, given the strange rules it's following. That's my guess anyway. It won't talk about what constraints it's working under." The group moved on to the main topic for discussion, what would be the next work activity? Jada immediately pushed for a continuation of Mall lockdown and completion of the Blue and Black spirals. The other women quickly gave their approval. Mark found himself again being the only one objecting and found himself confronting Jada on the issue. "Why are we taking this risk?" Jada countered. "What do you mean? It's a greater risk to leave the Malls with open access." "But these are not our spirals." "Haven't we already decided that point when we talked about White and Yellow Malls?" Mark took a deep breath. "Well, okay, but you know what I mean. Black or Blue Mall is probably the spiral belonging to the twenty fraternity brothers. I don't want do anything provocative, especially for our first contact with them." The debate went back and forth for a half hour. Mark was so unhappy about the idea that Jada thought he would simply overrule them by decree and simply say no, but Mark was extremely reluctant to go down that path. As 9 PM neared, he and the rest of the team finally reached a compromise. Since there was too little light to do surface exploration now, Mark would go back to a 9 AM to 5 PM training schedule. And very early tomorrow morning, all eight of them would attempt to lock down a third of the remaining open space of Black Mall. They would leave the Black Mall sky bridge stores with twenty-five sacks of locks in two side cars and bike outbound on the spiral to the 50.1 kilometer mark, dropping two sacks every kilometer and closing the doors behind them. If they found the Mall vacant, Mark and Emily would then bike back to the sky bridge with the two side cars while the other six team members leap-frogged the locking work as they returned. If all went according to plan, Mark would be home in time for his 9 AM lesson. ------- Chapter 21 The next morning. Time: Thursday, January 10, 2019 11:00 AM Mark finally looked up from his terminal as his two-hour lesson ended. He shivered and then smiled at Emily who was standing beside him with a hand on his shoulder. "Wow," he whispered. "Yeah..." Mark frowned as he realized what time it was. "I'm surprised the group isn't back yet." He picked up his phone and was relieved when Jada answered. Mark asked her where she was. "Ah, sorry. I guess we should have called in. We're about three hundred meters from the Black Mall sky bridge. Do you remember a store called Matrix Security?" "The one with the diving eagle as a logo? Yeah, I think so. Why? Did you find something interesting?" "I'll say. Wireless surveillance systems, thirty system units and a huge number of audio-visual sensors, maybe hundreds for each system unit. I've got some really interesting ideas on how we might use this." "Sounds good. Are you about finished?" "Uh, we're cleaning out the stock now, storing everything on the second floor of the deli next to the sky bridge. We should be finished in another ten minutes or so." "Great. Jada, I have operational control of the orbiting telescope. Emily and I getting some fantastic shots of the southern hemisphere on the other side of the planet now. The images are incredible." "My gosh. Bravo Mark!" "And it gets even better. The telescope is in orbit 500 kilometers above the surface, has an orbital period of 95 minutes. In 56 minutes, it'll be almost directly overhead, just a few degrees to our south. The clouds have broken up, the sun is shining. We couldn't ask for a better setup, ultra-high resolution images of everything within fifty kilometers of here." Mark could hear several of the other team members whoop for joy as they heard him speak. Jada promised to hurry and then she closed the connection. The group spent the next hour gasping and admiring the beauty of the planet, switching between real-time observations and the vast memory stores of the orbital platform. Their impression was of a lush world both similar and profoundly different than Earth. The data were showing them a world with a radius 1% less than Earth's and considerably more water. There was no frozen icecap at either pole, and the ocean coverage was 76% of the planet, compared to 71% for Earth. Over 96% of the land area of the world was concentrated in eight isolated continents, three in the northern hemisphere, four in the south, and the largest continent, one incredible continent with the land mass slightly over thirty million square kilometers. It was a uniform 700 to 800 kilometers wide and completely circumnavigated the globe at the equator, dividing the world's two great oceans into separate bodies of water. One hundred percent of the world's equator was over land, frequently high above sea level along the spine of a great equatorial mountain range. The mountains were often above 8000 meters, never quite as high as Mt. Everest on Earth but rivaling its height for tens of thousands of kilometers. The group decided to name the continent Africa. The other seven continents were oriented in an unusually uniform east-west orientation, with shapes that varied from oval to cigar. The continent they were on was vast, the size of Russia on Earth and the largest continent in the northern hemisphere. They eagerly counted down the last minutes before they would get a detailed orbital view of their home. "The global dominance of east-west orientation," Jada commented. "This is so different than Earth! What could make the tectonic forces align like this?" Aggie shook her head in wonder. "To answer that would be a lifetime of study. Do you notice there are no deserts in Africa? The mountains must be drawing great quantities of moist air from both oceans. Look at all the rivers! The place must be a paradise!" Ashley added as an afterthought. "Don't forget there was a nasty snake in paradise." And then their home complex was displayed before them, the great labyrinth completely revealed by the low noontime sun. All speech stopped as they tried to absorb the implications of what they were seeing. "Was all that recorded Mark?" Emily whispered at last. "Oh yeah, wouldn't miss it," he mumbled back. Mark had also written some software to search for hexagons with a central circular stairwell connected by a linear building to a hexagonal vertex, and the code had overlaid six spots on the map before them with blinking red icons. "My gosh, no wonder we never found the other party locations. We've been looking in the wrong places!" Five hours later. Time: Thursday, January 10, 2019 5:03 PM Mark wandered into the multimedia room after finishing his day's lesson with the interface. He saw Emily, Fatima, and Hannah working quietly with one of the best satellite images of their home complex projected on the huge TV screen. Emily was working on a new laptop she picked up at the Mall a week ago. She looked up and smiled as he walked over. "How was the rest of your class?" "Oh, just fine. The orbital platform has very broad spectrum capabilities. I was learning how to use the spectrum analyzer. Solar UV is a small fraction of what it was on Earth. Sun screen lotion might be a thing of the past." Emily smiled. "That's good. I never liked the stuff anyway." Hannah looked at Mark curiously. "But we got what we want. Why are you still going through the motions of studying astronomy?" Mark grinned. "Yeah, I know. It's a little difficult to explain. Somehow I'd be embarrassed if I were too flagrant about my ulterior motives. I know this sounds weird, but I think the interface trusts me, and I don't want to betray it. And besides, astronomy is fun! I'm enjoying my lessons immensely." Mark looked around the room. "Are the other folks upstairs?" Emily shook her head. "I don't think so. They're setting up two surveillance systems at the sky bridges of Black and Blue Malls. Mark, take a look at this." She zoomed in on the TV display until a great hexagonal maze filled the screen. She began to summarize her analysis. "The sides of the hexagon are twenty-six kilometers each, a total of over 878 square kilometers of enclosed space. See the green along all the external edging, and again with the six interior partitions? I'm guessing they represent long stretches of the thorn plant, isolating the Parties from reaching each other on the surface. The Malls are our only way to make contact with each other." Mark sighed. "So this really is a prison?" "You think so?" ask Fatima. "My impression was one of giving the different Party groups some breathing time to get their bearings before they would have to interact with the other teams. I think having multiple teams like this increases the chances of our species survival immensely." She paused for a moment and then added, "Mark, how difficult would it be to make a hot air balloon and travel above the walls?" Hannah turned and looked at Fatima. "We have lots of brisk winds here. Getting out might be easy within a year, but how would we get back? We'd be on our own, on a continent of an unknown planet with no idea of what the dangers were." Fatima nodded. "I know. We're all urban dwellers. Defending ourselves against a wilderness, building our own shelters, growing our own food, none of us have the skill sets." Emily brought the conversation back to the results of her work, typing in a command to highlight the six Party locations. Together the six points formed the shape of a great lopsided cross. There were four Parties connected by a line tilted eighteen degrees to the left of vertical on the top. The line also intersected the underground Hex Hall in the exact center of the great complex. Two more Parties were to the far east and west, on an orthogonal line that also intersected Hex Hall. Emily had been partially correct in her guess that there would be a super symmetry in the placement of the Parties, but it was not the symmetry she had been expecting. Red and Green Malls, Parties #1 and #4, It's My Party and I Can See Clearly Now, were the two interior Parties on the tilted north-south axis. They were 2.06 straight-line kilometers and 6.46 spiral kilometers (the 828 degree mark) from Hex Hall. Party #1 was on the southernmost tip of the local revolution of its spiral, and Party #4 was on the northernmost tip of its spiral. The Party locations for Black and White Malls were also situated on the northernmost and southernmost arcs of their spirals, but much further out. They were both at the 1248 degree mark of the 1260 degree spirals, 70.1 kilometers out along the 75.1 kilometer spiral and 21.3 kilometers in a straight-line distance from Hex Hall. They were very near the edge of the great complex, only 1.7 kilometers away from the great exterior hexagon walls with their terrifying guardian plants. The areas around the home complexes of Black and White Malls were unusual in other ways too. The two homes were at the tips of two large diamond-shaped arrays of hexagons, the homes at one tip and the other at the inner barrier of the great perimeter wall. The diamond arrays were composed of forty-nine hexagons each, and were surrounded by more than two kilometers of open fields on three sides and the perimeter wall on the other. The Party locations for Yellow and Blue Malls were at the maximum east and west directions of the last loops of their spirals, at the 1218 degree mark (59.3 spiral kilometers) and 18.0 straight-line kilometers from Hex Hall. "This map has such high resolution," concluded Emily, "that we know exactly which store to search for in each spiral. All we have to do is count the distance. You can tell from the exact placements of the six stairwells. Red, Black, and Blue Malls are entered on the inside arc, and the other three Party Malls on the outside arc. The images line up perfectly with the geometry." "Emily," prodded Hannah, "tell him about the end stores." "Oh yeah. This is interesting. Assuming all the spirals are identical, the six terminal stores are all outside the complex perimeter walls. The end of the Red Mall corridor is 22.793 kilometers due east of Hex Hall, 276 meters east of the eastern wall of the primary hexagon." Mark nodded in silence and stared for a long moment at the image. "Hilly forest, can't say I can see anything in particular at the site." Emily sighed. "Yeah. It is an intriguing possibility, thinking we could tunnel up sixteen meters from one of the terminal stores and leave this place. Somehow though, I think getting through the store ceiling will be very difficult. The building materials here are incredibly tough." Mark shrugged. "Right now I don't see leaving as a high priority issue." He sat down and helped with the image processing until the rest of the team returned for dinner. Time: Friday morning, January 11, 2019 Today was the first day they tried to think of Friday as the first day of the week, and also the day set aside for rest and reflection and prayer. The interface had accepted without complaint Mark's request to skip his lessons on Fridays. And so the whole group had met after their morning showers but before their usual breakfast time, in a meeting Fatima suggested they call The Hour of Common Prayer. Somehow the name seemed to fit, even though people were mostly discussing their hopes and fears rather than formally praying. They all agreed they got a lot out of the meeting and decided to try it again next Friday. But the urge to explore could not be denied, and after breakfast they quickly got their bikes from Blazo's Art Gallery and then jumped again to the terminal store of White Mall, a huge food store called the Dutch Market which looked as if it held enough fine chocolate to last a thousand years. Ashley who was part Dutch fell in love with the place and offered to make appelflappen for their upcoming celebration of the winter solstice. But their current mission here had a more serious objective. According to the orbital images, the home Party location of White Mall was just five kilometers away. Madison and Ashley stayed at the Dutch Market to set up a surveillance system while the other six began to bike down the spiral. They had no side cars and were taking the ride slowly, examining the locked stores as they passed. They reached their destination shortly before 9:30 AM. According to their calculations, the store was less than nine kilometers northeast of the southern vertex of the great complex. "Notice how the door flows and seals itself around the mushroom?" Jada asked as she spun the tumblers on the lock. Mark nodded. "Yes, some sort of plastic flow, what a technology. How long does it take?" "It starts about a minute after the mushroom snaps and locks, finishes a few minutes later. Watch this." Jada completed the combination and the door flowed back at once, allowing the mushroom to be extracted easily. She then reached in and pushed the button to open the door. It was unfortunately a large store, another ACE Hardware running sixty meters in length along the outside arc of the spiral. That meant with two floors they had a full hundred and twenty meters of back wall to search. From her calculations Emily thought the back entrance would be about twenty meters from the wall closest to the Dutch Market and at first they concentrated their search there. But nothing was found on either floor. The team spent the better part of an hour methodically pressing every square centimeter along the back wall. While the rest of the team was downstairs, Mark quietly walked over the Emily who was sitting on a counter on the second floor thinking things over. "What do you think Emily? Did we pick the wrong store?" "I don't see how. Three of us independently counted this as the correct location." Mark nodded. "Maybe the door is locked from the other side. Remember how easy it is to make our own door at the Dress Barn disappear?" She nodded glumly. "Do you want to give up? We can still try to find the Party location on Yellow Brick, or maybe get back to locking down Black and Blue Malls." Mark sighed. "I wish we weren't doing that." Emily sighed back. "I know. This is one issue I agree with Jada ... Well, she also has an ambitious schedule for setting up all the surveillance systems. Maybe we could spend some time on that." "Ah. Jada hasn't filled me in on the details yet." Emily went on to explain. "We want to install Matrix surveillance systems at all locations we have elevators. At the sky bridges and our Party locations, there'll be six sensors on the door and another six on the door opposite across the corridor." Mark nodded. "So the system unit can pick up sensors through the closed doors?" "Evidently. The doors are transparent to visible light. I guess they're transparent to the sensor data frequencies too. We mount the sensors at one, two, and three meters above ground level, along both sides of both doorways. Then the system unit integrates all twelve inputs. I've seen the test. It's not just multiple screens of video. The system unit can integrate the images into very detailed 3-D video. It can even extrapolate shadows and guess the existence of surfaces it can't see." Emily jumped off the counter and continued. "They're sophisticated systems. You set them to record differentials so an empty corridor doesn't get recorded, but all the interesting images do. What took Jada so long on the first installation was figuring out how to get the counting software to work. The system can be set to record how many people have passed in each direction and when, and store video of the events too. Ask Jada for a demo sometime. It's quite impressive." Mark nodded and stretched. "Yeah, thanks, I'll do that. Say, wait a minute. Did you say every location we have an elevator?" "Uh huh." "But our Party locations, do we really want to place sensors around the doors? If somebody sees them, they'll know" Emily interrupted. "They'll know nothing. The sensors are identical in appearance to the black sensors that are in the door archways anyway. Jada thinks it's some sort of RF-ID tag reader to record what's leaving the store. We just unplug the RF sensors and snap in the audio-visual upgrades. The sockets even power the sensors. It's a beautiful system. We keep the system unit out of sight near the elevator. You just walk out and check the corridor traffic logs without ever revealing your presence. It's a beautiful, powerful system, and a snap to install." "So why is it taking Madison and Ashley so long to set up the surveillance system at the Dutch Market?" Emily laughed. "Oh, I doubt that. They probably had the whole thing up and running in fifteen minutes and have spent the last hour munching chocolate." Mark grinned back. "Oh my gosh." "So, are we ready to call it quits here?" "Yeah, I guess so. Why don't we..." Mark paused for a moment, and then turned slowly to face the back wall of the store. He just had a sudden insight. The entire back wall of the second floor of the hardware store was covered with tools and supplies hanging off hooks from a pegboard. Like all the stores in the great mall, both floors of the store were 3.9 meters in height. To reach the upper half of the displays, this store like many others had two small sliding staircases locked into below-floor-level tracks. Mark slid one of the staircases to the position twenty meters from the appropriate side wall and climbed to the top of the small platform. He began to push against different areas of the pegboard. There was a faint click as he pushed under a row of chalking guns and the wall in front of him began to slide away. He heard Emily gasp behind him and he turned to her and their eyes locked. Mark thought. "How could I have been so dumb?" Emily's eyes were alive with laughter and she thought back, "Not just you, my love. We're all bozos on this bus." And then she hiccupped and the eye contact broke. Emily turned and ran to call the others from downstairs. In a few minutes all six of them were exploring the White Mall copy of their home. The general layout was identical, but there were a few differences. This home complex was attached to the west southwestern vertex of the local hexagon, not the southern vertex. And the place looked pristine, as if it had never been occupied. It was also a chilly uniform +10C in all the rooms. Their first objective was to check out the first floor library and elevator. They all felt a rush of victory as they saw an access code being brightly displayed above the interior keyboard. They recorded the code, triple checked it and then left the elevator and called Madison and Ashley as the door closed. A moment later the last two members of the team joined them. There were grinning faces all around. "So this is Party #2?" asked Hannah as they explored the spotless upstairs kitchen and lounge. "Party #2 or #6 we think, yeah," replied Aggie. "Maybe a slight chance of one of the others." "Did they ever even make it here? The place looks untouched." Aggie remembered the lessons from her janitor training. "Six days after being vacant, auto maintenance flagged the structure as unoccupied. All traces of the Party have been removed." She took a deep breath in the chilly air. "You can tell from the temperature too." She looked out the window and saw the first orange rays of the rising sun touching the great open fields. It was 10:45 AM. Today there would be two and a half hours of daylight. "Temperature?" Suddenly Mark bucked as if he had been struck by lightning. He looked around rapidly and noticed two team members were not in sight. He said hoarsely, "Where's Maddy and Ashley?" Fatima looked up from examining a kitchen cabinet. "Downstairs installing a Matrix system in ACE hardware. Mark, you okay?" Mark nodded quickly. "I've got to get back home. The orbital satellite, the spectrum analyzers, I can set them for infrared." Fatima's mouth formed a silent oh. Nine hours later. "Oh hell, Mark. If you disagree with us that much, why don't you just overrule us? Every one of us agrees you have the right to do so." Mark stared back at Ashley, and then looked at all the other women gathered around the conference table. "I've never done that, and I really don't want to start now." He paused and added, "We really need to find some time to work on our government." "We're giving you most of what you want Mark," Jada said defensively. She gestured to a large display they had nearby of an infrared view of the great complex. There were many surface locations showing heated buildings, including two in their own area above Red Mall. Jada turned and pointed to a spot about twenty kilometers away, near the southeast vertex. It had to be the rest of Party #1. But everyone except Mark thought the group should try to make contact with Black Mall first. The home complex of Black Mall was the most northern of the six Party locations. It was at the southernmost tip of a diamond-shaped hexagonal array of buildings, and it was brightly shining in infrared, with the entire surface area belonging to Black Mall dark by comparison. The conclusion seemed obvious. The people of Black Mall were still living at their home location. Mark had been debating with his group for the last half hour. Everyone was agreed they would bike towards the end of Black Mall tomorrow morning, past the 50.1 kilometer mark which was their previous furthest penetration. The only point of contention was the women's desire to keep locking down the mall, an act Mark thought was insanely hostile. "Look at it this way Mark," said Jada. "I think most of us agree with you that Party #5 will probably be filled with reasonable people. We will then apologize and give them the combination for Black Mall. But if they're hostile, having the Mall locked down could be a tremendous benefit for us. It'll throttle their ability to disturb our use of the other spirals." Fatima chimed in. "You don't know what it was like Mark, having the Beta Sigma Rho brothers intimidating everybody else in the line. They were boorishly rude and very aggressive. I think otherwise I'd agree with you. Perhaps morally we should give them the benefit of the doubt. But..." Mark interrupted. "We'll only get one chance to make a friendly first impression." Fatima shook her head. "We'll only get one chance to continue the Black Mall lockdown. Once our presence is known to them, it would indeed be overly hostile. But for now, we can hide behind our supposed ignorance." She frowned. "I'm not particularly proud of acting like this, but bottom line, it's just not worth the risk to do otherwise." Mark was shaking his head. "I still feel we're about to provoke an incident. People, this is how wars start." The debate lasted another few minutes, and then Mark capitulated. An hour later, he and Jada were hanging out in his bedroom. Jada was in her pajamas and quietly reading the surveillance user manual from Matrix Security while Mark was going through some exercises before bed. He worked out more vigorously than he had planned and decided to take a shower before bed. After sharing a friendly kiss with Jada, he took off, expecting her to be gone by the time he returned. Mark walked into the bathroom quietly and was startled to see Ashley fully disrobed and about to step into the shower. Their eyes locked before either could say anything. "I'm so sorry," thought Mark. "I should have made some noise coming in." "You live here too. You don't have to do that. Besides, I don't mind..." Mark's eyes were locked on Ashley's, but his peripheral vision was drinking in the sight of her body. She was standing before him in full frontal nudity and making no attempt to cover herself. Mark had nothing but admiration for her, sexual and otherwise. She had lost about two kilos of fat since they came here, and had gained about a kilo of muscle from all the exercise. She looked great, a bit of an hourglass figure, full hips, trim waist, a wonderful set of tits, pushing a C-cup Mark thought, and he couldn't help but notice her nipples were hard points jutting out from her taut breasts. He wondered if it were from the coolness of the room or because she was displaying her body for him. "It's not because I'm cold," Ashley thought with a smile. "Do you usually think of breasts as tits?" He thought back, "Oh, sorry again. I can't believe I'm being this crude." But he couldn't stop himself. His eyes were enthralled with the triangle of fur below her navel, a thick bush only slightly darker than her naturally reddish hair. "Seriously Mark, I don't mind. In fact, I think it's cute how you're trying and failing not to stare at ... well, at me in my birthday suit. You really think I'm that gorgeous, huh?" Ashley raised her arms and locked her hands behind her head, smiling at Mark as she displayed her body. "My last boyfriend was always telling me to lose a few pounds." "Yeah, I remember. Eric. He was such an idiot," Mark thought back. "No argument there. So, you want to shower together?" "Uh..." Mark blushed in his thoughts. "Of course yes, but I might get..." "Erect? Mark, we might marry someday, and even if we don't call it marriage, we might still have children together. I'll be disappointed if you don't get erect. Come on!" "Ashley, you're so beautiful." "Ha! Come on! And don't be bashful about your body. But we won't do anything. I promise." They both ended the thought conversation with fierce hiccups. Ashley blushed but remained standing and displaying herself to Mark, very happy that he was finding her attractive. "Wow," she said, "I didn't think I had the guts to ... well, to speak that directly." She took a few steps forward until she was right before him and offered Mark her hand. "But I'm glad I did, and I'm very glad you accepted! Come on!" The shower was one of the most remarkable experiences of Mark's life. There was no physical contact except for holding hands as they walked to the shower and a few kisses afterwards as they said goodnight to each other. They both knew it was too soon for overt sexuality. But they shared lots of grinning smiles as they washed, happy to be with each other and happy to be laying the foundation for later physical intimacy. Mark walked back into his bedroom in a deeply peaceful state of mind, almost unaware of the erection that was still between his legs. He was mildly surprised to see Jada still sitting on his bed. She looked up from her book with wide eyes and exclaimed, "I've just found something fabulous!" ------- Chapter 22 Three and half days later. Time: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 8:29 AM Mark glanced at the time in a passing clock store just as he heard the sound of their last bags of locks hit the ground about forty meters behind him. He gave a small sigh as he considered that he had less than a kilometer left to go. It was three hours before sunrise and they were right on time. They had all taken an elevator to Blazo's Art Gallery from their home lounge well before 6 AM, and Mark had commented to Jada that if they met no one, they'd probably reach their target destination well before 9 AM, the 62.6 kilometer mark of Black Mall. They were finally getting back to their mission of Black Mall lockdown after a three-day delay. Late Friday night, Jada had discovered that the sensors of the Matrix Security systems could be linked together in a long chain if they were in visual sight of each other. The outside arc of the Mall spirals provided the perfect setup to test the capability. All the store entrances in the Malls were a uniform four-meter by four-meter square, with slots for the sensors on both sides of the doorway at heights of one, two, and three meters. The sensor slots were about 1 cm from the outside face of the corridor, and were protected by the transparent door which when closed would lie flush with the wall. Driven by the desire to maximize their surveillance coverage, they abandoned the setup for video stereo and began placing pairs of sensors at the three-meter position along the doors of the outside arc, working with a small ladder to space the sensors as far apart as possible along the spiral while still keeping them in visual contact with each other. The sensors were thus able to relay distant observations in a long chain of multiplexed input. Early Saturday they did their morning security sweep by checking all the monitors at the elevator locations. They found nothing recorded and then began installing their first sensor chain from the Dress Barn of Red Mall. The central system unit had a maximum capacity of 64 channels, allowing for one pair just outside the store and 31 pairs for remote locations up or down the spiral. They choose to work in the direction towards Hex Hall, and by late morning installed their last pair six kilometers distant and just 700 spiral meters from Hex Hall. After lunch they worked a second system unit in the other direction. Because of the lengthening arc of the spiral, they managed to more than double their distance, placing their last pair of sensors at the 19,260-meter mark of the spiral. On Sunday they tackled the job of setting up two more monitoring chains from the sky-bridge location of Red Mall. When they were finished, they had monitoring positions from 18,732 meters to 62,560 meters, overlapping with their monitoring range from the Dress Barn. A final chain from the Red Mall terminal store would allow them to monitor everything in Red Mall except the tight spiraling tip at the beginning of the spiral, but during their Sunday night conference they all agreed that that was a very low priority. So on Monday morning they returned to Black Mall and installed sensors on the part of the spiral they had already locked down, from just past the fifty-kilometer mark all the way back to mark 18.7. The hairs on the back of Mark's neck were standing up the whole time, but the day proceeded without incident. And now it was Tuesday morning. They had picked up their bikes and two side cars after a very early breakfast and then jumped back to the Black Mall sky bridge and loaded the side cars with 750 locks, half their remaining Black Mall supply. With all eight members of the group working the project, it was easy to maintain an eight kilometer an hour lockdown pace, and installing the last fifteen pair of sensors was only taking about an extra half hour of time. Mark insisted riding point, about twenty seconds ahead of along with Jada and Emily in the side cars, and Fatima and Aggie riding just behind them as door closers. Another twenty seconds further back Madison, Hannah, and Ashley were picking the dropped bags of locks off the floor and completing the lockdown. Madison had a third side-car carrying a small ladder to help with the sensor installations. Mark was flabbergasted they had come this far without being challenged. According to their knowledge of the Parties, either 36 or 40 people went to Party #5, and the home location of Black Mall was still the brightest building on the infrared images yesterday. True, there was a chance Black Mall belonged to Party #3, but regardless, Black Mall was the only section besides their own that had managed to maintain a presence at the home Party location. Was it possible they never found the entrance to their Mall? Everyone in Mark's group was assuming it would be as easily findable as it was for them at Parties #1 and #4, but they had no proof of that. As 8:35 AM came, Mark was just a couple of stores from their stopping point when he heard voices call out from the store just ahead on his left on the inside arc. The name Rabbies Dram Scotch Whisky was proudly displayed above the archway in bold letters. The group's agreement was that if Mark spotted other people, he would pull up and wait for everyone to catch up, but the voices he had heard were unsettling. The first voice sounded like an angry bark, a voice of a man totally out of patience. And what followed seemed to be a crying whimper in reply. Disturbed by such an emotional exchange and with the doorway to the liquor store just a few meters ahead, Mark coasted the remaining distance without thinking and braked outside the door. Mark stared into the liquor store with shocked amazement. Before him stood a young woman carrying a caseload of whisky, and she was wearing almost nothing, a skimpy halter and a pair of soiled panties. Mark's first thought was that she must be freezing being so undressed in the cool Mall. And then his eyes began to take in more details. There were bruises and welts covering her body, from her face to the tops of bare feet. And her feet were in chains. It looked as if there were three pair of linked handcuffs stretched out between her ankles, giving her barely enough room to walk and certainly not enough separation to run. And there was dried blood around her ankles and heels. The tight handcuffs had rubbed the skin over her ankles raw. Mark eyes darted back up from her feet to her astonished face. "Run," she mouthed silently with her lips. "You fucking bitch!" a voice roared from just inside the archway. A young man emerged from behind the store façade, carrying a pistol and raising it to whip the cringing girl. "Fucking whore! Did I give you permission to..." His peripheral vision caught a glimpse of Mark and he turned to see. Their eyes locked. "Motherfucker!" the man screamed in his mind. "What?!" Mark thought back. The raw intensity of the man's emotions was overwhelming. An initial wave of shame, so deeply ashamed at what he had become, followed by an avalanche of fear and hatred that allowed the man to bury his shame. With deep intuition, Mark knew what was about to happen. His own body started to move in response, almost without his volition. "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!" the man thought as he began to swing his pistol towards Mark. "There is no need!" Mark's mind cried out in protest, his left hand sweeping across his legs towards a spike in a holster under his right arm. "There's no need!" he shouted in his mind. So slow! It felt as if his body were moving against ultra-thick molasses. "Die, you motherfucker!" The man seemed to realize that Mark did not have a firearm, and was taking the time to crotch into a firing position before pulling the trigger. Mark thought he could read the man's mind. "One shot, right between the eyes! Uno will be so proud! Fuck whore tonight, pick of the pussies! Don't waste the bullets! Do it in one squeeze!" "My God man!" Mark screamed back in silence, the spike clearing the holster, Mark's lower body already spinning in series, transferring a great burst of angular momentum up from his legs and into his pelvis. The foulness of the man's expected reward was revolting. "Stanley, have you no decency at all?!" The lack of speed in his body was profound, but it seemed the more Mark focused, the slower the universe seemed to run. Mark put all his concentration into his form, abandoning the futile effort to hasten his throw. "How do you know my name?! Eat lead, dirt bag!" "Are you a child?! This machismo is so ridiculous!" "Motherfucker! How dare you call me a child!?!" The fear and hatred were in complete control, the initial shame completely buried. All of the power of Mark's body flowed into his throw, hips whipping chest, chest whipping shoulders, shoulders whipping arm. And through in all, the combat mantra of Mark's sensei was beating in his mind. "Eyes! Always watch eyes!" Mark's eyes were glued to the man, locking eyes, locking minds. It was physically painful to couple to such vileness. Mark had a fleeting thought he was about to vomit, and then a small part of his brain realized he was going to hiccup. Mark's target was the gun. His eyes were locked with the man's, but his peripheral vision was guiding his throw. The man had almost completed dropping into his firing stance, squatting with the pistol held out in front of him with straight arms. Mark realized he would fire within a second. The spike left his hand. Mark wasn't sure it was the best throw of his life. The situation was so strange, it was pulling him from the mental zone he needed for his best accuracy. But he was satisfied with his form. If he was about to die, at least he had the satisfaction of throwing his most powerful spike ever. A small corner of his mind wondered if the effort were a fitting memorial to his former teacher. The man dropped lower into his squat than Mark had expected. The spike sailed cleanly over the top of the gun by two centimeters, traveling as a flash of gleaming black steel above the outstretched arm until it caught the man just to the right of his windpipe. The entire spike slipped into the man's neck as easily as if his neck were made of air. "Die, you punk scum!" the man's mind screamed as his brain gave the final command to pull to trigger. The barrel was perfectly aligned to place a bullet at the top of Mark's nose. But the mental command could not reach the muscles in his hand. The tip of the spike had penetrated almost the full diameter of the man's neck and had chiseled the major nerve complex near the very top of his vertebra. The man was paralyzed from the neck down, and his body began to fall backwards from the combination of the momentum of the blow and his total lack of balance. "You shithead! You've killed me!" "I didn't mean to kill you!" "You fucking dirt bag!" "I was aiming for your gun!" "I hate you!!!" "I'm sorry! But what did you expect?!" "Motherfucking idiot!" The eye contact might have lasted an instant longer, but Mark's body gave a vigorous hiccup, and the spasm broke the eye contact. The world dropped out of accelerated time. The mortally wounded man was falling backwards into a display case of choice malt whisky. The gun was loose in his hand, and the barely clad woman by his side dove for it. There was a bright red dot of a laser light coming from out of sight on the left, and a multitude of shouts were erupting from several locations inside the store. The chained woman retrieved the gun. The laser dot was fixed high on her breastbone just above her halter and she weaved to the right as she brought up the gun. She fired without sighting and the laser dot moved off target. There was a second report of gunfire, and the whisky bottles by the woman's side exploded in a spray of glass and amber liquid. The woman fired again, and then another two quick shots. Mark was standing astride his bike in a state of shock, for a few seconds not even thinking about diving for cover. His eyes darted to another man in the back of the store. Mark's eyes snapped to the man's hand, another gun. He had already sighted the woman with his firearm. There was nothing Mark could do. The man fired and woman's head jerked sideways towards Mark, spraying the floor between them with blood from a small hole at her temple. More screams erupted from the store. There was another woman in the store standing behind the man with the gun. She looked oriental and was bare above the waist except for a pink bra. She had the huge bottle of liquor in her chained hands. It was enormous, the largest bottle Mark had ever seen, the size of a cricket bat. She swung it high in a full overhead arc and then whipped it down as hard as she could, the muscles in her arms bulging from the effort. Mark expected the bottle to explode on impact with the man's head, but the thick glass maintained its integrity. It was the skull that deformed and then fractured from the impact. And then the glass bottle exploded into a thousand shards, spraying the jagged glass and alcohol into the horrible indentation the bottle had created in the skull. Mark winced and hoped that the death was mercifully swift. The battle was over, ending as quickly as it had begun. Several more women became visible from behind the aisles of the stores. Mark saw three, then four women, all oriental he thought, all barefoot and dressed in nothing more than bikini outfits. One woman saw the slain woman close to Mark and screamed "Carol!" and ran to the body, jerking her bound legs in short hops as fast as she could. Meanwhile Jada and Emily pulled up with the side cars on either side of Mark. Mark felt like a lost child, totally confused and wondering madly what he should be doing. It seemed as if his support team had arrived a half hour late, even though a part of his mind knew only a few seconds had passed since he had biked up to the store. For several more seconds there was an eerie silence as everyone struggled to comprehend the carnage before them. The only sound was the sob of the woman kneeling next to her slain friend. And then all pandemonium broke loose. Time: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 8:51 AM The most amazing part of the battle's aftermath was that so much was done in just fifteen minutes, but everyone was acting with grim efficiency. After exchanging a burst of information with the new people, half of Mark's group returned to closing and locking the last of the doors on their schedule. Mark was too amazed with their determination to interfere. From their brief discussion, the four women knew Mark's Group came from Party #1 except for Aggie from Party #4. They were all of Japanese ancestry, Akiko, Kiyoko, and Ann were born in the USA and Toshi was from the southern Japanese island of Shikoku. Their initial exchange of information had been peppered with trivia. Everyone felt too disoriented to think clearly. They were the group of four women who had arrived late to the Party, riding the elevator only a half an hour before Mark's group. It was the women's great misfortune to pick Party #5, 2525. But for now they were juggling a host of critical issues. More detailed explanations and stories would have to wait. Critical issue number 1: There was a roadblock set up another 2.5 kilometers down the spiral by the Beta Sigma Rho fraternity. The Japanese women didn't seem too worried. They said it was manned only by one compadre and two muchachos, and that at this time of day there would be no one else on this side of the mall for several hours. A quick question revealed that "this side of the mall" referred to Black Mall's home complex five kilometers beyond the road block. It took the women several minutes to calm down enough to explain that only compadres had guns. And now the group had three of these guns. It seemed the slain Carol had been an excellent shot. Her first shot had gone wide, but her next three had formed a tight pattern near the breastbone of a man who was out of sight of Mark while Carol had been firing. It was his shot that had exploded the whisky bottles by Carol's side. Mark had some expertise with handguns, but it was his sister who was the accurate markswoman with a pistol. Madison enjoyed practicing with their father at a firing range back in Vermont, and she recognized the pistols as Bersa .38 caliber with 15-shot magazines. The Japanese women searched the male corpses without compunction until they had found the extra clip that each was carrying. Critical issue number 2: Like Carol, all four surviving women were bound hand and feet with linked chains of handcuffs. It allowed them just enough movement to be slow pack animals for transporting the liquor, but running was impossible. There were also ugly purple chaff marks on all their ankles and wrists where the cuffs were cutting into their skin. The women were in poor shape. They all looked tired and abused and were shivering in the cool air of the mall, and worst of all Akiko's left ankle looked infected. Hannah and Ashley ran into a nearby linen store and brought out some blankets the women could wrap themselves in. The simple act of kindness brought out tears of gratitude. Critical issue #3: Was their presence detected by the men at the roadblock? It was difficult to judge. The sharp reports of the guns had sounded very loud, but they had all been fired inside the liquor store and not directly in the corridor. Also, the corridors of the Malls had proven to be surprisingly poor conductors of sound. The walls and floor felt hard and smooth but they still seemed to diffuse sound and drown it into the white noise of the ventilation. Mark put the probability at perhaps one-third that a faint echo of the gunfire had been detected. What would the local compadre in charge of the roadblock do? If he sent someone back for reinforcements, then it would probably be another hour before anybody would show up. Party #5 was mercifully without wheels. They were using simple sleds to drag merchandise from the mall to home. Mark's group with the bikes had a tremendous competitive advantage. Madison was lying prone against the wall of the outside arc, just beyond the door of the store diagonally after Rabbies Dram. Mark peered inside for a second as he walked to his sister. It was a specialty store in kitchen cutlery, and at the 62,560-meter mark, it would be the last store they would have a lock for. It would also contain their last pair of sensors connecting to the Black Mall sky bridge stores. Madison had two loaded pistols in front of her and was sighting down the spiral with a pair of binoculars. Her bicycle was directly behind her. "All the guns are dirty, not very well taken care of, but they are serviceable. Take one if you want." Her brother squatted down beside her to talk but did not take a gun. Madison accepted without comment her brother's decline of her offer and she asked instead, "Mark, what are my rules of engagement if I see anything?" Mark grumbled. "Why is that even a question now? We should just pack up and get the hell out of here." Madison turned and examined her team's progress with a critical eye. "Sensor net is almost up. Another couple of minutes, that's all we'll need. Why don't you take off now with the side cars? We'll be right behind you." The three side-cars were a godsend. Akiko and Toshi, the two smallest women, would balance atop one and Ann and Kiyoko would ride in the two others. Mark had an initial flash of embarrassment at the thought of taking off and leaving his kid sister to defend his rear, but then he reconsidered. From her position, Maddy could see almost a full kilometer of the outside arc of the spiral, and the pistols were definitely short range weapons. And their opponents were on foot. Except for Madison, there was nothing else for anyone to do except be another target. Taking off with the slower side cars now made perfect sense. "You got it," said Mark. "At least we'll pull back a couple hundred meters." He reluctantly reached down and took a pistol, working the action to be sure a round was chambered. Madison nodded. "Thanks Mark." She returned to her binoculars. "Nothing yet. Get going." Later that afternoon. Time: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 4:14 PM Akiko woke with a start, her eyes bright with terror from the nightmare she was leaving. She got her bearings, realized that her fantasy of freedom had indeed come true, and calmed herself with some breathing exercises. She couldn't help but give a grim smile in the darkness, thinking of the irony. While a prisoner, her dreams were her refuge, a place of peace for her tortured mind to heal. And now that she was free, her mind could not let go of the horror. "Oh Carol," she thought. "You sacrificed yourself for us." But that moment was too painful to relive now. Akiko's mind jumped forward to the bike ride, the nice steady clip of flying down the corridor at 25 kph. It was perhaps the speed a world-class sprinter could match for a kilometer or so, but so joyously faster than any human could sustain on foot. After five kilometers she finally dared to believe her life had been returned to her. They had reached the sky bridge before 10 AM, went through the elevator at Black Mall directly to the first floor library of Red Mall and then to the adjacent hospital room. With her infected foot, Akiko was the first person helped up onto the diagnostic table. It was a little frightening. The machine had come alive and restrained her leg. Then multiple metal arms with bewildering attachments emerged from beneath the table. Her dear friends and the woman named Emily held her hands and head for emotional support while the machine did its work. It was so strange. Akiko could even read the identity the machine had assigned to her as it worked, Citizen ID #141. Emily saw the number and asked Akiko if she were the second of her party of four that had entered the elevator on December 21st. Correct! How could she have possibly known that? And the healing was miraculous! No pain at all now. The throbbing and the rotting smell were completely gone. The machine had even cut her chains off with some kind of laser. Her other three friends were requested to return for a checkup in a week. Akiko was ordered to return for a second treatment tomorrow. Hot showers and food and new clothes and such kindness, all four of the former prisoners were giggling with delight, the changes in their lives were so profound. And then before a chance for some needed sleep, they had an hour in the lounge to share their experiences. These people had accomplished so much! Life was full of hope again! Three weeks ago, Akiko's elevator had opened onto a horrible scene, loud music and too much alcohol and couples making out with no consideration for the public around them. Her group of four had tried to leave almost immediately, but several of the frat boys were acting as guards by the door, and the women were shocked to find there was no way to make the elevator run in reverse. The views out the windows were very disorienting. Through the clear hexagonal walkways, the views showed vast expanses of open fields to the south, east, and west. But that was absolutely impossible. How in the world did they get here? Nothing made any sense. It was a miserable night for all four of them, full of surreal sexual desires and exploits. And afterwards, the following morning, there was a several-hour window where they simply could have walked off, but the situation was so strange no one did. And then the frat boys tried to watch a football game in the multimedia room downstairs. They saw the news of the coming Intruder, and that vile man Uno decided that if there were no tomorrow, then they could do anything they wanted. All the women except the close girlfriends of the compadres were raped that afternoon. And then the next morning there was the strange broadcast of the end of the world with nothing happening at Castle Commonwealth. There was a chance that Sunday, Akiko thought, for things to evolve far differently, for forgiveness and reconciliation to occur. But Uno managed to destroy all hope for that. His tool was Britney, one of the few women who was actively complaining about the rapes. Uno threatened to stick his pistol up her butt and pull the trigger if she didn't shut up, and a day later he did just that, helped by four of his compadres. He didn't kill her then. The gun was unloaded. Uno didn't want to waste a single bullet. But the path of the group had been set. Britney died a horrible death on Christmas day, and her blood was on the hands of all the men. Reconciliation became impossible. Akiko's mind returned to the present, listening to Toshi sleeping quietly in the great bed with her. The beds here in this strange world were enormous, 15% longer than a standard King and 40% wider, clearly designed for two or more people to sleep in them. And it was a joy to Akiko's heart to hear Toshi resting so peacefully. Her college roommate Toshi had such a gentle personality. The frat boys loved dominating her. Toshi was always one of the first ones picked in the nightly rotations of forced sex. Such a sweet and gentle personality. It was so shocking to see her kill Fidel with the oversized wine bottle. "Enough of that," Akiko thought to herself as she shook off the dark thoughts. "We're free now." The four women had been promised a late dinner starting around 8 PM. Akiko debated trying to get some more sleep, but her mind was alert and full of curiosity. She crept out of bed and silently left the room. Outside her bedroom and also in front of the bedroom of Ann and Kiyoko were posted notes signed by Madison saying to come to the pantry if they needed anything. Akito wandered down the hall and through the bathroom and found Madison alone at a table by the dark eastern windows. She had a pistol completely broken down and was busy cleaning it. "Oh, hi Akiko! How's the ankle?" Akiko smiled back. "Fine thank you. What a relief! All the pain is gone, even when I walk on it. There's just a little itching. I feel like scratching it." Madison nodded and gestured for Akiko to take a chair. Akiko sat and silently observed for a while. There were several bottles of solvents and degreasers and oils and a large assortment of stiff brushes that Maddy was working with, plus a small pile of cleaning rags on the side. As Akiko watched, she saw that Madison had cleaned one gun already and was working on the second. There were also rows of cleaned magazines set on a nearby counter. "We have eighty-four rounds of ammo for the three pistols," Madison said matter-of-factly, "a fair amount of firepower. Unfortunately my brother and I the only ones here with any experience in pistol shooting. How about in your group?" Akiko shook her head. "Not that I know of. I would doubt it though, certainly not for Toshi. Firearm possession is illegal in Japan." Madison sighed and continued her work. "It's unfortunate that your group controls a gun shop. We haven't seen any others in the other Malls." "What? These guns are not from the Malls. The fraternity brothers brought them from Earth." Madison mouth formed a silent oh. "We'll have to tell the rest of the team. That's very important." Akiko bowed her head. "I guess we should have mentioned it earlier." "Hey, that's okay, no harm done." Madison looked at the clock. "It's time for me to check in with the group anyway. Want to come along?" "Huh? To where?" "To Blue and Black Malls." Madison saw Akiko grimace at the thought of going back to Black Mall and added, "Just to the sky bridges. We'll be safe. Come on." They walked through the kitchen to the lounge elevator, and a few seconds later were in the coin superstore of Black Mall. Akiko looked around nervously and didn't fail to notice that Madison had brought the cleaned pistol with her. Madison checked the surveillance system unit. It had recorded nothing since she last checked it an hour ago. Satisfied with that result, Madison and Akiko jumped to the sky bridge of Blue Mall next and got the same results. Madison took a quick look around the store. It was a men's clothing store called The Casual Male, and nothing looked out of place. She then called Mark and gave her report and also informed him about the guns. "That's interesting," he commented. "Akiko, do you know how many guns they have?" "I think so. The right to carry a pistol is one of the defining differences between a compadre and a muchacho. Uno had fifteen apostles. They're the ones with the guns, the compadres. Uno has a pistol too, but I think it looks different than the others." "Oh? How so?" "Uh, I never got a really good look at it. Bigger though I think." Mark considered for a second. "So, they have thirteen pistols now, Uno, twelve compadres, and four muchachos." "Correct. The muchachos are servants. They're compadre wanna-be's. And there are also the women of course." Akiko thought she heard Mark growl over the phone. "All these Spanish titles, are they..." "No, not at all. Just boys playing at being a gang, playing a game that's gone horribly wrong." Mark was silent for a moment and then replied, "Maddy, Akiko, I was just about to call in. We got into the home complex of Blue Mall just a few minutes ago. It's cool in here, 10C, just as we expected from the infrared. We're working our way to the first floor library now." "What is the Mall exit like?" asked Madison. "Kind of cute. Their exit store is called the Stone Cold Creamery. It's on the inside arc, 59.3 spiral kilometers from Hex Hall, just as we thought. The Mall exit is on the lower level, along the back wall of a walk-in freezer." Madison thought for a second. "So the exits to Malls 3, 4, and 5 are on the lower level, and 1 and 2 are on the upper level. Maybe that means Yellow Brick will be on the upper level too." Earlier at lunch, Kiyoko had informed the group that Black Mall's exit was in the first floor kitchen of Jacob's Bar & Grill. Mark nodded as he walked across the cool library. "Yeah, not a bad guess ... We're at the lower elevator now, opening the door. Bingo! We have an access code!" "Read it to me." A moment later Madison and Akiko jumped to the home complex of Blue Mall, activating the elevator there and joining the main group. There was a brief moment for hugs all around. Afterwards Akiko asked Mark what their plans were. "Well, I'm tempted to ask the rest of the group to finish the lockdown of Blue Mall while Jada and I jump to an Eastern Mountain Sports store at the end of Yellow Mall. We have Yellow Mall locked down but we haven't found its home complex yet. That's the last item on our Mall agenda..." Akiko nodded. "I see. You want to do it while you're sure the Malls are still safe." "Exactly." "Need any help?" Mark considered for a moment. "That's very kind, but how is your ankle? It's about sixteen kilometers of biking in Blue and Yellow Malls from the terminal stores to the home complexes." "Ah..." Akiko took a moment to stare at her foot. "It feels fine. Biking ten miles on the smooth floor, I don't think it'll be much of a stress ... My major is telecommunications technology. Maybe I can be of use to you. I just want to help." Mark turned to Jada and asked for her opinion with his eyes. Jada spoke up. "Akiko, why take the risk? There are no doctors here if we get into trouble with your ankle, just machines we don't understand." Jada then smiled. "But we do have empty side cars down in the Mall. How about you allow me to bike you on Yellow Brick, and you can help us to search when we get to the right store?" Akiko smiled happily and nodded. Twenty minutes later at spiral position 62.5 kilometers of Black Mall. Dennis Diebold was silently staring into the Rabbies Dram liquor store through the transparent door. Chico his second-in-command was by his side. Chico was a large man, very well muscled, and the two muchachos with him were nervously testing the strange half-spheres that were blocking the access buttons. Meanwhile Dennis was grinding his teeth over the awful decisions that he faced. "Stan the man, and third-in-command," Dennis thought to himself, playing a rhythm in his mind. "Santos the man, the gonad man. Damn! He was the most loyal apostle I've ever had. Just wave some sweet pussy in front of his nose now and then, and the man would sell his soul to you. Shit! The twit had tears in his eyes when he made compadre last year. Stan my man, Santos you fuck-head, you fucking fuck-head, what the hell happened to you man?" Chico spoke softly. "Uno, you can see where they left our sled on the left." "Yeah, I see it." Dennis pressed his face against the liquor store door and looked to the side. He could see the sled. It was almost fully loaded, and he could even see the harnesses the bitch mules would have used to drag all the whiskey back home. Dennis gave a heavy sigh. "Chico, this setup makes no sense. Santos was our best marksman. He could shoot a quarter out of your hand from ten meters. Alberto and Fidel were good shots too. There's no way the three of them could be taken without a fight. It's obvious they were in the liquor store. But look at this place! The store is immaculate. Chained bitches couldn't have gotten the drop on three compadres, could they? It makes no sense." Chico a.k.a. Charles nodded. "I don't think the slaves locked all these doors either. Some really weird shit went down here Uno, that's for sure." Dennis frowned and thought again how awful this day was turning out. It wasn't until sunrise that someone finally mentioned that Santos was overdue, about the same time Chico noticed that the elevator display numbers had dropped from 024:105 to 021:104. Hell! Dennis decided to send his best muchacho runner to investigate, and he had returned shortly after the 12:30 PM sunset with strange and horrifying news. Dennis decided he had to see for himself. The mall was a nightmare to contemplate, kilometer after kilometer of stores with no exit in sight. At least in the other direction the mall was semi-sane, ending in a large food store called the Mex Grocer after five kilometers of stores. Dennis stared down the seemingly infinite corridor of locked stores. But this! He had sent out scouting parties within a week of getting here. One team had traveled more than thirty kilometers on foot before turning back, obeying his orders to return within twelve hours. Unknown to them all, they had come within one kilometer of sighting the Black Mall sky bridge. Dennis rethought his logic as he stared down the corridor. If only their cell phones were working! It would make such a difference. But they didn't, and the farther Dennis placed a checkpoint down the corridor, the longer it would take the sentries to move back and forth from their home location, and the more isolated the sentries were if they ran into trouble. Dennis saw the mistake he had made and was kicking himself mentally for his error. He should have moved the roadblock with Stan rather than let Stan take a party beyond it. Stupid! But what to do now? They lost eight people! They went from 20 guys and 19 bitches to 17 guys and 14 bitches. And only four of the remaining bitches were women Dennis thought he could trust, women who were long-time girlfriends of the compadres. Six were pure sex slaves, in need of constant surveillance, and the remaining four he was so unsure of that they had to join the other six in the pussy barn. Yes, they had ten bitches of sweet pussy in the barn, but they needed constant guarding. What a mess. What to do? Dennis hated the thought of splitting his group up, but it seemed unavoidable. He also hated the thought of sucking up to some bitches too, but damn it, it couldn't be helped. His group needed to maintain a home presence, and they needed to explore this mall. Dennis turned angrily and signaled for everybody to follow him. He had the two muchachos walk behind by a hundred meters as a rear guard, and he quietly talked with Chico about the issue on the way home. Their conversation was out of audio range of the sensors, but the last outward-facing sensor did record their stroll until they walked around the bend of the spiral. ------- Chapter 23 Later that evening. Time: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 8:48 PM At Aggie's suggestion, part of the group spent the early evening converting the second floor of Black Mall's Modern Coin Superstore into a conference room, clearing a massive wooden display table for their use and jumping in a dozen plush leather chairs from the terminal store of Green Mall, a spacious suite of meeting rooms labeled the Hilton Executive Conference Center. They were all sitting around waiting for Fatima to start the meeting. Almost everyone's eyes were on the massive table before them. The polished wood gleamed at them, and the deep reddish brown hues were very beautiful. Mark thought it was Hawaiian Koa, assuming it was an Earth wood. The search at store of Yellow Mall's home complex had been a bit of a disappointment. After a bit of discussion, Mark and Jada had changed their plans and traveled there from Yellow Mall's sky-bridge rather than its terminal store. The calculated entrance to the Mall's home complex was at spiral-mark 59,326 meters, at the easternmost edge of its spiral. It was only an extra six kilometers to travel from the sky-bridge, and it gave them the opportunity to install a sensor network as they went. The entrance to the home complex was found easily enough, along the back wall of a produce store called The Original Farmer's Market. Akiko seemed very happy to have been the one to find the secret latch shortly after 7 PM. And as expected, Yellow Brick's home complex was cold and deserted. But the real disappointment was when they opened the local library elevator. The display was dark. It was their hypothesis that the original members of Party #6 must have explored their home complex before abandoning it. Mark, Jada, and Akiko searched the complex, hoping that some record of the access code would have been written down. But they found nothing, and after an hour of searching, they noticed the temperature of the rooms rising as the local interface cancelled the deserted status of the complex. They decided to continue biking to Yellow Brick's terminal location, installing the last three kilometers (four sensor pairs) of the sky-bridge sensor network and overlapping it with a new network of sixteen sensor pairs that would be based at Eastern Mountain Sports, Yellow Mall's terminal store. The group managed to jump home with just a few minutes to grab a bite to eat. Shortly after 9 PM, Fatima started their meeting in the conference center. With their work of mall lockdown now complete, the primary topic of conversation was what to do next. The discussion quickly migrated to the new knowledge they had on population profiles. Madison was aghast. "This is more horrible than I imagined. There are seventeen insane guys at Party #5, and twenty-one guys total. So besides you Mark, there are at most three decent guys left, and what, a hundred and four women?" Toshi spoke up. "Excuse me, but perhaps you are being too quick to condemn all the men at Party #5. I think perhaps two of the compadres would welcome the opportunity to abandon the horror they've created." Ann looked puzzled. "Are you thinking of the Bambino? He struck me as simply timid, not truly remorseful." Toshi shook her head. "I never interacted with Bambino. I was thinking of Chico, and perhaps his close friend Toro." Ann shook her head in amazement. "Toro I might agree with. But Chico?! Toshi, you're being too kind." Toshi stared back at Ann and replied, "I was raped more than anybody. It is my right to be too kind." Fatima tried to bring the group back to the topic under discussion. "The point is that out of the original group of people who came here, we think that eight women and sixteen men have died. This is a horrific loss, and we have to think if there's anything we can do to prevent it from getting worse. Party #6, nine men and nine women, what happened to them?" Emily frowned. "Well, from what we know now, at least six of those men must have died." She sighed. "I think I agree with Fatima. We can't wait for more daylight to start searching for them. Their lives are too precious." Kiyoko nodded. "So we're finished with the malls for now?" "I think so. If everybody is agreeable, our next phase should be on the surface. As long as Party #5 never gets access to a working elevator, we have them boxed in. And except for their local strip, they will find the mall to be endless kilometers of absolute desert." Jada shook her head at Emily's optimism. "Somehow I think our showdown with 2525 will occur sooner rather than later. We can't just focus on surface exploration and rescue. We need a contingency plan if 2525 breaks out of their pen." Emily would not surrender the point. "How could they do that?" "There's probably a way. Remember Fatima thinks they wrote down all six original Party access codes. We've changed the codes for It's My Party and I Can See Clearly Now, but Party's 2, 3, and 6 are still vulnerable." Emily shook her head. "But they can't get a working elevator in their position." "Sure they can. They can train a Section Five Janitor. If you have an argument that says they can't do that, let's hear it." "Excuse me," said Kiyoko, turning to Jada, "but perhaps I can answer. While you were installing the sensors on Yellow Brick, Emily helped me apply to be the Section Five Janitor. It's a little uncertain, but we think there can only be one training candidate for the job." Jada's eyebrows went up and she finally cracked a smile. "Really? That's great news. Good thinking guys. But I still feel we can't ignore 2525. We need contingency plans, and we need them now. Don't put this off." Ann spoke up. "If I can add my two cents to this, I have never heard of anyone in Party Five exploring the interface and the employment options as you have. But Uno is a clever man. Do not underestimate him. He is quite capable of learning from his mistakes. The locks in Black Mall have shown him he has an adversary. He will be plotting both a defense and an offense." Madison looked around at her team members. "What are we saying? Is there no alternative to war?" She turned to the four Japanese women and blushed. "Please don't get me wrong. I'm not condoning their behavior. But our numbers are so few. Can we afford a war? We might be talking about our own extinction here." Hannah frowned. "Oh, I don't know Maddy. Perhaps it's better to keep our dignity and become extinct. I don't want to devolve into ... Mark?" "Yeah?" "What do you think? You and that frat guy went into mortal combat the second you saw each other. Was there no other option?" Mark grimaced. "None at all. I tried to reason with the guy first. Stanley would have none of it." Jada stared at her lover. "What? No you didn't. I was right behind you. I saw everything. You threw a spike the instant you saw him. You were lightning fast. I'm not criticizing, but how did you know you had to attack?" "Hey, wait a minute," said Toshi. "Mark, how did you know his name was Stanley? We were all ordered to call him Santos. Stanley is probably a good guess, but how did you know?" Mark looked deeply troubled. "He told me his name." Mark stared back at Jada staring at him. "Didn't he?" Jada shook her head vigorously. "Mark, what are you talking about? There was no conversation." "What? Yes there was." Jada would not let the issue go. "Mark, describe exactly what you thought your battle was like." "Yeah, okay. I remember riding up to the store. I saw the woman named Carol first. We were both shocked to see each other. She tried to warn me to go back, but then Stanley came on the scene before I could react." "Okay. So then you and Stanley saw each other. What happened next?" "He went berserk, attacked me without hesitation. I knew that backing off against a pistol would have been suicidal. I had to fight." "I'm not criticizing your decision Mark, far from it. Can you describe your battle?" "Well..." Mark looked troubled. "It happened so fast, it's a little hard to remember. Everything was happening so fast! Stanley was cursing me with some very childish language and he started bringing up his gun to fire." Ashley broke into the conversation. "How did you know he was going to fire? I mean, maybe he just wanted to cover you." Mark shook his head. "No. He wanted to fire for certain. I could see it in his eyes." Jada asked in a whisper, "You were watching his eyes?" "Of course. That rule was drilled into me from my earliest sparring lessons, always watch eyes. Everything else, hands, feet, punches, blocks, kicks, you pick up with your peripheral vision. You'd be amazed how often an opponent will telegraph his intentions with his eyes." "Mark, look at my eyes, right now." "Huh? Okay." Jada and Mark locked eyes. "I love you," thought Jada. "I know. Flower of my heart, I love you back," Mark thought in reply. "I can't believe how beautiful you think I am," thought Jada. "I can see your desire so clearly, such eagerness, such a visual fixation on my body. You've been very patient to wait for me. And Mark, do you notice that we're not speaking?" "Huh?!" Mark blinked and gasped and then hiccupped, breaking the eye contact. "What the hell just happened?!" The next hour was spent in experimentation, the original agenda of the meeting abandoned. They found two general rules that seemed to describe the effect. The first was that the maximum duration of the thought sharing with the eye contact seemed to scale with how well the two people knew each other, and it was Toshi's conjecture that the key variable was not how well the two people knew each other, but how deeply they trusted each other. They also observed the fascinating phenomenon of accelerated time. Perceived elapsed time while thought sharing always seemed much greater than actual elapsed time. Typical perceived estimates for the speedup ranged from a factor of three to five, and there was general agreement that emotional context enhanced the speed of the sharing. Mark made a guess that his extreme emotional encounter with Stanley might have been a factor of twenty. "I don't think it's a miracle," said Fatima as they were finishing the experiments. "It seems too predictable, too repeatable, too physical. But telepathy?! Mark, you're the person with the most physics training here. Any idea how this might be possible?" "Uh, one or two I guess. The cells in the human retina are considered to be part of the brain. When we're locking eyes with each other, we have light-sensitive areas of two different brains in direct optical contact with each other. Somehow the connection is acting like a bridge for the separate thoughts." Ashley shook her head in wonder. "But we've never had that ability before." Ann spoke up. "Are we so sure? Maybe we had a very weak version of it and never realized it. Think of how easy it is to be facing a huge crowd of people and pick out the one face that is staring at you. Think about how that in so many cultures, it's extremely impolite to stare a stranger directly in the eyes. People view it as rude and aggressive behavior." "Almost like an invasion of privacy," added Kiyoko. "That's the way it feels." Ann nodded vigorously. "Yes, exactly! Perhaps our species was on the threshold of having this ability, and ... Oh hell, that strange drug we were given the first day. Could that have pushed us over the edge?" "The drug we took," Jada replied slowly, "We know it changed us. We've been talking for weeks about how difficult it is not to tell the truth. Perhaps this thought sharing is another manifestation." Ann sighed and turned to Jada. "Do you think it's permanent?" Jada shrugged. "How could we know? I'll say one thing though. The effect, the ability, I think it's getter stronger." Ashley suddenly looked thunderstruck. "This will change everything! Our entire social fabric! New clothes for everybody!" Jada nodded. "I agree. And..." She was silent for a long moment and then sighed. "For the longest time, I've been hanging onto the idea that the entities who brought us here are our adversaries. But this ability ... I don't think there's any way to view it except as a gift, a great and beautiful gift." She looked at Mark. "You and I might have experienced this the first night we met. I'll never forget a comment you made, that no lies could exist in such clarity. A society without lies, a society where lies are impossible. My gosh, you're right Ashley. This will change everything." "We'll have to be extra careful," added Emily, "about the consequences of being captured by an enemy. I have all the elevator access codes memorized. I wonder if I could be tortured into revealing them, physically unable to resist someone staring into my eyes and demanding the codes." "Speaking of which," said Hannah, "since we're here in Black Mall, shouldn't we watch the full video of the frat guys?" The Matrix system unit with its large display was positioned near their table. Hannah got up and punched in the commands for playback. It was twenty-plus minutes of mostly silent recording. Their last sensor facing down spiral at the kitchen cutlery store could see an additional 477 meters on the inside arc, and about double that on the outside arc. The men came into view walking very briskly around the bend, and got to Rabbies Dram seven minutes later. They spent less than ten minutes surveying the locked stores, and then quickly returned home. The monitoring system lost the audio less than a minute after they departed. "So the mall maintenance servos must have cleaned up the carnage," commented Aggie. "That's interesting. They're not even sure that a battle took place." "Uno won't let the matter stand like this," said Ann. "I think he'll start probing the mall, soon too." Kiyoko nodded. "What a benefit to be able to monitor their progress." She turned to Jada. "I was studying the Matrix manual before dinner. Is it true the sensor relays won't work until the doors are locked with those strange mushrooms." Jada nodded back. "Yeah, that's what we found. Pretty amazing that the doors are transparent to the signals." "Oh, I think it's more than that. I think the doors are designed ... No, wait, I'm speaking of this from the wrong direction. I think the sensors are designed to use the doors as antennas once the doors are powered up into their rigid state." Mark stared at Kiyoko. "That's a fascinating conjecture. It implies..." Their eyes locked, just for a few seconds, and then Kiyoko hiccupped. "Yes, exactly," she said, replying to Mark. She turned to the others. "To share what we just thought about, I told Mark I'm a double-E major. In my opinion, this type of integration is completely unlike anything we had on Earth. I think Matrix Security was a real Earth company, but they never had a surveillance system like this. Alien technology has been piggybacked onto the Matrix brand name." "But why?" asked Ashley. "Why go through all the trouble? We're not being deceived by the Matrix label." "Yes, I know. And I think that is a really important piece of information, but we don't know how to interpret it. It serves no purpose to label the new technology with the Matrix brand, yet it was done anyway. Why? If we find the answer to that question, we'll learn a lot about the motives of the entities who created this place." Fatima yawned and spoke up. "It's getting late. We should decide on tomorrow's agenda and get some rest." "Why don't we set up two sensor networks from the home complex of Green Mall?" suggested Aggie. "It's the only other spot so close to Hex Hall, and there's a large Green Mall store about three kilometers from the hub called The Polar Outfitter. We can all pick out ultra-warm clothes for exploring the surface in the winter. Also, it'll give us a day to see how aggressively Black Mall starts exploring the mall. We can then decide whether to commit to extended surface expeditions." Aggie's points made a lot of sense. The group voted unanimously to approve her suggestions, and the four newcomers smiled gratefully that they were also asked to vote. Fatima then asked for a motion to close the meeting. Meanwhile Ann and Jada had gone back to experimenting and were reading each other's minds again. "How did you ever guess Jada?" Ann thought. "This is so sensational! How did you ever guess?" Jada thought back, "I've had some vague suspicions for weeks now. I just couldn't put my finger on it." Both women hiccupped. Fatima had been watching them closely. "Do you notice the defense mechanism? The human id is very unprepared to share its private space with another mind. The body hiccups to break the connection." Mark added, "Almost like a safety value that releases the pressure before it becomes dangerous." He looked at several pages of observations that Emily had made of their experiments. "Akiko, you hold the record with Toshi of holding contact, nineteen seconds measured in objective time." The two women looked at each other and smiled. Toshi then turned to Mark. "You and I haven't tried yet. May I?" Mark nodded. Toshi came and sat down right beside him, their shoulders touching. And then they locked eyes. The seconds in the room passed quietly. "A new record," Emily whispered after twenty seconds. The time continued to flow. Both Toshi's and Mark's breathing slowed down significantly, slow deep sighs, almost as if they were sleeping, but their eyes were wide open. Jada felt a vague twitch of both alarm and jealousy when they went past the one-minute mark, and then she scolded herself for her jealousy. Approximately eighty seconds after starting, Mark and Toshi ended the contact. Neither of them hiccupped. Instead they simply reached across and hugged each other, finally breaking the eye contact. "An honor Toshi," Mark whispered. "For me also," she whispered back. They both let go and looked at each other shyly. "Mark, Toshi, how long do you think that lasted?" asked Emily. Mark tried to speak but seemed at a loss for words. He finally just shrugged his shoulders. Toshi then answered for them both. "Very difficult to think of in terms of minutes. Emotionally, it was like having a long conversation with someone that ended too soon." It had been a very long day, and everyone was ready to sack out. Fatima talked briefly about the work they would someday undertake to build a new government, but for now Mark was acting leader with Jada second-in-command. The four Japanese women were very agreeable with the arrangement. Fatima then closed the meeting with a short prayer, and they were all back home a few minutes later, heading for showers and some much needed sleep. ------- Chapter 24 Next morning. Time: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 11:41 AM Mark's phone rang as he and Toshi were coming out of Banana Republic, the last Red Mall store before the central hub. He answered it and found Jada on the line. She and Akiko were calling from the coin store at the Black Mall sky bridge. "I have something to report," Jada said without bothering to exchange hellos. "There's a large crowd of Party Five personnel coming up the spiral. They're about four hundred meters from Rabbies Dram now. I would guess about twenty people. I'll know better in a few minutes. I also have Emily and Kiyoko on the line." "Hi Mark!" Kiyoko added cheerfully from the Red Mall home library. The day had been very peaceful so far. Emily was keeping Kiyoko company as Kiyoko began her first day of janitor training. Jada and Akiko were spending the day monitoring Black Mall, and Akiko in particular was experimenting with the monitoring system, probing how the sensors were linking with each other. Everyone else was scheduled to spend the morning in Green Mall and the afternoon in White Mall, expanding their mall monitoring network. "You feeling okay up there Jada?" Mark asked. Jada could hear the tenderness in his voice. She gave a quick laugh. "You mean as in, lo, the enemy approacheth? Yeah, Akiko and I are fine. It is a little scary watching this, but hell Mark, they're still twenty-five kilometers away, we're locked in nice and tight with the sky-bridge elevator just a few meters away. And as a final backup, we have a bike and a side car. Yeah, we're fine. How's the sensor installation coming?" "Up and running without a hitch. Green Mall objective is complete, everything from 700 meters to 19,240 meters is buttoned down. The rest of the crew is working both directions from the White Mall sky bridge now. They should be finished in time for dinner." "Uh huh. Where are you now?" "I'm here with Toshi at the hub end of Red Mall, the Banana Republic." "Oh yeah? While you're there, why don't you ask her to help you pick out some new shirts?" Mark laughed. "I had a thought this morning, all six terminal stores have elevators. What about the stores at the hub end?" "Wow, that's an interesting thought. Find anything?" "Not yet. But this might be our last chance to explore the hub area safely, so Toshi and I plan to spend the afternoon here." "Okay, sounds good. How did things go with the arctic clothes?" "Just fine. We ported a huge assortment of stuff over to Barnes & Nobel." Mark was referring to the store below the home complex of Aggie's Green Mall. "Amazing stuff. I look like someone going out for Halloween dressed as a hot water heater." "Huh?" "Thick cylindrical clothing, incredible insulation. I can't imagine the climate will get so cold that we'll need this." "Hmmm ... Well, we'll see. It got down to -11C last night and hasn't recovered a bit. Mark, the Party Five people are almost at the sensor now. I count eighteen people, I think eight guys and ten women. All of the women are in decent clothes, and ... I don't think any are wearing ankle chains. Uh, I'm not sure, but it looks as if four of the women are herding the other women who are dragging sleds. I'll let Akiko take over reporting from here." "Hello everybody," came Akiko's voice. "I'm using the zoom now to get a closer look. Jada is correct. All four of Uno's taskmistresses are all here, Brandi, Jessica, Tiffany, and Nadine." They're driving six slaves who are dragging two sleds." Akiko spoke for another minute until the group stopped just short of the locked area of the mall and began working. After several more minutes she reported, "It looks as if they're going to turn the store two doors from our last sensor into a supply depot. I'm referring to the store next to the last store that's open to them on the outside arc. The sleds are filled with containers, food and drinking water I would guess." Mark was confused. "Akiko, are women being forced to make other women work?" "No, not forced. Three of the women are as bad as the men, even worse maybe. They're the girlfriends of, uh, let me think, Alfredo, Alfonso, and Gilberto. And then there's Brandi. Brandi isn't too bad. She's Chico's girlfriend. The others though are the cruelest people imaginable. Seriously Mark, they're horrible." "Uh huh. And the four guy names you mentioned?" "Those are Uno's top people. Chico is second-in-command, and with Santos gone, Gilberto might be the new third-in-command. All four of these men are here now, plus two more compadres and two muchachos." "Okay. And the women they're herding?" "We should probably show this recording to Fatima, but I think they're all women that the frat boys picked up as quick dates when they were standing in line on December 21st." "Ah, I see. And the remaining four women who aren't here?" "More long-term girlfriends of the men. But they're not cruel. Uno didn't trust them and threw them into what they call the pussy barn with the rest of us slaves. They were worked as hard as we were during the days. The only difference was they didn't have to do night shift rotations. They got to sleep with their boyfriends." Mark grimaced as he realized what sort of night work Akiko was referring to. It suddenly struck him what Uno was doing. "Let me guess. The four women who aren't here, their boyfriends aren't here either." Akiko nodded as she watched the monitor. "Correct. You're thinking the same thing I'm thinking. With an unknown enemy at his doorstep, Uno decided he was a bit heavy in the pussy barn department." Mark felt himself blushing but couldn't stop himself from asking, "The pussy barn?" Toshi was standing quietly by Mark's side. She brushed the back of her hand against his to get his attention. "It's a mattress store two doors down from Jacob's Bar and Grill. It's where they would lock us up after they were finished with us for the night. Forgive us for being crude, but that's what they call it." "Oh ... So you weren't forced to sleep with them overnight?" Toshi shook her head no. "Mark, think. The men need their sleep too. Would you allow yourself to become that vulnerable, to fall asleep with a woman you just raped?" Mark looked chagrined. "No, I guess not. Forgive me Toshi." "Huh? For what?" "For not appreciating the horror you women went through." Toshi reached up and gently touched Mark's cheek. Their eyes locked for an instant. "We shared our minds last night," Toshi thought, "Shared the measure of our souls. Your apology is completely unnecessary." Mark let out a deep, sad sigh, breaking the eye contact. He spoke into his phone. "And now they've isolated the missing four women and are trying to sweet-talk them into returning as loyal members of the team. Think it'll work?" "It might." Akiko answered over the phone. "Don't judge the women too harshly Mark. Rape is a really horrible experience. This is their only way out." Emily spoke up. "Mark, if you get a chance, check out the first stores on the outside arcs, not just the inside. You need to be on the outside arc to set up the monitoring relays." "Ah, you think the elevator locations were picked with that in mind? Okay, we'll take a look." Mark looked at his phone. "I'm running a bit low on power. I'll try to find someplace to plug in." After saying goodbye on the call, Mark and Toshi hiked an eighth of a kilometer to the 240-degree point and the first store of Red Mall's outside arc. A thorough search found nothing of interest. Thinking about the Mall's designers' love of symmetry, Toshi suggested they proceed another quarter kilometer and check out the two stores at the 360-degree mark. Again there seemed to be nothing special about the stores. After an hour of searching, they concluded the stores' only access points were the corridor doors. And the afternoon was progressing. Mark thought they had time to check out one more spiral and the choice was obvious. Investigate the hub area of Black Mall while it was still safe to do so. Shortly after 2 PM, they stopped their bikes at the 360-degree mark of Black Mall, 438 spiral meters from Hex Hall. There was a Zappos Shoe Store on the inside arc, and an Esau's Bar and Grill on the outside. Mark remembered that his Leophone was almost out of power. Stopping for an hour to charge it would be a reasonable precaution. And he also noticed his stomach was grumbling. He turned to Toshi and smiled. "Hungry? We never had lunch." She peered inside the Bar and Grill and then smiled back. "You like burgers?" Mark laughed as he dismounted his bike and began to unlock the restaurant. "Who doesn't? I remember an English teacher I had in high school. He was trying to teach us that the English language sometimes overloads the same word with completely different meanings. His example phrase was, I love my wife, and I love a good hamburger with everything on it." Toshi laughed at the joke. "Yes! The desire to honor and cherish a spouse is completely different than the desire to consume a hamburger!" Grinning at each other, they both entered the restaurant. It was easy to prepare a very tasty lunch, large lean burgers on whole wheat buns, loaded with sharp cheddar and sautéed mushrooms and onions, and large salads with vegetables so fresh is seemed as if they were growing in Earth's sunshine just an hour ago. Toshi ate her meal with great enjoyment and leaned back in her chair and stretched at the end, sipping her second bottle of iced tea, munching the few remaining potato chips on her plate and looking a little sleepy. "Oh boy, that was good," she murmured as she munched. "Thanks Mark. You're a great cook." He grinned at the compliment. "The quality of the food here is so fabulous, it would be hard not to be a decent cook. I'm very glad you liked it." He looked at his companion for a moment and added, "Toshi, this last month, were you getting enough to eat?" She shook her head. "No. So much food everywhere, such an abundance, but no. The fraternity boys used food as a weapon, as a reward for submission." She took a deep breath and smiled. "But, that's all over now! So, what's next?" Mark glanced at the time on his plugged-in phone. "Well, how about we clean up here, take our time and do a good job searching this place and Zappos, and then have an easy bike ride home?" "Sounds perfect." They worked in silence for a while busing the dishes and cleaning up. Then Toshi asked, "Why are we bothering to do this? Won't the mechanical servos clean up if we just leave the dirty dishes?" Mark nodded as he dried two plates are returned them to their cabinets. "Just a habit I guess, but it's one I'm reluctant to let go of. And somehow I think the strange interface of this place agrees with me. It should be our responsibility to clean up after our own messes. The Mall will pick up after us if we're sloppy down here, but it's really our job to be respectful." "Respectful of a machine?" "No, respectful of our own standards for accountability." "Ah ... Yes, I think I see what you mean." Toshi stared at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Mark, do you think our species is on trial here?" "Well ... It sometimes seems that way, doesn't it? I mean, we've been provided with everything we need, fine food and shelter, vast recreational facilities. Our challenge is whether we can survive our own stupidity." "Yes, that and our cruelty, the dark side of our emotions." Toshi made a deep bow to Mark. Mark blinked at the gesture. He was so unused to having anyone bow to him. He just gave Toshi a shy smile back, and a few minutes later they were finished with their cleanup and were ready to get back to exploration. They would start with the second floor of Esau's Bar and Grill. Mark glanced at his Leophone. It wasn't quite half charged yet, and he was tempted to leave it plugged in and just pick it up on the way out, but that would violate the rules the group had set for exploration. So he unplugged the phone and threw it and the charger in his pocket before heading up the stairs with Toshi. There were no eating areas on the second floor, just a small lavatory and row after row of food storage closets, cool but not frozen and packed with food that was showing absolutely no indication of decaying. They were methodical in their search, testing the walls of the closets for hidden passageways, but discovered nothing unusual. They found the last closet to be large, three by four meters, and completely empty. Mark frowned as he stared at the dimpled white diodes in the burnished metal ceiling. They reminded him of something. Meanwhile the door behind them silently closed. Immediately the wall to their right began to slide open. Mark's jaw dropped in amazement, and then he grimaced at the heavy smell of stale beer. Toshi barely managed to stop herself from shrieking. It was a home complex lounge area, and Toshi recognized it immediately as the lounge of Black Mall. The lounge itself was empty, but there were numerous voices both male and female coming from the kitchen area just beyond, and it seemed as if Toshi and Mark were just seconds away from being discovered. Toshi looked around wildly for an elevator keyboard to type an exit code, but the carriage was absolutely bare. Both she and Mark realized simultaneously that the door would not close with them still inside. They had to find somewhere else to hide, and quick. But where?! A young woman came out of the kitchen and into the lounge. She stood shock-still at the sight of Toshi and the unknown man standing with her. "Toshi!" she called out in a gasp. "What?!" an angry man growled from the kitchen. Toshi recognized the voice as Uno's. ------- Chapter 25 Time: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 3:40 PM "Fresh Dill!" the woman at the lounge entrance yelled out to the kitchen crowd. "I just remembered! Toshi would always put fresh dill on a roast. It's a great idea, and I forgot. But I know where it is!" She turned around and ran back into the kitchen. Mark grabbed Toshi hand and together they ran out of the elevator. The door began to close the instant they left, and just a couple of seconds later Mark and Toshi slipped into the vestibule connecting the lounge to the walkways on the hexagonal perimeter. Mark's mind was working furiously. Should they make a dash down the walkways and risk being seen through a window, or try to hide in the vestibule closet? In the closet they would be helpless if discovered. Mark thought their chances to escape by fleeing were much more reasonable, even if the men managed to see them go. So his first thought was for them to walk through the vestibule and looked at the perimeter walkways. Mark was about to open the final door to the vertex when another thought occurred to him. The men managing to see them go? If they were seen running down the corridor, the woman who had called out Toshi's name would be in a horrendous position. Mark couldn't be that callous, not after she had risked her life to save theirs. He pulled Toshi to the side of the vestibule and into the side closet with him, closing the closet door behind him. There had been a few white-diode lights in the ceiling of the vestibule, but when the closet door closed they were in pitch blackness. "Hell Mark!" Toshi hissed. "What happened?!" He whispered back, "One sec. Thank God I have my phone." By the light of the display, Mark put his phone in silent mode and then dialed Emily who quickly added Jada and Akiko to the call. It only took a moment of whispering to explain the situation. Mark turned the volume on the phone to absolute minimum, and Toshi had her cheek touching his so they could both hear the conversation. Jada sounded very upset over the phone. "Damn it! I knew we shouldn't split up like this. We don't have the phones or the people!" Emily sighed. "Oh Jada, what could the others do? Besides, they should be back from White Mall anytime now." Before Mark and Toshi had split off from the main group, Madison had told Emily to expect the main group back by four o'clock. "Mark," asked Jada, "Can you describe your situation?" Mark thought for a moment and whispered back, "We're in pretty good shape. I've got my phone with over a half charge, and I've got my charger. We had a big lunch at Esau's Bar and Grill, and we both used the lavatory facilities there afterwards." Mark could feel Toshi's cheek lightly brush against his as she nodded. "And Toshi has a half-liter iced tea bottle. It's still unopened..." Mark shined the tiny light of the Leophone around the closet. There was ample space for them to sit and even to lie down. It was a right-triangular space. The wall leading to the vestibule was a little over two meters in length, and the perpendicular wall separating them from the lounge was four meters. The hypotenuse wall separated them from the hexagonal perimeter walkway. There were three deep shelves in the acute angle of the closet opposite the door, set at one, two, and three meters in height. The shelves were totally bare. Before the entrance of Mark and Toshi, the closet was in pristine condition. "I don't think they've ever used this closet," whispered Mark. "Maybe they don't even know it's here. It looks just like ours. No lights, but there are a pair of small ventilation ducts. I can feel a slight breeze on the floor vent. I would guess the temperature at 18C or 19C." "Mark," said Jada. "You promised me you'd travel with spikes." "I've got some, four. I hope to God I don't have to use them." Mark returned to thinking about the shelves. "The top shelf, I'm looking at the angle. It might hide us from someone in the doorway. Just maybe, if they're not too tall..." "Toshi," whispered Kiyoko, "was it Frida who saved you?" "Yes. How did you guess?" "Of the four, I think only she would have the courage." Toshi nodded, again brushing her cheek against Mark's. "Yes, and the kindness." She paused for a second. "Perhaps Cassidy would also have made the gesture." "Frida saved both our lives," Mark whispered. "We were sitting ducks in the elevator. It was brilliantly fast thinking." "Mark," asked Jada, "what should we be doing?" "Well, Toshi and I left Esau's Bar and Grill wide open." Mark felt his jacket pocket. "I still have the mushroom lock with me. Someone should bike down there with another lock. Take a side-car too, pick up our bikes." Emily blinked at a sudden realization and hissed, "Of course! The two brothers, Jacob and Esau! The Black Mall home complex is through Jacob's Bar and Grill." Jada growled and asked derisively, "Was this place designed as a joke?!" For an instant Mark thought Jada's rhetorical question held a profound nugget of insight, but then his mind went back to Jada's earlier inquiry. He whispered, "Under no circumstances step into the empty storage closet at Esau's. It acts as a one-way trapdoor to Black Mall's home complex." "Uh, Mark," began Jada. "I mean it, no rescue missions. You guys were wondering when I'd issue my first decree. This is it." "Mark, don't abandon the possibility of rescue," said Emily. "Once Kiyoko is the Section Five janitor, we could use the trap door to come to you, activate Black Mall's elevator and leave. We could be in and out in one minute." "But Emily," Jada responded in a soft wail, "that could take weeks!" Kiyoko spoke. "I will dedicate my life to this, make my training as intense as the interface allows." Jada addressed her next question to all four of the Japanese women. "How much has Uno explored the surface around Black Mall's home?" There was a long pause and then Akiko answered. "I never heard anything about surface exploration. But it might have occurred. I just don't know." Mark glanced at his phone. "I'm going to sign off and conserve battery power. I have at most twenty minutes of airtime left." The Leophone was the size of a large cell phone, but due to the greater power needed to communicate with a satellite, a full battery supported less than an hour of conversation. Jada promised that both their phones would be ready to hear from Mark whenever he called. They then said quick goodbyes and Mark shut off his phone. One hour later. The group of eight women sat around their conference table at the Modern Coin Superstore, waiting for Kiyoko to finish her training session at 5 PM and join them. The video from the kitchen cutlery sensor displayed on a large monitor nearby. So far the Black Mall citizens had shown no inclination of exploring the locked section of their mall, and the women had yet to visit Esau's as Mark had requested. Madison stared at the dull video of the empty corridor and commented, "Looks real peaceful. Anyone walking down the corridor would never suspect such a large crowd is waiting for them." Fatima nodded. "A clever arrangement they have with the optics." A large mirror had been strategically placed just inside the doorway of a store on the outside arc, and a large telescope had been carried into the opposite store on the inside arc. But the mirror worked both ways. They could see the men taking turns keeping an eye on the locked corridor. Emily and Kiyoko stepped out of the sky-bridge and sat down. Fatima called the meeting to order. They briefly discussed work plans for the next few days. Creating surveillance networks from the sky-bridges of Blue Mall and Yellow Brick seemed the obvious choice, in case the Black Mall people started to explore the spirals. And after some debate, they realized the monitors at the coin store did not need constant observation. There was no immediate action that needed to be taken if the Black Mall Party started walking the locked spiral. They would leave the monitors unattended from midnight to 6 AM. Kiyoko would continue her training. The interface had declined her request for more than three two-hour training sessions per day. But she would study in the evenings and try to speed things up as much as possible. She even had some books with her now. The rest of the meeting was spent debating what advice to give Mark and Toshi. There was general agreement that the next time Mark called, they should try to persuade Mark and Toshi to abandon their position and find a safer place at least a few kilometers from Black Mall's home complex. In their previous surface explorations, the group did find a few places for food and lavatory facilities. And except for the area belonging to White Mall, there was ample evidence on the infrared satellite imagery of groups surviving away from their home complexes. And perhaps Mark and Toshi would find an outlet to recharge the Leophone. Having them stay at Black Mall's home complex seemed insanely risky. Their plans made, Fatima closed the meeting with a prayer. Ann volunteered to monitor Black Mall and stay with Kiyoko as she studied. Nobody felt like having dinner yet. The other eight women jumped to White Mall via Blazo's Art Gallery at the Green Mall sky-bridge. Six hours later. Time: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 11:42 PM Mark awoke slowly. His body was not stiff, even though he was lying on a hard flat floor. As he became more awake, he realized why. Toshi. She was curled and tucked up so sweetly against him, providing both warmth and softness. Mark had been smelling the scent of her hair and body as he slept, and it had provided the basis for some very delightful dreams. And he could feel her body now, the relaxed deep breathing. Mark blinked in the pitch darkness. His upper hand. It was inside her pants, inside her panties, the palm of his hand pressing her just below her navel, and his fingers descending into the stiff silkiness of her pubic fur. Mark could feel his fingertips touching the soft flesh on her upper thighs. Memories came flooding back. Mark had been holding Toshi, cupping her womb with his hand as they drifted off to sleep, but his hand had been on top of her clothes. "She must have slipped me in underneath when I was asleep," Mark thought. The intimacy was the result of many hours of conversation in accelerated time. It did feel sexy to hold her like this, but the primary emotion Mark felt was one of protection, protecting Toshi, protecting her womb, protecting the life within it. Toshi was pregnant. She was only about ten days past her expected period, but she was sure she had been impregnated. Her body felt subtly different in a dozen different ways. And she was also sure of the father. It was Gilberto, Uno's fourth in command. He had latched onto her and claimed exclusive rutting rights on her soon after Toshi's group had arrived at the 2525 party. He forced himself on her for a week, often in the laughing presence of his sadistic girlfriend Nadine. Toshi felt herself ovulating the day after she arrived. After Mark and Toshi had ended their phone conversation with Red Mall, they whispered with each other for an hour. Then Toshi had an idea. She took out the small penlight Hannah had given her from the ACE Hardware store, and then sat face to face with Mark, the small light shining between them. They locked eyes and began sharing their minds. Such a wonder. The time acceleration was profound. While linked with Mark, Toshi sensed her heart beating at a perceived three beats per minute. Mark and she both guessed they were achieving a factor-of-twenty speedup over true elapsed time, perhaps as high as Mark achieved with Stanley during their brief link. Such a wonder. They went their first hour of perceived time just chatting, learning how to be gentle with each other's mind and how to trust the extra presence inside their personal inner thoughts. With tender affection, they explored passing their childhood memories back and forth, achievements and frustrations, joys and sorrows, the deaths of their grandparents, the love of their parents, their proudest moments and some incredibly deep embarrassments. Mark was stunned with Toshi's openness. She allowed him complete freedom to explore her desires, something Mark could not quite match. He tried several times, but each effort resulted in the building of a hiccup that would break the connection, and after his third failure, Toshi gently asked him to postpone his efforts for another time. Toshi's mind, it was so beautiful! The songs of her childhood, the elaborate traditional silk clothes her parents would dress her in, the social customs, such incredible politeness. She showed him everything, from her first memories of gasping at the beauty of the Tokushima beach as a toddler to growing up through high school and the development of her deep love of Noh and Kabuki, two forms of traditional Japanese theater. Toshi ended by showing Mark her emotional thrill when she got her first kiss by a new American boyfriend shortly before Christmas. Mark tried to offer his own memories in return, sharing emotionally important moments from all stages of his life. Toshi was very still as he did this, until he showed her a naked Ashley standing in front of him, offering to shower with him. "Ah, she's very pretty. Thank you Mark. I never realized how intense a man's reaction could be, how strong and immediate the desire. Thank you Mark, for letting me understand what it's like to be on the other side." And then, the plea. They both knew it was coming. It was pure urgent desire. Words were totally unnecessary. Mark accepted at once. Ashley's words were ringing in both their minds. Perhaps they wouldn't call it marriage, but they could still have children together. So much of the future was unknown, but at least one issue was settled. Toshi's child would have two parents. And the mind link continued, almost twenty minutes of actual time. They discovered two fascinating things. The first was that their minds needed to sleep. Over six hours of perceived time had past, and it was the mind's perceived time between sleep cycles that determined the need for sleep and dreams. The second fascination was truly remarkable, almost miraculous in nature. They could fall asleep while still maintaining the link. Their eyes were still open, but the image processing slowed and then stopped. Some deep residual brain activity kept the focus and the mind link active. They shared a strange dream full of wonder and full of danger. They shared a dream and learned to comfort each other through some of their deepest fears. And then the dream ended. The sensations afterwards were similar to what they had both experienced their first night on this planet, drunk but not drunk, sexually aroused but also floating in a sea of peaceful and loving thoughts. Toshi lay down and bumped her rump against Mark, encouraging him to curl around her. Mark lay down and petted her, finally pressing his hand over their new child before falling asleep. After a deep rest, Mark woke up, spending a long moment enjoying the warmth and softness of Toshi's body until he felt her stirring, sensed her coming out of sleep. He nestled his nose into the clean hair in front of him, kissing her lightly. "Toshi," he whispered, "I'm guessing it's past midnight. I think we should make a break for it, move away from here on the surface. Do you agree?" Toshi nodded. "I don't think we have a choice. Trying to fight our way through the house and then through Black Mall would be suicidal. And we can't stay here. We need to be very careful. Frida might still be in danger if we're seen." Mark nodded. "I'm going to call our group and tell them our plans." "Okay." Toshi sat up, pulling Mark's hand from her pubis and kissing his hand before letting it go. As she pulled up and zipped her pants, Mark turned on his phone and was surprised to see it was still a few minutes before midnight. He made the call. Jada answered on the first ring. "Mark?" "Yeah. You still up?" "I'm just finishing an observation shift at the coin store. You two okay?" Mark briefly told Jada their plans. "Good choice. You have all our prayers. We relocked Esau's. I should tell you, we discovered something interesting at the hub. There's a second trap door at the 360 degree mark of White Mall. None of the other four spirals seem to have them." "You tested it?" "Yah, we took the risk, thought it was worth it. The White Mall closet brings you right back to White Mall's home lounge in a completely empty carriage. We let the door close and then reopen. The keyboard control was back, but the elevator was still inactive." Mark nodded in the darkness. "That's a relief." "You think so? If the Black Mall elevator were active, it could be your route back here." Jada pondered Mark's point. If Mark and Toshi's trip had activated the Black Mall elevator, Party #5 would have an escape route from the great trap they were in. Jada got back to her report. "We also have a full double set of sensors running from the White Mall sky-bridge, everything from 18 km to 63 km is covered." "Excellent. So all the malls have at least one sensor net." "Exactly. We'll be working on hub-half of the net from Yellow Brick's sky-bridge tomorrow morning. And we still have the Green Mall sky-bridge to do. Afterwards we might run some nets from the terminal stores, or perhaps from the White Mall trapdoor location." "Huh? But you won't be able to jump there." "True. But we'll be able to jump FROM there. It'll give us the option of monitoring another spiral near the hub." Jada sighed. She knew she shouldn't be draining Mark's battery, but it was so painful to say goodbye. "I love you. Before we sign off, I should give you an update. About 8 PM, Uno and two compadres and two muchachos arrived at their mall campsite. They stayed for about an hour, and then the group split up. Uno, Gilberto and his girlfriend Nadine, and Alfredo and his girlfriend Tiffany returned towards their home complex, everybody else at the site started coming up the locked portion of the spiral. " "Wow. How many people?" "Still eighteen." Jada read off all the names for Toshi's benefit. "Chico is obviously in charge with Alfonso next. Their two girlfriends are also with them, Jessica and Brandi, and six women slaves, four compadres, and all four muchachos. It's a very sizable force, about half their firepower. In the last three hours, they've covered about nine kilometers of spiral. Right now they're about one hundred meters past our sensor at..." Jada paused for a second as she looked at a map in front of her. "Spiral mark 53,776." "They're only making three kilometers an hour?" "Well, they're dragging two heavy sleds loaded with supplies. And it's not just the slaves who are pulling, the compadres and muchachos too. Ann said it's an indication of the leadership difference between Uno and Chico. Uno would have left the women in harness and whipped them to move faster, drove them until they dropped dead in harness." Jada took a deep breath. "Mark, before they left, our audio picked up a bit of conversation. Uno's party was heading to the Mex Grocer at the end of the mall. They expected to be home around midnight. Why don't you get going before they show up? I love you." Mark agreed and gave his love back and then shut off the phone. He was just about to ask Toshi to turn on her penlight so they could gather their things when the closet door began to slide open, blinding them with the bright light of the white diodes. "Damn!" thought Mark frantically. "We waited too long!" ------- Chapter 26 Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 12:02 AM Frida dashed into the closet from the vestibule and wrapped Toshi into a bear hug. She was trembling and whispering, "Thank you, thank you Toshi! Thank you for coming back to rescue me!" That wasn't exactly how or why they got here, but before either Mark or Toshi could explain, Frida continued, "Neto went down to open the mall for Uno. That's how I managed to slip away. We only have a few minutes. We've got to leave! We've got to leave now!" Toshi nodded in agreement and Frida released her from the hug. The three of them quickly went through the vestibule and to the east-northeastern vertex point of Black Mall's home complex. Frida looked uncertain by the choices before her. She pointed with hesitation to the northeastern path and looked to Toshi for approval. There were three directions for the walkways. Black Mall's home complex was attached to its hexagonal perimeter at the east-northeastern vertex. One walkway led due south, with the wide open fields to the east and Black Mall's home complex to the west. Mark dismissed that possibility immediately. At best, it would simply circle the home hexagon. The outside temperature was just too cold to contemplate going into the open fields without heavy clothing. Their current vertex was also the southern vertex of the right hexagon in the next row of two hexagons in the great diamond array. They could turn left and walk between this hexagon and Black Mall's home hexagon, or continue straight and walk directly away from the Black Mall complex, go east-northeast and begin walking along the outer edge of the diamond array. Mark frowned. There really wasn't much of an option. He hated making such an obvious choice, but he concluded it was unavoidable. Hoping there would soon be forks in the corridor to slow down and confuse their pursuers, he began jogging east-northeast directly away from Black Mall, wondering how far a head start they would get. Frida and Toshi followed as they ran single-file in the lit corridor. The door at the vertex closed behind them, locking them out of the home complex. Mark tried to remember the satellite imagery of the area as he ran. The layout here was very different from his home complex of Red Mall. Black Mall's complex was at the southernmost tip of a large diamond-shaped array of hexagons that stretched two kilometers north and barely missed connecting to the northwestern section of the great perimeter wall. There were forty-nine hexagons layered in thirteen rows, in a diamond pattern of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 hexagons. Outside the diamond pattern was a two-kilometer-wide buffer of open fields on three sides and the perimeter wall to the north. On thing Mark was certain of, they would be staying inside the diamond array. Even if they found a way to exit to the outside, they were completely unprepared to weather the brutally frigid air for a two kilometer hike, especially when there was no guarantee they'd find quick access into a building on the other side of the fields. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 12:06 AM Uno felt bone tired and was looking forward to sacking out, not minding at all that there was no one from the pussy barn to keep him amused for a while. He and his party were just reaching the second floor and the top of the spiral staircase when Compadre Bambino burst through the door from the bedroom corridor. "Frida! She's missing! I was making the rounds. She was in her bed just a few minutes ago. Somehow she slipped away!" "That Toshi shit!" Uno yelled, remembering Frida's strange cry earlier this afternoon. It had bothered him when he heard it, but he looked around the lounge and found nothing, never realizing he had missed by two seconds the closing of both the elevator and the vestibule door. Uno stared at Bambino, wanting to ream him out for letting Frida escape, but he couldn't quite find the excuse to do it. Uno himself had left the home base very lightly staffed. Pancho and Berto were the critical two-man unit guarding Jacob's Bar and Grill. Uno didn't what some unknown enemy to simply close the door and lock them out of the mall. That left Neto and Bambino upstairs to guard the bitches. It just wasn't enough, not when Neto had to come down to open the mall entrance to the surface and take over guard duty from Berto. That left Bambino as the only guy left who was guarding the bitches, and they were allowing the women the full run of the house. Stupid! Uno looked at the door Bambino had come through. In the archway stood Amber, Whitney, and Cassidy, the girlfriends of Neto, Pancho, and Bambino. The women were standing around in their pajamas looking sleepy and confused, but was it all an act? Uno had tried to be sweet to them the last couple of days, and this was how they repaid him?! "Well bitches," he thought darkly, "you had your chance!" He yelled out loud to the men, "Fuck! I knew that Frida bitch was up to something! Come on!" The group drew their guns and raced northeast a hundred meters through their home. They went through the lounge and vestibule and then paused at the northeastern vertex, looking at the three perimeter paths and considering. It was obvious Frida had to have come through here. Gilberto was livid. "That slimy bitch Toshi! Frida would never have the balls to run away on her own. She must have seen Toshi for real this afternoon. That slimy bitch Toshi! She somehow found another way to get here!" Uno nodded and looked thoughtfully at Gilberto and Alfredo. Currently they were the number four and number five men of the gang, with the number three slot being open. Advancement in rank was not automatic. Gilberto and Alfredo would have to compete for the slot. "I need a volunteer," Uno said, "someone to lead a posse and capture those errant bitches." "I'm your man," Gilberto said immediately, before Alfredo could speak. Uno looked at the two men. Gilberto looked raring to go, while Alfredo looked glad someone else had volunteered. Uno made his decision. "Gilberto, you're in charge. Take Berto and track the bitches down. They can't get far. When you catch them, show them what men of balls do when they get angry. Then bring them both back here." Gilberto replied with a wicked laugh. "Piece of cake! We've got the bitches boxed on the track. They have no place to go!" Nadine laughed too and turned to her boyfriend Gilberto. "Can I come along? I can hold Toshi down while you men of balls do what you men of balls do." Nadine turned and noticed the other three women had followed them quietly. They were standing in the archway between the kitchen and lounge. Nadine bared her teeth at them and then laughed when they shied away. Gilberto smiled at Nadine. She was a jealous vixen and he loved it. Part of the fun of rutting on Toshi nonstop for a week was getting such a rise out of Nadine. "Sure. You want to hold wrists or ankles?" Nadine thought for less than a second before answering. "Ankles. I get a better view of the action that way." She turned to taskmistress Tiffany. "Want to come along? The two of us can help Toshi do the splits again, slutty Frida too." Tiffany replied with a wicked grin. "Yeah, okay, Frida with her extra long legs, hah! Should be fun." She then growled, "I bet Toshi squeals like a stuck pig!" During the past week, after Gilberto had tired of Toshi, Tiffany's boyfriend Alfredo had taken Toshi for several nights, rutting on her passive body without mercy. He even cracked jokes about it, telling the other compadres in front of a silently fuming Tiffany how much he enjoyed eating sushi, or was it Toshi? The lewd remarks had silently driven Tiffany up the wall. She felt intensely humiliated and was eager for some payback. Gilberto paused for a moment and turned to his boss. "Speaking of splits Uno, I need to cover both walkways. Let me take another two gunmen. This way we'll have two guns on each branch." Uno stared back. It suddenly occurred to him that Gilberto wasn't remembering the three missing pistols of Santos, Fidel, and Alberto. Uno had no intention of reminding him, and regardless, what Gilberto was saying made a lot of sense. "Two extra gunmen? Okay. You want Alfredo and Bambino?" Gilberto shook his head. "Pancho and Neto from downstairs. They make a good team and besides, they're the pair that explored all the way to the other end." He made a curt hand gesture for Alfredo to go down to the mall and send them up. Alfredo bristled for a moment at being ordered so casually, but it was not the time to protest, not with Gilberto in charge of the mission and Uno standing two meters away. Alfredo stomped off, unhappy he had been demoted to being the lone guard of the downstairs Grill. Uno stretched while they waited. After the brief rush of adrenaline from Frida's disappearance, he was back to feeling bone tired. Amber, Whitney, and Cassidy were still with them and still looking very hesitant. Uno decided the time for sweet-talking these fence-sitting bitches was over. "Gilberto," he said flatly, "Don't spare the rod with Toshi." Gilberto grinned and moved his hand and lewdly squeezed the front of his pants. "Don't worry. My rod is already primed for what it has to do." Uno nodded. "Uh huh. Well, you and your men sink that Toshi shit as deep as you want, but remember, you need to bring her back here in a condition where she can still talk. We need a lot of questions answered." "Yeah, okay, she'll still be able to talk." Uno glanced to his side and noticed the three women in pajamas were still present, standing still and witnessing the planning of Toshi's rape. He decided he didn't care. Perhaps these bitches had even helped Frida escape. They certainly hadn't stopped her. "Fuck these bitches!" he thought. "The time for sweet talking is over! It's time to show them who to fear again!" He gestured wildly with his arms and said loudly, "And that Frida shit! That Frida shit I'm less concerned about!" He gave Gilberto a wicked grin. "I know what you like Gilberto, what you like the most." Gilberto licked his lips and nodded as Pancho and Neto arrived. Gilberto interpreted Uno's comment as permission to mount full bore and blow out Frida's anus. What Gilberto liked the most was the danger of mortal injury to the fuck whore beneath him, and he had just received clearance to risk it. The posse of six left the complex about five minutes later, four armed compadres and two taskmistresses. They broke into two equal parties at the vertex and then moved at a slow and deliberate pace along the two perimeter walkways. There was no need to hurry. Gilberto was correct. The errant bitches had no place to go. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 12:17 AM Fifteen minutes and more than two kilometers into their flight, Mark was feeling a rising tide of helplessness. Since their initial choice of the northeastern fork at the vestibule, the walkway had given them no other choice to make. It was a single corridor forming the eastern perimeter of the great diamond array, and they were almost at the northern apex. Mark was fighting a rising tide of despair. They were running out of hexagons. Their speed wasn't that great, but Toshi and especially Frida didn't look fit to run much faster, and besides it wasn't their speed that was dismaying Mark. It was the track that they were on. For twenty-two times, they had jogged the hundred-meter sides, the super-frigid outside fields clearly visible in the light of the stars and the planet's small moon. There was no other choice. Their only other options were to stay put or head back, and that would be insane. Mark suspected the western perimeter path would have presented them the identical situation. And now they were a hundred meters east-northeast of the southern vertex of the northernmost hexagon of the diamond array. Finally, their corridor was leaving the perimeter of the diamond array. But there was still no choice in their path, no choice to make. Mark had a horrible feeling they were about to find there was no place to go, that their path was just one big loop with the Black Mall home complex as the only exit from the track. His mind kept jumping back to Maddy urging him to pack a pistol. But Mark hated guns. He would have to admit, target practice with his dad was sort of fun, but the idea of using a gun as a weapon against another person made him shudder. He wondered now whether he would pay for his squeamishness with his life. He looked at the two women with him and felt an intense wave of shame. They were trusting him to protect them, but perhaps they would also be forced to pay for his squeamishness. The three slowed to a determined walk as they hiked the last hundred meters to the southern vertex. "We must be very close to the great wall," panted Frida. She looked very distraught, and Mark didn't blame her. She was in an unknown alien environment and facing a high probability of soon being raped and tortured. Mark paused for a moment to talk to her. "Two walls actually, separated by about a hundred meters. In between there is some sand, and then some cobblestone walkways, very difficult to walk on, and then a large field of some very strange ivy. And you're right. We're in a diamond pattern of hexagons. The northern tip of the diamond array we're in just misses touching the inner wall of the great perimeter wall by about eight meters." Frida turned her head and gave him a relieved smile. "So you know what this place looks like?" Mark nodded. "Imagine a truly colossal hexagon, exactly twenty-six kilometers for each side, aligned so that two vertices run due north-south." "What?" "The northern vertex is twenty-six kilometers north of the center of the hexagon, and the southern vertex is twenty-six kilometers south of center." "Oh." Frida paused for a second. "Okay. I get it." "We call the mall downstairs Black Mall. Think of a northernmost point of a great spiral along the black centerline in the mall corridor. That point is precisely 6,457 meters west and 20,279 meters north of the center of the great hexagon, a place we call Hex Hall. That point in Black Mall is precisely aligned with your home complex. Your home enters the Mall on the inside arc of your spiral. The center of your circular stairwell is the center of your local hexagon, and eighteen meters due south of the other point I just described." Mark looked at Frida and smiled. The precise description had had its desired effect. Frida looked a lot calmer knowing something about her environment. Mark knew he was probably giving a false impression of knowing more than he actually did, but he told no outright lie, and his motive was one of kindness for Frida's distress. Mark's conscious was at peace. He decided the explanation was well worth the minute it took to make it. They started walking again in a much more confident and relaxed manner. Frida smiled back at him, her relief visible on her face. "Ah. So I take it you've been here before?" Mark shrugged. "Not quite here, much further south. But I've seen satellite images." "Of here?! Oh wow, really?! Tell me, this isn't Earth, is it? I mean, with all the stars and everything, it can't be, right?" Mark sighed. "That's right, not Earth. Look up ahead! There's something different!" In his mind, he thought hopefully, "Maybe we got lucky at last!" They sprinted the remaining distance and then stared in fascination at the setup before them. The corridor bent 120 degrees and continued to the west-northwest, and Mark was certain it was the beginning of the mirror image of the path they had just taken. The corridor would join the perimeter of the western side of the diamond area. But finally, there was another option. Without speaking, they walked due north into a short transparent area. They then walked down one branch of a double spiral helix of crystal-clear stairwells. Their branch exited four meters below onto the ground level of the last northernmost hexagon. Ground level indeed. Mark recognized the plant immediately. It was the strange ivy that ran like a moat around the perimeter wall. The ivy covered the area inside the last hexagon, except for a narrow cobblestone walkway that ran from their southern vertex to the northern vertex two hundred meters beyond. Mark pulled out his pocket binoculars and took a look. The cobblestone walkway led to a much higher stairwell at the northern vertex, one that connected to high walkways that came back along the hexagon walls at a height of about ten meters. The walkways were flat shelves without guardrails, and ended in the second branch of the spiraling staircase far above and just behind them. Mark re-entered the bottom of the stairwell and stared into the chamber they would come to if they made the journey to the northern vertex and then backtracked along the high walkways. It was a barren chamber six-meter square in area, with a mall-sized four-meter by four-meter door exiting south back towards the diamond complex. The door was closed, but there was no mushroom lock blocking the access button. Mark felt a glimmer of hope. He had a Black Mall lock in his pocket, the one from Esau's Bar and Grill, and this was still Black Mall territory. If they could get to the other side of that door and then lock it, it might provide a very effective barrier against pursuit. Mark came out of the stairwell and stared at the cobblestone path. It started out twelve meters wide, two meters on each side adjacent to the ivy of black cobblestones, then two meters on each side of red cobblestones, and then finally an inner four-meter core of yellow cobblestones. The color similarity between the path and the setup between the great perimeter walls was unmistakable. And the pattern did not last. The black and red lines of cobblestones curved inward until the inner core of yellow was eliminated, and then the black cobblestones swallowed the red core. The middle one-hundred meters of the two-hundred-meter path was a mere four meters wide of pure black cobblestones. Still, Mark hoped it wouldn't be too difficult to traverse. He looked at the women's feet and nodded in approval. Frida had come to them in her pajamas, put she had put on good boots. Without explaining why, he asked the two women not to speak and to try to keep as far from the ivy as possible. He then silently led the way forward, with Frida behind him and Toshi binging up the rear. Half way across, in the dead center of the hexagon, Frida had a question about the geometry of the malls, and she forgot about Mark's command not to speak. "Mark," she called out in a normal tone of voice. All three of them gasped as a great ripple shook the ivy. Mark turned and put his fingers to his lips, imploring Frida not to make a sound. She looked both terrified and mortified at the mistake she had made, and nodded her head vigorously. After a few seconds the rippling subsided, and they slowly continued their journey. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 12:29 AM Gilberto and Neto walked very deliberately up the east side of the easternmost hexagon. They had traveled halfway up the diamond array. Their guns were drawn and out in front, and Nadine was trailing behind them. Across the great diamond array Pancho, Berto, and Tiffany were in a similar position on the western side. "Stupid!" Gilberto was kicking himself mentally for not thinking these bitches might be armed with guns from the three missing compadres. It took Neto to point this out to him about fifty meters after leaving the home complex. "That fucking Alfredo!" Gilberto thought. "I'm sure he didn't forget. He looked so relieved when I volunteered. I never bothered to ask him why. Stupid!" But if the bitches were armed, Gilberto thought they would have picked one of the bends of corridors to lay an ambush by now. He began to feel more confident with each hexagon they covered and began to pick up the pace a bit. His mind was already imagining all the different ways the men of balls with him would sink themselves into Toshi. That bitch was in for one rough night. Gilberto would not stop his men from their fuck rotations until both Toshi and the men's balls were wasted. And Frida! His personal prize! Her boyfriend Diego had astonished Gilberto a week ago when he admitted that so far he had accepted Frida's plea not to have anal sex with her. The compadre had never slipped more than a single finger up inside her virgin backdoor. Well, the bitch was about to find out what it was like to get her plumbing properly plumbed! Gilberto cracked an evil grin at the vision of Frida's bare butt held high and tight by Nadine and Tiffany, those sexy long legs held open by the laughing mistresses. Oh yeah, how Frida would yelp as the two women spread her lifted butt cheeks wide and Gilberto pushed his mighty express train into Frida's brown tunnel. Toshi would be roughed up but still usable after they were through with her. Frida though... Gilberto loved the pleasure of blowing out a woman's sphincter, especially one who was a virgin at her anal door. He loved to hear the bitch pant and then scream as he worked himself in. The chance had come along only once before, almost two years. Gilberto had gone in full bore up inside an anal virgin, and had an explosive orgasm when he felt the bitch's anal muscle blow out under the stress. Diego's single finger would not have stretched Frida's sphincter muscles at all. Gilberto was anticipating exquisite pleasure for his cock. Gilberto was ecstatic, barely able to contain his excitement, lost in his vile thoughts. "Maybe I'll let Frida beg for some spit from Nadine and Tiffany before I hook as deep as her bowels, a little lube to ease the entry pain when my cock pushes past her rectum. But lube or no lube, her brown shit hole won't be just brown after tonight. Bitch Frida is gonna be the bitch of the burning pink potty after I get through reaming her!" "And what's the worst she can expect?" Gilberto blinked. His shriveled conscience had asked the question in a whisper. A well worn memory flashed through his mind, a visual memory of a nameless prostitute. It had happened almost two years ago, while he was still a teenager. Gilberto accepted the challenge from his conscience. He relived the memory. She had been so young, so cute and fresh looking, long straight hair, such a pretty smile, lovely green eyes, and she was so incredibly foolish to trust him. She had allowed herself to be seduced by Gilberto's boyishly good looks and charming politeness, and he had taken her to a very secluded spot. It was there that she sold herself to him, in a place where she was alone with him and completely unprotected. Gilberto casually asked her price for anal sex. Unwittingly she signed her death warrant by confessing she had never done it. Gilberto's mind finished with the memory by imaging how the naked young prostitute had struggled underneath him. Gilberto jumped his vision to thoughts of butt humping a pinned and struggling Frida. His weak and shriveled conscience tried one last time, again flashing a memory into his mind, the young prostitute crying in pain, loudly at first, then weakly, the blood from her ruptured intestine pouring like a river from her anus, running down her bare legs and covering her feet as she tried to stand, so much blood. Crying and trying to stand for a moment and then collapsing. "Is this what you want?" his conscience asked him in derision. "Is this really what you want?!" "Of course!" Gilberto's mind replied in howling laughter. "I was never caught, and this time I don't even have to worry!" His conscience gave a final wail of despair and shriveled into oblivion, never to return. And with visions of new dark pleasures dancing in his mind, Gilberto turned with his group and started walking the next hexagon. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 12:33 AM Toshi viciously slammed the flat of her hand against the almost invisible door, her teeth bared. Mark gasp at the intensity of her emotion. There was no lock, but nevertheless the door was unresponsive when they tried to push the access button. In fact, there was no access button. They were at the end of the line, with pursuit sure to arrive soon. None of them had any delusions about that. Toshi turned to the man she had just learned to love. "Mark, if things get really hopeless, can you kill me before I'm captured?" Mark stared at her and hissed back, "What?!" "I'm totally serious. I'm facing a night of raping, then some torture to get me to tell what I know, and then a very painful death. Uno made that very clear to all of us. The penalty for attempted escape would be rape and then death by torture, no exceptions." Mark was speechless. Toshi continued, "We were forced to watch how they killed Britney. She complained about the rapes and then tried to run away. It's unspeakable what they did." Mark's jaw twitched. "I..." He took a deep breath, forcing himself not to cry. "I can't give up hope. I can't and I won't! And I have an idea. Frida, Toshi, we have to split up. I'll be on the walkway, about halfway back." Frida grimaced. "Split up? And where will we be?" Mark took a deep breath. "Right here where they can see you. You're the bait for the trap." Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 12:46 AM Three compadres were exposing themselves to Frida and Toshi, and the men were grinning like jack-o-lanterns, but it was the predatory leer of Nadine that Toshi found the most disturbing. Toshi and Frida were being tormented by their enemy, separated by only a few centimeters of transparent barrier. They were being mocked and taunted about their pending rapes. Gilberto curled the fingers of his right hand into a hole, and then plunged the flip-the-bird finger of his left hand into the hole, working it in and out while his eyes drank in the sight of Toshi's and Frida's bodies. Then he moved his cupped hand while staring at Frida, turning to display his hairy rear and then goosing himself in his bare butt, signaling to Frida where she was going to get it. Gilberto gave a short maniacal laugh. Uno was right! Toshi did come back! And both bitches were obviously unarmed, hanging like two cherries on a tree waiting for Gilberto's mouth. Gilberto's thoughts shifted from Frida's shapely ass to remembering the taste of Toshi's sweet loins and he started to drool. In complete depravity, he had already unzipped his pants, letting his excited cock pop out and wave stiffly in the air. He now rotated his hips left and right, letting his cock wave an evil side-to-side greeting to his captives. Wanting to get in on the fun, Pancho and Berto had also dropped their pants and were jerking themselves erect in full view of the trapped women. Nadine gave a wild laugh and took a moment to reach under Berto jerking hand and penis. He grinned at her at first, allowing her hand to reach up under his legs and cup his scrotum. She fondled him for a moment until he sighed at the pleasure, and then he yelped as Nadine painfully squeezed his sac. "Hey Nadine! Let go!" Berto hissed, his face suddenly breaking out in sweat. "Just checking your ammo," Nadine answered with a sensuous wiggle. "Are both your nuts fully loaded? Let me check." Her fingers released some of the pressure, but then she curled her wrist, driving her two middle fingers to the very top of his sac. She leaned close to his ear and whispered, "I love feeling a man's tubes. Feel where I am Berto? Cough for me." "What?!" he hissed back. "I want you to cough for me. I know how to test for hernias. Cough for me. I want to examine your groin." She pushed very firmly, rubbing her fingers against the muscular wall at the top of his sac. "Nadine, cut it out!" Her fingers shifted slightly and then pinched, catching a sensitive tube where it joined the orb of his left testis. Berto grimaced and then gasped. "Feel where I am now?" Nadine hissed. "I own your left nut. One little jerk of my wrist and you'll be a one-ball wonder for the rest of rest of your life. Your choice." She pulled on the connection, not quite enough to rupture him but more than hard enough to show she meant business. Berto quivered and then capitulated. "Okay!" "Smart boy!" Her fingers returned to the roof of his sac. "Cough!" Nadine had drilled him. It felt as if she had pushed her entire hand up through the middle of his sac, and in reality she had come close. Berto coughed several times, biting down an urge to vomit, and then in a flash Nadine laughed and jumped away, leaving his sac to flop loosely between his legs. Berto looked down and blushed in humiliation. He had been displaying a full erection to Toshi and Frida just a moment ago, and now he was completely limp, looking like a little boy. Gilberto glanced over and grinned at how completely his girlfriend had dominated Berto. Hah! Nadine knowing how to do a hernia exam! What a joke! Oh, she was such a wild and playful vixen! His attention returned to his prey, and he pressed his face against the thin barrier separating him from the two frightened women. He drooled and let his spittle mark the clear barrier, staring at Toshi and grinning at her crying back at him in absolute fear, her eyes locked on the massive naked erection Gilberto was pressing and humping against the glass. Toshi had been a Drama major back at Burlington, and Gilberto had no idea what an excellent actress she was. Gilberto rubbed his erection against the glass for a few last strokes. Watching Toshi paralyzed with fear and staring at him with glassy eyes was just so enjoyable. And at last he stopped. Enough foreplay! Time to get it on for real. Gilberto started to stuff his erection back inside his pants and motioned for his posse to leave their branch of the spiral glass stairwell. They stepped out onto the cobblestones to join Neto and Tiffany. Pancho had enjoyed displaying his penis to the women, and he was still panting and trying to zip himself up when he came and stood by Gilberto's side. Pancho was sweating and looking very nervous, and he hoped Gilberto would assume it was just his excitement about the upcoming humping of the bitches. Pancho pointed with his arm. "See, I told you how rough the walkway is. You have to walk very slowly. The red stones are even worse. And the black stones are the worst of all, and wicked sharp too. You'll have to walk very slowly. You have to be careful. Think about every step." "Yeah, yeah, okay, no problem," answered Gilberto nonchalantly as he surveyed the area. Neto and Pancho were the only two people who had made this trip before, so they deserved some attention. But the walkway didn't look that bad. Gilberto took a few practice steps. Actually, it was kind of nasty to walk across the bumps, all sorts of irregular angles. Running would be out of the question, a twisted ankle for sure. But, they'd just take it easy, plant a foot, find the balance, and then swing the other leg for a step. It would take a little time, but what the fuck? Their prey weren't going anywhere. No problem. Unknown to everybody except Neto and Pancho, the two would-be explorers had never actually done the exploration they said they had. Weeks ago, the rippling ivy had looked insanely dangerous, and they had both frozen five meters past the end of the red cobblestones. Unable to go further, they had retreated and completed the last of their inspection with binoculars, swearing each other to secrecy on how they had completed the exploration of the chamber. They had traced the walkways with their eyes and binoculars, all the way back to the double helix stairwell, and had stated to Uno that the mall-sized door in the second segment could not be opened. But they really didn't know. Pancho and Neto had been fretting about this for the last twenty minutes, and as their two parties met up, they had given each other uneasy glances and wondered what their excuse would be if the posse found the door open and their prey gone. They could of course claim that just because the door was locked when they tested it didn't mean it had to stay locked. But seeing Frida and Toshi bagged and ripe for humping had brought a tremendous feeling of relief to both of them. The door really was locked. And with their relief came a rush of sexual desire and anticipation. A few minutes ago, while Pancho and Gilberto and Berto were starting to display their penises to the trapped women, Neto had walked out ahead onto the cobblestones, and Tiffany had drifted out right behind him. Neto's hips were making little jerks back and forth dreaming about what he was about to do for real. And all he had to do first was walk across the horrible cobblestone walkway. Well, at least he wouldn't have to lead. And if the two bitches bagged in the stairwell had just done it, then it was sure to be safe for him too. Neto tried to keep his shivering under control as the rest of the posse teased and frightened the bitches. He clutched his gun for a moment, checking to make sure a round was chambered and the safety on, and then he felt between his legs, catching a cagey smile from Tiffany as he did. In spite of his fear, he was fully erect in anticipation of having fun with Toshi and Frida, and Tiffany knew it. Tiffany walked and stopped right in front of Neto, her left side almost touching him. She was shielding him with her body from the view of the others if they happened to look from the stairwell. And when she glanced and saw that no one was watching, she moved her arm slightly. Her hand came over and squeezed his erection. "My, what have we here?" she whispered. "What to think it is Tiff?" Neto said with a grin. She did not let go, but kept pinching his penis in various spots until he blinked. "You know Tiff, some night you want to play with what you're fooling with now, just let me know." "Aw, is somebody getting the hots for Tiffany?" she asked coyly, and then got serious. "Do me a favor Neto. Save your load for Toshi. I want to see it dripping out of her cunt when we march her back." Neto kept grinning as she worked his erection, hugely relieved that her boyfriend Alfredo wasn't around to see this. He said teasingly, "I don't know Tiff. I was thinking of banging Frida." "Toshi." "Aw, Tiff..." "Neto, Gilberto will take Frida first, right? You know what that means. She won't be much use to anybody after her butt fuck. I'll be surprised if she's even moving. Maybe we'll just toss her into the plants. Do Toshi instead. Make her squeal. Make her drip. Make her stumble." "Whoa Tiff. You really hate Toshi? That much? Just because Alfredo humped her a few nights?" "Toshi," she whispered angrily in reply. Her hand moved, jerking the shaft of his penis, and then she pinched the sensitive tip between her thumb and index finger. "Give it to her Neto. I'll reward you if you do." "Oh yeah? When?" "Whenever you like. How does tomorrow night sound? That'll give your nut sac a chance to reload." She paused and added. "Alfredo's been hot to get into Whitney's pants. You heard how Uno was talking. Whitney is about to be turned into hoof pussy. I can set it up. I can handle everything. Alfredo will rut on Whitney, and you can rut on me." Neto face broke into a lecherous grin. "Now that's what I was waiting to hear. You willing to butt fuck?" A coy smile and another pinch, slower this time, more sensuous and teasing, the tight fingers running up and down the length of his cock. Neto tried to hide how easily Tiffany was driving him, and he failed miserably. He let out a soft whimper and started to rock his hips in rhythm with Tiffany's strokes. Tiffany stopped the stimulation and laughed at how easily Neto had been manipulated. Then she licked her lips, wiggled her tongue at Neto and said, "I'll play any role you want, let you take me any which way you want, as long as I'm satisfied with your performance tonight." "Oh yeah? Deal! I'm gonna hold you to that promise Tiff, so keep your ears open. Toshi's gonna grunt and squeal like a stuck pig." Tiffany grinned in evil delight. "Just remember, the louder the squeals, the bigger your reward!" With a sensuous bump of her butt Tiffany turned and walked away, just as the rest of the group was exiting the stairwell. Neto panted to clear his head of the teasing and sexual denial that Tiffany had put him through, and then he blinked as he saw Pancho and Gilberto finish putting their stiff cocks back inside their pants. Tiffany eyed Neto quietly a few meters away. She thought she had tweaked his frustration perfectly. When he finally got the chance to mount Toshi, he would enter and ride her with a vengeance. A few moments later Gilberto organized his group into a single file and they began to walk the horrible path across the ivy. They walked quietly, not so much from caution but from imagining the pleasure of what they were about to do. Gilberto's erection was almost painfully rigid from the anticipation. He started to pant from his thoughts of forcing a rectal mount upon a helpless Frida. "Right up her virgin butt tunnel, yeah ... I'll mount her doggy first, ride up high on her ass and stroke straight down into her tiny brown shithole. And she won't be able to do a thing about it. She's gonna be pinned, and her butthole's gonna burn and turn pink and frothy, full blow out, yeah ... Then maybe I'll have Nadine and Tiffany turn her over, have them both spit in Frida's face when I unload in her shitbox. Oh yeah. I'm gonna plow her full bore, ram her brown Frida shit right back up and into her stomach!" Mark watched the posse from above on the center of the western walkway. He was waiting until they were directly opposite him, at a spot eighty-four meters to the west of him and ten meters below. He had the precise spot locked in his mind. Mark hated what he was about to do. It was nothing less than mass murder. Six people were about to die if Mark's suspicions were correct. And he saw them not only as the six hardened adversaries they were now, but as six young people who were barely out of their childhood. He saw them not only now, adults at the end of their lives, but as the children they had grown up from. He imagined their whole lives, infants, toddlers, young boys and girls growing up and exploring the wonders of the world around them. What frustrations and fears, Mark wondered, had enticed them to become such a horrible gang? Mark felt like spitting. There was such a sour taste in his mouth. But what other choice did he have? Could he possibly kill Toshi? The woman's heart was impossibly sweet and kind, and in the bare white light of this group closing in on them, her plea for death by his hands was reasonable. But could he ever possibly do such a thing?! No! Sometimes, he thought with a grimace, life hands you really lousy choices. Mark took a slow deep breath and hardened himself for what he had to do next. Mark waited until the two middle people, Nadine and Tiffany, were directly in front of him, precisely halfway along the wickedly sharp cobblestone path. His plan was a variation from an old Star Trek episode. He couldn't recall all the details, but he did remember an alien sacrificing his life by drawing enemy fire, doing what Mark was about to do. Mark had his four spikes wrapped tightly together with the wire from his phone charger, and he hoped at a distance the shining black metal rods would appear to be a pistol barrel. That's what he hoped. The enemy group reached the precise middle of the black walkway. Mark leaped up and into a jumping-jack split, fully extending his body into a giant-X with his "pistol" clearly visible in his right hand. "Klingon!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. As six heads turned and gaped at him, Mark dropped prone onto the three-meter shelf and into a firing position, his "pistol" poking out over the ledge and pointing down at the party on the cobblestones. "Holy shit!" yelled Gilberto as Nadine and Tiffany started to scream. Gilberto's mind went from blissful sexual fantasy to both panic at the mortal danger and fury over the interruption of his dream of ram packing Frida's shit back up her bowels. He howled as he forced his mind to abandon the enticing daydream and pay attention to the current threat. In a burst of horror, Gilberto realized they were sitting ducks on the exposed walkway. One concealed gunman on the ledge could slaughter them all. Their only hope was a covering fire until they could get off these damned awful cobblestones. Gilberto brought up his gun in one fluid motion and tried to plant his feet for firing, but he tripped on the ragged edges underfoot and fell heavily on the black stones. He felt himself being cut by the sharp rocks. "Shit!" he shouted, but he was under such a rush of adrenaline, the pain didn't seem too bad. He managed to roll to a prone position, ignoring the new cuts he suffered as he did. He raised his gun just past the edge of the black walkway and started firing wildly, thinking getting off a few quick shots was more important than accurate fire. It was Pancho the last in line who was the first to die. He had no idea how deep the vegetation was but he thought it would be suicidal to stay exposed on the black cobblestones. And it was impossible to run on such an awful surface. With his erection still stiff in his pants, he leaped and fired, hoping that his fear of the thorny ivy was unfounded. He threw his body into the dense foliage and prayed it would be deep enough to cover him. The last wish of his life was granted far more fully than he ever imagined. In midair he fired a second wild shot at the walkway beyond, and then his body plunged into the ivy feet first and the ivy swallowed him. Tiffany had been watching Pancho and gasped in disbelief. She realized that his body had disappeared so quickly and deeply, the ivy must be several meters thick at least, far thicker than any of them had realized. In a more quiet setting, the remaining five people might have also heard Pancho's last vocalizations, a short burst of agonizing screams, but the walkway was alive with the sound of gunfire from the three remaining compadres. Gilberto was lying prone and firing rapidly, his panicking mind trying to count his shots. He had his gun and hands projected directly over the ivy as he lay, and at the sound of his fourth shot, a host of green threadlike vines shot out of the foliage and enveloped his hands, threading their ways and wrapping tightly around his fingers. Gilberto screamed in agony. The vines were worse than fire ants! They had tiny hollow needlelike thorns that were pumping something into him that was worse than formaldehyde. Gilberto tried to drag his hands away from the ivy, willing to have the thorns shred his skin in order to free himself from the intense and burning pain. But the tiny tendrils proved impossible to break. Unknown to Gilberto, the threads were stronger than dental floss. Gilberto screamed again as the vines coiled and spun and quickly sank below skin level. In a sudden shock of horror, he realized that if they kept going, they would amputate his fingers. In his agony and fury he pointed his gun into the foliage and tried to fire again. But the poison was beginning to send his nervous system into toxic shock. The muscles in his lower arms and hands were already affected and would not respond, and then the tendons in his fingers were cut and for a moment the gun rattled loosely between his limp and bloody hands. Meanwhile thicker tendrils were emerging and seeking to entwine his legs and torso. Gilberto screamed as his first finger fell into the foliage. The vines were cutting so fast! He screamed again at the thought of living the rest of his life without his fingers, without his hands. His screams allowed the vines to home in on his position. Before he could react, two much thicker vines circled his waist from opposite directions and squeezed and coiled, hooking across his stomach and sides and then extending hundreds of curved thorns. The vines began spinning in opposite directions, the rows of curved thorns acting like hundreds of surgical scissors against each other and slicing into the area around his stomach just below his ribs. Gilberto gave an explosive gasp at the pain and horror. His body was in mortal danger of being sawed in half. Berto's death was swift and violent. A single thick tendril had found his head, wrapping around it and using its thorns to shred his eyes. Berto was blind and screaming at the burning fire in his eye sockets, and then the tendril completed a second loop around his neck and pulled tight, slicing into his windpipe and jerking Berto's unbalanced body head first off the walkway. Berto made a faint gurgling hiss and was gone. Tiffany and Neto meanwhile were both trying to dance away from the tendrils that were covering the black area of the cobblestones, but it was hopeless task. It was only Neto who had a dim idea of the colossal mistake they had made. He had noticed how the vines had pulsed and rippled at the sounds of the shots and screams and was desperately trying to keep his mouth shut. But it was too late. A thick spiraling vine was hovering in midair, and as Neto stepped on a thin vine, the thick vine shot forward between his legs and then spiraled upward and wrapped itself around his hip and crotch. Neto howled as a dense bundle of thorny needles injected their fire-poison into his upper thigh and testicles. At the sound of the howl, the thorny needles raked across his crotch and thigh, amputating his sac. Neto gasped at the pain and the blood gushing from his groin. Then the burrowing thorns cut the femoral artery in his leg. Neto howled some more and started to fall over. Tiffany couldn't stand the sight of the pulsing vines curling around her ankles from both sides of the walkway. She tried to jerk away, even though a small part of her mind was screaming at her that that was a really bad idea. The vines snapped shut and then began working their way up her boots like coiling snakes. The vines cut through the soft leather around her ankles before they reached the top of the boots near her knees. Tiffany screamed in terror and at the agony of the burning thorns, many times worse than the cruel chaffing she had herself inflicted on her slaves with overly tight ankle cuffs. Tiffany kicked in one direction and then the other, trying to dislodge the vines, and then she lost her balance as her feet went both numb and on fire from the burning poison. She landed heavily and cut the side of her face on the sharp jagged edges of the black stones. "Shit," she screamed. In a seeming act of divine justice, the vines on both the east and west sides of the walkway got into a tug-of-war with Tiffany's legs. The power was incredible, stretching Tiffany's legs out into an absolutely straight 180 degree full split. And then the vines pulled some more, far more stress than Toshi ever had to endure. Tiffany was aware of the major tendons and muscles in her thighs and crotch popping and tearing under the overpowering load. Mercifully she passed out just as the vines on her left and right legs met near her vagina. After a second of caressing contact, the vines to the west seemed to realize they were competing with the vines on the east for their prize and they let go as a courtesy. Tiffany's unconscious body shot off the walkway to the east and slipped into the foliage with a whoosh. Gilberto's body followed soon after. The great vines that had encircled his waist had been spinning back and forth like a rotating saw, slicing through Gilberto's midsection just below his ribs with lethal speed and power. The only things connecting the upper and lower halves of his body now were the bones of his spinal column. The vines coiled and pulled, cracking the last connecting bones and jerking the two halves of the bloody corpse off the cobblestones. Neto lay screaming on the stones. The thick vine holding his hip created a huge coil and then snapped like a whip, arching Neto high in the air and far off the walkway. Realizing his fate, Neto swallowed the barrel of his pistol in mid-flight and pulled the trigger, sparing himself the final agony that was awaiting him in the ivy. His pistol tumbled through the air and then landed and became wedged in the cobblestones, the black metal almost invisible in the ragged, shiny black rocks. The vines probed the gun for a second and then ignored it. That left only Nadine on the walkway. Since her initial scream at the beginning of the battle, she had remained as frozen as a statue, and numerous green threads were all over her high boots half way up to her calves. The boots were a present from Gilberto two months ago, and he would often refer to them as Nadine's "fuck-me" boots. He used to think she looked so sexy in them. Nadine had gotten into a habit of wearing them whenever she wanted Gilberto to mount her. But the boots didn't look sexy at all now. They were covered with patterns of shifting threads of green, but so far none of them had cut into the leather or tightened into a noose. Mark was panting heavily on the ledge. He had just watched five people die horribly, and the waves of distorted guilt were so intense he knew he should not stand up lest he stumble and fall off the walkway and into the pulsing ivy below. He turned his head and saw that Toshi and Frida had come out of the stairwell and were on his level. They were standing motionless at the end of the walkway at the southern vertex, staring silently at Nadine. Mark's gaze was torn back to Nadine. His heart was breaking. No one deserved to die like this, no one, no matter what the crime, absolutely no matter what. The vines were well above her boots now, sliding across the bare skin of her thighs. But the thorns had retracted, as least for the moment. In a small rational corner of Nadine's mind, the sensations on her legs were the ones of a lover, Gilberto prepping her for a fuck. And then she felt the first tendril probing her labia and wiggling up into her vagina. She couldn't take the horror. Her eyes defocused and last corner of her sanity collapsed. Mark and Toshi and Frida stared in horrid fascination. In spite of thinking of Nadine as a cruel and evil taskmistress, Toshi had to admit she was showing a tremendous amount of courage and determination. She had no idea Nadine had this much self control. Nadine didn't. Her body was paralyzed with fear, as effectively as with the most potent nerve agent. She was truly unaware of her surroundings. Her mind had fled from the real horror and into a delightful fantasy. She had somehow become the queen of the gang, and all the men would do whatever she asked. And the men were probing her, caressing her legs and hips and butt and vagina in the most delightful of ways. She could feel their many fingers sliding inside her panties, slipping back and forth along her trimmed bush, probing her, exploring her vulva. Some handsome boy had his finger pulsing on her magic button, finger or tongue, she couldn't quite tell which. And in reality, her mini-skirt was bulging and then ballooning from the thick mass of vines that were growing around her body. Everything from the top of her waist to the top of her boots just below her knees was covered in a solid and thickening sheath of green. Oh, that naughty boy! He had a finger up her vagina, several fingers in fact, and they were sliding in a sensuous corkscrew spiral along her vaginal walls. She had never known a boy who could do anything like this. The pleasure was so intense, it was like a direct drive into a dynamite orgasm. The naughty boy was even playing with her cervix, probing her, tickling her deep inside, enticing her to open for an even deeper penetration. Nadine had no idea her body could be coaxed into opening like this, but she was sure the delightful boy had somehow managed to entice her cervix to accept him. She imagined his magic fingers caressing the inside of her womb. So extraordinary. She must be imagining this, and yet, she could feel it! She could actually feel the boy's fingers inside her womb. So many fingers inside her womb, and inside her vagina too! So sexy! And another boy! He had her clit suckled and pulled up tight, popping it out from under its protective hood. Such strong lips to lock her clit like this! He must be using his teeth. And his tongue! It was dancing like a vibrator directly on her exposed and vulnerable sex button. Nadine's hips jerked uncontrollably as she started to orgasm. Nadine's mind screamed in dismay. Shit! Still another boy, and this one had a finger up her butt! She didn't like that! And he had pricked her rectum with a fingernail just as she was starting her orgasm. Queen Nadine was furious! The boy would be tied down and she would slowly chew his testicles off! No mercy for this one! Nadine jerked her butt away from the scratching fingernail to show her supremely royal disapproval. Shocking behavior! But the boy kept scratching her deep inside her butthole. Ouch! That hurt! Slowly chewing his testicles to pulp would not be enough punishment. Nadine jerked her body again. Two ultra-thin tendrils had drilled all the way to her ovaries, and now they pulsed and expanded, ballooning with their internal fluid until they ruptured both of Nadine's Fallopian tubes. The threads then rippled and squeezed, depositing a copious amount of their strange clear liquid into her ovaries. The pain was indescribable. Nadine screamed. And her body was whisked off the walkway in an instant, disappearing into the dense churning leaves. The echo of her last expression seemed to linger in the great hall, just for a second, a final testament to a human life. And then even the echo was gone. The ivy rippled, and there was nothing more. After a timeless period, Mark noticed that Toshi and Frida were standing by his side. Toshi looked down at his tortured face. His eyes were too unfocused for a mind lock, so she whispered, "Mark, dearest, are you okay?" She touched his cheek with her hand. Mark shook his head no. Toshi became suddenly alarmed. "Mark, are you hit?!" Mark shook his head no again. He buried his face into his hands and began to weep. He was dimly aware of Toshi's arms around his shoulders. She was hugging him. ------- Chapter 27 Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 12:55 AM Uno and Bambino sat stunned at their lounge. They had no communications with their posse hunting Frida and possibly Toshi, but initially they had supreme confidence in the outcome. They had felt so relaxed about the mission that they both wandered into the kitchen for a beer. Bambino even offered to take one down one of the new hoof pussies as company for Alfredo who guarding the mall entrance below. Uno grinned and commented that he had noticed how Whitney was catching Alfredo's eyes when they were together. Bambino nodded and wandered back into the lounge to get his jacket before going down. And then Uno heard Bambino yelling his head off. Rushing to the lounge, he found him pointing to the census display by the elevator. It was ticking down, and as they watched, it completed moving from 021:104 to 017:102. Their away party had been comprised of four men and two women. The conclusion seemed inescapable. Uno and his youngest compadre collapsed into nearby chairs. After a moment, Uno decided he would have to leave the downstairs mall unguarded, at least for a short while, and he ordered Bambino to fetch Alfredo. When the pair returned, Bambino asked his boss, "What do you think Uno? Did aliens get them, or people from the other parties?" "Check the front door Bambino," Uno said in reply. "Make sure you still can't get in from the outside." "How am I supposed to do that?" "Alfredo, help him out." The two men went into the vestibule with guns drawn. Bambino reluctantly went outside into the walkway area and heard the door click shut behind him. He pounded for a while to no avail, looking side to side in fright at the three forbidding corridor. What if the monsters were invisible, his imagination screamed. He was just beginning to panic when Alfredo opened the door. "Oh geez, man! Why'd you wait so long?! Didn't you hear me pounding?" Alfredo looked surprised. "I was waiting for you to knock. I didn't hear shit." He took a second to examine the thick door. "Interesting." Both men went back into the lounge. Near the eastern windows of the room, they saw the three women were still with them. Bambino took a close look. His own girlfriend Cassidy looked simply frightened, but Amber and Whitney... Bambino gave a sad frown. He had seen that look of hopelessness before, when he was ordered to escort women up from the pussy barn for their "night shift" work. Damn... Uno was looking at the women as well. They presented an unpleasant challenge for him. Did any or all of them know about Frida's escape beforehand? Uno tried to approach the question without bias and realized he just didn't know, one way or the other. And given that, what should he do now? And Chico's expedition below! Should he send someone to catch them? Uno looked at the time. Fuck. There was no way to catch them before they made their first twenty-four kilometer hike. That would put them right at the limit of their earlier expedition. Fucking A. Should Uno have them return? Maybe a part of them return? Would he look like a weak ruler by pulling back so quickly? Uno still had three guns and six people, and a fortress that was superbly easy to defend. What would the others think if it looked as if he were afraid to hold the home base with just the force he had now? But hell, how could he keep an eye on Jacob's Bar and Grill like this? Maybe the women? They were looking at him shyly. Unless they were acting, they didn't even know what was going on. The women! Could he trust them? He'd rather not, but could he afford to enslave them now? Hell, no, not with just Alfredo and Bambino here. And Bambino was genuinely protective of Cassidy. Turning her into hoof pussy in a pussy barn would go down with Bambino like a ton of bricks. Uno decided it just wasn't an option. So what's the conclusion? Trust all three? The women ... Would they trust him? Or at least, did they have enough fear to remain obedient? These three hadn't been raped, but they were kept in the same barn as the pussy slaves. "Hoof-Pussy", or Pussy-on-the-hoof", that's what the compadres would call slaves when they were moved around wearing bras and panties and wrist and ankle chains. And these women knew it. Uno was afraid they might have developed some sympathies for the slaves in the pussy barn. What to do? Was there some way to test their loyalty? Uno thought for a while and smiled. Sending for help from Chico was unavoidable, but Uno also had another idea. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 1:17 AM Chico called a halt when he reckoned they had covered another three kilometers. Before the journey started, he had been hoping that they could cover three kilometers in fifty minutes, leaving ten minutes for a break period between marches. But he realized with a sigh that his earlier estimate was a tad too optimistic. Damn it, these sleds were heavy, packing 200 liters of water each. And the floor's smoothness was deceptive. There was a surprisingly large amount of friction between the sled and the floor. Eighteen people, 400 liters of water on the sleds, plus more water in backpacks and canteens. In the cool mall, Uno thought they had enough water to last two weeks. It took a while to convince Uno to plan for that long an expedition, but hell, this mall was so unbelievably strange... Chico had made a major adjustment after the first hour of traveling. Everyone would have a turn at hauling the sleds, once very three hours, everyone, including himself. The two sleds were pulled by two three-person teams in harness. Chico had no idea how difficult the work was. He used to look on the bitch slaves with distain, thinking they were shirkers when they complained how hard the work was. But he had to give them their due now. Chico prided himself on being an honest man. He had to give them that. Pulling the harness was hard work even for him. And that stupid taskmistress bitch Jessica. Who the hell does she think she is? So what if Alfonso thinks she's pure heaven? Did she honestly think Chico gave a fuck? She was the only one who flat-out refused the harness, and Chico had let the matter slide for a while. But he was going to put a bullet in her gut if she refused again. Or maybe just a little lower, put a round right through her baby maker. Damned if he wasn't! A small voice was laughing at him in the back of his mind. Would he really murder another human being for refusing to work for him? Chico pushed the annoying voice away. Toro came and sat down next to him and said in an easy drawl, "So, how yah feelin' Chico?" Chico smiled. Uno would never put up with such informality from a junior level compadre, but Chico was much more relaxed about the issue of command. And he and Toro were on the varsity wrestling team together, back in Burlington. There was no way Chico was going to pull rank on his friend now. He stretched instead and smiled in sympathy at how tired Toro looked. "Ah, shoulders are a little tender I guess. I never thought pulling these sleds would be so fuckin' hard." "Yeah, fucking-A work, being a mule, that's for sure. I never realized the bitches had to work so hard. Uh, think it would be easier if we pushed rather than pulled?" Chico considered the suggestion for a moment. "I doubt it." "Yeah. Well, they'll get lighter as we drink the water." "That's what I keep telling myself." Charles a.k.a. Chico laughed. "I bet everyone is thinking the same thing when they're in harness." Toro nodded and sighed, looked around to make sure no one was within earshot, and then asked quietly, "You gonna drop the hammer on Baby Jessica if she doesn't wise up?" "Well ... I feel like it." "Sure you do. And I heard Uno giving you explicit orders about discipline with the women, all of them, including Jessica. But are yah really gonna do it?" "Ah ... Probably not." Toro sighed. "Good. That shit with Britney, on Christmas Day..." "Yeah..." Chico had almost stood up to Uno over that, had come within a hair of rebelling, but there was never a precise moment where what they were doing was that much different than the previous torture. And who would have backed him up? Chico took a moment to think. Toro would have stood with him, Chico was sure of that now, but who else? Bambino? Just maybe, but probably not, and certainly no one else. It would have been at most three guns versus a dozen. And Uno would never let such a direct challenge to his authority stand. There was nothing he could have done, he told himself. And then he bowed his head in shame. Christmas day, Chico had taken the easy way out. And Britney had died before Chico realized what a monster he had become. Chico turned to Toro and their eyes locked for a brief moment. "How did we come to be like this?" thought Toro. He would never have dared to verbalize such a question, but within the unrecognized mind-link, his trust of Chico was enhanced tremendously, and his question was a cry straight from his heart. "Yeah, when did it change?" Chico thought back. "Maybe with the new pledges. Uno and Gilberto, Santos too, they pushed for the new muchachos. The new guys, they changed everything." "I'm having nightmares," thought Toro. Chico hiccupped and then turned back to his old friend, feeling bewildered about what exactly they had just said to each other. He cleared his throat and took a drink from his canteen. "Really? Why don't you just ask Brandi to blow you before you sack out? That'll help you sleep. She's always up for that." Chico was referring to his own girlfriend. Chico, Toro, and Brandi had known each other since they were toddlers, and sometimes Brandi was a little loose about exactly whose girlfriend she was. "Or if you want something a little more physical, try humping one of the slaves. I think they're more or less used to it by now." Toro looked pained, and then gave a fake chuckle while he blushed. "Aw, come on Chico. In front of all these people?!" "Ah, just take a sleeping mat and move off a few meters. Pet the girl for a while first. Once you get her prepped and are up inside her, you won't care about the others. Try what I've done with Mandy. She doesn't put up a fight at all. She lets me hump so easy, I pretend she's a second girlfriend." Chico looked over the tired slaves resting against the walls. "Holly is very cute, Lynn too. And you can't beat Paige for sexy looking hips..." "Yeah, right." Toro squirmed for a moment, trying to think of an excuse. "Brandi would love that." "Seriously, Brandi knows I've been sleeping with Mandy. She doesn't mind, as long as she's sure it's just for straight sex. As a matter of fact, I was so relaxed with Mandy, I almost fell asleep with her a few nights ago ... before I remembered to put her back in the barn." "Chico, you're blushing." "I am?" Chico took a deep breath and thought a moment. He whispered to his friend, "Yeah, maybe I am. Okay, maybe you got me. Maybe Mandy means a little more to me now than ... Toro, keep this quiet, okay?" "Hell, of course." Toro idly checked his pistol and sighed. "A few nights ago ... Two nights ago Santos told me his reward for leading the whiskey expedition would be the pick of the pussy, and he was thinking of Toshi. Hell, the last I heard, Toshi would just go limp when you fucked her, no fight at all, no tears, no pleas, just limp like a doll. Who would want to fuck that?" Chico paused for a second and then whispered. "I took Toshi once, over a week ago. She did that to me too." "Wow." Toro was silent for a moment. "Chico?" he whispered. "Did you still fuck her?" Chico grimaced and shook his head no. "But Toshi sounds like Santos' ideal fuck." "You think so? I thought the man was just pulling my chain..." Chico was silent for a long moment and finally pronounced judgment. "The man lived for his gonads, the pleasure of his cock inside pussy. What the rest of the woman's mind and body were doing didn't matter much to him. He was not pulling your chain." Chico sighed. "It does seem like a different world, just two days ago I mean, doesn't it?" Toro didn't reply. After a while he gave a heavy sigh. "What are you going to do about Jessica? She's the only one who never wears the harness." Chico made his decision. "I'm going to let her get away with it for a while, until we're far away and totally dependent on each other, until the whole group is royally pissed at that bitch. And then I'm going to her a final choice, pull the harness or get kicked out of the group. And I do mean kicked. She'll be Baby Jessica of the tender tush all the way home." Toro nodded in approval. "Uno won't mind. But what about Alfonso?" Chico stretched his arms. Boy, was he tired. But they were only half way done with their first leg. They had another twelve kilometers to go. He stood up and then gave Toro a hand up and dismissed the idea of Jessica's boyfriend. "I'll cross that bridge when it burns down," Chico said darkly, and then called out loudly, "Everybody, we're moving out!" A minute later his expedition continued its journey. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 1:45 AM Mark woke from a short nap. He took a moment to think about where he was. Ah yes, the terminal chamber. The door that would not open was directly on his right. On his left curled up in his arm was Frida. She was asleep. Mark had his arm wrapped around her hip, and he could feel the slow, deep rhythm of her breathing. And Frida's warmth against his side in the cool room felt delightful. And his head ... Mark realized his head was in Toshi's lap, and she was leaning against a wall and petting him. Seeing him awake, she bent down briefly and kissed him. Mark let out a deep, slow breath and blushed. "Oh boy. I really lost it. I barely remember you helping me get off the walkway." Toshi lightly brushed his cheek. "Mark, you get embarrassed over the strangest things. You were magnificent. I only wish I could share your burden with you." "Well ... How long..." "The battle happened about an hour ago." "Oh ... Yeah, okay ... Is Frida okay? I don't want to wake her up." "As long as we just whisper, you won't. She was desperate for sleep..." Toshi yawned. "Mark, it's nice to relax like this, but can we afford it?" She felt his shoulders shrug against her legs, and he replied, "Well, I'm out of ideas what else to do. I hate the thought of going up on the walkway again, resetting the trap. Do you think Uno will send out another party?" Toshi had been pondering that very question for the last half hour. "I don't think so. If I understand the setup correctly, Uno has Alfredo and Bambino with him, plus three women he almost certainly doesn't trust. He'll want to maintain a presence at the home, plus in the Mall entrance below. He just doesn't have the manpower to hunt for us now, not until he gets some people from Chico." "Ah, you think he'll recall the expedition?" "A part of it at least, don't you think? I mean, what choice does he have?" Mark took a sleepy sigh. "I agree. So we're safe for a while." Toshi felt herself relax as she realized Mark had not found a flaw in her assessment. "Yes, we're safe for a while. Go to sleep my love." Toshi caressed his head until Mark obeyed her request. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 2:05 AM "Oh my God Barry, this mall is so incredible," Cassidy remarked as she walked with her boyfriend down the seemingly infinite corridor. "You think so? Yeah, I guess it is. I've gotten used to it. Oh, by the way, it's Bambino, not Barry." "Barry!" "Bambino!" And then a sheepish grin. "Seriously honey, I'm supposed to whip your butt raw after the first warning." His hand wandered over to her left butt cheek and he gave her ass a firm but not painful squeeze. "You don't want to get spanked, do you? I will if I have to." Cassidy stopped dead in her tracks and turned to her companion. "Let's figure this out right now! Am I your slave?! I'm not blind Barry. I've seen it all this past month. Am I pussy-on-the-hoof to you?" "Oh Cassidy, don't be like this. I was just being playful." "Like hell! That's no answer!" Her lover thought for a moment. "This all used to be a game, but it's not a game now. If you get used to calling be Barry, you might slip up and do it while others are around." "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. I'll be careful." "Cassie, it's not worth the risk. You and I could be alone in a room, and someone could walk in just as you're speaking my wrong name. Uno's gotten kind of crazy lately about this, about a lot of things. You might suffer more than a spanking, and it would not be from me." "Oh hell ... Okay Bambino, you've made your point." They continued their walk. "So how far until all the stores are locked?" "Not far, another two kilometers, less." Cassidy nodded and yawned. "I'm so sleepy." She glanced wishfully at a furniture store they were passing. The displays of bedroom sets looked very inviting. "Look Bambino! All the beds are super-sized, even down here." "Don't even think about it. We have another twenty-five kilometers of walking until we catch up with Chico.' Bambino gave a mirthless laugh. "Chico is going to LOVE seeing me show up. I'm supposed to tell some people to return to home base immediately, and these guys are going to be wasted." They walked another few hundred meters in silence. "I'm wasted already," Cassidy whispered. "I'm so tired Barry." She leaned her head lightly against his shoulder as she walked. Bambino kissed the soft hair pressing against him, not bothering to correct her. "I know. But we have no choice. We have to keep walking." "Barry, we're not robots. We do have a choice." "Hmm?" "We can opt out." She almost added, "Frida did," but decided she could not betray the confidence, not yet. "Please, Barry, please," she begged silently in her mind. "Make the right choice." But Bambino replied with a growl. "Uno wasn't joking the day Britney died. It's the new order Cassie. Wise up and get with the program. No one leaves his group alive." "Barry..." "No! And I told you, it's Bambino! And we have to keep walking! And quit complaining! Uno was going to send you out with Whitney and Amber. Would you have preferred that?" Bambino saw Cassidy tremble. "No..." she answered meekly. He felt so embarrassed for threatening her. He loved her. Bambino struggled for a moment, trying to find some way to apologize, but nothing came out. They continued their journey in silence. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 3:00 AM "How are you holding up Whitney?" Amber asked as she made another entry into the log Uno had given her. Amber gave a deep yawn. "I feel absolutely dead on my feet, too tired even to be scared anymore. If some monster jumps out and wants to eat me, I'm just going to say, go ahead." "Uh huh. Sure you will." Whitney also yawned. "Come on. According to Alfredo, we have just one more leg to go." The two women shuffled to the next vertex. They had spent the last two hours collecting data, making notes as Uno had ordered. Their mission was to scout out the looping passage that Uno and Alfredo had described. Whitney was sure they had been given a few bits of misinformation. They would have to contradict some of their preparatory briefing when they got back, otherwise she and Amber would probably be raped. And Uno and Alfredo had made it clear they would not open the door and let them return home before 4 AM, giving the two women ample time to make their search, and perhaps share the fate of the previous party. As they approached the southern vertex of the northernmost hexagon, they began to see its many unique qualities. All the corridors they had traveled so far had had simple views of the outside fields to the west and dull gray opaque walls towards the interior of the great diamond complex. Recessed lighting near the floor provided very adequate illumination, but the scenery at eye level was one of silver and gray monotony. Not so for the southern vertex of the last hexagon. Its entrance showed that a few meters north were two sets of clear staircases leading down, and hectares of lush green meadow beyond filling the chamber. Whitney and Amber stopped just shy of the entrance to the vertex. The black cobblestone walkway across the vegetation in the next chamber was clearly visible, and they were within five meters of walking and seeing Toshi, Frida, and Mark sleeping below. Whitney started to tremble. "It's just the way Pancho described it." "Huh?" "Neto never told you about this place?" Amber raised her eyebrows. "Are you joking? Neto never told me shit. Uno would have castrated him for breaking a rule like that. Pancho told you about this place?" "Uh huh, in great detail. The place scared him shitless." Amber turned and stared at the field of vegetation. "It looks very strange. Such a dense and uniform ground cover. I never saw ... all the dark green ... It looks really weird in the orange light." Amber stared for a while at the numerous orange floodlights in the vaulted ceiling of the great chamber. "What did Pancho say?" Whitney pointed and replied, "He mentioned those overhead lights in the dome. Pancho guessed they were grow-lights for the plants. He said it was some nasty kind of ivy, full of thorns when he looked closely. He didn't see anything that looked edible. Why anyone would grow such a big field of thorny ivy like this..." Whitney paused for a long while, never completing the thought. Amber finally shrugged her shoulders. "Well, whatever. Let's check out the plant and get the hell out of here." She began to lean forward. "Maybe we could cut a few samples for Uno. It'll prove we were here. Shouldn't be too difficult. What do you think? Can we break a few pieces off?" "Pancho mentioned the thorns looked wicked sharp." "Well, maybe just a few leaves. The leaves don't have thorns, do they?" She took a step forward. Whitney reached out and held Amber by her upper arm. "Wait." "Wait for what?" "I'm serious Amber. Pancho hated this place, feared it. And he probably died in there. I think they all did." Amber stared in silence for a moment at the plant. "So how much do you remember what Pancho said?" "Quite a bit. I could go over it with you on our way back. We could get our story straight." It took nothing more to convince Amber. "Okay." She opened her notebook. "One second. I want to copy that symbol on the entrance." It was a strange sort of mark. Amber thought it looked like a broken Y lying on its side. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 5:55 AM "Jada, wake up." Jada felt two gentle hands on her body, one on her shoulder lightly shaking her, one on her lower arm. She reluctantly left her dream world and blinked her eyes. Her roommate Emily was outlined in the very dim light. "Yeah? What time is it?" "The census counter, it's dropped to 017:102." Jada thought Emily sounded a bit worried, and then her words hit her. "Uh ... What?! Oh shit!" Jada jumped of bed and grabbed her robe. "Jada, where are you going?" "Black Mall monitoring. Can you tell the others?" "Aggie and Madison are already up, Ann too I think. I'll come with you." Emily and Jada met Ann and Madison in the lounge, and the four of them entered the elevator and a moment later walked out of an adjacent side through the one-meter stub of sky-bridge and into the second floor of the Modern Coin Superstore. Jada glanced and noted with approval that Madison was packing a pistol. Jada sat down and typed a few strokes on the security keyboard, and then let out a slow breath. "Well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Chico's party, they're right on top of us. I'm reading the edge of their camp at spiral-mark 38.6 kilometers, 1,060 meters from here. The recordings say they arrived here very recently, only forty minutes ago." The door to their sky-bridge location was at spiral-mark 37,540 meters, and Chico's party was about halfway between their next two sensor pairs at 38,257 meters and 38,988 meters. The zoomed images gave a fair amount of detail, enough to recognize faces. But from such a distance there was no audio at all. But it didn't look as if there was any talking going on anyway. Chico's party looked exhausted and everyone except two very tired looking guards were asleep. Jada commented, "They don't look too dangerous, do they?" "Quick Jada," pleaded Madison, "Can you tell how many there are?" "Huh? Oh yeah, one second," Jada mumbled as she worked the controls. "Damn! I'm still counting eighteen!" She gave a crying whisper, "Oh Mark..." Emily put her hand on her roommate's shoulder. "Jada, don't lose hope. We just don't know. Mark is only one guy. The counter is down four men and two women." Madison put her hand on Jada's other shoulder and said, "She's right Jada. I'm guessing the census drop had nothing to do with Mark." "Oh? Why's that?" Madison shrugged. "Well, six people dead, that sounds like a battle, doesn't it? And Mark didn't have a gun. He hates the thought of using guns against people. I used to tease him about it sometimes, but he's actually not a bad shot, somewhere between me and our father I think." Madison paused for a second and added, "Mark could probably be a better shot than I am if he'd just practice more." Jada breathed in a full breath of air, and then slowly let it out her nose and nodded. "Yeah, okay." She thought for a moment. "Chico's party, they don't see us, see the sky-bridge I mean. I'm betting they don't even know it's here yet." She worked a control for a moment. "They'll have to advance about another five hundred meters before they begin to see it." Ann spoke up. "Jada, the sensor at 38,988, please zoom in on the other direction." Jada did and saw two figures approaching Chico's camp. "It's a man and a woman." Her heart raced for a second, but then slowed down is disappointment. "It doesn't look like Mark and Toshi though." Ann spoke again. "It's Bambino and his girlfriend Cassidy." Ann looked more closely at their slumped postures. "Wow, they look absolutely wasted." Bambino and Cassidy called out to their expedition as they approached, not wanting to startle the guards. It seemed that Chico and Bambino were having an argument, and then they all lay down for some sleep. There wasn't much else to observe. Ann and Madison had already eaten an early breakfast and urged Jada and Emily to return home and finish their rest periods. After brief hugs and goodbyes they did. A few minutes before 8 AM, Jada's phone rang. Her heart jumped when she saw the incoming number. "Mark?!" "Hi Jada." "Mark! Thank God you're alive! We were so worried about you!" "Huh? You know about the battle?" "We saw the census counter go down to 17:102." "Oh hell! I forgot about that. I should have called sooner. Jada, I only have a few minutes of power on my phone. Let me tell you our situation." Mark went on to describe their flight and the death of the six members of Party #5. "And that's where we are right now, at the bottom of the second stairwell." Emily spoke up. "Mark, try using the mushroom lock on the door and then unlock it. That might release the access button." There was no response. "Hello Mark?" Emily stared at the phone. It showed the caller had dropped the connection. "Oh hell. I wonder if he heard me?" ------- Chapter 28 Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 10:20 AM At the end of their shift, Bambino and Cassidy waved tired goodbyes to the group returning home and then crawled back into their sleeping bag. After arriving at Chico's site, they had slept for two hours and then did a two-hour shift of guard duty. Now they would have another four hours of sleep before Chico broke camp. Their bodies and the minds were desperate for it, but as usual, Cassidy had an easier time falling asleep. Bambino unbuttoned the shirt of sleeping Cassidy and began gently fondling her breasts, not quite enough to wake her up. Cassidy sighed in her sleep and curled her legs slightly, offering her rump to Bambino. Her boyfriend smiled. In another time and place, he would quickly get erect with the thought of fucking sweet Cassie, and sometimes when she was really tired and sleeping nude, he could even copulate with her before she would wake up. Not tonight though. "Or is it morning?" Bambino thought dimly. "Sun's not up yet, that's for sure. Such a fucked-up world. Where's the fucking sun? And why the fucking orange color? Ah, who cares? At least Cassie has forgiven me ... at least in her dreams..." Bambino thought about the new split that Uno had ordered. Returning to their home complex were Alfonso with his girlfriend Jessica, three compadres, Jenaro, Hernando, and Diego, and muchacho Ricardo, a real hardcase known as Twin Dicky before he pledged the frat. Chico had Bambino and Toro as his two armed compadres, plus his girlfriend Brandi and the three muchachos Geraldo, Segundo, and Ernesto. Chico also had all six women slaves. That surprised Bambino at first. But then he realized that it would be more economical if one group did all the guard work. Uno didn't want too much on his plate right now, and he certainly didn't want the danger of a pussy revolt. With the current setup, it was all Chico's headache now. Chico had a sizable force, fourteen people compared to Uno's group of ten. But Uno had six of their remaining nine guns. As Bambino thought of the situation, he idly began to play with Cassidy's nipples, rubbing one until it started to harden, and then moving to the other breast. Cassidy stirred slightly in his arms. Bambino didn't blame Uno for scaling back on the expedition's firepower. He thought he would have done the same. Waking up one day and finding Jacob's Bar and Grill with a lock on it would be a disaster. Uno planned to have at least three people with two guns at the store at all times. Except for Uno, there would be one eight-hour shift of guard work for everybody daily, with Ricardo packing Jenaro's gun while he was on duty. It made sense. "Barry," Cassidy mumbled sleepily, shaking his hand off her breasts and nipples. "Get some fucking rest." Bambino nodded and pulled his hand out of her shirt, taking a deep breath and relaxing with the familiar smell of Cassidy in his arms. That Barry stuff, he thought, that had to stop. Perhaps he would spank her when she messed up again. Pull her pants down in front of all the men and give her a proper spanking. The humiliation would be far more effective than the modest pain he would administer. Bambino frowned for a moment. Could he really do that? He remembered Ann and Kiyoko, over a week ago, the day before the Santos disaster at Rabbies Dram. Bambino remembered the scene well, and his sleepy mind drifted back to it. It was in the evening, a Monday, just the day before both women disappeared. Bambino was herding Ann and Kiyoko back to the pussy barn after an extra-long harness shift in the mall, and the two tired pussies had another one scheduled for early next morning. It was Bambino's job to escort them to the barn and unchain them before letting them go upstairs to sleep. The simple chore had become routine for him. On Uno's orders, hoof pussies had to do their work with very little clothing. When he had made the announcement, Uno said it would keep the women off-balance and less likely to escape, though Bambino suspected it was just one more way to pile on the humiliation. Still, to disobey the order was unthinkable. Bambino had allowed Ann and Kiyoko to pick out new cotton white panties and halter sports bras earlier in the day, and they were wearing them now. It was as much clothing as he dared give them. About ten stores from the barn, Bambino saw something curious. He had the two women marching in front of him, and he noticed a ting of a yellow line on both of the women's panties, exactly in the same spot on both women, low on the left butt cheek just before the curve to the back of the thigh. Bambino stared and thought as he walked. Where the women carrying contraband in their panties? It wasn't just the yellow color. When he looked closely, Bambino could see a small bulge under the yellow line. What could these women be possibly carrying in their panties? As he walked and stared, he suddenly realized he was getting erect. Well, the two women did have cute little asses, no surprise there he thought. But he had no desire other than to turn them loose for sleep. They had been a wonderful crew for him today, obedient, helpful, and very hard working. They had given him everything they had, and Bambino was going to reap all the rewards for their labor. Ann and Kiyoko deserved a good rest. Still, what the hell were they carrying in their panties? They walked past the guard at the pussy barn and into the first floor of the store. Then Bambino unshackled the women, wrists and ankles, first Ann, then Kiyoko. But then he decided he couldn't let the contraband issue go. With his hand on his pistol butt, he ordered both women to face away from him and take off their panties. Perhaps Ann's lips quivered, just for a second, and then both women complied. They did more than comply. In addition to stripping off their panties, both women took a wide stance and bent forward, presenting Bambino their open legs and rumps. Kiyoko was so sleepy, she almost fell over as she bent but she caught her balance on a nearby table. The table! There were several boxes of latex gloves and water soluble lubrications on it, and Bambino in shock realized what the women thought he was going to do. He remembered something that Brandi had whispered to him a few days previously, that Jessica and Nadine were doing contraband searches with the hoof pussies with latex gloves, and that as junior taskmistress, Brandi was powerless to overrule them. And the women's rumps! There was a cruel x-wing of welts on both women, low on their left butt cheeks. The raised welts looked ghastly and were weeping a yellowish discharge. That was what was staining their panties. Ricardo! That nutcase freshman was always walking around swinging those thin bamboo canes of his. He was an expert at it. In late September when he first pledged, Ricardo had demonstrated his skill to Bambino by knocking flies out of midair with his swings. He was that good and quick. The X-wing cross of welts, they were identical on both asses, identical in position on the rumps, identical in length and angles, identical in the severity of the cruelty. Bambino cringed as he stared. It must have burned like hell to be double whacked like that. And the identical placement revealed the purpose of the welts. This was no punishment. The muchachos had branded these two hoof pussies. "Such a change," Bambino thought as he stared at the welts. "A month ago, I would have been so excited at the thought of two young and cute women showing me their bare butts. But this?!" Bambino called out in a broken voice that he wasn't going to use the latex gloves. The two women stood up and turned to face him. Bambino noticed a surprised looked on Kiyoko's face. Their eyes met for the briefest of an instant. Somehow Bambino thought she might have whispered thank you. Bambino gave Kiyoko permission to go upstairs but he ordered Ann to follow him out of the barn. Diego was the exterior guard that evening. It was breaking the rules for Bambino to have unchained pussy hoofing outside the barn, but Bambino explained what he wanted to do and he ordered Ann to turn around. Diego took one look at her bare butt and nodded and waved them through. Two doors down from the pussy barn was a drug store. Bambino rooted around nervously for several minutes, praying and no one besides Diego would discover what he was doing. Ann meekly followed by his side, so tired and so used to her treatment that she made no effort to hide her indecency. And then Bambino found what he was looking for, a supply of wound and burn ointment. He handed several tubes of it to Ann and smiled. He was expecting her to smile back, but instead she started to cry. Akiko's ankle, she wailed. The women were afraid she was developing an internal infection. Could Bambino find some antibiotics, something Akiko could take orally? Hell, that's not what Bambino had in mind. He was risking a major blowup with Uno even doing what he was doing. Maybe he was even risking torture. And now this ungrateful hoof pussy wanted him to start searching the second floor of the drug store?! No way! He marched Ann straight back to the barn, frowning but letting her keep the ointment. And now here he was, ten days later. "Ann," he thought, "What the hell had happened to you, and Carol and all the others?" Bambino sighed. Would he ever know? Somehow he hoped Ann's ass was better now. Somehow ... It was so strange. Later that night, after he had given Ann the ointment for the welts, Bambino kept telling himself he had done something kind. He had giving Ann the ointment. But his conscience kept objecting, saying that true kindness would have been to give Ann what Ann wanted, not what Bambino wanted to give. Bambino patted Cassie's rump as she slept beside him. Would he ever raise such a welt on Cassie? No, of course not. And Bambino saw now he would never spank her bare butt in front of other men. He'd have to find some other way to teach her the lesson. "What lesson?" Bambino stirred. The question had come from his conscience, just as he was falling asleep. "Why, the lesson that the men are in charge," his sleepy mind replied. He reached inside Cassie's shirt again and idly squeezed her tits a few more times, just to show her sleeping body who was boss, and then he drifted off. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 11:57 AM It was three minutes before the start of her next janitor lesson when Kiyoko noticed the sun breaking the horizon, beginning the day's five-minute allotment of orange sunshine. "A pretty color," she thought wistfully, "but I think I miss the lovely butter yellow sunlight of Earth. And the sky too. The hints of teal and green are very pretty, but I miss the pure cornflower blue." Kiyoko and had a nice early lunch with Aggie who was keeping her company at the Green Mall home complex. Aggie was also making hourly hops to the Black Mall sky-bridge to keep an eye on Chico's progess. Meanwhile the scheduled work at Yellow Brick was complete and their group was now installing a dual sensor net from the Green Mall sky-bridge, the only sky-bridge still without one. The party was working their way to Kiyoko's location first, installing the net from Green Mall kilometer marks 37.6 to 18.7. After that, the fastest way to return to the sky-bridge would be to bike another dozen kilometers to the Green Mall home complex and then jump back to the sky-bridge. The group planned to have a brief lunch at home before the afternoon half of their work, completing an overlapping net all the way to the Hilton Executive Conference Center, Green Mall's terminal store. They had phoned in ten minutes ago and said they were on their way. Kiyoko was glad. She loved the company of people in the complex with her, even if she was busy with her lessons. Would they continue installing sensor nets after today? Maybe. It was a topic of discussion for tonight's meeting. All the terminal stores except Green Mall and Yellow Brick would still be without one. Kiyoko's terminal beeped, indicating the interface was prepared to begin her next Janitor lesson. Kiyoko preferred mouse and keyboard over the voice interface, and she clicked the accept icon. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 2:18 PM They'd been pulling the sleds for less than ten minutes when it became obvious there was something different up ahead. Chico sent out a two-person reconnaissance party with one gun (Bambino and Cassidy) to check it out while the main group continued to plod along more slowly. Not long afterwards his whole party was standing near the sky-bridge and peering into the two stores the bridge seemed to connect. There was Rubin's Kosher Deli on the inside arc and The Modern Coin Superstore on the outside arc. They had no idea two women were silently watching them from the second floor of the coin store. Cassidy was examining the stores, walking back and forth between the two transparent closed doors and peering inside. "I think both stores are largest we've seen, sixty meters, and they both have doors near the ... Chico, should I call it a walkway?" Chico smiled. "Excellent guess. That's what I'm thinking too. Pity it's not transparent like the doors." Toro was staring into the coin store let out a loud groan. "Oh, fucking hell Chico! There's a whole section in there on gold and platinum coins! I'll bet there are millions of dollars of gold just beyond this door." Chico laughed. "So what?" "So what?! What do you mean, so what?! Chico, how can you say that?!" "Toro, have you forgotten where we are? Think about it. If the door were open, how much gold would you walk off with?" "As much as I could carry!" "And do what with it?" "Chico, what are you talking about? Gold isn't for doing stuff with. Gold is for having." The two men walked away from each other, both shaking their heads, both thinking their friend's perspective was ridiculous. Bambino had a different set of thoughts, and he walked over to Chico. "A few weeks ago, I was on the expedition that explored almost this far. None of these stores were locked. If we had orders to explore just a little further, we would have" Chico interrupted him. "Hell, I know Bambino. We were busy, remember?" "Huh? Busy doing what?" "Setting up the pussy barn." Bambino froze for a second and then nodded glumly, glancing to make sure he was out of earshot of the muchachos. "Uno and Santos and Gilberto, they were the three champions of that idea, and the muchachos too. Hell, they really screwed us. We should have been exploring." Chico took a deep breath and sighed. "They really screwed the women. We all did. Come on. There's nothing for us here. We have to keep moving." A minute later the expedition continued their journey. "Interesting man Chico," commented Jada at the observation center on the second floor of the coin store. "A bit crude, but he seems to have a conscience." "From what I've seen, that's true for Toro also," Ann replied. "And even Bambino has some kindness in him. His flaw is not cruelty but a lack of courage." Ann paused for a moment. "These three are perhaps our best hope for people whom we might be able to forgive. My feeling is they got sucked into a whirlpool of depravity that the others created." "You think so?" Ann nodded. "Toro picked me several times, checked me out of the pussy barn I mean." Jada gave a quick grimace and then a sad sigh. "So he raped you." "No, he didn't. He never asked me to do anything at all, not sexually. And after two hours in his bedroom, we'd just go back and he'd return me to the barn. He even trusted me. I think we shared some eye contact without knowing what we were doing." Jada was curious. "May I ask? What did you do in his bedroom?" "Usually I would just take a nap on his bed while Toro rested in a nearby chair. He never asked me to do anything I didn't want to, not in his bedroom. And sometimes we'd talk a bit if I wanted to talk, which wasn't often. Mostly he just left me alone." "Why not just let you sleep in the barn?" Ann shivered. "Jada, these were the evenings I was scheduled for night shift work. Don't you see? Toro wanted to save me from the muchachos." Ann rubbed her ass thoughtfully. "That damn Ricardo and his canes. Do you remember the welts I had, before the autodoc cured me?" Jada answered in a dark voice, "Ann, it would be impossible to forget. How are you feeling now?" "Completely cured, not even a scar. It's miraculous." Ann paused for a moment at the memory of the burning pain on her left buttock. "It was the damn muchachos. I was forced to lie face down on the floor. Ernesto was holding my ankles. Geraldo was straddling my neck ... And I hadn't even done anything ... nothing disobedient..." Jada shivered. "Ann, I didn't mean to pry for details on how you were tortured. Is this too personal?" "Oh, I don't mind. Actually, I think I want to talk about it, if you're willing to listen." The two women locked eyes. A silent thought, "An honor to help you Ann." Ann nodded and broke the connection by turning her head to the side. "I think I'd like to tell you verbally. The mind link is just a little too intimate." She paused and added, "The mind link would take you into the room with me. That would be cruel, and there's no need." Jada nodded, reaching over and holding Ann's hand. Ann squeezed back and began her story. "Geraldo brought me clothes to wear, fresh underwear and an expensive looking blouse and skirt, fancy leather shoes, it was actually a pretty outfit I guess. They took me to their rooms upstairs. I was frightened. The muchachos were acting friendly, saying it was just a group date, but there were four of them and one of me. It felt really strange. And Ricardo was making that damn whooshing noise, snapping his cane through the air." "And then Geraldo started explaining to me in a very matter-of-fact manner that I was going to be branded now. The privilege of group sex with them would come later. This night would only be for my branding." Ann took a deep breath. "It felt so surreal. I couldn't believe my ears. I could either cooperate or not, it was my choice. But if I struggled, it might take a lot of strikes with the cane to get the brand down right. Gilberto said if I were obedient, it would only be two quick strokes. But I'd have to keep very still so Ricardo could lay down the marks in exactly the right spots." Ann shivered. "What would you have done Jada?" The question struck Jada like a physical blow, causing her to gasp. "I don't know. You had no chance to fight back." "No. My only choice was to let them break my spirit or my body. I thought I could work on repairing my spirit, so I surrendered it to them. I told them I would submit." "They had me lie of the floor, face down with towels underneath me. They would try to brand me low on my left butt first, and if they weren't satisfied higher up next. Then they'd do the same on the right cheek, then turn me over and try to put the brand on my stomach. That scared me, thinking about being caned on my stomach. And if that didn't work, they would turn me over again and try the backs of my thighs ... You get the idea?" Jada nodded in silence. "Jada, I thought it over and decided to obey them. I felt Ernesto taking off my shoes. Geraldo lifted up my skirt and pulled down my stockings and panties. I could feel the room's cool air ... And then Geraldo sat on the back of my neck, locking my head with his knees. He didn't have to. I was being cooperative. But it was very effective humiliation. If they had brought me in naked from the start, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. But to be undressed like that, knowing what was coming, forcing myself to cooperate ... It was very, very effective humiliation." "And then I waited. I couldn't see anything. Geraldo's knees were blocking my side views, and I was kissing the towels. All the men were telling me to keep absolutely still, and then they were silent. Ricardo started making strikes in the air. At the sound of every whoosh, I tensed up, expecting to be hit. And the men kept saying not to do that, that I had to keep my butt absolutely still and relaxed to get a proper brand. It was so ridiculous, but so, so effective." Ann sighed in sadness. "That was pretty much it. The mental torture became boring. And then the first strike hit. The pain was about what I expected, but not the shock of it. It drove the air out of my lungs. And the sound, so loud, like a pistol shot. I remember Geraldo and Ernesto getting off me. They examined the first half of my brand for a while and said they were satisfied. And then Ricardo prepared for his second strike. I was left alone on the floor for that one. I think the muchachos were trying to give me a chance to mess up." Ann shrugged. "I kept very still and took the second strike. It seemed to burn more than the first. More examinations. The muchachos decided they were satisfied. They put me in an adult diaper so I wouldn't drip, and then marched me back to the pussy barn. And that was my first date with them. That was it." "My God," Jada whispered. She felt ruined inside, unable to speak for a moment. She kissed Ann's hand before letting go. Ann turned the controls to zoom in on the departing group and got back to business. "We now have an access point between this group and their home base. If we desired, we could set up a roadblock, cut these people off." "Our three guns versus their three guns?" "Yes, why not? And we could build covered positions. They would be very exposed in the corridor. They have no means to make shields, no means to make anything at all." Jada was silent for a long moment. "Interesting thought. We'll have to discuss it tonight. But think Ann, the men will become desperate after their water runs out. They could use their women as human shields." Ann blushed. "Oh hell, I hadn't thought of that." She turned back to the monitor, and in silence she and Jada watched Chico's group slowly drag their sleds towards Hex Hall. Time: Thursday, January 17, 2019 3:10 PM "Such an incredible place," Mark thought tiredly as traced a final line of a map in his small notebook. "Such grand symmetry on this level, one-hundred hundred-meter segments, ten kilometers in all, perfectly balanced, five kilometers of perimeter paths and five kilometers of interior paths, such a grand design." He gave a tired chuckle and thought, "Emily would love the puzzle of this place. It's a variation of the traveling salesman problem. What's the shortest path to cover all the segments? We didn't travel it today, that's for sure. We've must have walked thirty kilometers at least these last six hours ... or is it seven?" He had no power in his phone, no way to know the time. He thought for a moment and decided to guess it was about 3 PM, about three hours after they had seen the brief sunlight through the perimeter windows. They had just barely managed to hear Emily's suggestion earlier this morning before the phone gave out. Toshi tried using the lock on the door and then removing it. There was still no access button. Then she tried again, and again. After her fifth failure, Mark was about to suggest she give up, but he stopped himself. They had nothing else to do. Why stop her? And on her sixth cycle, Toshi removed the lock and then clapped her hands in delight at the sight of the access button. They opened the door and quickly went through, locking the door behind them with the mushroom. So began one of the strangest explorations in Mark's life. And now he had a map of the place. Sort of. They had made no explorations of the areas away from the corridors yet. They didn't even know if they could. But they'd have to try something soon. They were all getting thirsty, and Toshi's bottle of iced-tea had only a gulp or two left. Forty-nine hexagons made up the diamond array. There were three areas that the walkways defined to be singular areas, the hexagon in the exact center of the diamond, the southern hexagon that was the home complex of Black Mall, and the northern hexagon that Mark in his thoughts referred to as the chamber of horrors. Frida had given the central hexagon in the center of the diamond the nickname of keystone. There were four groups of seven hexagons each, arranged at each of the four corners of the diamond. The central hexagon shared its eastern and western faces with two of these seven-hexagon clusters. Each major cluster was comprised of a core hexagon and the group of six hexagons surrounding it. There were also six three-hexagon mini-clusters, fitting in like hexagonal jigsaw pieces between the four major clusters. Each mini-cluster could be thought of as a vertex and the group of three hexagons sharing it. Such an elegant design, Mark thought. So amazing to build such vast geometrical constructs. The walkways on the ground level extended around the perimeter of each interior cluster. They had spent hours exploring and mapping the bland passageways. The question now was, what next? They had an exit. The home complex of Black Mall butted into the two southern hexagons of the seven-hexagon cluster at the southern end of the diamond. There was an exit-only door there, leading to dual parallel corridors at the northern vertex of the home complex. A few meters from their door was the door to the vestibule and first-floor library of Black Mall. There was no way to get inside. The ground-floor vestibule, like the one upstairs, would only open from the inside, just as their door from the array would only open from the inside. The landscape outside looked frightfully cold and forbidding. Frida shivered and urged her two companions to return to the array. And now here they were, hours later, at a northwestern vertex of the eastern major cluster. They were pausing near one of the many airlocks. According to Mark's maps, each group of hexagons except the keystone had two airlock entrances. From his conversations with Emily and Aggie, he was somewhat familiar with the design. They could either be bidirectional or unidirectional. Once they went through, they might be able to come back out. And they might not. Even with the risk, their course of action seemed obvious. The corridors were barren, a desert. Without water, they were not prepared to survive here. Mark thought for a moment and said, "Before we try anything, I think we should return to the ivy chamber." Toshi turned to him with a surprised look. "Why's that?" "See that indentation on the airlock door? I want to go back and pick up the mushroom lock?" Toshi shrugged and pulled the map out of Mark's hands and stared at it for a moment. "We're one kilometer from the ivy room, ten segments." She pointed with her finger. "Five interior segments to orbit this mini-cluster, and then we track the perimeter of the northern major cluster. We could be back here in twenty minutes. Mark, the airlock is open. Why do we need the lock?" Mark flashed a brief grin. "It was useful for opening the first door. If we have it and don't need it here, what's the harm? But if we don't have it and we need it..." He didn't have to finish the thought. They would be trapped in the unknown space beyond the airlock. Frida asked. "And you want to try this cluster first?" Mark nodded and pointed with his hand. "See that symbol?" Frida and Toshi stared at the mark. It was similar to an italic omega symbol with a tilda on top of it. Frida answered, "Yeah, I see it." "Emily briefed me on a few symbols. That broken-Y at the entrance to the ivy is a symbol for mortal danger. This symbol here means safe." "Ah. Then this is a good choice." Mark nodded and the three started to walk. "Yikes," commented Frida. "It's as if we're trapped in some insane video game. There's no way to tell what's the right move without trying, and a wrong move..." " ... means game over," finished Toshi. The group continued their walk in silence. An hour later. Mark, Toshi and Frida continued their journey down the spiraling staircase. Frida for a change was walking point, about ten meters in front of her companions. "We're almost there," she called out. "Another thirty meters maybe." Mark nodded and asked her to wait so he and Toshi could catch up. In had been a productive hour. They had returned to the entrance to the chamber of horrors and retrieved the mushroom lock without incident. Now they were descending the largest spiral staircase Mark had ever seen, more than two hundred meters in depth. He hoped they would find water below. They were wasting a lot of their precious time and energy otherwise. They had returned to the large eastern cluster and they had all shuddered once they were through the airlock. They did indeed need the lock to open the airlock from the inside. Without it, they'd be trapped. And the stair trends down had a springy feel to them. It took a while to get used to, but as the party neared the bottom, they were all grateful for the effect, otherwise their knees would have been complaining about such a long descent. They reached the bottom of the well and advanced down the sole corridor to a nearby room. It held a rather odd selection of items, several fishing rods and tackle sets, and a generous assortment of towels, bed linens, soaps and other toiletries. There was nothing edible though, and nothing to drink. After a few minutes of looking around, they agreed to go through another airlock at the opposite side of the room. All three of them gasped as the airlock cycled and opened on the other side. They stepped out slowly, looking at the scenery and the sky above. They all made several sanity checks by turning and making sure the airlock was still behind them. It was. Frida was the first to speak. "Is this Earth?! Have we returned to our home planet?" They were standing on the rise of a small hill. The gentle rolling landscape was covered with all sorts of flowering plants. And up above shone the super-bright and butter-yellow sun that they were all once so familiar with. For a short while Mark thought it looked too small, but then he realized he had gotten used to the larger size of this planet's star. This planet? Wait a minute. Were they back on Earth? This couldn't be Earth. Earth had been destroyed. Yet the sky above was a pure bright blue, no hints of the greens and teals of recent weeks. Earth! And yet... "No," said Mark. "Definitely not Earth, though the illusion is superb." "I can feel the sun's warmth," said Toshi with a wistful sigh. "The illusion is very convincing." Mark nodded. "Photonic control beyond what we've ever dreamed of. But look at the horizon. It's not quite real. Maybe we're in some sort of sanctuary, a conservatory." Frida touched Mark's hand and asked, "I'm so thirsty, and that brook down below looks so inviting. Want to try it?" They walked through a short meadow full of flowers, enjoying the sweet fragrances and the warmth. Toshi guessed it was about 25C, much nicer than the cool 15C of the corridors outside. They drank the clean, refreshing water of the brook, and then followed it about two-hundred meters to the banks of a picturesque oval pond. Mark guessed the long axis to be about eighty meters. "I think we're near the middle of the conservatory," he announced. "Maybe not right at the middle, but near. Wow, this place is enormous, 500 meters across! And look how the artificial clouds seem to be moving. So impressive." Frida gave a small shriek. They were standing near the pond's edge, in a meadow full of flowering plants and fruit trees. From the plants all around them huge numbers of gigantic bees were emerging. ------- Chapter 29 Three days later. Time: Sunday, January 20, 2019 4:20 PM Chico, Toro, and Bambino pressed their faces against the clear transparent door. They were at the end of the line, the terminal store of Green Mall, the plush furniture and consoles of the Hilton Executive Conference Center visible just a few short meters away. And it was completely untouchable. "So, we got to see it," thought Chico. "Big fucking deal. I wonder if in 1909 ... what the hell was that guy's name? Would Commodore Peary have been satisfied to look through a window at the North Pole? Not fucking likely." Chico stood aside so the others could come up and see. He thought they all deserved that, even the slave bitches. Meanwhile he walked back ten meters and plopped his tired body down and leaned against the wall. "Unbelievable," he thought. "All this work ... for what?" Chico was beginning to think of this trip as one incredible failure, though there didn't seem any other decision he could have made. They had arrived at the hub of the spiral system late Thursday night, after a long day of portage. Chico found the implications of the six passageways terrifying. After their first days in their strange new home, Uno had pressured everyone to assume the other parties were far, far away. Maybe they weren't even on the same planet. They would never to be heard from again. But the reality of the hub with its six passages changed everything. Chico made a command decision to split his party. Almost at random (Toro loved money, and his favorite color was green), Chico sent the main party down Green Mall with Toro in command. Their orders were to proceed as far as ten kilometers if the corridor contained nothing but locked stores, otherwise to stop anytime Toro saw fit. Meanwhile Chico and Segundo would check out the white and red spirals, while Bambino and Geraldo checked out the paths of blue and yellow. Late Friday night, they all met up again outside the Green Mall bike shop. The displays of bikes inside made them sick as they realized what fools they were for not being more aggressive in their December explorations. They would report to Uno that all six spirals had magnificent stocks of bikes, and everything was completely out of reach. And it was the same feeling with the AM/PM Locksmith stores, one in each spiral about a kilometer further away from the hub than the bike stores. Chico eyed all the mushroom locks now and was certain their Party had been played for chumps. He was mad enough to ... To what? Take his frustrations out on the hoof pussies? Chico took his cue from Brandi on that one, especially after their talk in their sleeping bag last night. Free of the influence of Nadine and Jessica and Tiffany, Brandi was actually treating the slave with kindness and advocating for them, making sure they got full water rations and asking Chico to lighten up on the pace when it became too much for them. And Chico saw her point. Almost all of the six slaves had some medical issue now after what they had gone through the previous month, either poor ankle conditions from earlier chaining or being beaten for resisting the new world order. And Lynn! Chico felt so sorry for her, but what could he do? The idiot muchachos had caned her butt the night before Santos disappeared. Thank God the other five slaves were still unhurt. Santos and Gilberto and the muchachos, they were the worst, Chico thought. He had seen more than one woman whimper when they were assigned night shift work to any of them. In charge of the slaves now, Chico was finding he actually enjoyed showing the slaves kindness. His unsolved problem was how to protect them long term. Toro came to sit beside him. "So, what now boss?" "Haven't a clue," Chico said with a humorless laugh. "Any suggestions?" "Well, we could camp out here and hold this position until the water runs out." "Yeah, well, there's an idea." "Yeah. Well, I could try to shoot the lock off." Chico sighed. "It's tempting to waste the ammo, I know. But remember our experiments at Dram Rabbies. Tungsten drills, the blowtorch, the crowbars and sledgehammers..." Toro sighed back. "I wasn't being serious. I hope Jenaro is feeling better now. I never saw a sledgehammer bounce like that." "Yeah, and the crowbar was ringing like a bell..." Chico leaned his head against the wall behind him, unconcerned with letting his weariness show to his group. "Four days to get back. Thank God we packed enough water. I don't think we can push the hoof pussies any harder." He closed his eyes. Toro nodded. "You got that right. Uh, Chico, what're you going to do with Lynn? Her limp is so bad now from those damn welts, she's almost useless in the harness." Chico could hear the concern in Toro's voice. "You getting sweet on Lynn Toro? You've slept with her for what..." Chico opened his eyes and smiled as he saw Lynn preparing Toro's sleeping bag. "Third night in a row now, right?" "Yeah, well ... maybe. I don't want to see her get hurt, that's for sure. And I don't want to force her to do anything. I've been having some problems with the muchachos about that." Toro paused for a moment and sighed. "And Chico, want to hear something amazing?" "Sure." "Last night, I was bone tired. Lynn and I don't fuck in our sleeping bag. With her welts, that would just hurt her too much. But last night, all by herself, Lynn asked me if I'd like her to blow me. She was willing. We wound up just lying with each other. We started looking in each other's eyes, and ... It was so amazing. The whole rest of the world disappeared. That's what it seemed like. Just Lynn and I were whispering to each other, and the whole rest of the world just wasn't there. I can't believe the stuff I told her about myself, stuff I thought was so embarrassing I'd never tell anybody. Know what I mean?" "Yeah, I think I do. Brandi and I sort of did the same thing last night. She told me things too. It wasn't just one way." He sighed. "And check out Bambino and Cassidy sometime when they're sacking out. They're not just getting it on." "Yeah, exactly. Bambino seems so happy with Cassie now. I feel the same way about Lynn." Chico reached and patted Toro's shoulder. "Don't worry. I won't cut her loose out here, no matter how much she slows us down. She can lie on the sled and get a free ride if she has to. And I'll talk to the muchachos. They won't bother her." He paused and added, "Toro, if you want to claim her as a girlfriend, I think I can convince Uno to take her off the night shifts. He owes me a few favors." Chico closed his eyes again and rested. Toro did not reply at once. He just leaned back on the wall and followed Chico's lead in closing his eyes. "Gracias compadre," he whispered. Time: Sunday, January 20, 2019 6:00 PM, a second floor suite at the Hilton Executive Conference Center Emily came up from behind Jada and touched her shoulder. "Time you were relieved. Hungry? Aggie whipped up another really delicious dinner." Jada looked up from her monitoring console and locked eyes with Emily. Emily didn't have to ask how Jada was feeling. The emotional states of two people linking were the first things exchanged, and far more deeply than could ever be expressed in words or body language. "My dear friend," thought Emily, "I love you. Have courage Jada. Do NOT give up hope." "I'm trying. It's so hard." Jada hiccupped and broke the connection. She turned back to the console and made a minor adjustment. The reason for Jada's distress and that of the whole group was the census counter. When they awoke Friday morning, they saw that it had ticked down from 017:102 to 016:100. It appeared that a man and two women had died. Mark and Toshi and Frida! Nothing was certain, but the possibility was horrendous. The Red Mall group had spent the day monitoring all their locations near the hub, until they saw all fourteen people of Chico's party gather near the Green Mall bike shop Friday night. The deaths had not come from there. On Saturday and Sunday they installed sensor nets from the terminal stores of Red, White, and Blue Malls, and even from the trapdoor White Mall store at the 360 degree mark. They now had a clear majority (82%) of the mall system covered by their surveillance network. Emily nudged Jada out of the chair, and after brief hugs they said goodbye. Jada entered the nearby elevator and returned to the home complex of Red Mall, but on a whim entered through the lower level by the library. She walked through the unoccupied first floor, finally arriving at the large circular stairwell. The spiraling stairs down would take Jada to the Dress Barn, and the stairs up would take her to the bedroom she shared with Emily. Jada picked a third direction. After donning thick arctic clothing they had set aside nearby, she opened the door north and went outside. She tightened the earflaps on her ultra-warm hood as she walked along the cobblestones separating the sand and pine parks. Then her head tilted upward and she gazed at the brilliant night sky. It was a cold night, -17C, and a thin layer of powdery snow was crunching and squeaking beneath her boots. Jada paused about fifty meters north of the door, breathing slowly and staring at the hard, cold points of light. "Oh Mark," she whispered. The planet's small moon was below the horizon, but the display of stars was magnificent. Jada thought about a previous conversation. "I remember what Mark said. The moon here has over eight times the mass of Earth's moon, almost the mass of Mars, but it's a million kilometers distant. That's what makes it seem smaller." And then rational thought receded. Her awe of the cold grandeur of the stars and her deep internal emptiness seemed to fuse into a single emotion. Tears began to fall down her cheeks. They cooled rapidly in the sub-zero air. Two days later. Time: Tuesday, January 22, 2019 5:15 PM It was a dull and arduous two days dragging the sleds back through the green spiral to the central hub. There was a woman riding the sleds, but it wasn't Lynn. Holly twisted her ankle Monday morning, so badly that two of the muchachos Geraldo and Segundo suggested to Bambino that they ought to just leave Holly in the corridor and move on. Bambino looked skeptical and turned to Chico for guidance. Chico knew what Toro's opinion would be, and he couldn't believe at first that the two muchachos would suggest such a thing. But then he stopped to consider. Their attitude was exactly what Uno was trying to encourage. And Chico had to admit, their leader was a spellbinder. Chico asked himself a hard question. Four days ago, would he have accepted the idea too? But the four days of hard exercise and role as leader had changed him. Instead of abandoning Holly, he teamed up with Paige and Allison and the three of them pulled Holly on the sled. Chico was amazed how the simple common work had created a bond between him and the slaves. And Chico was surprised to discover that he liked the bond. He wasn't sure where it was all heading, but he didn't want the changes to stop, especially when Brandi would give quiet nods of approval at his new self. Brandi! Such a wonderful person. Chico felt so fortunate now to have her as his girlfriend. And he never realized that before. How was that possible? How could he have been so stupid? A yell up ahead pulled Chico out of his daydream. They were only two hundred meters from the central hub, just a few meters from passing the last of the stores on the inside arc, and Chico could hear Bambino and Geraldo yelling, and their yells were getting louder. Chico had sent them to walk a few hundred meters ahead as point men for the main group. The two men rounded the spiral and appeared before them. Geraldo was the first to speak, slightly out of breath from his sprint. "In the hub room, at the center, right at the exact center, there's a message posted. It's addressed to us!" Chico kept the group together and they quickly covered the short distance to the hub. There Chico found a short note covering the small golden keystone. He picked it up and read it. "WANT TO CHOOSE A NEW LIFE, ONE BASED ON EQUALITY AND FORGIVENESS? IF SO, RETURN TO THE GREEN-MALL SKY-BRIDGE TO DISCUSS." "We shouldn't go. It's a trap!" said Ernesto. Segundo was nodding in agreement. "Fucking-A! Round trip, think of the distance! And just to talk?! It's a trap!" Chico spoke almost without thinking. "If it is a trap, it's very well baited. Muchachos, we need information!" That brought them up short. Ernesto stared at Chico incredulously. "You're thinking of going?! Round trip, it's an extra eighty kilometers!" "Two days of travel, I know. Guys, we do have the supplies for it." Chico looked around the great hexagonal hall. "We shouldn't stay here. It's too exposed." So he moved his group about fifty meters into Black Mall and set up camp for the night. It was a lousy dinner. Halfway through the meal, Segundo got up and with no provocation gave Holly a hard kick in the butt, enough to send her flying. She landed heavily, trying and only partially succeeding in protecting her bad ankle. "What the hell?!" roared Chico as he stood up, rising like an angry bear from the floor. "Fucking bitch is slowing us down!" Segundo roared back. "We should have left her behind!" Chico felt his anger morphing into deadly calm. He rested his hand on the pistol at his hip. "Segundo," he asked quietly, "Who's in charge of this expedition?" "Fucking hell Chico! The bitch is slowing us down!" "Answer my question Segundo." "We've wasted a day!" "If you don't answer, then I can't trust you. Last warning." Chico unholstered his pistol and held it by his leg. Segundo looked as if he might bluff it out, but then in an epiphany he realized Chico was not bluffing. He stared at Chico's gun and muscular bulk and realized he wanted no part of this. "You're in charge Chico." He said meekly, lowering his gaze. "And?" "And ... And I'll leave the pussies alone." Chico nodded and suddenly felt very tired. He turned to Brandi and they locked eyes for a brief second. Then Brandi went and helped Holly. "Wonderful," thought Chico as he watched Segundo turn around. "Now I'm going to worry about being attacked in my sleep. Just fucking wonderful." Four hours later. Chico gave Segundo and Geraldo a night off from guard duty, taking the first shift himself with Bambino. Brandi and Cassidy would take the middle shift, and then finally Toro and Ernesto. By Chico's watch, they would move out shortly after 5 AM tomorrow morning. Near the end of the watch, Chico tilted his head at Bambino, signaling him to follow him, and they walked off about twenty meters from the sleeping group. Chico wanted to probe where the youngest compadre's loyalties lay. "Bambino, can I ask your opinion about something?" "Yeah, sure Chico. It's about the note, isn't it?" "Yeah. If you were in charge, what would you do?" Bambino looked surprised at first being asked such a question, but then he smiled that Chico valued his opinion. "Well, Uno has to know about this, that's for sure. But ... I can see your point too. We could get a lot of knowledge talking to these people." Bambino paused and then asked, "You're thinking of splitting the group, aren't you?" Chico nodded. "Bambino, which group would you like to be in? You could be in charge of the muchachos heading back home, or if you want, you could join Toro and me. I'm thinking we'll go back down the green spiral." "You and Toro, huh? Gee, what about all the women? What about Cassidy?" "Oh, don't worry about Cassidy. She can go where you go." "Really? Thanks Chico. I'd hate to split up." Bambino paused for moment. "Uh..." "Yeah?" "What about the pussies?" Chico sighed and said nothing for a while. "Yeah. I'm still thinking about that." "Ah..." A quiet minute passed. Chico was beginning to feel exasperated. "Well?" "Well what?" "Which group would you want to go with?" "Do you need an answer now?" Chico turned his head to look down the corridor for a moment, hiding his disappointment. "No, I guess not. Just let me know at breakfast. Talk it over with Cassidy if you want." "Hey Chico, you don't have to insult me. I'm a compadre, Cassidy is just a..." Bambino looked at a loss for words. Chico frowned at him. "You think of Cassidy as pussy?" "Well..." Bambino looked confused. "Isn't that the new order?" Chico nodded at him slowly. "Yeah, I guess it is." Their guard shift was almost over. The two men watched the corridors in silence until Chico went and woke Cassidy and Brandi. ------- Chapter 30 The next day Time: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 7:05 AM "Interesting times," thought Chico philosophically. "It sure does feel different, not to be threatening the women with a gun anymore..." He estimated they were approaching the seven-kilometer mark in their trip from the spiral hub. His group was returning to Green Mall, with still more than thirty kilometers to go before the sky-bridge would come into view. They were only pulling a single sled, but they still had a very long walk ahead of them. His party of nine was making exceptional progress, nearly four kilometers per hour. Chico paused to study the slaves' tired bodies and realized that it wasn't that they were holding back before. Their speed now came from the women embracing the purpose of their mission, and they were driving themselves to exhaustion. This was so different from yesterday when the women would beg him with their eyes for breaks. A defining moment had occurred just a half kilometer ago. There was a small specialty store on the inside arc. Unknown to Chico, the exact position of its door was at the spiral mark 6,438 meters, directly across from a sensor node location and one sensor jump away from the Barnes & Nobel bookstore at 6,738 meters. The mall signage identified the specialty store's wares, great varieties of pretzels, but what caught their attention was a small table standing in the corridor by the locked door. The group quickened their pace as they debated what was on the table. And then they finally arrived and read the small note. "LEAVE BOTH BERSA THUNDERS HERE. -- MADISON" Unknown to all of them, their conversation was being monitored by sensors directly across from them on the outside arc. Madison was also hiding upstairs in the store, with a Leophone and a bicycle and enough bottled water and wholesome food to last for a month. "Hell Chico," Toro had commented dryly. "They know exactly what we're packing." He pressed his face to the transparent door and looked inside. "Neat! There's a whole section on chocolate-covered pretzels, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white ... Hey Lynn, if I can get this door open, would you like a dark chocolate sourdough pretzel?" As tired as she was, Lynn gave him a kind smile and replied playfully, "Sure! Dark chocolate sourdough is my all-time favorite!" Chico though was not in a playful mood. "Moment of truth Toro," he said slowly. "We surrender our guns, Uno will kill us if he gets the chance. We put our guns on the table, there's no turning back." He took a deep breath. "Damn. I was hoping..." Toro noticed how tense Chico was becoming and mumbled, "Yeah?" Chico didn't answer immediately. He looked instead at the six slaves. He had tried to show them some kindness, tried to take good care of them when they were his responsibility, but now they reminded him of a jury, silently passing judgment on him. He felt too ashamed to look them in the eyes. "I guess I was hoping for more time, more time to tell the women I was sorry." "Did you ever rape anyone Chico?" Toro asked quietly. "Yeah, these last few weeks, sure." Chico turned to his friend. "We all did." And then he whispered, "Didn't we?" Toro shook his head. "I couldn't bring myself to do it. Britney though, I helped murder her." "No you didn't. You just didn't stand up for her." Chico gave a deep sigh. "I didn't either." "That's no excuse. Hell Chico, the woman was being murdered, and we didn't do shit. We both have a lot to answer for." "Me too," whispered Brandi. "This past month, so much of it was a nightmare." Toro glanced at Brandi and nodded and then continued, "If I can get back to feeling human again..." He paused for a long moment. "If I could get that, I wouldn't mind giving up my pistol." Another pause, and then a whisper that was a cry from the center of his soul, "or anything at all." Lynn was standing nearby, the sled harness still strapped around her shoulders. She had enough slack in the straps to move. She came to Toro and put her hand on his shoulder and gently kissed his cheek. And that simple expression of affection enabled Chico to decide. He ejected his magazine and then laid both his pistol and the ammo on the table. Toro followed with his pistol a second later. They looked around for a moment, shrugged, and then resumed their slow journey to the sky-bridge. Their walk was uneventful for the next six hundred meters, and then Brandi shouted, "Chico, up ahead! People!" "Huh?" Chico had switched with Lynn and was taking a shift pulling the sled with Mandy and Heather. Chico had been lost in thought thinking about the pistol drop-off, and he had not been expecting to meet anybody for many hours. His group stopped. Chico took out his binoculars and moved to the wall of the outside arc to maximize his view. Then he looked at the corridor ahead. Sure enough, people were walking alongside the outside edge to maximize their visibility. Three people were walking briskly towards them, almost jogging, less than two hundred meters away now, three women in fact. "Should we keep going to meet them?" asked Toro who was also looking with his binoculars. Chico shook his head as he saw one of the women give him a hand signal. "I think they want us to wait here." He turned to Mandy and Heather. "You can get out of harness." In less than two minutes, the two groups met up. They stared at each other for a moment, and then one of the women began to speak. "Hello. My name is Fatima." She gestured with her arms at the two women by her side. "This is Aggie, and this is Ashley." Chico nodded. "I'm guessing we don't have to introduce ourselves." "We know all your names Chico, that is correct." "So you must have met up with the women we lost at Dram Rabbies." Fatima paused. "I won't answer questions like that, not yet." Chico nodded. "Can I ask? What sort of position are Toro and I bargaining from? If we decide to part company, will our pistols still be on the table? Are you the leader of your group?" Fatima shook her head. "No, I'm not the leader. And the guns you left on the table are already gone. We debated this point last night. We recognize that you came here in good faith, under a flag of truce. And yet ... We abhor the decisions you've made Chico. I'm sorry, but the slavery and the rape of these women must end. It must! The abuse can not stand. Our conscience forbids it." Chico had a sour taste in his mouth. "I expected as much." Ashley spoke up. "Chico, we recognize that we're violating the norms for two warring parties coming together for negotiations. But perhaps this will help us reconcile. We will need to forgive you, and you will need to forgive us." Toro spoke up. "Is that what this it's all about then? Forgiveness?" Fatima frowned, and then her anger caused her to speak in a semi-shout. "Yes, forgiveness for rape and torture and murder, forgiveness without punishment. You men! How could you do it?! How could you allow yourselves to become such monsters?!" Chico turned to Brandi. Her eyes were asking him the same question, and he tried to come up with a serious answer. "I'm not sure exactly. Maybe in part it was the drug we took, the first day we came here. I'm not trying to make excuses. We're still responsible for what we did. The drug though, it ... it releases inhibitions. And the effect doesn't wear off. Have you noticed?" Fatima replied, "Yes, we have. But we don't think of it quite like that. The drug doesn't release our inhibitions. We believe the drug in some profound way enhances mental clarity. It removes social veneer. We behave as we truly are." Toro's eyes lit up. "Yes! I know what you mean. I've been wondering about the same thing for a month. The drug lets our true characters come out." Fatima nodded. "That's right. It's easier to express truth, much more difficult to lie. But the drug did not hurt our free will. We can still choose to be who we want to be." She looked over the six slaves. "We can talk more, but right now, my group would like to get these women some medical attention, especially Holly and Lynn. Chico, Toro, and you too Brandi, do you surrender to us?" Chico answered with his own question. "What are the terms?" "There are no terms. But we have no plans for punishment. Just choose, surrender or not." He took a deep breath. "What will you do with us?" "Confine you, talk with you, work to integrate you into our society." Fatima looked back and forth between the captors and captives. "You six slaves can join us at once. You other three will have limited mobility for a while. I repeat, we're not doing this as punishment. We just don't want you free to turn on us while we're still at war with the remaining people of Black Mall." Movement down the corridor behind Fatima caught Lynn's eye. "Look everybody! There're some kind of vehicles coming towards us!" Fatima turned and was surprised to see Hannah, Ann, and Akiko rapidly biking with three empty side-cars towards them. Fatima's group had parted from them just a few minutes ago. If Chico and Toro had not left their pistols, the six women would have all returned to the Green Mall sky-bridge, and probably not made contact with Chico's party. Toro and Chico both tried to give Ann and Akiko friendly smiles, but the women ignored them and Ann spoke to Fatima. "The rest of Chico's group, we guessed wrong! They're not returning to Black Mall. Jada said they just appeared at the sensor edge of Green Mall." Chico felt stunned. Bambino was coming after him? That didn't make sense. It would be way out of character for Bambino to disobey Chico's order to lead the muchachos back home. Fatima turned to Chico and asked excitedly, "You don't know about this?!" "No!" Fatima thought rapidly about the situation. They were only three hundred meters from Barnes and Nobel, while their adversaries probably still had six kilometers to go. She made a snap decision. "Chico! Toro! Brandi! Decide now!" Chico looked at Toro and Brandi, and then spoke for all three of them. "We surrender!" Fatima took a moment to lock eyes with each of them and witness their sincerity. "Excellent! Everyone, we're heading back to Barnes and Nobel. Unload your sled and fill up the side-cars. Holly, Lynn, and anybody else with trouble walking, just hop a ride on a side-car. Everybody else, grab something and let's go!" Lynn wound up holding two sled harnesses while she rode in the side-car, dragging the sled behind her. Devoid of its cargo, the light sled was easy to pull. "My gosh, bicycles with side-cars!" she thought. "These people have such an advantage over us. Wait! What am I thinking?! I'm part of this group now. Now it's my team that has the advantage." She looked back at Toro who was walking rapidly with some others but not quite keeping up with the bicycles. He saw her staring at him and he waved and tried to smile. "Such a strange set of emotions," Lynn thought. "Anger and gratitude, revulsion and affection, all at the same time. Do I love this man?" But then her ride pulled up to the bookstore, and the excitement and their need to hurry pushed the thoughts of Toro from her mind. The bookstore was fabulously set up for their needs. and the group quickly filed inside. Shielded by high curving bookshelves that reached almost to the ceiling, it was easy to move the people and equipment to a part of the store that would be completely invisible from the outside corridor. At last everyone was inside and moving out of view. Lynn paused for a moment and lingered by the two new women by the door. "Hi. I'm Lynn." "Hello Lynn," nodded one woman. "I'm Emily. This is Madison." Lynn turned. "Ah, the person who asked for the pistols?" "Uh huh. They're here in this store now." Madison gave Lynn a kind smile and then asked. "Lynn, this is everybody, right? Are you sure?" "Yes, I counted. There's nothing left outside. Your six people and everyone from us is here, all our cargo too. The corridor is clean." "Okay, great." Emily then called out, "Jada! We're closing up!" She pushed the button in the recessed hole in the archway, and ten seconds later after the door finished its descent, she snapped a mushroom lock over the opening. There was gap of several centimeters between the door and the lock, much different than the glove-fit of the doors around the other locks Lynn had seen. "Wow, that open space, it looks different." Emily nodded. "It'll start to seal in a minute or so. Hopefully by the time the other men pass by, this will look just like any other door. Come on, I'll show you where the other people are." Emily and Madison walked Lynn to the hidden side of the store, keeping a sharp eye for anything that looked out of place. Everything looked undisturbed. Lynn gathered around a large crowd of people in the corner of the store. She couldn't help but notice a section of the back wall was open and leading to the bottom of a familiar looking circular stairwell. "My gosh," she thought. "This is where the entrance to Green Mall is, so close to the hub! What an advantage!" Jada was working the monitoring system, and she called out a commentary to the crowd around her. "The party is approaching our sensor at spiral meter-mark 2642. They're making good time, four kilometers till they get here, ETA forty minutes." Jada zoomed in on a control, and Brandi shouted out, "Someone's missing. It's Bambino! He's not there. Oh my God!! Look at Cassie! She looks..." She couldn't finish the statement. Cassie's hair was disheveled, she appeared to have two bruised eyes, dried blood had caked under her nose and her clothes were torn. She was under load, forced to carry a large backpack, and she was struggling to keep her torn jeans from falling down. "Those damn muchachos!" hissed Brandi. "What have they done to her?!" Brandi then gave a small scream. "Is that blood between her legs?!" Jada turned to her roommate. "Emily, I'm wondering about Bambino. Can you go check the census counter?" Emily nodded and ran out through the back of the room. Jada took a moment to look at the new members of their society and then she stood up to face them. "People, welcome to our group. That goes for all of you," she added, looking at the two men first and then at the new women. "My name is Jada, and I am currently second in command and also acting in command." She saw a number of thoughtful looks at this announcement. "Don't worry. These are temporary titles. We haven't had time to work on a permanent government yet. We'll explain later." "I want you people out of here. Through that door is our Green Mall home complex. It's almost identical to what you're seen in Black Mall. This will be your home during your orientation. Then you'll be free to move around as much as we are." Jada turned back to Chico and Toro. "Guys, you too Brandi, you'll be required to stay here a little longer. Did Fatima explain this to you?" Chico nodded. "She did. And we agreed. Are you saying we'll be free to wander the whole complex? I was expecting to be locked up in a store or something." Jada stared at the large man for a moment and realized she recognized him. Charles ... she couldn't remember the last name, but she had seen this man before in some of the intercollegiate competitions. He was on the University wrestling team. Jada wasn't sure, but she thought he might have been the team captain. She sighed and answered his question. "Yes, the mall with all the locks, it would make a gigantic prison system, wouldn't it?" She shook her head. "We debated this for hours yesterday. We're trying to accept you without any punishment for your crimes. Your detention is only" Emily ran back into the store. "The counter, it ticked down to 015:100. The male census has dropped by one." "Those shits!" whispered Brandi in a hiss. "They've killed him!" Jada spoke up. "People! Please begin leaving. People from our group will guide you. First stop will be the medical complex. Aggie, take charge." She paused and added, "Akiko, please stay with me." Everyone else started filing out the door. Chico and Toro locked their hands together and carried Holly between them up the stairs. Lynn was the last in line, and she paused in the archway. Ahead of her was the bottom of a deep circular stairwell, with a long row of people climbing up. Behind her was a rather plush bookstore, with a large table set up for the monitor displays. "Lynn, could you close the door on your way out?" Jada called out. "Actually, could I stay with you for a while?" Jada paused for a second. "Lynn, you're walking with a bit of a limp. Ann and Akiko told us how you were caned." "Yes, the day before they escaped. They cared for me that night." "And they can do a lot more now. The medical facilities upstairs can cure your wound completely. Head on up." "Oh, that sounds wonderful ... but can it wait? The pain isn't bad, and I'd really like to stay." Jada paused and considered. "All right. Close the door and pull up a chair." Lynn closed the door and gave a small chuckle. "Actually, it'll be easier for me if I stand." She walked over next to her old friend and gave her a hug. "Hi Akiko! Nice to see you again!" Jada looked up and smiled. "Akiko mentioned you two knew each other before ... before we came here." Lynn nodded. "Yes. We were both in the same data networking class, back at the University." Akiko added. "And not just that. We were locked up together in Black Mall. We tried to look out for each other." Jada spoke to Lynn. "This past week, Akiko has made monumental advances in our communications abilities." Akiko blushed. "Jada, please..." Lynn gave a small laugh. "Oh, I'm not surprised. She's a superb engineer. What'd she do?" "Akiko first figured out how set up audio communications among the five library complexes we have access too. It was a tremendous increase in our abilities. Before that, we only had three satellite phones, and one of them is currently unavailable." "Akiko! Way to go!" Akiko blushed some more. "Lynn, it wasn't that difficult." Jada continued. "And then she and Aggie and Emily figured out how to activate the elevator communications system, another huge improvement. And then yesterday, Lynn tapped our satellite phones into the elevator network. We can now make calls directly to and from our mobile phones to any elevator or library interface." Lynn's eyes lit up in admiration. "Wow!" Akiko meanwhile had turned a beet red. "Seriously Jada, stop. This is embarrassing." Jada smiled in love at her new friend. "All right, provided you tell Lynn what you're working on now." Akiko turned to Lynn. "The terminal store at the end of Green Mall is the Hilton Executive Conference Center." Lynn nodded. "Yes, I know. We were just there a few days ago." "Yes. Well, I believe it would be possible to route all our monitoring feeds through the elevator network. The conference center is designed to support ultra high density video reception. Our goal is to monitor anyplace in the mall from that one location." Lynn saw the advantage of such a setup immediately. "Fantastic. Perhaps I could help." The three chatted for the next half hour. Jada dimmed her displays a bit as their adversaries approached in the outside corridor. "Try to be still and quiet as they pass," she whispered. "When locked, these doors are superb sound insulators, but I still don't want needless risks." The outside party walked past the Barnes & Nobel without pause. It was just one more store out of the thousands they had seen. Jada logged the time of their passing the store's portal as 8:07 AM. Lynn kept silent until they had moved almost another three hundred meters and were approaching the next sensor location where Bambino had spoken with Fatima. Akiko glanced down at the diagnostic readout, spiral mark 7035 meters, and then back up at the people. She whispered, "Poor Cassie. Look how heavy her backpack seems. They must be forcing her to carry a lot of water. And they've brutalized her. Look at her face." Jada was grimacing. "And her jeans, I'm sure that's blood between her thighs. It was more than rape." Jada felt almost ill looking at Cassie's condition. "Is there any way we can help her?" asked Akiko. Jada was pondering the same question. "I'm open to suggestions." "It's our five pistols against their one. I'm assuming they have Bambino's firearm." Akiko twisted in her chair uncomfortably. "I'm not suggesting an open gun battle." Jada was deep in thought. "At least they're in Green Mall. Our sensor network is excellent here ... Look, you can see a pistol. Segundo has it ... Akiko, if not a gun battle, what are you suggesting?" "Well, we could bracket them, have two teams, each with a Leophone, one a kilometer out in front and another trailing them. Perhaps an opportunity will arise, a window for a quick rescue." Jada considered the idea. It sounded like a very risky plan. It would require frequent communications with the tracking teams to keep them from straying too close. The cat and mouse game might last for hours, and the Leophones did not have the battery life for that. Unfortunately the satellite phones were brand new on the market and had unusual batteries. So far the group had not been able to find replacements in any of the stores they had searched. And yet, Jada's conscience was urging her to do something. Her eyes were drawn back to the monitor, and she watched Cassie's suffering in silence. ------- Chapter 31 Graphs: The Geography of "It's My Party" Picture 1. The shape and orientation of the 75 km of Red Mall spiral. Picture 2. The structure of the 49-hexagon diamond array of Black Mall. Picture 3. Overhead view of the Great Hexagon (26 km to a side), showing the six isolated sections and the locations of the six home complexes. Picture 4. Red Mall home complex (connecting to south vertex), showing swimming pool and second floor layout. ------- Chapter 32 Six hours later. Time: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 2:17 PM Ashley and Hannah pulled up to a nondescript lamp store with their bikes and two side-cars. Ashley checked her notes to make sure this was the right store, and then waved at the sensors just inside the locked door. One of the sensors responded with a red-blink-pause-yellow-blink. It was the signal for them to hold her current position. Ashley nodded and dismounted her bike to stretch. What a fantastic find, and it was their new recruit Lynn who had made the breakthrough. The sensors had integrated microphones but no speakers. They were designed for monitoring, not two-way communications. But Lynn had gone through the Matrix technical specs manual, and found that individual sensors could be tested remotely. There was one set of diagnostic tests had the option of giving color-coded flashes upon completion. Voila! The flashes could be used as return communication. Such a simple idea, but it had taken Lynn to come up with it. The result was that Ashley and Hannah had been trailing Segundo's party for the last three hours, and their Leophone still had close to a full charge. The phones were essential in case their target suddenly changed direction while the women were biking between nodes. A phone call would then be necessary to tell them to back up. Ashley looked at her notes again, the product of hours of effort by Hannah over the last week. She had logged the names of the stores at each sensor location for all the malls. The list made biking from one sensor node to the next a snap. The store entrance beside them was at spiral mark 36,836, just one node away from the Green Mall sky-bridge at spiral mark 37,540. The fact the Ashley and Hannah were holding at this position implied that Segundo's party was between the sensors at spiral marks 38,257 and 38.988. Their mission plan was to maintain a separation of at least two sensor jumps. The same was true for Ann and Madison out in front of Segundo. The two teams were almost identical, except that Madison was armed with a pistol. Hannah frowned slightly at the feces and urine on the floor a few tens of meters in front of them. She couldn't really blame Segundo's party for this. They had no other toilet option, and the mall servos were not being given enough of a buffer to remain hidden and still clean up the messes. Still, the wet puddles and turds were unpleasant to find. Ashley picked up on Hannah's displeasure. "At least there's no more pink mixed in with the urine. I'm hoping Cassie has stopped bleeding." Hannah nodded and muttered under her breath, "The monsters, they're driving her to her death." Ashley shivered in response. Four hours ago, she and Hannah and Emily had been near the hub area of Black Mall. There they found a horrific scene of chopped up pieces of sled and most of Bambino's torso. The mall servos had not had time to complete its decomposition or clean up the blood and other bodily fluids. Interestingly, the servos had left a stack of water bottles alone. Emily commented that the servos had decided the bottles were a depot of supplies and not garbage, and thus had left them untouched. After a brief discussion, the women spent a few extra minutes opening a store and stashing the bottles behind a counter. And now it was 2:24 PM, and Ashley and Hannah were still waiting by the lamp store. Segundo was driving his group hard, a grinding 6 kph pace along the spiral, hour after hour. Ashley thought their go signal should have come two minutes ago, and then finally there it was. Lynn had just verified the sensor's internal data buffer twice, producing two quick blue flashes. Ashley nodded at the sensors and took off with Hannah to their next station. This one would be impossible to miss. It was the Green Mall sky-bridge, and it became more and more visible around the curve as they biked. Simultaneously, at the 39 km mark of Green Mall. "Fucking hell," thought Segundo. "Now my throat is sore, and whose fault is that? It's the fucking whore's fault. Fucking bitch!" He was walking a few meters out ahead of his group in an attempt to cool off, and it wasn't working. Hadn't Cassie learned her lesson back at the hub? This was the third time in less than an hour that he was screaming at her to speed up, and he had just finished by telling her in a raspy voice thaqt this was absolutely her last warning. "Stupid, lazy, dumb bitch!" he had screamed. "You want more of what you got this morning?!" But the screams this time had made very little impact on her pace, made her steps more wobbly if anything. Segundo looked ahead at the featureless and barren corridor, beginning the struggle anew with what he was doing. By himself, he perhaps would have turned back an hour ago, agreeing with Ernesto's assessment that there was no way Chico's party could have come this far this fast. But was that strictly true? And how would Uno react to Segundo killing Bambino and disobeying Chico's order to return home? Would Ernesto and Geraldo stick with his story when they got back? Segundo had been hoping to catch Chico in a betrayal, making the point moot. Now though, hell, how much face would he lose if just gave up now? Segundo heard a large thud behind him and then Ernesto started yelling. Segundo whipped around and was horrified to see Cassidy flat on her back, lying on her crumpled backpack, and there was water gushing all over the floor around her. Segundo became livid. "Fucking whore!" he screamed and he ran back to kick her. But Ernesto was in the way, frantically unhitching the backpack from her limp shoulders and trying to hold the crushed water containers inside upright. "Don't bother," he called out to Segundo who was circling around for a kick. "She won't feel it." Meanwhile, on the second floor of Blazo's Art Gallery at the Green Mall sky-bridge The crowd in the monitoring room was stunned by such depravity. Brandi was crying openly, Jada felt as if someone had just kicked her in the stomach, and the others were standing in shocked silence. Chico's face was like stone. Jada looked up and caught his eyes. He along with the other Party #5 recruits had been briefed on the new ability, and he accepted the contact and link. Chico expressed a burst of raw emotional context, completely nonverbal. Jada barely had time to respond with the thought, "Agreed. I feel the same," when Chico hiccupped and broke the connection. Jada looked down at her hands and tried to compose herself. "Perhaps Chico will fit in after all. I know his heart through the link. Mark was right, no lies can exist in such clarity. His detention in Green Mall might be very brief." Jada then gritted her teeth and created a conference call with both the away teams. In a few terse moments, she explained the situation. "Is Cassie dead?" Madison asked from the 40.5 km spiral mark. "I honestly can't tell," replied Jada. "She's lying about twenty meters away from the sensor. She was nonresponsive when Ernesto pulled off her backpack. He was quite rough with her and let her head hit the floor. There was no reaction at all." "Jada," Madison answered, "if we're going to try a rescue attempt, it's got to be now." Jada nodded. "I know. Ashley, Hannah, it's got to be you who extract her and bring her back to the sky-bridge. If she is alive, she'll never survive a bike ride to the terminal store. Madison and Ann, can you act as decoys and draw the muchachos forward? I've got a view of everything. I'll coordinate your approach." Chico spoke up into the intercom. "Everybody, you should know that all four of our muchachos were all on the varsity track team back at Burlington. They're fast! Plan on these three pacing three-minute kilometers for a long run, even with boots on, and even faster for a short sprint." "Chico, how good is Segundo with a gun?" asked Madison's voice. "I've never seen him fire." Chico thought for a second. Segundo was a man of very little patience, and Chico had often seen him make quick, jerky movements. "I would guess not great but I really don't know." "Okay, thanks. Jada, I'm sure you can see us biking back. Tell us how far to go." "I want to give you a 600 meter buffer. Go to mark 39.6. Ashley and Hannah, I want you at position 38.4. I'll guide you both for when to stop. Be sure to hug the inside arc near your holding points." Jada turned to Emily. "Go and open the door. Stand by for a quick re-lock." Emily nodded and headed down the stairs. Toshi turned and followed her. A few minutes later both teams were in position. Ann had opened a nearby restroom and shower "store" at spiral mark 39,644, 88 meters beyond the sensor location at mark 39,732. She pushed the two bikes and side-cars inside. Meanwhile Madison ran forward along the inside arc an additional quarter kilometer. She was now four hundred meters from Segundo's party. "Jada, just give the word," she said calmly into her phone. "The second team is in position. Keep the line open. I'll warn you if Segundo stops and tries to fire. Madison, be careful! You can't afford to slip and fall." "Yes, I know. Jada, this is worth the risk. You're making the right decision." Madison took a deep breath. "Okay, here I go." She calmly walked across the corridor from the inside edge to the outside edge of the spiral, and then turned to the muchachos and started screaming and waving her arms. ------- Chapter 33 Time: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 2:32 PM Segundo and his team were just finishing draining the last of the ruined water containers into more durable canteens. With the extra canteens in their backpacks, he estimated their total water supply at eight liters, with more water about forty kilometers away where they had left Bambino's body. Segundo took a moment to think. With three people, it was an adequate amount for two to three days, and he estimated that they were currently a hundred kilometers from the unlocked portion of Black Mall. Getting home would be no problem, but their reserves were very thin. It was blindingly obvious they should turn around now. Segundo sighed and eyed the last remaining crushed water bottle from Cassie's backpack. It still held about two good gulps of water, and he reached for it to soothe his raspy throat. A flicker of motion down the long corridor caught his eye. Frowning, Segundo brought up his binoculars to take a look. There was a young woman there, and she was waving frantically and appeared to be gesturing to somewhere further down the spiral, Segundo guessed to people he could not see. Then the woman took her binoculars and raised them, and saw Segundo watching her. Segundo saw her scream and run away. "There they are! New people!" he yelled at Geraldo and Ernesto. "Come on!" Geraldo followed at once, joining Segundo in his sprint. Ernesto paused for a second, wondering about the safety of their supplies. But he looked at Cassie. She was as pale as a ghost and he decided she would never get up again. Ernesto rose and ran after his teammates at full speed. Jada was at first impressed and then alarmed at how quickly Segundo and his companions were running Madison down. Jada shouted to Maddy over the phone that there was no need to bait her pursuers, but just to get back to Ann as quickly as she could. Segundo closed to within a quarter kilometer of Madison's position by the time she got back to the open store. For a few seconds, he thought of the option of stopping and firing at her, but he wanted the woman alive and besides, he knew hitting anything from such a distance would be pure luck for him. He was beginning to grin as he closed in on the fleeing woman, his mind just beginning to think how enjoyable the upcoming interrogation might be, when the woman suddenly turned and disappeared along the inside edge of the arc. Segundo howled in dismay and put on an all-out burst of speed. Ann had pushed the door-close button a second before Madison entered the room, and as the door descended, the only remaining task was to insert the mushroom lock. But Ann's hands felt stiff and awkward from her nervousness, and as she worked the lock into position, she fumbled with it and it almost fell through the cutout in the door and into the corridor outside. "Ann!" yelled Madison. Losing the lock in the corridor now would be a disaster. Madison moved to her side-car to retrieve her pistol. "Don't worry! I got it!" Ann took a deep breath and then deliberately tried the lock again, inserting it and snap-twisting it home seconds before Segundo arrived. They were safe except for the several-centimeter gap between the lock and the cutout in the side of the transparent door. Segundo didn't seem to notice the opening. His two teammates caught up with him a few seconds later. Meanwhile, 635 spiral meters away. Ashley and Hannah pulled up with their two side-cars along the inside arc where Cassidy lay unmoving. Hannah worked to turn the two bikes around while Ashley leaped and knelt by Cassidy and examined her. "She's alive!" she said into her open line, and then she gave a soft cry at how brutally Cassidy had been beaten. She continued her examination. "Shallow breathing though, and shallow pulse. Jada, this is going to be close." Hannah joined Ashley, and together they placed the unconscious Cassidy into a side-car as gently as they could. At the locked restroom. Segundo briefly snarled at the unknown woman, but then his eyes locked on her cohort. Ann! She would know the fate of Santos! He had to get inside, he had to! Segundo looked around the door, his eyes not quite catching the small gap around the mushroom lock. Madison stood frozen in the hateful glares. "Just keep them occupied for a minute, just for a minute. That's all we need. Just keep them from looking back at Cassie." Madison's mind was racing as she stared at the three men glaring at her and Ann. And just how should she distract them? Her mind laughed as she thought of the obvious answer. Madison quickly unbuckled and unzipped her jeans, and then when she was sure she had the three men's attention, she turned around and pulled down both her jeans and panties, mooning the men in the corridor. She turned around and faced them, her jeans at her ankles, and as she expected and hoped, three pairs of eyes dropped to her crotch. Her pubic fur was acting like a magnet for their eyes. On her head Madison had auburn hair with a reddish ting, and she had heard of the term strawberry blond before, but she was the only woman she ever heard of who had natural pubic fur the dark red color of ripe strawberries. Madison remembered entering puberty and placing a ripe strawberry next to her new fur and marveling at the color match. And when she was in for a regular checkup, her doctor was even suspicious that Megan was dyeing her pubic hair, and later privately wondered if it might be a genetic mutation. And now Maddy's natural fur color was serving her well, captivating the attention of the three men. "Boy, it's so amazing," Madison thought as she struggled not to laugh. "How thick can you get?" She stuck her left index finger in her mouth and wetted it. Meanwhile her right hand went between her bare thighs and she parted the thick red fur. She displayed the closed outer lips of her labia and then separated them with her fingers, showing the men a bright display of pink in the center of the strawberry fur. Then her wet finger went down and pressed in and up above her vagina, lifting the protective fold of skin and popping her completely non-aroused clitoris into view. Madison giggled as she saw the men's eyes lock onto her tiny bullet-shaped button. Ann got into the act and started to take off her shirt. She and Madison started to compete with each other, trying to see who could hold the boys' attention more. Madison turned and mooned at the boys again, and then did a deep forward bend, her head close to the floor, her bare rump very close to the transparent door. She then reached behind with both hands and spread her ass cheeks wide, exposing her anus for the boys' viewing pleasure. She saw Geraldo giving catcalls of appreciation through the upside-down view through her legs. Meanwhile, Ann's shirt was off, and after an intentional ploy of having trouble unhooking her bra, she finally undid the clasp and displayed her breasts for the waiting audience. They were the fine breasts of a twenty-year-old woman in excellent physical shape, taut and shapely and with perky nipples of dark chocolate color that looked as if they were just waiting to be suckled. Ann pinched her nipples to arouse them and then walked straight to the transparent door and pressed her naked breasts against it. She cupped her hands under her tits and then did a slow gyration, rubbing the hard points of her nipples against the door. The appearance was that of begging the boys to suck her dry. And then it was Madison's turn. She stood up and turned her shoulders and head to give them the sexiest "Come hither boys, I'm ready for you" smile she could manage. She then bent forward again and arched her spine while at the same time rising up on tiptoes. The net effect was to raise her anus and vulva into a very visible and accessible position, with her enticing red fur hanging beneath. Madison spread her butt cheeks again and bore down on her bowels, causing her exposed anus to pout and open slightly. The invitation for anal coupling was unmistakable. Madison wiggled her butt playfully, showing the boys how eager she was for mounting. She jerked her hips back and forth, just as if she already had a cock shoved up her butt. It wasn't hard to imagine it. A stiff tent pole was showing in each of the three men's pants. It was Ernesto who came to his senses. "What the hell?!" he thought, and he grabbed Segundo's binoculars from around his panting leader's neck and then pressed himself against the outside edge of the spiral. He was scanning as far along the spiral as he could, and what he saw horrified him. He was catching glimpses of activity, right at their old position. Their supplies, their supplies!?! "Setup!" he screamed, and he started running back to their backpacks and canteens as fast as his body could move. Segundo blinked and froze for a moment as his mind switched gears, and then he screamed in frustration. A second later he and Geraldo chased after Ernesto. Segundo cursed as he ran. It was so difficult to sprint with a throbbing hard erection. "Great work Ann," Madison said as she pulled up her panties and pants. "Get ready for take-off." Ann replied with a nervous giggle. "Maddy, I never realized what a cute butt you have!" Madison blinked in shocked surprise, but then a brief eye contact revealed that the comment was made as a pure joke to relieve Ann's nervous tension and embarrassing interest in the color of Madison's pubic fur. Madison grinned and then it was back to business. She checked in with Jada on their adversaries' position. Ann got the bikes as Madison moved to unlock the door. At Spiral Mark 38,500 Biking with Cassie at 25 kph and the sky-bridge less than a kilometer away, Hannah thought they were out of danger. She had no idea that top runners could run this fast. The three muchachos were managing to pace her and Ashley down the spiral, less than 500 meters back. Through a brutal burst of speed, Segundo had managed to catch up to Ernesto, and for about twenty seconds the two men sprinted side by side. "Segundo," Ernesto gasped as he ran, "Give me the gun." Segundo wondered if Ernesto wanted to stop and fire. "From five hundred meters?!" he thought. "With a pistol?!" The two side-cars were tiny dots, even with binoculars just barely visible as Hannah biked near the outside arc of the spiral. But then Segundo realized Ernesto considered himself a much better marksman, and Segundo had to admit that he was. "Right ... When we stop," he panted. "Know the place..." Ernesto nodded. He suspected the cyclist's destination too, that pair of stores connected by the overhead walkway. Ernesto was glad it wasn't any further. They were racing at a killer pace. Hannah with Cassie and then Ashley biked into the first floor of Blazo's Art Gallery, and Fatima pushed the button to close the door as soon as Ashley cleared the threshold. The pursuers were less than a half kilometer back and would be here in little more than a minute. Chico was waiting for them. He lifted Cassie's limp body out of the side-car with extreme gentleness and hurried up the stairs. Several of the women were struck at how such a large man could move with such grace and speed. And then he was gone, meeting up with Aggie and Emily upstairs who would guide him to their home in Red Mall and the medical complex there. Segundo and Ernesto arrived winded outside the stores. As they panted and caught their breath, Segundo handed Ernesto the pistol and they both looked around for some way to get to all the women they could see inside the store. Ernesto's eyes finally caught sight of the small gap between the lock and the door. He stuck the barrel of the pistol through it. The women screamed and flattened themselves against the front wall of the store. Ernesto growled. He couldn't quite get enough angle to fire at them, but at least he could prevent them from climbing the stairs. He looked around the store. Besides this door, perhaps the stairs were their only way out. Good! Geraldo finally caught up with them, and he panted heavily as he pulled up. Meanwhile Jada was upstairs and on the phone. She informed Ann and Madison of the successful trip of Cassie to Red Mall and the situation of Ernesto with the gun, and then commented, "Maddy, you really don't have to do this." "Jada, it's completely safe. We won't get within 1400 meters of your position." Jada couldn't think of a counter argument. "You get a warning from me, you even lose the phone connection, turn around immediately and get the hell out of there." "Agreed. And Ann and I will bike at 30 kph for an hour, no way in hell any runner is going to keep up with that." Ann and Madison pulled up with their side-cars to the spot where Cassie collapsed. They dismounted and quickly started loading the muchachos' backpacks and canteens into their vehicles. In less than a minute, everything was packed, nothing left but the damp floor where Cassie's fall had broken the water bottles. Madison paused for a second and spoke to Jada. "Segundo and company still at the sky-bridge?" "Yeah, a total standoff. But the door will begin to seal soon though. We're not in any danger. Maddy, there's absolutely no need for you to try to lure Segundo away from here. Just take off." Jada paused and added, "That's an order." "Oui mon capitan!" Madison replied. "I just need to relieve myself first." She dropped her pants and then squatted, urinating directly over the damp floor where Cassie had fallen. Ann had already mounted her bike and looked politely away, only turning back when she heard Madison zip her pants. And then the anger Ann had been suppressing forced her face into a deep grimace. She and Cassidy had become dear friends this last month. "One second Maddy," she called out, and then surprised her companion by dropping her own pants and urinating directly over the spot Madison had chosen. Ann then zipped up quickly and mounted her bike. "I'm ready now," she said calmly. Madison nodded and mounted her own bike. She looked back for a second at the puddle she and Ann had enlarged and thought of the brutal torture of Cassidy. "Assholes," she muttered, and then kicked off and began to speed bike towards the terminal store. For the first ten kilometers Ann had to work hard to keep up with her. Back at the sky-bridge, time was passing slowly for Segundo and his subordinates. They were on the outside and the women were trapped inside, but it just didn't feel like much of a siege. Segundo saw Ernesto working to swivel the pistol around to cover the stairs leading up. It looked as if he were having trouble rotating the pistol. Neither of them realized that the door was slowly flowing to seal around the lock. Something else was bothering Segundo too, something that in the excitement of the chase he had chosen to ignore. Holy shit, yes! Their supplies! They had just left them on the floor in passing over a kilometer back. At the time, Segundo didn't want to be slowed down by the weight, but hell, it was their lifeline to home, and he had just left it there. "Geraldo! We have to get our packs! Ernesto, keep them covered!" Less than one minute after Madison and Ann had taken off, Segundo and Geraldo began what they assumed would be a five minute run to their gear. And five minutes later, they were given a hard lesson concerning their utter stupidity. Both men cursed, and then Segundo's throat felt so raspy he knelt on the floor and tore a piece of cloth from his shirt and mopped up the puddle where Cassie had lain. He wrung the cloth out into his mouth. And was spitting out the moisture a second later. "Piss! Bitch piss! Those fucking bitches! They pissed on the water!" Segundo spat in disgust. The ammonia in the urine had felt horrible against his tender throat. Geraldo's eyes went wide. "Holy shit. They didn't miss a trick. I bet it was that new woman, the one with the strawberry bush and the creamy white ass. Shitface Ann would never have the balls to do something like this." Geraldo was about to say more but stopped himself. He had learned in the past that criticizing Segundo for bad decisions just was not a good idea. So Geraldo bit his tongue and remained silent, wondering how he might have done things differently. Segundo guessed what his fellow muchacho was thinking. "Come on, back to Ernesto," he growled, and the two began a tired jog back to Ernesto. Meanwhile at the sky-bridge, Fatima walked up to the door near Ernesto and pressed her face against the transparency, hoping that Ernesto would look her in the eyes. She thought the time of the struggle was over. The door was in the process of cutting Ernesto's pistol barrel in half, though he didn't seem to realize it. Fatima was deeply troubled and disgusted by the men's lethal abuse of Cassie. Fatima felt shaken to her soul by such depravity, and she wanted to confront and accuse Ernesto of his despicable crimes. Ernesto snarled and growled at her for a few seconds, and then they finally locked eyes. "You monster!" Fatima screamed in her mind. "There can be no excuse! Where is your shame?!" "Fucking stupid whore! You think a turd like you has the right to criticize me?!" Ernesto was about to think a lot more, but Fatima had had enough. She jerked her head away and broke the connection. Ernesto hiccupped and then looked momentarily confused, wondering what the hell had just happened. Had he just spoken to this witch woman through the door? Fatima's heart felt as cold and heavy as stone. "Pure evil, no redeeming characteristics," she thought. "Ernesto, I think you should be destroyed." Fatima turned around and began walking calmly towards the stairs. When she crossed directly in line with the pistol, Ernesto fired. ------- Chapter 34 Time: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 2:57 PM Segundo and Geraldo were less than fifty meters from the sky-bridge, with Ernesto's position at the door clearly visible to them. Suddenly there was a flash of light and very loud bang, much louder than a simple pistol shot, and Ernesto started screaming in anguish. His two teammates ran the remaining distance and saw that another tragedy had been heaped upon them. Ernesto's left hand was half blown off. His wrist looked broken and three of his five fingers were sliced open. The worst was his thumb. It looked almost sliced in two. And the grove between his middle and ring fingers extended three centimeters further than it should have. The hand was losing blood all over the floor, and his palm looked like raw hamburger meat. Segundo screamed at Ernesto's stupidity and for a moment Segundo was at a loss for what to do. They had neither the equipment nor knowledge to treat Ernesto's injuries. Geraldo took off his shirt and wrapped the ruined hand in it while Segundo turned and stared into the Art Gallery. The last of the women were in a line and walking up the stairs, their heads turned away. Their message of final and utter rejection was unmistakable, and Geraldo felt a chill to his bone. It was just as if the women were a jury, and they were filing out after delivering a death verdict. And without their help, Ernesto couldn't possibly survive. Geraldo picked up the exploded pistol and examined it. It wasn't hard to see what had happened. The barrel was broken in half, with the middle it severely pinched down. Hot gases from Ernesto's shot had been forced to backflow into the magazine below the breech, causing several other bullets to explode and rupture the magazine. The effect was similar to having a hand wrapped around a small grenade that went off. "Fuck you bitches!" Segundo screamed at the now empty store. "You stupid, stupid whores!" He thought savagely, "They think they're so fucking smart! I swear, each one of them is going to get what Cassidy got, and more! I swear it! Somehow I'll make it back to Uno. Somehow I will! And someday these fucking bitches will pay!" But the righteous anger and bravado could not hold. Segundo's thoughts turned inward, the anger turning into fear. Ernesto might be done for, but what about Geraldo and himself? Could the two of them survive? Could they walk forty kilometers without water? Yes, he was very confident they could. But could they walk a hundred kilometers? What if the water they had left by Bambino's body wasn't there? Could they walk a hundred kilometers? Visions of dehydrated Marathon runners collapsing to the ground began to play in Segundo's mind. There would be no one to help him, and hell, he was badly in need of water now. Segundo had to work to keep himself from shaking. Later that evening, 6:30 PM, at the mini-hospital complex of Red Mall Brandi, Emily, and Allison were a three-person team watching over a still unconscious Cassidy who was plugged into the autodoc at Red Mall's hospital suite. After several hours of operations, the strange machine was now quiet. Cassidy had an IV and was catheterized, plus there were numerous probes attached to her body, on her fingers and chest. Brandi and Allison had been taking turns petting Cassie's head or holding her hand. Jada walked into the suite from the library, having just arrived at Red Mall through the first floor elevator. "How is Cassidy doing?" she asked in a concerned voice. Emily took a second to glance at the bewildering diagnostic displays above the autodoc. "You just missed seeing Paige here. I told her Cassidy might be coming along okay. These display numbers here, I'm certain it's her blood pressure. It's up to 115 over 68, the best yet. And all these indicators here," she added, pointing with her hand, "None of them are orange any more. If the autodoc is following the same color conventions as the janitor codes, I'm hoping that means Cassidy is out of danger." "Orange is the color for danger?" Allison asked as she looked over the display. She had just relieved Paige at the hospital about ten minutes ago. Emily nodded. "I'm guessing so, yeah. Maybe white is a less serious problem, green is marginal but sort of okay, and the purplish blue is what it's happy with. I'm guessing but I think I'm right." As Emily watched, one of the few remaining white diagnostics switched to green. Cassidy's abdominal muscles moved slightly and a small amount of clear yellow liquid drained along the catheter tube. Jada walked close and stared at their patient, resting her head on her forehead and feeling it was cool and dry. "God, I hope she's all right. I thought we lost her when she stopped breathing." "It was less than a minute," Emily whispered. "I'm hoping she's okay too. Chico was very impressive. Running up the stairwell and across the rooms, the man was flying, and he was so gentle with her, no bobbing at all." Jada nodded and looked at the watch team. "So, you guys okay with missing the meeting?" Allison spoke for them all. "Of course. Just fill us in afterwards. When's it starting?" "Oh, about twenty minutes I guess, whenever I get there." Jada then turned to Brandi. "Brandi, we think Ernesto might die if his wound isn't treated soon. We'll be discussing this at the meeting. Brandi, could you help me? I didn't want to interrogate you so quickly, but..." "Sure Jada, anything I can do to help. What would you like to know?" "I need ... We need to know what we're up against. The men of Black Mall, why did they throw away their decency? What are we working with here?" Brandi was still for a long moment and trembled before replying. "You're being too kind. It wasn't just the men. I threw away my decency too." Allison surprised Brandi by reaching over and giving her a brief hug around the waist. "Brandi, there's really not much to forgive. The other three taskmistresses were in another league entirely. We all used to hope for you to be in charge of us." Brandi grimaced. "And what about Britney?" "Brandi, you had no part in that, other than deciding not to walk in front of Uno's gunmen. I didn't either, none of us did." "How did Britney die?" Jada asked in a whisper. Allison gave a tearful sigh. "At the end, Ricardo caned her throat. He crushed her larynx. Britney suffocated to death." Jada grimaced and returned to Brandi. "Why?! Why such monstrosity? The drug didn't affect us this way!" "I know, I know," Brandi wailed. "It wasn't the drug, at least not directly! This has been going on for months, not the murders maybe, but the cruelty. Beta Sigma Rho was turning into a really disgusting frat house. It wasn't like this last year, the school year I mean, before the fall term." Brandi took a deep breath and tried to answer Jada's original question. "Last school year the frat seniors were a bunch of great guys, a little wild maybe, and gun enthusiasts too, but at their core they were good people. They were my friends. This year everything changed. Uno, Chico, Santos, and Gilberto were the four senior officers, and Chico was the only one I thought was worth anything. The other three really changed the character of the house. Their four pledges this year, the muchachos, were absolutely horrible, all four of them. And Ricardo is the worst, a real nut case and a martial arts fanatic too. It gave me the creeps just to be in the same room with him." Jada shook her head. "Couldn't Chico move out?" "Ah, we talked about that some. But Chico and I were both graduating in June. It would be a hassle to find hew housing, and besides Chico really loved his fraternity. He hated to see the place falling apart. So he stuck around and tried to make a difference." Allison interrupted. "Brandi, do you know that Chico raped me?" Brandi turned to her and grimaced. "No. I knew about Mandy, not you. I'm so sorry." She gave an emotional grimace. "And I didn't even try to talk him out of it. I don't know why. It's like a nightmare where you keep making the wrong decisions." She then whispered, "Allison?" "Yeah?" "How badly did he ... Was he cruel?" Allison paused for a moment. "No. He was the only one who raped me that wasn't." Allison sighed and reluctantly let her mind relive the memory. "It was Mandy's turn for night shift work. She was feeling very depressed and looking awful. I ... I volunteered to ask Chico to take me instead. Mandy accepted my offer. She started crying..." Allison sniffled and went on. "Chico took me to his bedroom. I let him undress me. And then I let him pet me. Maybe it was technical rape only, but it was still rape. Chico had me naked on his bed. He was petting me. I was listless, trying to take my mind elsewhere. He had lube, and I had just gone through this nonsense with Jessica less than an hour ago. When I felt his finger enter my vagina, all the way up inside me, I just couldn't take it anymore. I just lost it and flipped out! I screamed at him and told him to shoot me instead!" Another sigh. "I think I was really expecting to die. But Chico looked embarrassed, more than embarrassed, ashamed of himself. I was surprised. And he did stop, I'll give him credit for that, and his cock deflated like a punctured balloon. He did not try to touch me again. Still, he penetrated me, and he knew I was being coerced. I still think of him as someone who raped me. I guess that's all I have to say." After a moment, Jada tried to pick up her conversation with Brandi. "So Chico decided to stay with the frat?" Brandi nodded and frowned, trying to remember her earlier conversation. "Yes. Toro and Diego stuck around too. A lot of other people moved out though..." "Ah. How well do you know Toro?" "Toro is a very old friend of both Chico and me. He's a couple of years younger. He's a ... He was a sophomore. He's okay, more than okay. Just try to get to know him Jada. You'll like him. And Diego, yeah, maybe Diego has some goodness in him too. He reminds me of Bambino a bit, a quiet guy but without the nervousness." Brandi sighed and concluded. "All the others though, the frat men that are still alive, they're old friends of Uno and Gilberto. They're one nasty bunch of hombres. Alfredo and Alfonso were juniors. Hernando and Jenaro were sophomores." Allison added, "I agree with your opinion about the last four. They were all raping us hoof pussies with gusto." Jada sighed. "I'm sorry to hear it. There are so few men left. I don't see how we can afford to lose so many." Brandi shook her head. "Jada, the true loss comes with having them around." Allison piped up again. "It's true Jada. I hate condemning people, but from my experience as a slave, I have to agree." Jada shrugged. "Okay, you know these men and I don't. I'll accept your opinion. And what about the three women?" Brandi thought for a second. "Oh, Amber and Whitney are okay I guess, much better people that Neto and Pancho were, that's for sure. I'll never understand why they hung on to those two. They seemed to me to be tough survivors, and I'm hoping they're doing okay. And as for Jessica... " Brandi shuddered. "Allison, why don't you take over on this one?" Allison looked pale but nodded to her old taskmistress. "Brandi, I don't blame you for not stopping her. There was nothing you could do." Allison then turned and spoke to Jada. "Jessica is one sick person. She was the one that started the contraband inspections, full inspections with latex gloves. I'm still having nightmares about it, and it's almost a week since she had her fingers inside me. It was all a sick joke. Jessica would use ten times the amount of lube needed, and then just slide around forever inside me, vagina and rectum, back and forth, pretending to search for something she knew wasn't there. I think she just wanted to see how far she could dilate me, that and get me to cry. She wouldn't leave my butt until she had broken me." Allison paused and gave a soft whimper. "And Britney! Jessica had a finger up Britney's butt the moment Ricardo caned her throat. That horror is going to stay with me forever. The image of Britney choking with Jessica dancing around in gleeful laughs, her awful maniacal laughs..." Allison shook and could say nothing more. She just sat there looking miserable. Brandi came to her and hugged her, and Allison returned the hug. A moment later Emily and Jada joined in the group embrace. Simultaneously in the terminal store of Green Mall... Chico sat back in a very plush chair at the Hilton Executive Conference Center, waiting for the meeting to start. It was a few minutes before 7 PM, and besides Toro and himself there were a dozen women in the room, and they were all waiting for Jada. His understanding was that their acting leader was with the three women who were staying with Cassidy. What a feeling of relief. Cassidy was going to be okay, as least that's what Paige said, provided the woman named Emily was reading that fantastic gizmo table correctly, the one the women were calling an autodoc. Cassidy was going to be okay, as least physically. But what she would think when she woke up? Did she even know that her boyfriend Bambino was dead? Probably, but there was much they still didn't know. Chico looked at the huge monitors on the wall opposite the magical elevator. They spanned almost the entire length of their large room. And there was so much they did know. Lynn and Akiko plus another woman whose name Chico couldn't quite remember were making rapid process connecting their mall monitoring system to this central facility. Currently this room had push-button access to the entire surveillance systems of Green and Black Malls, with more soon to follow. Chico looked around the room sheepishly. A few of the women from his old group would give him stiff nods of recognition and then turn away. They were obviously still unsettled by the idea of giving Chico amnesty. And Chico didn't blame them a bit. He had spent a torturous time alone with himself while the others had an evening meal. He finally forced himself to see what a monster he had become, clearly raping two women, Mandy multiple times and Allison once. And he had almost raped three. He had intended to rape Toshi. He had brought her to his room fully intending to have sex with her, perhaps being friendly with her at first, chatting for a while before petting her and hoping she would be a willing partner, but in the end having sex with her regardless of her feelings. She had not resisted holding hands with him as he checked her out of the pussy barn, and Chico had taken that as an encouraging sign. And he gave admiring glances to her required state of dress, a skimpy bra and thong panties. But when he got her to his bedroom and sat down beside her, he noticed she was staring listlessly at the floor as he petted her breasts through the bra. Before he undressed her, he tried to smile at her. With his massive hand, he tilted her chin to look at him as gently as he could. Her eyes! The sadness and despair! Her eyes touched his mind and then his heart, reminding him of Allison. Chico suddenly felt humiliated by what he was about to do. He looked away in shame, and after the moment it took to recover, he was surprised to see his erection had completely disappeared. Chico got up and got the shivering Toshi a couple of blankets and allowed her to curl up and take a nap on his bed while he sat nearby and read a book, unknowingly practicing the ritual Toro had been doing night after night. For the first half hour Toshi didn't believe him. He would look up from his book and see her staring at him with wet and mournful eyes. But then their eyes met for a long moment, and somehow a degree of trust became established. Toshi fell asleep, and when he woke her two hours later to return her to the barn, she went on tip-toes and kissed his cheek before he led her out of the room. Chico blushed with the memory. If only he would have done the same with Allison and Mandy. Mandy! He had raped her repeatedly, night after night. Chico never felt more ashamed in his life. He had told himself she sort of liked him, sort of liked what he was doing, and it was all delusions. Chico felt he deserved punishment, severe punishment, and yet these women were offering him amnesty. He felt completely unworthy of it. And not just amnesty, true forgiveness and acceptance. Jada had been very clear on that point. Chico would even be on the next shift watching Cassidy, along with Mandy and a very smart woman named Aggie. Chico closed his eyes for a moment and thought, "Mandy, my God Mandy. What have I done? I convinced myself you had more or less gotten used to me. But it was rape. It was rape every time." Chico wondered if he could ever do anything besides apologize. And Toro! Chico couldn't help but compare his interactions with the former slaves to their relaxed acceptance of Toro. Chico had learned today that his closest friend had never raped anybody, had just taken the women to his bedroom to give them a night of rest, giving them the bed while he slept in a chair. It was quite a risk. Uno would have considered it a gross abuse of privileges and a direct challenge to his new world order. Uno's goal was to beat the slaves into absolute obedience and submission. Toro had risked his life to be kind to the slaves, and he was now getting many nods of gratitude in return. It was the eye contact that made this all possible. Unbelievable stuff, and a part of Chico was terrified by it. He suspected it made lying absolutely impossible. Maybe you could hide a thought, he wasn't sure, but lie? The feeling was like being the sole black cockroach in the center of an acre of a pure white kitchen floor, right after someone had snapped on the lights. There was absolutely no place to conceal emotional desire, and to Chico that presented a profound question. How could you ever hope to hide your true desires and emotions from yourself if you couldn't even hide them from others? In the brave new world, people would no longer be able to ignore their own moral flaws, not when the people around you could inspect your soul. "And so you have to choose," Chico thought. "Face and overcome the vileness, or surrender to it. The middle ground has all but disappeared." He looked again in Mandy's direction, hoping she was okay and wondering how he could ever possibly make amends. She saw his glance and stood up immediately and came over and sat down in a vacant chair right next to him. She turned her face straight towards him, and Chico had been taught the new mannerisms well enough to know that she was both offering and requesting eye contact. Chico gulped and accepted. "Mandy, I'm..." "You! Can you feel what it's like now, to have you forced inside me when I don't want you?!" The waves of revulsion made Chico wince. This close together, the mind connection was superb, incredibly detailed, and Chico allowed Mandy to push her full raw and emotion-laden experience to him. Chico was almost female, his/her body was almost being violated in a terror that previously had been completely beyond his/her comprehension. Chico was almost being raped by himself. A large powerful man was holding his/her legs apart and was forcing his erection into his/her vagina. Chico could even feel the slimy lubrication on his anus and vaginal folds. Chico's jaw clenched and he struggled not to wince and break the connection. His revulsion of the lubed fingers sliding into his vagina was so extreme, he felt like vomiting. But Chico pushed the bile back down into his stomach and maintained the mind link. He reckoned Mandy deserved that much, that much and more. And the rest of the world seemed completely motionless. Locked in the link, both Chico and Mandy realized their emotional content must be in the stratosphere, so high that a few seconds of outside time were giving them subjective minutes to communicate. And what would they do with all that time? Chico as overwhelmed with contrition. "If there's some way you want to punish me, I will accept it." "Do you think that helps me?!" "Mandy, what else can I do?! Seriously, kick me in the balls, as many times as you want. Or if you want to do it with a whip, I'll find a whip for you." "You idiot! Don't you think I know that?! Your sorrow and shame are like an open book to me! That's what's making this so difficult!" "Huh?!" "It would be so much easier to hate you! But I can't, not when you're begging me for mercy!" Recognition dawned in Chico's mind. "My sincerity is infuriating you." "Exactly!" It was Mandy who hiccupped and broke the connection. Jada entered the room and without formality started the meeting. She first gave an update on Cassidy, saying the autodoc was showing her progressing nicely from a coma to restful sleep, and that it was miraculous how quickly the autodoc was repairing the damage to her face and pelvic area. The topic then turned to the main item for tonight's discussion, whether to continue with the death sentences of the three men trapped in Green Mall. Ernesto had been abandoned by Segundo and Geraldo within a few hundred meters after they started their trip home. There were never any formal goodbyes. The two uninjured men had simply kept up a walking pace that Ernesto could not match. And he seemed to realize the finality of their decision. He never called out to them, not when they were five meters ahead, not when they were twenty, not when they were pulling out of earshot, and not when they disappeared around the curve as two tiny dots. Ernesto had collapsed to the floor shortly afterwards, having walked less than two kilometers from the sky-bridge and dripping blood all the way. And now he was a motionless pile of humanity, lying in a coma about halfway between their two sensor nodes at spiral marks 35,468 and 36,145. The reasons he was thought to be still alive were the elevator census counters were still at 015:100, and the mall cleaners had not begun to dismember his body. Meanwhile Segundo and Geraldo were doing an admirable job pacing themselves for their long trek home, walking with a determined pace and covering six kilometers an hour for the last four hours. To their advantage, the Mall was cool, about 18C. But the air was also quite dry, and both their throats and lips were complaining from the lack of moisture. Jada put the issue of Ernesto's death sentence on the table. The newly freed slaves were very interested in seeing how the meeting would be run. They had accepted the Red Mall group's government that Mark and now Jada could rule by decree during the crisis, but Jada was also following Mark's intention of trying to build consensus and not rule against the majority of the group. And everybody at the table had an equal right to express themselves and vote, including the two men. It was a large leap of faith. And the moral issues were profound. Ernesto could die at any time, and Segundo and Geraldo would be passing the Barnes & Nobel of the Green Mall home complex in one hour. It would be simple for Madison to hold them off with the pistol, ensuring their deaths. "So," said Jada. "Let's talk about Ernesto first. I'd like to begin by letting the people who think we should rescue him speak. I open the issue to the floor, free discussion unless it gets out of hand. You don't have to wait to be recognized." There was a long and painful period of strained silence. It lasted more than a minute as the people searched their consciences. Hannah kept fidgeting in her chair but said nothing. Jada finally gave a long sad sigh. "Anybody?" she asked. "Well," said Hannah who was still looking very uncomfortable, "I'm not sure I'm advocating this, but I'm not sure I want to kill someone either. I suppose we could treat Ernesto in an autodoc. Maybe use the one at Green Mall and then lock him up." "For how long?" asked Paige. "I don't know. For life without parole if we have to," Hannah answered and then wondered out loud, "Could we do that?" "I'd like to say something," said Holly. "Ernesto charmed me into coming with him and his frat brothers the Friday before Christmas. Over the last month, I've thought of that decision and the biggest and perhaps the last mistake I would ever make. All three of these men are the cruelest people imaginable. I was often low-pick on the totem pole, the last girl checked out of the barn for night shift work. I was gang raped by ... sometimes by all three of these men at the same time..." Holly's voice caught in her throat and her eyes were suddenly flooded with tears. "Sorry." She took several deep gasps. "Sorry. It went on for weeks..." She gasped again and couldn't speak. She waved her hand to show she was finished. Aggie spoke very quietly. "I was monitoring the autodoc when Holly was being treated. The damage to her rectum was severe. And you all know what happened to Cassidy." Holly nodded and twisted experimentally in her chair. "My God, what a relief now. I thought the rest of my life would be spent in pain." Fatima reached within her clothing and placed a short piece of metal rod on the table. "This is the cutoff half of the pistol Ernesto fired. He tried to shoot me in the back." Jada looked at Toro and then at Chico. Chico accepted the eye contact. Jada thought, "You two are the ones that have known these men the longest. Do you want to speak in their defense?" Overlaid with the verbal question was emotional gentleness. Jada did not want to put Chico in an embarrassing position of either condemning or defending his former frat brothers. And Jada let Chico into her short term memory. Toro had just declined Jada's offer with apologetic thoughts. But Chico decided as vice president of their old fraternity, he couldn't remain silent. But what to say? And then the answer came to him. Speak from the heart. The women around him deserved no less. He cleared his throat and gave himself a moment to think by sipping his glass of water. And then he began. "I don't know how to run a prison. I don't think any of us do. Perhaps we could learn. I guess we could give these people their lives, but I'll say this. All three of these men will be holding a death wish for us. Maybe we'll get lucky the first time we try to run a prison. Maybe with a lifetime of diligence, we will never let our guard down, never be deceived by a fake illness, never provide an opportunity for them to escape." Chico sighed heavily. "But if they do break free, be prepared to watch your back. Be prepared for ambush and sabotage and anything else their vengeance will come up with. Be prepared for attacks against you and against your children." Hannah tried one more time to argue her uneasiness. "But people aren't all good or all evil, are they? Isn't the ability to torture within all of us? Are we so sure these men will never be able to change?" Fatima looked at Hannah with a kind but dismissive expression. "Hannah..." "Oh Fatima, I know! But for us to become executioners..." Hannah could say no more, and for a moment everyone sat in silence. Then Jada looked up and gave a short gasp as she saw that the elevator-counter had counted down to 014:100. As a confirmation, the servo doors in Green Mall around Ernesto's body were opening, and a host of large spidery robots were emerging. "Lynn or Akiko?" asked Jada with a strained voice. "Could you kill the video?" Akiko nodded and typed at a console near her chair. The monitors on Ernesto's position switched to other locations. Jada looked around the room and asked, "Would it be okay if I say a short prayer?" Hearing no objection, she bowed her head and reached out to Paige on her left and Heather on her right to hold hands. Soon all fifteen people in the room were holding hands in a great circle. Chico felt Mandy give his hand a brief squeeze. He turned and saw her offering eye contact. He accepted the link, and then his breath caught in his throat as Mandy thought the words, "I don't hate you Charles." She then bowed her head, breaking the connection. Chico felt like crying. It wasn't just her words. It was the emotional content underneath. Her thoughts were real, soft and gentle and unqualified. And there was more. Mandy had allowed Chico to peer into the core turbulence of her soul, to the half-formed forgiveness she was trying to build for him. And his name! She thought of him as Charles. Chico hadn't used that name in two years. How did she know? It must have been their earlier mind contact. Perhaps a small part of his mind still thought of himself as Charles. And perhaps ... perhaps that original identity was someone Mandy would find easier to forgive. Chico pondered the thought as brushed his hair back with his hand. He looked at Mandy, her head bowed, quietly sitting holding his hand, offering human contact as a token of trust to a man who had raped her repeatedly. What could he do to show his gratitude? Chico sniffled and gave Mandy's hand the gentlest squeeze he could. Jada began to pray. "We've just lost a human being. No, I won't mince words. We didn't lose him. Through our actions we guided his death, just as we are about to guide the deaths of two others. And I think we are just in this, and we thus have the right to shed our feelings of guilt, guilt about the deaths, and the guilt about our feelings of relief. But I hope ... I pray we do not feel joy. I pray we do not feel vengeance." Jada took a deep breath. "When people die, when we die, we die as God's children. It's something we all inherit, being owned by God. We are in a war, and our enemy is taking casualties. Our war is just, but our war is also tragic. Help us dear Lord, never to gloat, never to dehumanize, never to forget the tragedy of these deaths." She paused for a moment and ended with a sigh that was straight from her heart. "God of my inheritance, be by our side." They next discussed Segundo and Geraldo. There the issue of death was more uncertain. Were these men already facing death? They were making good progress heading back home. Madison became agitated during the conversation. "We need to decide soon if I'm blocking the corridor with a pistol. Our home at Green Mall is the best place for the roadblock, and they'll be there in less than an hour." Fatima's eyes lit up as Madison mentioned the word roadblock. She had just remembered something. Yes! And the Black Mall sky-bridge would be the perfect spot. Paige looked at how distressed Madison appeared. "Could you really do it? Shoot to kill without warning?" Madison shrugged. "I won't like it, but yeah." Paige stared at Madison with a combination of awe and fear. Madison continued. "I'll give them one warning. We'll post a sign sixty meters from Barnes & Nobel." She quoted, "Free fire zone past this sign. We will shoot to kill. This is your only warning." Madison looked as if she was about to say more, but then she put both her hands over her face and lowered her head. The previous hours of tending Cassidy and seeing the viciousness that had been inflicted on the woman's body, it was all playing out in her mind. Fatima spoke up. "I think there might be a better way, one where the responsibility of these men's deaths is shared by all of us." Jada looked at Fatima with great relief. She had no desire for Madison to endure what she was going through. "Yes?" she asked. "Our first expedition on the surface," replied Fatima. "You weren't there, but Madison was. Maddy, remember the apple orchard and the elevator? Remember the warehouse in the adjacent hexagon? Remember what was inside?" Madison nodded slowly and then blinked as she realized what Fatima was thinking of. ------- Chapter 35 The next day Time: Thursday, January 24, 2019 10:20 AM Segundo was feeling very pleased with himself as he marched relentlessly down the black spiral line towards home. Fuck those bitches! The two muchachos were going to make it! He and Geraldo were going to make it home! He felt totally vindicated now in their decision to leave Ernesto behind. In the situation they were in, Ernesto's hand wound was fatal, and they all would have died if they had stayed together. Segundo thought he made exactly the right decision. And it was also exactly the right decision to keep up the pace they were setting. Six kilometers per hour, plus they had also taken two four-hour sleep periods, the first near the hub, and the second just a kilometer back. Segundo smiled with cracked lips as they passed a particular novelty store. He remembered it well, and knew the Black Mall sky-bridge was just one more kilometer up ahead. They were definitely on the home leg of the journey. Another twenty-five kilometers or so, he thought, maybe a bit more. In less than five hours, they'd be at that open CVS Pharmacy a few hundred meters past Dram Rabbies. They had bottled water in that store, lots of bottled water. Oh, those beautiful bottles of water. Segundo couldn't imagine a more beautiful sight, or a more perfectly pleasing thought. How could he have ever ignored such beauty, the sweet loveliness of delicious water? Lots and lots of bottled water. The phrase started to become a mantra in his mind. Lots and lots of bottled water. Segundo played it over and over, synching it with the tired pace of his footsteps. "LOTs and LOTs of BOTlled WAter ... LOTs and LOTs of BOTlled WAter..." Geraldo picked up his ears and looked nervously at his companion. Was Segundo losing it? The man had started softly whimpering as he walked. Segundo was mumbling something with each step, and he didn't even seem to know it. "What are you staring at?" Segundo growled through his dry mouth. It was difficult to talk. His tongue and upper palate felt like dry and brittle leather. Geraldo just shook his head, not wanting to talk either. It would be too physically painful. They continued their march in silence. Five minutes later, Segundo began to feel confused. Walking along the outside edge of the spiral, he could see the sky-bridge just as he expected. But beneath it, perhaps directly beneath it, there was something unfamiliar, something that seemed to sparkle in the flat recessed lights of the mall. Segundo fought down a rising tide of apprehension and the two men continued their plodding, deliberate pace. Five minutes later they stood less than two meters away before a monstrosity in the corridor. The idea for it was born in Fatima's mind, and then greatly expanded by the expertise of Chico and Toro. The two men had worked summers together as rough carpenters, framing houses and additions for local builders. Fatima had suggested they uncoil some of the rolls of barbed wire and razor wire that they had discovered in a surface warehouse near Red Mall's home complex. The transportation setup was ideal, an elevator by an apple orchard right next to the warehouse, one that could transport the wire directly to the Black Mall sky-bridge. Chico and Toro volunteered to do much of the heavy lifting, and then had an even better idea once they were at the warehouse. The numerous posts and rails would make a superb frame to anchor the wire. They spent hours hammering and drilling a single massive frame that covered a full six meters of the length of the corridor, with cross beams along the floor that held the rim posts along the walls in tight compression. Even without the wire, the frame would be impossible to budge without hours of disassembly. And then the coils of wire were unleashed. Amazingly springy steel, razor wire of much higher quality than anything Chico had ever heard of. They anchored the tight coils into the frame with screws and bolts, and then triggered their openings with remote pull chains. The end result was a tangled and interlocking mass of deadly wire, with a footprint of six meters square, and with an average height of over two meters. The wire was so dense, Segundo could barely see through it, standing at one end and trying to look to the other. And the sky-bridge was the perfect place for the roadblock. The entrances to Rubin's Kosher Deli and the Modern Coin Superstore were thirty meters apart, and the six-meter barrier was centered between them. With control of both stores, one could simply use the sky-bridge as a detour. The barrier was no obstacle to the residents of Red Mall. But without access to the stores, it would take a small army of people with wire-cutters to punch through the deadly tangle. Geraldo stared blankly for a long moment into the hedge of springy stainless steel. There were so many coils of wire, some of which didn't have room to fully expand, and the residual compression would make it dangerous to even touch the wire. And there were so many different colors, with each color holding a different horror. There was silver for razors, light green for thin needles, darker green for barbs, and light blue for wicked looking fishhooks held by tiny wires to thicker wire. And the brown wire. This one looked really bizarre, covered with miniature harpoons or porcupine quills. Geraldo turned to Segundo and croaked, "What the hell do we do?" Segundo was speechless. He had no idea. Two days later at the Green Mall lounge. Time: Saturday, January 26, 2019 10:34 AM An emotionally tired Jada sat down by the eastern windows in the lounge, sinking into a very comfortable chair. "At last!" she thought. "A half hour block of time that is completely unscheduled!" She took a deep sigh as she felt her body unwinding, and a minute later enjoyed the day's first orange light striking the top rim of Green Mall's home hexagon. Jada glanced at the time and nodded. The predictions from Mark's notes were exact to the minute. The winter solstice had occurred eight days ago, one full day where the orange sun came tantalizingly close to breaking the horizon but never quite making it. And here they were now enjoying almost three hours of daylight. So fast! From the kitchen came numerous sounds of a large brunch being prepared. Around 11:05 AM, as soon as Kiyoko came up from her morning lesson in the library, their entire group would sit down and chat over a very nice meal. And the topic? Allison suggested it at last night's work session. She wanted to kick around some ideas of what their permanent government should be like. For Jada the suggestion was pure gold. She didn't have the ego to rule be decree, and she was convinced Mark didn't either. She looked forward to the time when she would leave her position of absolute ruler. Perhaps she would still be in government, but if so she would be inside a system with checks and balances, where the governmental roles were firmly rooted in servanthood. She smiled and looked again at the winter wonderland of the park. It had snowed more than a meter the last two days, light fluffy snow in the bitter cold darkness with occasional grayness. But then before midnight yesterday, the skies had turned crystal clear, and the overnight low earlier this morning had been -25C, a new record. Emily was nonchalant about the temperature. She had seen much colder in Alaska and even in Burlington, Vermont. Jada though shivered for a moment as she gazed out over the shimmering snow, and it wasn't just from the frigid landscape. The memory of yesterday's video and the utter brutality of Segundo were still fresh in her mind. Yesterday morning, the group had awoken and was shocked to learn that Geraldo was dead, deeply entangled in the mesh of deadly wire underneath the Black Mall sky-bridge. A review of the video logs showed the horrible nature of his demise. He and Segundo were asleep a few meters from the barrier when Segundo stood up and silently rehearsed the motions of heaving something in his arms into the wire. Then he stood by his companion and started shouting a warning, getting Geraldo to stand up before the man was fully awake. What followed was a bum's rush into the wire, powerful, violent and swift, Segundo tripping his partner's legs and heaving the bewildered man high into the lethal mesh before he was fully awake. Geraldo was horribly pierced and entangled in an instant and death soon followed, perhaps not from bleeding but by strangulation from the many wires around his neck. It was a horrible death to witness. The man had torn his own throat as he struggled. And throughout it all Segundo seemed completely unmoved. He just sat back down to conserve his energy, falling asleep soon afterwards. It was Aggie who guessed his motivation. Chico's party had surmised the existence of the mall cleaners by seeing the spotless condition of Green Mall on their return trip. All their toileting messes had disappeared. And this is what Aggie thought Segundo was doing now, hoping the mall cleaners would come and get rid of Geraldo's body, and perhaps clear a path through the wire in the process. Would his plan have worked? Emily thought it actually might have. Their barrier had never been without a human presence nearby. They had worked on it non-stop until Segundo and Geraldo were within a kilometer of the sky-bridge. The construction was very sturdy and effective, but aesthetically it was a real eye-sore. Emily could well imagine the mall's servos would be eager to chop it up and dispose of it, even without the bloody corpse entangled in it. But Segundo was his own worst enemy. He had no understanding of the extreme reluctance of the servos to be seen, and he was sitting less than ten meters from the barrier. The servos would never come out under such conditions. Jada sank back into her chair and rested her eyes, again thinking how grateful she felt for having this precious slice of downtime. And she felt grateful not just for a chance to rest, but also for the nobleness that Hannah demonstrated very early this morning. Jada couldn't be more proud of her. Before 6 AM, Hannah had gone out into the Black Mall corridor by the sky-bridge and offered to link minds with Segundo. He was too weak to physically resist and his mind was still coherent enough to make the contact. Again and again, Hannah reported five times, Hannah established the mind connection and explained to Segundo that her group would attempt to forgive him if he could truly renounce his hatred and feel remorse for his past actions. Again and again Segundo replied with yes, only to shriek in mental horror a moment later as Hannah probed his thoughts and found it was all a lie. On her fifth and final time, Hannah's eyes were so filled with tears, she was barely able to establish the visual lock. It was then Segundo in despair realized that within their shared mind, there was no place to hide his true feelings. Within the linked thoughts, he screamed at Hannah for staring in pity at his sick soul, and she withdrew with a gentle apology, never to return. Jada sighed deeply. This sad battle was almost over. Segundo had now gone almost three full days without a drop of water to drink, and during the first day had severely dehydrated himself by hiking seventy-five kilometers from the Green Mall sky-bridge to the one in Black Mall. His skin was ashen, the color of death from his multiple organ failures, and his breathing now was labored and extremely raspy. Jada shivered in her chair and kept her eyes closed. The barrier was now unnecessary. Segundo didn't have the strength to stand, let alone walk another twenty-five kilometers. She prayed his death would come mercifully soon. Were they doing the right thing? Yes, through Hannah's sacrifice, Jada's heart was at peace. Her mouth twitched slightly as she sat otherwise motionless. She would not reopen the decision. Jada opened her eyes when she heard someone step out of the lounge elevator. It was Emily, unexpectedly back from monitoring duty. She and Jada locked eyes. "It's over," Emily thought simply, and then turned away. The blue census counter was showing 12:100. The following evening. Time: Sunday, January 27, 2019 9:20 PM Jada and Emily had showered together in their home at Red Mall and afterwards retired to their spacious double bedroom next to the circular stairwell. Their next day would start at 6 AM, and both women were tired and looking forward to a bit of quiet time and then some restful sleep. Emily went to her desk to touch up her notes on their earlier meeting of designing a government, while Jada plopped into her bed with a book from the downstairs library. But after a few pages she felt too tired to continue. She sighed and rested her head on a pillow. Emily looked over. "You want to sack out? I can finish this in the lounge." "Ah, you're sweet Emily, but the light doesn't bother me." "Sure it does. You fall asleep much faster when it's dark." "I do?" "Yep." Emily studied her roommate closely for a moment and then closed her notes and greatly dimmed the lights. "I'm about finished anyway. Would you like a backrub?" "Oh wow, really? That's sounds great." A moment later a prone Jada felt Emily's warm hands begin to work the muscles on her bare back. Jada gave a deep sigh of contentment. "Hmmm, absolutely delightful. Thanks a bunch." Emily bent down, lightly kissing Jada on the back of her neck. Her fingers were firm yet gentle, kneading the muscles slowly until she felt them relax. The massage turned into half kneading and half petting, non-sexual but very affectionate, and Jada purred often with the outpouring of love she was receiving. "Another busy day," she murmured. "Yeah..." Emily replied, who was thinking of her upcoming schedule and unsure if her roommate was talking about today or tomorrow. The comment seemed apt for both. The time passed quietly. Jada found herself half floating between the love and pleasure Emily was giving her, and the stresses and worries of her life. She tried to let go of the worries, give her mind a bit of rest, but it just wasn't happening. She finally confessed to Emily, "Sometimes ... during the day ... I suddenly feel like crying. I'm involved with something and I think I'm doing okay and then I think of Mark and..." Emily felt Jada shudder beneath her probing fingers. She took a break and began petting her head instead, coming up and sitting lotus fashion next to Jada's pillow. "Want to know something? It's happening to me too. And I only knew the guy for a few weeks." Emily frowned. "What the hell am I saying? Jada, he might still be alive. We don't know anything. And look at Madison. She's convinced he's surviving somehow." "You think so?" "I know so. Maddy and I shared eye contact over this. She's convinced Mark can figure his way out of just about anything if he has enough time to think." Jada smiled. "Ah, the faithful love and confidence of a sister. Ever wish you had a sister Emily?" Emily chuckled. "As a matter of fact, I..." Just then their Leophone started to ring, and Jada gave a small shriek as she realized the ringtone was indicating the incoming call was from the lost phone. ------- Chapter 36 Time: Sunday, January 27, 2019 9:47 PM The call could have been from anybody. It could have been Dennis Diebold on the line, calling to gloat as he stood over Mark's body. But Jada couldn't stop herself. She whipped open the phone and half shouted, "Mark?!" "Yes! It works! Hi Jada!" "Mark!" "So nice to hear your voice!" Jada could hear joyful cheering in the background. She surmised it was Toshi and Frida. "Mark, I assume you're all okay! Where are you?!" "We're camping out in one of the environmental areas in the great diamond above Black Mall. There are ten different clusters." Jada took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. "Yeah?" "I'll give you more details later. I think the clusters are combination wildlife sanctuaries for different Earth ecologies, plus some basic recreational facilities for camping thrown in. Jada, we have so much to tell you, and we finally found a way to charge the Leophone. Call time isn't an issue. Do you have everybody there with you?" "No, it's just me and Emily now. Hang on, I'll get the others. Lots of new people from Party #5 have joined us. We have a lot to tell you too." Jada threw on her bathrobe and ran off while Emily continued the conversation and carried the phone to the lounge. Within a few minutes, the entire group had assembled, including all the new members who were living at Green Mall. Mark took the conversation in an unexpected direction. "First off, the batteries we've been taking from the hardware stores. Do not under any circumstances dispose of one down the trash chutes." Mark was referring to the strange trash chutes in the home complexes and also often seen in the Malls. They seemed to be inky wells of infinite darkness that ate anything. "And don't try to open up a battery either." "Okay," said Jada. "What would happen if we did?" "No idea, but I think that would be a really bad idea. Toshi and I have two of the 3.5 volt batteries with us from our white-LED flashlights, you know, the ones that look like fat AA batteries?" Jada nodded. "Uh huh." "Well, we've drawn a hundred times the power of what a Lithium-ion battery that size could hold, and they're still going strong. I don't know what the heck is inside these things, but I suspect cutting one open could be extremely hazardous." "Ah, okay. Is that how you're powering the Leophone now?" "Yep. It took a lot of thinking how to do this. The phone charges at 10.5 volts. The two batteries in series only get us to 7." Jada thought for a moment. "So how did you boost the voltage?" Mark laughed. "Yes, that is the question, isn't it? What a comedy of errors. I had a zinc coated paperclip in my pocket when we got here, and we tried to make a battery with that and some copper from my phone charger and lemon juice." "Lemon juice?" "Yeah. There are lemon trees here. But we just couldn't get enough current. It was only yesterday when I finally realized that with an inexhaustible source of seven volts, all I needed to do was build a simple DC voltage booster." Jada was curious but had almost no practical knowledge of circuits. "How do you do that?" "All the parts I needed were in my phone charger. I cut it open and took out an inductor, a capacitor, a transistor, and a diode. You set up a simple LC resonance bridge, and in the part of the cycle where the transistor is off, the inductor is discharging and boosting the input voltage. Jada, everybody, let me describe what this diamond complex is like." Mark spent the next ten minutes describing the ten different ecosystems, and then finished with, "Don't you see? The diamond south of the home complex of White Mall is probably a mirror image of this. The people of Party #2 would have seen their diamond as the natural path back to their cars." Jada's eyes went wide as she realized Mark's point. The diamond of Black Mall was due north of its home complex. The people at Party #5 had no thought that entering the diamond array of hexagons would get them back to their cars at the southern end of Castle Commonwealth. But White Mall was the mirror setup. Entering the diamond there would have made perfect sense. Indeed, to the east, north, and south, there was more than a two-kilometer buffer of open fields. Heading south into the array was almost certainly what Party #2 had done. And without mushroom locks, did they get trapped in ecosystems similar to Mark's? It was certainly worth investigating. A male voice in the Red Mall lounge spoke out. "I did a little exploring in the array above Black Mall, not much but some. I'll be happy to help search the array at White Mall." Emily had already filled Mark and Toshi and Frida in on all the new members of their society. "Is that you Chico?" asked Toshi. The man chuckled. "Hi Toshi. Actually, as of yesterday, I've switched back to Charles, and Toro is back to Tom." "Congratulations," Toshi replied simply. The conversation continued. Eventually Mark's group revealed how they had been spending most of their time. "We don't know if you have discovered this yet," said Frida. "Do you know how to set up a three-person mind link?" "What?!" Jada said in almost a shout. "Ah, I see that you haven't. Have three people who trust each other very well sit facing each other in a tight triangle. Then each person has to stare into the outside eye of the other two people." "You don't get dizzy," Emily asked, "splitting your vision like that?" Toshi answered. "No, surprisingly no. Once the three-way link forms, it's exactly the opposite. You have fantastic stereoscopic vision, peripheral vision covering a full 360 degrees." "It was our third day here," Frida continued, "when we set up our first three-way resonance. The acceleration of subjective time is much more pronounced, a factor of three to twenty when we try in pairs, and as a triplet the factor of twenty is a minimum. And that's when we're awake." Mark added. "We think when we link-sleep the acceleration increases to more than a hundred." He saw Frida give him a mildly surprised and amused look after he said this. There was dead silence in the Red Mall lounge. "This is a lot to take in," Emily said at last. "You say you can link while you're asleep?" Mark replied, "Toshi and I actually did this as a pair, the first night we were together in the Black Mall closet." He paused for a moment. "It's a very intimate connection. In dream mode, all the high-level executive defenses of the mind are inactive. The amount of sharing ... it's difficult to describe." "Oh, we should announce one more thing," said Frida. "Toshi is definitely pregnant. We are certain." "Wow Toshi," said Akiko quietly, "how are you feeling?" "Oh, I'm fine," she replied. "I am not sorry to be pregnant." "Do you know who the father is?" Akiko asked. "I am," said Mark happily. Jada felt as if she'd just been hit with an electric shock. "What?" she whispered. "What Mark means," Toshi added hastily, "is that we will be a parental couple. The biological father was Gilberto. Mark and I have discussed this in much detail. We will be the father and mother to the child." She added softly. "In our dreams, it's a girl." Emily was fascinated by all the new knowledge. "Mark, may I ask? Subjectively, how much time has passed for you?" There was an unexpected pause for a few seconds, and then he replied. "Yeah, good question. I know it's only been about a week of real time. Subjectively, with all our linking, it's been more than a month for us, an old Earth month I mean." There was another pause as Mark's words sank in. Then Lynn tried to start the conversation again. "Can you tell us more about your local ecosystem?" Toshi answered. "It's very beautiful, the illusion of a vast park. Our home here is filled with edible plants and flowers. And there are bees everywhere. They're huge, almost the size of by thumb, but super docile, almost friendly. We can take their honey at will if we take small amounts. And there is vegetable food everywhere. Lima beans, cucumbers, alfalfa, sunflowers, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, and for protein we catch several different species of fish in the pond." Frida continued. "Our home here is very simple, three simple rooms, one bed, one bathroom, one very simple kitchen, that's it. We think it is intended to be more of a campsite than a home. It's a refuge to come and relax for a time in utter simplicity." Akiko giggled. "One bed for the three of you?" She could hear Toshi laughing over the phone. "It was a little awkward at first, but no longer. The bed is huge, like the ones at the home complexes." Toshi did not elaborate further. The two groups talked a bit more and then bid each other goodnight. Emily led a late-night work session planning the exploration of the White Mall diamond the following morning. Jada wandered back to her bedroom with the Leophone. After climbing back into bed she redialed Mark. He picked up at once. "Hi. I was hoping you'd call. Toshi and Frida went for a walk on the other side of the pond." "Ah. They wanted to give us some privacy?" "Uh huh. They're okay. The fake moon is almost full right now, and it's very pretty here." Mark gave a deep sigh. "Jada?" "Yes?" "It's so strange, to think about all this. All my life, I had no desire for anything outside of monogamy. Well, maybe some boyish fantasies of getting it on with a bunch of cute females. But for real life, I had no thought at all for multiple partners." "Uh huh. I know." "And then all this happened. I met you, and you wanted me, and I felt ... Oh, it was indescribable. And it still is. And yet..." "Yes?" "Toshi and I, we met in a dream, shared hopes and fears at the dream level. Her plea was from her heart. I couldn't say no." Mark paused and added. "And I didn't want to. Dearest?" Jada blinked. "Am I still dearest to you?" "Yes. Toshi and I, we haven't had sex together. Emotionally we want to, but Toshi is extremely polite and doesn't want to interfere with us working out our own relationship first." "And Frida?" Mark gently laughed. "Ah, Frida, yeah ... Well, Frida is more..." "Horny?" "I guess that's the word for it. In her dreams she's a bundle of sexy desire. But when she's awake, she's good natured about waiting too." Jada paused for a moment to take this in. "So you're really waiting for me." "Yes. Toshi and Frida and I are petting each other a bit, but ... well, the mind link really helps. The desire to be considerate overrides everything." Jada nodded and then decided she felt like talking about something else for a while. "Kiyoko, she thinks it'll be another six or seven days before she's the janitor of the Black Mall area. In the meantime, both Charles and Tom have volunteered to go back to their old home." "Huh?!" "Brandi too, even Cassidy if she's needed. I wouldn't send any of the slaves back. That's out of the question." Mark realized at last what Jada was saying. "Secret agents? Spies?" "Yes." "Are they trustworthy?" "Mark, I've locked eyes with them." "Oh." Mark paused for a second. "Okay, enough said." "Yes. I'm not sure at all we're going to do this. If Uno or one of his remaining compadres ever locks eyes with these people..." Mark took a moment to think. "I remember an old quote. When doing good, avoid notoriety. When doing evil, avoid self awareness." Jada considered Mark's point. "So you think Uno's people can't form a mind link?" "Well, I wouldn't say impossible. But I think its no coincidence that we've discovered it and they haven't. The amount of trust involved is profound. And have you noticed the effect? Just as the link starts to form, there's an intense burst of self awareness, right before the image of self is shared with the other mind." "I've noticed, and I agree. But you linked with Santos." "Yeah, that's a good point. Extreme emotional content can substitute for trust I guess." Mark yawned. "I don't know. But there's really no reason to rescue us right now. Uno and his people would have to get past the ivy, and then pick the right enclave out of ten. Without the locks, once they enter one, they won't be able to come out." Jada sighed. "I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened. They've been sending a pair of observers at random times to the edge of the unlocked area of Black Mall. They have ten people now, and we've seen everybody except Uno. I'm guessing he's staying holed up at the home complex." Jada stretched out on her bed, lying on her back and holding the phone to her ear. "I'm also guessing they're keeping a couple of guns in Jacob's Bar and Grill to prevent the place from being locked, and a couple more guns to defend the surface complex. Uno doesn't have the personnel anymore for surface explorations, not if he wants to hold the mall." Back in his bungalow, Mark nodded. "Yeah, that's what we think too. Uh, Jada? Earlier Emily mentioned you guys have started working on a real government?" "Well, just a bit. We haven't done much yet. But Allison made a very eloquent speech about holding caucuses rather than elections. Fatima really liked the idea." "Ah, you mean holding group meetings rather than secret ballots?" "Exactly. Allison said the word caucus was an Algonquin word for the gathering of tribal chiefs. Her idea was to keep all voting public, that we should elect people in gatherings and not by secret ballots." Mark yawned. "Sounds like a good idea. With the mind links, there are no secrets anyway." He yawned again. "I should give Toshi and Frida a sign to come back. It's past our bedtime." Jada giggled. "Are you really avoiding sex just for me?" Mark could hear the playfulness in her question. "Yep. We only have the clothes we wore into this place, and some bathrobes that were in the linen. They usually all go into the washer for the night. It does get a bit friendly at bedtime. We fall asleep apart and wake up snuggling against each other." Mark sighed. "It's very pleasant, and I love both of these women dearly. What else can I say? Jada, we'll link when we see each other again. You'll understand then." "Oh, I think I understand now. Mark, it's okay. You did the right thing, accepting Toshi's child as your own. I'm quite proud of you. It just took a little time to get over the shock." "I love you Jada." "I know. Go to sleep my love. And don't feel guilty about petting the mother of your child, Frida either for that matter. My time will come. I know it will." After another minute of exchanging endearments, they signed off. A moment later a naked Mark walked into the moonlight by the window and waved. Toshi and Frida waved back from across the pond and came and joined him, throwing their clothes into the strange washer and washing their feet before joining Mark under clean sheets. Frida's voice was alive with laughter. "A month?! An old Earth month?! Why didn't you tell them it's been a new-planet year?" Mark replied playfully. "Well, a new year is only about five of the old months. And I didn't say a month. I said more than a month. Five is more than one." Toshi understood Mark's reasoning. "Frida, he doesn't want to reveal the new abilities all at once. And I agree with him. Let's break the news slowly." "Ah. You think the rest will think of us as something less than human?" Toshi cocked her head slightly and nodded. "Not less than human, something other than human. I don't mean that in a cruel way, but yes." She sighed and sought out Mark's hand under the sheet. "They'll have the same abilities of course, once they start to practice. Let's take it easy how quickly we tell them. There's no need to be rough with our friends." Frida nodded and then came and lay close to Mark's side, almost touching. Toshi was on the other side, and in the moonlight, Frida could see that as usual Mark and Toshi were holding hands. They had learned so much this past objective week, this past subjective year. The subjective human mind needed to sleep a third of subjective time, just as the human body needed to sleep one third of objective time. In the tranquil paradise of their ecosystem, it had been so easy to spend several objective hours or more daily in the three-way lock, with each hour close to a week of subjective time. The quiet sounds of the night drifted in through the screened window. Mark sighed and relaxed, enjoying the warmth and affections of two of his closest and dearest friends. They had shared everything this past week. Mark felt he knew Frida's younger sister as well as she did, their years together growing up as close confidants, the summer they built a tree-house together. And Toshi ... Mark was now fluent in Japanese, as was Frida. The complex system of honorifics had seemed so strange at first, with the verb forms and vocabulary all dancing around the relative social status of speaker, listener, and person being discussed. But it all seemed so natural now, far more so than even a normal year of intense studying could achieve. The mind link had allowed a holistically complete transfer of knowledge and perspective. The language had become a second native tongue to Mark because it was the native tongue of the person who shared it. Frida's hands came to pet Mark. One cool hand was on his forehead, with soft and gentle pads of fingertips tracing eyes and nose and mouth. Her other hand caressed his leg and hip and ribs, tracing the hard abdominal muscles across his front. As Mark giggled at the ticklish sensations on his lips, the other hand dropped down, brushing aside the limp penis to stroke the soft inside thigh, then returning to cup Mark's testicles. Mark gulped, but it was difficult to speak with Frida's hand caressing his throat. The cool palm and fingers curling around his sac made him shiver. He could feel his testicles lifting up from the stimulation, and also his penis begin to lengthen. Mark squirmed slightly. "So," whispered Frida. "Did you get a chance to talk with Jada about us having sex together?" Toshi gave Mark's hand a friendly squeeze. She knew that Frida's question covered the three of them. "I did." The cool hand released his sac, and for a moment Mark thought Frida might want to just talk for a while. But then fingertips as light as feathers began brushing against his penis, up and down the shaft. The sensation was exquisite, a delicate touch that Frida had learned from Toshi's culture of patience and discipline. "That's nice," Frida whispered in laughter. "And what did she say?" "Well, she said ... hmmm..." "She said hmmm?" "Huh? Uh, no. She said ... she said not to worry about us petting each other." Mark gasped. The fingers for a moment had become a vise, a grip so erotically intense his hips had thrust forward into the tightness without need for conscious thought. Mark pulled back to thrust again, and the vise disappeared. He sensed Frida raising her leg under the sheet. "Frida," asked Toshi, "what are you doing?" "Nothing we haven't done many times in our dreams!" "Dreams are fantasies. This is real!" "Dreams are real too," Frida answered in perfect Japanese. "My speaking like this proves it." Her hand returned to Mark's penis, and as she grasped him again, she felt his body jump as if electrified. She gave swift, hard jerks, up and down, rapidly pumping him to a full erection. Mark was gasping, completely swept away by Frida's sexual desire. Her hand was slick and moist, and with Frida's raised leg, he didn't have to guess where the moisture was coming from. And his mind felt as if it were caught in a vortex. Toshi and Frida were correct. In their year of subjective time, the three had frolicked together in their dreams. There their playtime was without inhibitions, and their sexual exploits had often left their sheets wet with male and female spent desire. But in the week of objective time, while awake they had remained semi-chaste, expressing love and affection to each other but always backing off when anyone would enter sexual arousal. It was Toshi who was guiding this, remembering that all their memories of their missing friends were now a subjective year old. Toshi thought it was unfair for her and Frida to compete against Jada under such conditions. Toshi sighed heavily in the darkness, feeling Mark's hand tremble as Frida brought him to full erection. Of course Mark wanted Frida, cherished Frida. They had lived together intimately now for a subjective year, and in their dreams there were no lies, no secrets. But they had agreed! "Frida!" Toshi whispered. "Hush Toshi! Not now!" Quickly, before Mark could object, Frida sat up and then squatted over Mark's supine body. Her hips were above his groin, her legs splayed open. Her intention was to get Mark inside of her before Mark would think to protest. Once Mark had the pleasure of her vagina working his erection, she felt sure he would not resist. "Frida!" Toshi insisted. "We promised!" Frida growled, a raw expression of pure emotional desire. "I don't want to wait anymore!" She rubbed her grip up and down his penis. "I can feel his desire! His desire is for me!" "Of course it is! He loves you! But don't take him like this!" Toshi's words seemed to jar Mark free from Frida's magic. He sat up and faced Frida, kissing her cheeks and eyes. She groaned in dismay as his penis slipped from her hand, and then his hand came and held hers. "Frida," Mark whispered tenderly as he kissed Frida's ear. "You don't want me now, do you?" she whimpered. There was silence for a moment, with Mark gently caressing her cheek. "Of course I want you," he whispered. The caress became a hug. "But can we wait, just a little longer?" Toshi hissed. "Frida! Are you fertile?" "Huh?" She gulped. "Hell, I don't know. Maybe. I've been off birth control for a month now. My cycle's all messed up. Oh hell! We spent so much time dreaming today. It's so hard to keep track of things that are still in real time." Mark kept hugging her, an intimate hold, wrapping his arms around her and petting her, rocking back and forth, feeling Frida unwind in the affectionate embrace. They shared a long kiss. It was simply playful at first, but then Frida started offering more with the tip of her tongue, and after a moment Mark accepted the invitation. The playfulness quickly evolved into something more, but this time Mark and Frida were meeting as equal partners. Toshi realized that and kept silent. Mark's hands were caressing Frida's hips, gripping the strong bones on both sides of her pelvis. Her tongue gave a last lick to the visiting tongue in her mouth and then she moved her head to kiss his cheek and ear. "Mark, make love with me?" Mark shivered, overwhelmed by this beautiful feminine creature in his arms. He shook his head no and reclined from his sitting position, pulling Frida back down to lie with him. Their hands caressed each other for a while, love and uncertainty and sexual desire and bashfulness all mixing together in ways neither had experience with. Mark's hand came up and cupped a soft breast. Frida lay perfectly still, her eyes closed, her body in the most submissive posture she could think of. Her thighs were parted and she thought if she could only entice Mark to start playing with her pubic fur, then he would probably mount her. But the hand on her breast, it was not an arousing stroke. He was just cupping her, pure affection and tenderness. She sighed heavily and took his hand and kissed it. "It's okay. You want to wait, huh?" Mark answered indirectly, caressing the side of her head with his fingertips for a while and then asking, "Would you like a back rub?" Frida smiled and nodded, turning over to lie on her stomach and stretching out her limbs. "Rump too, like in our dreams, would that be okay?" Mark responded patting the back of her thigh and then moving his hand to playfully grip a butt cheek. "Sure, okay." Frida wriggled in response. "In the center too?" "Uh..." "Come on Mark, we did it in the link today." Frida smiled at him in the darkness. "Of course, if you don't think my butt looks cute enough to tempt you in real life..." Mark snorted. They both knew they were playing with each other. "Well, we'll see," he answered noncommittally, and then after a playful swat on her right cheek, his hands moved up to her shoulders and he started the massage. It took a long time to unwind her. Frida's body at first was all wound up with sexual tension. But after months of sharing intimate dreams, Mark knew just how to unwind her. She liked a combination of firm strokes along her muscles mixed in with gentle caresses on her skin. Mark would often bend down and kiss the back of her neck as he massaged her, and more than once he told her he loved her. The massage finally migrated to the small of her back, mixed in with lots of caresses starting at the backs of her thighs and then working up to press and relax the muscles around her waist. Frida sighed happily and purred deeply for a while, and then was silent, her breathing slow and steady, and Mark was just starting to wonder if he should stop when Frida slowly moved a hand to each of her butt cheeks, splaying her legs and wriggling in invitation. "You promised..." So many memories, and Frida had shared them all. She and Dan had grown up together in Keeseville, New York, a small town across the lake about twenty km west of Burlington. They dated in high school and came to the University of Vermont in September of 2017. Their first year in college had been very sweet, so much so that Frida began to assume they would on day marry. But then in their sophomore year, Dan pledged at Beta Sigma Rho and soon afterwards asked Frida to start calling him Diego. To Frida's astonishment, he also took up pistolry, something he had never shown an interest in before. Over the last year, their relationship had become more and more of a struggle. None of Dan's tenderness seemed to have carried over into his new persona of Diego. And the past fall term had been the worst of all, so bad that Frida had begun the sad and painful work of pulling back from her emotional attachment. She had thought of trying to make things work until the end of 2018, and then if there was no progress, to tell him they were splitting. The pre-Christmas party was one of the last events she expected to be with Diego and his horrible friends. Frida was drifting, almost asleep, but still awake enough to wiggle her hips slightly as Mark cupped her vulva with his hand. Gentle caresses, a thumb stroking lightly near her anus but not pushing down for penetration. It was exactly how she loved to fall asleep with Dan two years ago, her sleep soft and sexy and filled with trust for her partner. Her future had seemed so bright and full of promise, that first year at college. Mark drifted in his thoughts as he stroked her, the only sound in the room the quiet sounds of the night bugs outside. Eventually Toshi stirred and curled around Mark from behind, pressing her naked body lightly against his and petting his hip and outer thigh. "I think she's asleep," she whispered. Mark nodded and whispered back. "Yes." He gave a deep sigh. "It feels so nice, the way she trusts me to pet her as she falls asleep." Mark was confident Frida would not awake unless vigorously roused. She was a very deep sleeper and had had a very strenuous day. She had asked Mark days ago to teach her how to fight and he agreed for both classical judo and street fighting. He would share the knowledge in the link, and then practice for hours in real time. Today he had driven her body to exhaustion. They had become intimately familiar with each other's bodies and balance in their throws, and then they focused on kicks and punches until both their bodies ached. Frida was surprised the workouts were so intense, but believed Mark when he told her the skills were learned best this way. Mark also offered to teach Toshi, but so far she had politely declined, preferring to get her exercise by running. The daytime temperatures were warm enough to do this without clothes, and she loved racing up and down the gentle hills in her bare feet, feeling the rich earth of the flowering meadows between her toes. She would often finish with a quick swim in the pond, playing tag with the fish before her shower. Mark finally stopped his caresses of the sleeping Frida, tucking her in with the covers and then moving to the other side of the great bed to cuddle with Toshi. They shared a few kisses and then Toshi grinned. "So, have you ever dated anyone as tall as Frida?" Mark was a fairly tall, a full 190 cm, and Frida was only one centimeter less. Mark grinned back. "I've shared my childhood. You know my memories. I couldn't hide anyone as interesting or as tall as Frida." He paused for a moment. "I must say, it is rather nice, exchanging quick kisses with her when we're out walking together. Kissing is more fun when your partner in your own height, don't you think?" Toshi gave a soft laugh back. "I wouldn't know! I've shared my memories too. A few dates in high school perhaps, but you know I've never had a steady boyfriend." "Not even me?" Mark said with a grin. "You're no boyfriend!" Toshi replied with a giggle, and then she got serious. "Father of my child ... I thought when I asked you, that all I really wanted was to parent with you, to provide for my child. Those memories, those desires seem so long ago. This past week, this past year..." She gave a deep sigh. "I can't hide it. I'm sorry and you don't deserve this pressure but I just can't hide it, not when we're sharing our eyes." "Toshi," Mark whispered. His hand came and lightly stroked the rich pubic fur above her womb. "This is so strange. Before we came here, this planet I mean, I never expected ... never thought I'd be lucky enough to court someone as wonderful as you. It's not pressure to know that you want me. We just need time to figure out how this is going to work." Toshi nodded in the artificial moonlight. "Do you remember the latest figures Jada gave us? Twelve guys left and a hundred women left, and most of the guys are people I consider monsters. We don't have the culture to handle a situation like this. What can I hope for Mark? One night every two weeks with you?" Mark nodded and lay back in bed on his back, staring at the blank ceiling of their simple home. "At least it'll be for just one generation." "Yes, our children, they won't have to deal with this. Mark?" "Yeah?" "My native culture, we prize patience more than Americans do. I can wait for you. I will wait for you. But maybe..." "Hmmm?" "Maybe we should limit our use of subjective time." "Ah..." Mark thought for a long moment in the silence, enjoying the feel and warmth of the woman in his arms, almost overcome with a feeling of fierce protectiveness for her pregnant body. He sighed and turned on his side to face Toshi. "That's probably a good idea. How much do you want to cut back?" "I'm thinking of really cutting back, almost all the way. How about we spend just ten minutes tomorrow in the three-way link?" Mark considered. The ten minutes objective time would be one full extra day of subjective time. "Yeah, okay. I think you're right. These past few days, the three of us have spent so much time locked together..." " ... that we're losing touch with reality," finished Toshi. "Well ... Yeah, maybe." Mark sighed. "I agree, I feel it too. All right. We'll tell Frida in the morning." "Thank you." Toshi turned to kiss Mark goodnight, and as her hand across came to caress his face, it bumped into a very stiff penis. "My goodness Mark!" she whispered. "I saw you erect for Frida. Are you erect for me too?" She looked as his groin, saw the full penis clearly outlined in the silver light and gave a nervous giggle. Mark's penis was sticking straight out horizontally as he lay on his side. Toshi moved her arm and gently let the engorged organ rest on the back of her hand. "Is this for me?" Mark felt the soft contact as an electric shock. Toshi felt his hips thrust forward, and she allowed his penis tip to press into her skin near her stomach. "Mark," she whispered. "Do you want to play with me?" Mark came closer to Toshi and kissed her near her lips. Toshi turned and let her lips find his. Her hand returned and curled and grabbed the impudent penis. She was gentle at first, but then increased her grip when Mark accepted her tongue into his mouth. She pulled back for a second. "Future husband," she whispered, "what would you like?" Her tongue then sought to reenter Mark's mouth "So many dreams..." mumbled Mark, with Toshi's tongue tickling his lips as he spoke. His tongue came out to play and was eagerly welcomed and suckled into Toshi's mouth. They kissed for a while, Toshi's hand curling and petting Mark's stomach in a silky circular motion. Eventually they broke their kiss to take a moment to breathe. Toshi shifted her body slightly and blew a hot breath of air into Mark's ear. "I know all your dreams Mark, all your sexy dreams. There is no shame in this. We love each other." Toshi's hands were caressing his body, light feathers of pleasure on his face, his arms, his legs, his breast and male nipples. For the moment Toshi left his groin alone. She was truly curious and too polite to assume what Mark wanted. "Do you want to be petted asleep? Do you want to play and be a male?" She paused and whispered again, her eyes twinkling in the moonlight. "Do you want to play and be a female?" Mark gasped that Toshi would ask such a question so directly. But he knew what she meant. In their mind sharing, Mark had been fascinated with the depth and explicitness of Frida sharing her sex life, from pubescent dreams to her current desire for sex with him. His own experiences seemed so innocent in comparison, and he politely asked inside the link if he could keep his sexual moments with Jada private. The two women of course agreed at once. Not to would be akin to mental rape. None of them even knew if that were possible, forcing someone to remain in the link and divulge memories against their will. The concept was horrific, and they all vowed to each other that they would never attempt it under any circumstances. But Frida. The first time a boy petted her, the first time she was suckled, her strange night at a slumber party where she explored sexuality with another teenage girl, the night she lost of virginity, her struggle to keep Diego's cock out of her butt, all these memories were as clear to Mark and Toshi as they were to Frida. Mark had a profoundly intimate view of lovemaking as the female, and now Toshi was asking if he wanted to playact and live that perspective for real. He wasn't exactly sure what she had in mind now, but for all her social politeness, Mark considered Toshi perhaps the most thoughtfully playful and imaginative person he had ever met, and her sweet smile was disarming him completely. "Come on Mark," Toshi whispered in a playful scold. "You know you can't hide from me, your fascination with the female perspective, from Frida's love making to my childhood seikufu." Mark gasped and blushed deeply in the darkness. Toshi had sensed his embarrassment perfectly. He felt her move her mouth at his breast and breathe hot air upon him. Her hand grabbed his chest and locked and positioned him, his male nipple exposed and defenseless against her desires. She then touched the sensitive point with the tip of her tongue. "Come on Mark," she teased again in a sultry whisper. "Let me show you what it's like to be excited in a female body." She then held his nipple in a feather-light caress with her lips and tongue and waited for his answer. Their intimacy was so profound that she read Mark's answer to her question just from the feel of his breast beneath her hand and the nipple between her lips. She gave Mark's tip a quick kiss and the left the bed for a moment. Mark heard the water in the sink running, and then Toshi returned, carrying what Mark thought were some washcloths. She placed them by the bed and lay back down with him, petting his breasts and kissing him and accepting his kisses in return. Mark shuddered as he realized Toshi considered her question answered. She had read his body and wanted to spare him the embarrassment of answering the question verbally. Toshi's kisses dropped from his lips to his throat, lingered there for a while and then traced a long and lazy return path to his nipples, circling his male breasts for a long while before finally latching onto a nipple with a strong suckle. Mark could feel her lips, and then her teeth, and then her tongue working him, and all the while her beautiful clean black hair was falling all over his upper chest and shoulders and neck. The movement of the soft hair across his body was delightful, and Mark relaxed and floated. His muscles felt as if they were turning to butter. "Sweet, darling Toshi," he mumbled. "That feels so nice." "Hush! I am not sweet now. I am male and I am your lover and I want to be inside your body. I am your lover, and you are my female and I have a great desire to enter you and fill you with my seed. I want to push in deep, as far as I can. I want to be inside you when you cum. I am filled with consuming love, and I want to take you, consume you, drain you until there's nothing left. Mark, I want to milk you dry." Toshi suckled the soft area of his throat for a moment, and in an act of supreme trust, Mark kept still and accepted her desires to dominate him and to keep him vulnerable. Toshi whispered again, "That's right, my love. You are becoming female, my beautiful female. Relax and learn to trust me. But remember. I am going to milk you. Do not disappoint me." Her mouth returned to his nipples, back and forth, slowly building the tempo, strong rhythmic pulls with her cheeks while her tongue lapped across the aroused tips of his breasts. Mark was in heaven. He drifted in the sexual role Toshi was creating for him, floating in the memories that Frida had shared with him, a young woman in high school allowing a boy to pet and suckle her breasts. All sense of time disappeared. The lover next to him was nudging his body to turn over, and Mark obediently complied, resting on his stomach. "My sweet love," Toshi whispered. "Spread your legs ... a little more ... that's right ... just relax my love..." Mark felt Toshi's strong fingers separate his ass cheeks, and then a damp washcloth began to clean his anus. Mark sighed deeply with the gentle and loving sexuality of the act. His drifting universe revolved around Toshi's fingers as they probed his outer sphincter muscles through the cloth. She was not pushing hard enough to penetrate but enough to suggest it. Her magical fingers, so strong, so supple, so skillful. Mark sighed and relaxed completely, allowing the anal inspection with complete acceptance. He sighed and drifted, the gentle caresses were such exquisite pleasure. His floating mind went back to his lover's childhood, all the time she had spent strengthening and perfecting those magical fingers... Toshi had taken lessons on the four-stringed biwa since she was a very young child. She had shown him the instrument and its sounds in her mind. It was a beautiful traditional Japanese art form, playing the biwa. Mark thought it looked like a large lute, and Toshi was an accomplished player, highly ranked by the biwa hoshi, the biwa priests. "Such a strange concept," Mark thought as Toshi teased his sphincter to open, "to have a priesthood organized around a musical instrument. Such a different culture..." He drifted in his pleasure as Toshi quietly and lovingly relaxed and dilated his anal muscles, preparing him for his arousal and fucking. "Mark," Toshi whispered. "Imagine now you are completely female. Imagine it clearly, your breasts inside bras and menstrual flows and sexy hips and legs that attract the boys. You are so pretty! And I am your male lover. I have taken off your bra and petted your breasts. I have taken off your panties. You are helpless and female and I am going to milk you. Do not disappoint me, my dearest love..." "There," thought Mark slightly confused as he floated in the petting. "That strange warning again..." And then he realized what Toshi was trying to do. The female role, perhaps especially in a traditional society, the role of female was to attract and to submit. Mark's thoughts went to Jada's primal cry, the first night he met her. "You don't think I'm pretty?" So much time, Mark thought, in the female perspective, so much time preparing to look physically attractive ... and letting the boy take the lead ... giving the boy the pleasure of chasing you and undressing you and petting you and taking the lead ... Another memory from Jada came to his mind. She shared her fear of being too easy (or too aggressive) and scaring him off. Toshi was asking Mark to play the traditional female role now, the female role of letting the male pursue and capture the female, and the female accepting and submitting to the male. Her warning was a playful extension of her own fears, wondering sometimes if she were physically pleasing to Mark. Such silly fears, Mark had told her repeatedly in the link. Toshi was so lovely... Toshi's long and strong musician fingers had finished cleaning his anus and had dropped down to fondle his sac. Soft, sliding caresses at first, but then the fingers penetrated, fondling the testes and tracing the connecting duct work with probing fingertips. Mark felt the fingers probe deep, up to the tough muscular roof of the scrotal sac. Mark sighed and accepted her fingers inside his sac. Toshi bounced and squeezed his testes lightly, not enough to cause pain but enough to get his attention. "Do you know what this is?" she whispered, squeezing his testes again. "Sure, my sac," Mark mumbled back. "No. Remember you're a female now. Do you know what this is?" "Hmmm?" "These are you ovaries," Toshi whispered. "I'm petting them now. We are pregnant now, and perhaps some year we will be pregnant again. And next time, the promise of our child's life will start right here, right here in these beautiful ovaries." Her fingers were deep in his sac, almost buried, and she traced the tubular connections between the muscular roof and the sensitive orbs. "Feel that? Feel these tubular connections, right where I'm running my fingers? These are your Fallopian tubes. The promise of our future child will travel from your ovaries through these tubes. Your promise will meet with the promise from my body, and our child will be created." "Sweet Toshi..." Mark mumbled. "Hush! I am demanding now, not sweet! Remember I am male now! Do you submit to me too? I demand that you do!" "Yes..." "My dearest female, you have made me very happy!" With one hand still fondling his sac, Toshi's other hand came up and petted his ass. After a few moments, her ring and index fingers pushed down and away to expose his anus, and her middle finger began a light caress on the clean butthole. "Do you know what this is, female?" "My vagina?" Toshi giggled. "No, it's your butthole silly girl, and I'm about to fuck you in your butt. I'm going to dominate you and fuck you up your butt, as deeply as I can." Her other hand released his sac and gripped his full erection. "This is where your vagina is." The hand traveled further, squeezing and pumping the penis upwards until the fingers found the sensitive penis tip. "And this is your clitoris. As I butt fuck you, I might rub your clit to help you get off. Do you think you'd like that, my beautiful naked female? Will you submit?" Mark groaned his desire back. "Then I will take you. I will take you and milk you. I will take you now." Toshi sat up and moved on the bed, kneeling between Mark's legs and spreading them a bit farther apart with her knees. She gasped and almost cried out as she gazed at his beautiful and exposed body. "Such trust," she thought. "I feel unworthy." But she stayed within her role and kept Mark in his. Her left hand was caressing the skin of his penis/vagina while her other hand slipped a finger into her own vagina. Then she brought her lubricated finger to the exposed anus in front of her. She teased him, alternating a soft finger massage of the sensitive anal tissue with light penetrations into the wet butthole, being careful never to penetrate past the fingernail. She played with Mark for a long while, bringing more and more lubricant from her vagina to his anus until he was groaning with frustration and begging for a deeper penetration. He was thrusting upwards with his ass with each caress across the dilated opening, trying to capture the impudent finger but never quite catching it. "What do you want? Do you want to be butt fucked?" Toshi teased. Mark groaned in reply. "Then invite me in. Beg me with your body." "How do I do that?" Mark whimpered. The wet finger probing his anus, it felt so slick and erotic, a soft teasing caress circling round and round. Mark swooned in the sexuality of it, shivering from the intensity of the stimulation. He humped up again, begging the finger to enter him, and then groaned in sleepy dismay as his anus pushed against thin air. Toshi moved again, and he felt a hot breath on his ovary laden sac. Her tongue licked the hanging orbs for a moment, and Mark felt warm saliva running to his penis. Then the pressure returned to his butthole. "Bear down and push dearest. Open yourself. Invite me in." Mark complied at once, taking a deep breath and then holding it and pushing down with his bowels. His anus pouted and dilated, and Toshi's super lubricated middle finger slid inside in one slippery curving motion, hooking his butt with one slick push. She didn't stop until Mark's anal ring was locked around the base of her finger at the third knuckle. The shock of the anal penetration was like an explosion inside Mark's sleepy mind. He was fully awake instantly, his eyes wide open and his body gulping in a great lungful of air. "My God Toshi!" he hissed. "Quiet!" Toshi commanded. "I'm going to have my pleasure with you. I'm going to milk you!" She lifted up with her curved finger. Mark exhaled in a gasp. His rectum was caught on a long curving hook, and he instantly followed Toshi's tactile command to raise his ass, flaring his legs in obedience and presenting himself for his butt fucking. Mark had never felt such a collision of emotions before, three great desires of trust, sexual need, and submission magnifying each other and then fusing into an insatiable desire to be dominated. His helpless and vulnerable state transformed into fulfillment. His lover had entered his body, and there was no where else in the universe he wanted Toshi to be. In an urge almost desperate to show his acceptance, he arched his ass up as high as he could to give Toshi an extra easy angle for his fucking. Toshi read Mark's body language perfectly. With one hand giving a rigorous wet handjob to his penis, she began to rotate her other hand, drilling sideways deep within his rectum, searching for the prostate. She could feel Mark shaking beneath her hands, felt his erection lengthen and pulse under her sliding grip, and she knew that his orgasm was only moments away. She could feel the desperate need for it in his quivering body, and in love she would not deny him or tease him any longer. Her probing fingertip at last found its target, a hard tight ball high up inside the rectal cavity. She caressed the sensitive gland lightly with the pad of her fingertip. "Not yet," she thought. "Don't milk him yet. Wait for the ejaculations." After locking the gland's position in her mind, Toshi let her finger drift away, sliding along the rectal walls with erotic caresses. Mark was shivering beneath her as she worked him, almost dizzy with how fast Toshi was driving him to orgasm. Below him hung his erection, and Toshi was jerking him off, slick pulls both back and forth and mixing in slick finger rubs against the swollen penis glans. Meanwhile her other finger, her other incredible finger was rotating, caressing his rectal walls and shoving in and stretching and opening his anus, plunging deep and sliding along the slimy connection between his rectum and intestine. The feel of the deep finger was pure eroticism, and it was driving Mark to a shattering release. "Toshi," he moaned, feeling the sliminess of her deep caresses. "I'm not very clean for you." In love, Toshi dropped out of her role, just for a moment. "Oh, don't worry about that. It's sexy for me to feel your shit." And then she dropped back into play. "I am taking you!" she hissed. "I am taking you up your butt. This feels so good for me! I have pushed my penis into your butt, and you are giving me great pleasure! Can you feel me, my love?! You're so beautiful. You have opened your ass for me and you are so beautiful! Can you feel my stiff erection up your butt?" Toshi groaned in her desire. She was struck by an unexpected desire to bend down and bite his ass cheek hard. She leaned and kissed his ass instead, and then couldn't resist, two shift nips with her sharp teeth into the defenseless flesh. Mark's eyes blinked wide as the harmless pain pushed him exactly where Toshi wanted him to be. Mark was female, and a powerful, wild male had mounted his/her rear. Mark's only chance for survival was to submit. "Feel my eagerness for you?" Toshi asked in a hiss, her finger a wiggling, wild animal inside his rectum. "I'm going to press in and release as deep as I can. I am going to brand you with my cum up your butt! I am going to milk you and make you mine!" Toshi was panting heavily, and in love her focus was so completely locked on Mark's pleasure that she was totally unaware of her own approaching orgasm. Mark felt as if he were sliding slowly across the top of a long rollercoaster chute. The long drop was about to begin. The wildly corkscrewing finger in his butt had settled down, and Toshi's long finger was beginning to stroke his prostate. The sensation at first was that of a light caress. Toshi was probing gently and working out the exact angles and curling positions she wanted to use when she got down to business. Then she felt Mark's anal tunnel spasm and grip down on her probing finger super tight. She decided to incorporate the tight feel into the game. "Feel how thick I've grown?" she panted. "Feel how my penis is curled and pressed up tight against your butt walls? I am about to explode my seed into you!" Her own pelvis spasmed, and she grunted as she shook off the unexpected sensation. "I'm taking you! I'm taking you now!" She drilled him, rapidly sliding in and out of his rectal cavity while her other hand wildly pumped his penis. She saw his balls contract into a tight nut and drilled in deeply with her finger one last time, nailing the target gland dead on. Mark's penis pulsed with its first ejaculation. Toshi had timed him perfectly. She had his rectal button positioned and locked and she started pumping vigorously, timing her prostate milking with her hand squeezes on the hanging erection below. She was rewarded with the feel of a second spurt of semen shooting out of Mark's penis. She caught the big wet spurt in her palm, and then another. Toshi's body was flush with her sexual desire to please and dominate. She wanted to drive Mark to exhaustion, work his orgasm and drain him completely. Panting with her eagerness, Toshi kept squeezing the flaring penis head with her palm, using his cum as lubrication as she caught the releases, and all the while her buried finger kept milking his prostate. Suddenly an electric current seemed to erupt out of nowhere inside her loins. "My God Mark!" she cried in a whisper, her game forgotten as her uterus spasmed. "I'm cumming!" Mark was delirious. He had never had an orgasm anything like this, never even imagined such sexual pleasure could exist. The release of his desire, it was so pure and raw. Toshi's cries from her own spasms somehow seemed distant and far away. He floated in ecstasy, moaning slightly only once, and then the perfect finger slipped out of his butt. He blinked his eyes awake. Toshi was lying near him, curled up in a ball. She was sobbing, almost too softly to be heard, but she was definitely crying. Mark raised himself up and looked down. Toshi had been thoughtful enough to place a dry washcloth underneath where he would orgasm. Some of his semen was lying neatly collected in the center of the small thick cloth, and what was not in the cloth was either smeared on his wilting penis or was being held tightly in Toshi's clenched fist. Mark gathered the cloth into a ball, cleaned his penis for a moment and then tossed the cloth to the floor. He put his hand gently on the hip of crying Toshi and whispered her name. Getting no response, He curled around the her back, his head touching hers from above, his nose and lips touching her ear, his chest fitting around her back, his limp penis pressing against a soft ass cheek, male thighs and knees and shins fitting closely to the undersides of her female thighs and calves. His hand came up and held her once more where the curve of her hip met her waist, holding her body to his, never wanting to let go. "Toshi," he whispered again. The woman in his arms shivered and said nothing. Mark held her quietly, blinking in the moonlight, feeling his lover crying almost silently as he pressed his body against hers. Mark sighed and looked up, noticing some extra washcloths Toshi had brought. He reached over and picked one up. It was damp with clean water. Mark took Toshi's hand, the one she had used to fuck him, and cleaned her hand with the cloth, spending extra time with the long dirty middle finger. He took another cloth, and another hand, and cleaned the semen from her, from the palm her hand and her fingers, and then where his cum had smeared on her stomach. The simple acts of having her body washed and cleaned by her lover calmed Toshi down immensely. The crying changed to deep sighs, and the sighs evolved to slow breathing. "Oh Mark," she whispered in Japanese in great sleepiness. "I'm so happy. All my dreams..." Toshi turned to face her lover, her hand came up touched his face, and they stared into each others eyes in the pseudo moonlight. They had never before established a mind connection in such dim light, but they were managing one now. There were no words, only emotions and images, core images of self and self with spouse, images as deep as self awareness ever gets. Toshi's mind was filled with emotions of peace and fulfillment, swirling lazily around and around a core of pure joy and acceptance. Within the link, Toshi offered Mark everything she had, everything that was truly hers, her body and her mind, and she pleaded with him to accept the gifts and to cherish them forever. She thought nothing more. Her eyes closed. Mark's hand came and cupped her breast. Toshi swooned drowsily and turned slightly. A few minutes later she was fast asleep. Mark held her in the darkness for a long while, thinking, it seemed, of just about everything. One thing for sure, he decided. He would protect Toshi as his wife, care for her as his wife, love her as his wife. To do otherwise would be absolutely impossible. In a gratitude without boundary he accepted her gifts. He fell asleep beside her as a husband holding his wife. ------- Chapter 37 Diagram of southern point of White Mall diamond, showing the colored bands of cobblestones before the ivy outside the hexagon, plus the blue circular indentation in the white marble floor, plus the overhead footprint of the stairwell leading down (stairs lead to the left, the west-southwest direction). The next morning. Time: Monday, January 28, 2019 7:28 AM Mark was having a very strange but not unpleasant dream. He was wading through shallow puddles of warm water while a naked Toshi was dancing around him in delight. Her eyes! They were so strange. Her beautiful Japanese eyes were sparkling like diamonds. And then Mark stirred and woke up. The dream had been semi-real. Toshi was kneeling near the bottom of the enormous bed. She had brought several cloths and she was washing his feet. Frida was semi asleep near him, but as Mark turned to smile at his bride, the movement woke up his sleepy bedmate. Frida sat up and watched Toshi in her work for a while, and thought the expressions of love from Toshi's hands were unmistakable. "Hey," she said with a grin, "Did you guys get married last night?" Toshi shared the briefest of a mind link with Mark, just to confirm her understanding, and then nodded, a smile bursting on her face. "Yes, I guess we did." "And you didn't invite me to the wedding?" Frida replied with a laughing smile. "I'm very disappointed." "Well," said Toshi, "It was kind of a private ceremony." "Oh, I'm sure!" Frida laughed again and then paused for a moment. She was fascinated with her companion's work. "Toshi, may I ask? Is this some sort of Japanese custom, for the wife to wash her husband's feet?" Toshi grinned back. "Not exactly. The Samurai have a foot washing ceremony as part of their sword training. In terms of honoring my husband, perhaps I'm starting a new custom. What do you think Mark?" "Hmmm? Yeah, sounds and feels like a great idea." He sighed in the loving caresses of her hands and added, "provided I get to wash your feet too." "I was hoping you would approve." Toshi paused for a moment. "Perhaps I could wash your feet in the morning, and if you like, you can wash my feet at night." "Hey!" interrupted Frida with a big smile. "What about me? I have hands and feet too!" Simultaneously in the Red Mall lounge. Jada leaned back in her chair and took a rest for a moment. There were twenty people in the lounge, their entire group except for the three people trapped at Black Mall. They were about half way through their weekly Hour of Common Prayer, and Jada was enjoying been with such a large group of people. They had so many projects going on, it was rare to have everybody together. Jada smiled to herself. "A group of twenty, is that a large group now? I guess it is, certainly an awesome percentage of what's left of humanity." She took a deep breath and got back into the group's conversation. Holly was telling Fatima it was folly and a horrible idea to try to create a new religion. In Holly's opinion, the history of Earth provided far too many examples of religions being used to dehumanize people. "I know," replied Fatima. "That's something I worry about too. But I don't think the danger is intrinsic to religion. People have a tendency to form habits and customs whether they're religious or not, and then to shun people ... well, maybe shun is too strong a word. I'm thinking of the practice of pulling back from full acceptance. It's the responsibility of each of us not to fall into this trap. I'm trying to build a faith where we never do that, where we never pull back from people with different beliefs, or even no belief at all in a deity." Holly stared at Fatima with a frown. "Easy to say, but do you really mean that? What if your own children wanted to pick a different religion, or no religion at all?" "Who's in charge Holly?" Fatima replied. "Who should be in charge of the unique relationships my children will have with the Creator?" Holly grinned. "Even if their relationships are limited to rejecting your Creator's existence?" "Yes, even then! It's not my job to be in charge! My children need to explore and build their own relationships. I might want to share what my own relationship is like, but that's appropriate, is it not? A parent should want to guide. A parent should want to prepare their child for the joys and sorrows of life. But offers to guide and share are not controls! Even if you were my own child Holly, why should I want to control your beliefs? Why?" Holly stared back thoughtfully. "Wow Fatima, that's not the attitude of religions I'm familiar with, and I'm including Islam when I say this." "I know. I've done a lot of soul searching this past month, made a lot of changes in how I approach my Creator. Fundamentalists within my old faith would probably judge me an apostate now. I think ... I think what we're doing now in these Prayer Hours is extremely important. I think in addition to talking about our faiths, we're laying the groundwork for our government." Holly was aghast. "Oh shit! You want to build a theocracy?!" "No! Far from it! I'm trying to say that our principles of mercy, our principles of justice, our principles of purpose should be common and present both in our faiths and in our governance. Believe me, I know and respect the difference between secular power and sacred power. My vision for my faith is that there be no human expression of sacred power, no ruling priesthood, no governmental clerics. But our governance and our faiths can never be truly separated, don't you see Holly? They are forever joined by our guiding principles, our understanding of goodness and how we strive for it." Jada leaned back and smiled. She was enjoying these sessions immensely, much more than she had originally expected, and she thought it was a wonderful idea to use their work here as a foundation for building their government. Jada glanced at the time. In a half hour, the group would split up. Jada would be part of the team making the preliminary exploration south of White Mall's home complex. They would soon know if Mark's conjecture was correct. Two hours later. Mark was having his usual morning class with Frida on basic street fighting tactics, and for the first time Toshi had joined them. Mark had felt both curious and pleased by her presence. A quick glance of their eyes revealed the explanation. As Mark's wife, Toshi was honoring his request to learn marital arts, and she was turning out to be an excellent and attentive pupil. Mark thought they were very near the end of a great two-hour workout, and then the Leophone began to ring. He stopped the lesson immediately and answered the call. "Hi Jada." "Yep, it's me. Nothing major yet, but we found a few things of interest. Uh, you sound a little out of breath?" "We were just finishing a workout. I was sparring with Toshi and Frida, two against one." "Two against one? That doesn't sound very fair. You spar like that?" "We were practicing street fighting. No rules in how you win, if you're doing it for real." "Oh. So, how's it going?" "I couldn't be more proud. I have two excellent students. They're both very fast learners." "Great. Mark, the reason I called, first of all, do you remember that the White Mall diamond array is slightly closer to the perimeter wall than the one at Black Mall?" "Sure do." Mark remembered that White's home complex joined the Mall on the outside arc of the spiral, so its hexagon was centered eighteen meters south of the spiral centerline, half the width of the twenty-meter wide Mall, plus the radius of the circular stairwell leading to the Mall (eight meters). White Mall's offset pushed it towards the perimeter wall. In the far north, Black Mall joined the Mall on the inside arc of its spiral, so it also had a southern offset of eighteen meters, which for Black Mall was an offset away from the perimeter. "Uh huh. Mark, the diamond complex here, it's different than yours. There is no perimeter walkway on the first floor. Nothing on the inside leads to one, and the outside walls are opaque. We hiked outdoors and checked." "Ah, that's interesting. But there's still a perimeter walkway on the second floor?" "Yep. That part is almost the same, except here the walkways cover most of the last hexagon too. Both the eastern and western walkways descend to the first floor about thirty meters from the southern vertex, the very tip of the diamond." "Ah. What's it like?" "It's interesting, an open triangle hall all the way to the vertex. The floor is beautiful. It has the appearance of white marble. There are lots of floor to ceiling windows. The hall cuts right into the great shield buffer. Inside the building, the tip of the southern vertex cuts through the warning zones until it reaches halfway into the final black band of cobblestones. Right at the tip, there is a door on eastern side of the vertex leading out." "Yikes! You mean leading out to the ivy?!" "Yes, it's scary. If you walk west around the vertex tip, you can get to the red and then the yellow cobblestones and then finally the sand. Emily and Aggie have a conjecture that there are different levels of risk for each surface, but the interface won't reveal explicit information." Jada paused. "That plant is unbelievable Mark. It's so cold outside, -17C, and we still think the plant is active." "You've tested it?!" Visions of Gilberto being sawed in half filled Mark's mind. "My God Jada, be careful!" "We are being careful. I'm saying this from observations with binoculars. We haven't opened a door more than a crack, just to test that it opens." "Uh ... still, be very careful. That plant can react much faster than human reflexes once it gets moving. Don't rile it!" Mark paused for a moment and thought about the new information. "Hell Jada, we couldn't have lost everyone from White Mall to the plant. They had sixteen women, right?" "Well, as Fatima reminded me a few minutes ago, that's still a bit of an assumption. We have no proof all the parties are in a linear order with the malls. But yeah, let's assume Party #2." "Right, and the census counter for the women isn't down that much." "Yes, that's our working conclusion too. I'm imagining the scenario. We have sixteen women and two guys heading to Great Balls of Fire. They show up, have a feast, and then realize they are abandoned. They start to wonder what the hell is going on. That's what happened at Aggie's Party. That's what happened to the nurses that came to our Party. Sunset is approaching and they're wondering what the hell is going on." Mark nodded. "Yeah. Maybe they leave at sundown like Aggie's party, or maybe they did what we did, leave early the next morning. Entering the diamond array would be their obvious choice. It's due south of them, the direction that should take them right back to the parking lot. That's what we would have done, if we had been unfortunate enough to pick Party #2." He paused. "But where did they go for real? Were they lucky enough to walk the black cobblestones to safety?" "Huh? Oh! Sorry Mark. I didn't finish my report. The stairwell at the southernmost tip, exiting to the ivy is not the only option. There is also another stairwell in the marble hall that continues down." "Ah. That's interesting. How far?" "This one is really bizarre. Let me describe it. Imagine a sunken circular depression, 18 cm deep and with five meters radius, centered nine meters north of the point of the southern vertex." "Uh ... Yeah, okay. More marble?" "Uh huh, but now it's a dusky shade of blue. Centered in the circle is a three-meter by five-meter rectangular cutout. The opening is the overhead entrance to a very long fight of stairs heading straight down with a more true-blue shade of marble." Mark tried to picture the layout. "Do the stairs lead under the ivy or away from it?" "Ah, that's an interesting question. You know the great perimeter wall is running thirty degrees south of due west here, right?" "Yep." "Well, the stairwell is angled twenty-four degrees south of due west. It's running six degrees in a more westerly direction." Mark nodded and sighed. "So it might not be a path out of here. It's angling away from the perimeter wall towards the inside." He paused and then asked, "How far down does it go?" "It's intriguing. We measured the steps with the laser surveyors, 18 cm risers and 30 cm horizontal runs, just like with treads in the home stairwells. It's a very generous stairwell, three meters across and three meters in height, and get this: There are 311 steps to the bottom." "Wow, that's deep!" "Uh huh, almost fifty-six meters down with a horizontal run of over ninety-three meters." "And what's at the bottom?" "Mark, it's just the beginning of the puzzle. At the bottom there's a twenty-five meter corridor of white marble running inline with the direction of the stairs, and then another huge stairwell, we think another 311 steps, Aggie didn't bother to count exactly. The second stairwell leads down to another landing with white marble." Mark thought for a moment and asked, "So how far down did you explore?" "Just one flight down, and then to the end of the corridor. With the angles involved, you can only see the first five to ten meters of the corridor from the top of the stairwell. I didn't want my team to get too far out of sight. Emily is convinced there's some grand mathematical theme to the stairwell's construction. The horizontal corridor, if you measure riser-to-riser, is 25.3 meters. The first 30 cm is the pure blue of the run of the last step, and then 25 meters of white marble until the start of the next stairwell. The corridor dimensions are generous, three meters in height and width, just like the stairwells themselves." "Grand scheme?" Mark mused for a second. "311 is a prime number. Emily got any ideas?" "Nah. This one has her stumped. We'll need to explore the stairwell before we solve the puzzle." "Hmmm. So what's the plan?" "We're going to wait till tomorrow morning to try again. We're going to explore the area with as much equipment as we can carry, food, water, survival gear. A quarter of our group is going, five people in all, Charles, Tom, Emily, Mandy, and Maddy who will lead the expedition." "My sister?!" "Mark, we're sending the three people who know how to handle pistols. All three are going armed. As for the other two, we did a survey. They're the two people with the most camping and wilderness survival experience. Did you know Emily knows how to dogsled?" "No. Really? That's impressive." "Yeah. Let her tell you her stories about Alaska sometime. They're very interesting. And Mandy, I can see why Charles used to pick her when he was Chico. She's gorgeously athletic. She was hoping to compete in the 2020 Olympics." "Oh really? What in?" "Kayaking." Jada paused. "Mark, regarding your sister Maddy, you're still our supreme leader. Do you want to overrule me?" "I ... Ah, no, I guess not. Sorry. I do have enormous respect for my sister's abilities. I guess I was just feeling protective." Mark could hear the warmth in Jada's reply. "Yes, I know. While you were missing, she's told us some stories about you, when you were little kids, how you would always look out for her ... Mark, we're using the time today to build mobile rechargers for our Leophones, just as you have. Maddy and Chico, oops, sorry, Charles, they'll both have Leophones. Let's set up a bridge tomorrow, three Leophones plus some of the library terminals. We'll all go down the stairs with the expedition through the phones." Mark agreed, and then started chatting with Jada on a number of issues. After a while Jada gave a small laugh and brought up a project that Brandi had created. "We were right about the sealing food cabinets, the walk-in refrigerators and freezers too. We can't measure any passage of time at all. It either stops completely or slows down at least five orders of magnitude. No wonder the food isn't spoiling." Mark shivered. "My gosh, what technology. The beings who built this place manipulate space and time more easily than we manipulate matter and energy." Jada ignored Mark's comment and continued. "It was Brandi's idea to use a few cabinets as a sperm bank. We have so few male genomes left. The sperm will be priceless if we lose more people." Jada gave a small chuckle. "Brandi has already helped Charles and Tom make some bank deposits." Mark grinned. "Both?" "Yes. She seems to be the girlfriend of both men. And we shouldn't snicker. We women will be asking you guys to have multiple partners, right?" "True." Ah, Mark?" "Yeah?" Jada's voice dropped a bit into playful coyness. "If you want, maybe I could help you fill out some deposit slips when we're back together again." Mark shivered and looked at Toshi. She smiled at him and nodded her head vigorously. "Ah, Jada," Mark asked, "Are you alone right now?" "No, I'm in the White Mall lounge with some other people. One moment..." A small period of silence passed. "Okay, I'm sitting alone in the pantry. What's up?" Mark talked at length, explaining his bonding with Toshi and how permanent the bonding had become. He then told Jada he loved her and waited for a reply. There was a long pause, and then Jada asked, "Toshi, you're still there with Mark, aren't you?" "Yes, and Frida is here too. Hello Jada." "Hi. Toshi, first of all, I want to say how proud I am, how proud we all are, that you and Mark have accepted the child you're having. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been." "Thank you Jada. Mark changed everything, and even before, morally the child is completely innocent of the crime that created her ... or him. Mark and I dream of the child as a girl, but perhaps that's just our fantasy. Emotionally now for me, the pregnancy is very easy. I think of Mark as the true father, and I am bearing his child. And from a scientific perspective, we have the legacy of Gilberto's genome. I agree, it's a priceless asset for our world. Do you see Jada? I have absolutely no reason to reject this child." "Toshi, may I ask? Your marriage vows with Mark..." Jada took a deep breath. "What are they like?" Toshi sighed back. "We talked about our vows for months in our dreams. Jada, it's been more than a year of subjective time for us." "A year?! Mark! Are your memories of me a year old?!" Mark blushed as he answered. "Yes. Jada, my feelings and desires, they haven't changed." "But a year! Why didn't you tell me yesterday?" "I ... We wanted to break the news slowly, give you time to adjust." "I see," said Jada slowly. After a moment she added, "Seriously, that was very thoughtful of all of you." Toshi replied, "Thank you. Jada, to answer your question, our marriage vows are deep and vast. Mark and I will cherish and honor each other as husband and wife. We will confide in each other as husband and wife. And yes, we will seek sexual fulfillment with each other as husband and wife, and be parents to our children as husband and wife. And from my own dreams as a child, I also want to submit my desires to be under his. Mark is resisting me a little on this last vow, but it's something I really want. And Jada?" "Yes?" "There is absolutely no expectation of monogamy in my marriage, and I'm working on having there be no desire for it. Truthfully? It's something I still need to work on. Frida is here by my side. If I may speak for her ... She's nodding yes. Frida is also expecting to become Mark's wife. We have tried, Frida and I in our mind links, with and without Mark, we have tried to build what our vows to each other will be like, sister-wife vows I mean, if I may create such a word." "Ah. I see. Wow. This is a lot to take in." Jada paused for a moment and tried to find some stability in the turbulence of her emotions. "You guys have done so much work on this. You are so much further along than we are, in planning for polygamy." Toshi's eyes began to glisten as she replied. "Jada, I see Mark's heart and soul when we link. His desire to be your mate, it's as fierce as his desire for me. I confess, it's easier to vow to accept polygamy than to ... Well, imagining my husband spending nights with a sister-wife and not me ... I feel so possessive sometimes, overwhelmingly so ... It's something I have to work on." She gave a small wistful laugh. "The concept of polygamy is correct of us, but concepts are theories. In practice, Mark taught me this old American saying, when the rubber meets the road..." She took a gasping breath. "Forgive me. My words must seem very disjointed. I think I should stop talking." "No Toshi, you've done a fine job explaining. I've been working on the same issues. I know what you're feeling. Mark, I guess you know this, everyone in our original group is interested in you, Ashley, Hannah, Emily, Fatima, me, Aggie too, everyone except Maddy, and even she jokes about it a bit, saying she sometimes wishes you weren't her brother. But I guess some taboos are too strong to break." Jada took a deep breath. "Toshi and Mark? Congratulations!" Toshi almost cried out her reply. "Thank you! Jada, if you wish, we will welcome you into our marriage. This past year for us, we were trying to wait. I wanted to allow you and Mark to create the first pairing link, but ... But the love Mark and I have for each other, and the love we have for our child, it all became too strong to resist." Toshi's eyes were full of tears. "Thank you for accepting us, for accepting our marriage!" Jada tried to reply but felt too emotional to speak coherently. She exchanged simple words of endearment with the three people on the other end and then disconnected. ------- Chapter 38 The next morning. Time: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 7:04 AM Three hours before sunrise, Jada placed a called to Mark. He answered at once. "Hi Jada. Are we starting early?" "Hi Mark. No, the away team is not even assembled yet. The plan is unchanged. They'll depart White Mall lounge at 9:30 AM and start their descent at the southern vertex at sunrise. That's when we'll go live with the Leophone bridge." Mark nodded and sighed. "Thank God we have a working elevator in the White Mall library." The elevator in the White Mall lounge was inactive, and it was only on the first floor where the group had instant access. Jada agreed with Mark with a laugh. "Oh yeah. We'd be biking five kilometers from White Mall's terminal store otherwise." She yawned. "Emily just took off for a shower. I'm still in my bedroom. I've got my Leophone hooked up to my new mobile charger. Kiyoko made three of them, very professional looking, like something you would buy out of a store. Maddy will be carrying this phone when they leave. Emily will have one too." "Ah, okay. Sleep well?" "Yes, fairly well, maybe a little restless thinking about the mission. And you?" "Yeah, I stayed up a bit last night too, just thinking. Toshi and Frida went for a perimeter walk at daybreak. They won't be back before eight." "Ah, so we're alone now? I was hoping that would be the case. Tell me, do Toshi and Frida often take perimeter walks, or are they just being sweet?" "Well, the walkways here are very pretty, but yeah, I think they're just being sweet. We usually get up around 6 AM, a little after the artificial sun rises. We usually have a light breakfast of raw vegetables with a little honey. This morning though, they took off early." Jada glanced at the pitch blackness outside her window. "So you have daylight now? I'm a little jealous." "Yeah, this complex is running on its own timer. A little over thirteen hours of daylight, and the artificial sun here is the butter yellow of Earth. If you don't focus on the slight imperfections at the horizon, it looks just like picturesque meadows. There are flowers everywhere, even in the trees. We had a big thunderstorm last night, but there are blue skies now, and fluffy white clouds too. It looks just like Earth." "Ah. My jealousy in increasing. And Mark? May I ask? About how far away is my last conversation with you?" Mark knew instantly what she meant. "One extra day." "Not more? I'm glad." Mark could hear Jada sighing deeply in relief. "It was Toshi's idea for us to cut back. We only spend ten minutes a day in the three-way link now. That's about one extra day of subjective time. We want to return to experiencing time the way the rest of the group does. Otherwise Toshi fears we'll start to drift apart." "Toshi is very wise. Mark ... I love you." "I love you too." Mark took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. "And I wish I could be holding you when I say this." "I know. How strange our lives have become. Last night, I kept reliving my memories, our first sexy night together, exploring the mall with you, all our chess games ... Mark, it was very sweet of you to take the time to date me." "Gee, I don't know. I didn't think I was being sweet. I was thrilled to date you. Damn! I wish I could be holding you right now." "Uh, Mark?" "Yeah?" There was a long pause, and then a squeaky whisper, "Am I your fiancé?" "Jada ... Will you marry me?" "Yes, I will." Her acceptance was spoken in a calm voice, a great contrast to the whirlwind of emotions she was feeling inside. "Just a minute dearest. I have to blow my nose." A moment later she returned. "My love, I knew you wouldn't refuse me. I remember your other promise. You promised you wouldn't refuse me a third time." Mark gave a soft cry. Jada thought it sounded like the bleat of a lamb. "Sweet Jada, do you mean the night before the Intruder? I thought you were asleep." "I was asleep. I saw the promise later, in your mind. I saw it so clearly..." Jada started to cry. "Jada?!" "I'm okay!" She sucked in several deep breaths. "I'm okay! I'm so happy Mark!" Several more deep breaths. "We have so much to talk about..." There were more sounds of her blowing her nose. "But ... But wow. Maybe can we put it off, just for a bit? I need some time to settle down." Sure, sure. I love you." "I know! I love you back ... Uh, I have to blow my nose again, one more time. Hang on..." A few moments later. "Right! Mark, there's a few things you should know about. First of all, the three-way mind link you and Toshi and Frida are able to form, we tried to duplicate your ability last night. We must have tried over a hundred different three-way combinations, including lots of combinations with one man and two women. Emily has the exact number and all the details in her notes." Unseen by Jada, Mark's face broke into a worried frown. "And nobody could do it?" "No, not at all. No triplet felt they even came close, and a whole bunch of us got dizzy trying. Paige and Holly say the effort gave them headaches. I wasn't feeling too well myself." "Wow ... I don't know what to say. It's so easy for us. The three of us can sit and lock almost instantly. Any idea what the problem is?" "Oh, a whole bunch of guesses. Mark, you and Toshi displayed exceptional linking abilities when you were us. Perhaps Frida is exceptional too, and it's just a natural ability the three of you have and the rest of us don't." "Well ... Gee, I don't know ... I hope not. Toshi and I, Frida too, we want to share this with you Jada." "Thank you. And you might get the chance. Emily has a completely different conjecture. She suspects something external, perhaps another drug in your environment that we here haven't been exposed to." Mark was silent for so long and Jada gave up waiting for a response. "Mark, are you still there?" "Uh, yeah, sorry. I was thinking. We made our first three-way link the second or third day we got here. I'm trying to remember when. It's been so long ago in subjective time. I think it was our third evening here. I remember now. Jada, you're right, I think Emily is right. Our third evening, we were all a little ... It's hard to describe, sort of like drunk but not drunk, like our first night here." "Oh really?" "Yeah, not as severe as the first time, not nearly as severe, but we were all feeling a little spacey. Frida was playing with me. It was late afternoon. We were lying down. Frida was petting me, coaxing me to have sex with her. We were nose to nose, eyes locked, sharing a lot of erotic thoughts..." Jada gave a small giggle. "I'm starting to feel jealous again, but go on." "Toshi butted her head in. I think she wanted sex too. Our three heads formed a very tight triangle. I had Toshi pressing against my left cheek, and Frida against my right. I still had the mind lock with Frida, and then I looked at Toshi's eyes and the lock jumped to her. And then Frida whimpered at being abandoned. I remember a great desire to return to Frida, but I didn't want to abandon Toshi either. And then ... Well, all three of us were suddenly together, together in contemplation space. That's the easiest spot to reach." "Huh? What? I don't understand your words." "I know, I know, the three of us didn't really describe this yesterday. Oh Jada, I'm sorry! I didn't realize! I should have told you this before asking you to marry me!" "What?! Tell me what?" Jada could feel Mark's distress and she suddenly felt nervous herself. "Mark, what the hell is bothering you?" "Abilities within the three-way link are highly elevated." "Huh? Why should that make a difference with us getting married?! Mark, what are you talking about?" "Please forgive me. I thought ... We all thought you would find out for yourselves, and besides, we were afraid ... afraid you'd think of us as something other than human." "My God Mark! No I wouldn't! That's ridiculous!" "You don't know what it's like Jada," he whispered. "It's not just the accelerated time, being able to live a week within an hour of clock time. Toshi and I, or Frida and I, when we two-way link, we can share thoughts, share emotions, share desires, just like you and I used to." "Yes, of course. I remember." "When we three-way link, we can still do that. We call it contemplation space. But there's more. We can go back in time, back into our memories. The details! It's almost like being there! Such clarity! Jada, do you remember how we talked and noticed that our actual experience with the drug was so fuzzy, but we could recall the experience afterwards in perfect clarity?" "Yes, I remember. I agree, it's strange, the opposite of how memories usually work." "My childhood Jada, Toshi's and Frida's childhood too, all the things we thought lost forever ... There's such clarity Jada!" "Mark ... Can you describe what you're talking about?" She paused and took a deep breath. "An example maybe?" "Sure. I remember ... I think it was four days ago real time, Toshi was showing Frida and me her bedroom, her bedroom in Japan when she was ten years old. Within the link, the completeness of the details is astonishing. I can go into her small closet and open it. I can see and feel the dresses and slacks, children's clothes, young Toshi's clothes in the closet while Frida and Toshi are looking out the window and seeing what Toshi saw through her window as a child. I was there! I was more than there!" "What? What do you mean, more than there?" "Images Jada! Self images! I have a clear self image of what Toshi thinks she looked like as a ten-year-old. I know what it's like to be a student in her primary school, to be child Toshi and wear her seikufu." "Her what?" "Sorry, I guess I dropped into Japanese. Her school uniform Jada, it looked a lot like a sailor suit, very cute. I know what it feels like to wear that uniform, dark blue with some white trim, a sailor suit with a skirt to my knees and then white socks and black shoes. I know what it's like to spin and feel my skirt flair up. And I can go on the class trips Toshi took. I can play with her friends, not make new decisions but experience the world through Toshi's eyes and ears in the games, smelling and touching and tasting the world around me. I'm so small and the adults are so big. I'm a child again, I become Toshi, and I know how much Toshi's parents loved me. Or I can be at her desk at school, have it become my desk. In takes a tremendous amount of trust, but in the three-way link, we can share our self images. We can share our childhoods." "My God Mark!" "And there's more. The learning we acquire, it's transferable, and much faster than even the accelerated time would suggest. Frida and I now both speak fluent Japanese. Toshi says we speak without accents." Jada whispered, "Are there any limits, any limits at all?" "Oh yes, there are limits. The ability to transfer seems to be localized to the cerebrum. Cerebellum transfers are faint shadows by comparison." It took Jada a moment to figure out what Mark meant. "Oh, you mean like riding a bike, stuff like that?" "Exactly. Early on, Toshi tried to teach me how to play the biwa. I think I might be better able to appreciate her music now, the artistry, the hidden beauty and subtle complexity of it, but for me to play?! It's sort of like reading a book on judo. Intellectually you might learn a lot, but that's not the way to prepare yourself for a fight." "Wow Mark..." There was a pause and then she half shouted, "I love you!" Mark returned a long pause of his own. "After telling you all this, I was daring to hope that I would still hear that." "I do love you." She sighed. "Wow, I think I understand now. Sweet Mark, thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. I understand your worry now, about being thought of something other than human." "Yeah." Jada could hear a lingering echo of strain in his voice. "Mark?" "Uh huh?" "Relax! I still want to be your wife, more than anything! I love you!" There was a long pause, and then he replied, "Just a moment. I have to blow my nose too." ------- Chapter 39 Later that morning, at spiral mark 63,577 of Black Mall Time: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 9:58 AM Amber looked at her list and then around the large sporting goods store, trying to find where the Bowie knives would be. She was alone on the second floor of Herman's Wilderness Outfitters, performing what was now a boring daily routine of shopping after her team's trip to inspect the edge of Black Mall's unlocked territory. Amber yawned and thought for a moment. They should be back home well before noon. Perhaps she would take a few minutes to stare at the strange orange sun and the landscape. It was rather pretty. But in truth, maybe she would just collapse and take a nap. Amber was low-person on C-team, a three member group comprised of herself, Ricardo, and Hernando. Hernando was nominally in charge, but nobody really gave Ricardo orders except Uno and possibly Alfredo, and even they were careful with what they said. Tonight it would be thirteen days since Frida had run off, and so much had changed since then. Uno had organized the nine people with him into three three-person teams, and each team was on duty twelve hours a day, with no breaks whatsoever until Chico returned. And that was looking more and more unlikely with each passing day. The C-team had the graveyard shift, guarding their Mall entrance at Jacob's Bar and Grill from midnight to 8 AM. Then they would spend the next four hours making their daily fifteen-kilometer round-trip hike to Rabbies Dram, doing various shopping on the way back. In the afternoon Amber would do a little eating, a little cleaning, a little collapsing, a little more eating, and then sack out after 3 PM and sleep for almost eight hours before getting up for a shower and starting the cycle all over again. This was her life, and she silently admitted to herself, it was pretty shitty. The team that relieved her was the A-team, commanded by Alfredo who was Uno's second-in-command now. A-team also included Diego and Whitney. Diego technically was fourth-in-command and could have been in command of C-team, but he had wanted no part of Ricardo and had persuaded Alfredo to let him be on A-team instead. Amber didn't know whether she would want to trade places with Whitney or not. Ricardo was genuinely frightening to Amber, but Alfredo was openly pressuring Whitney to submit to him for fucking, and it was easy for him to be alone with her. He would order Diego to shop a few stores away while A-team was on their daily hike. So far Alfredo had not raped Whitney, but he was open in his lust for her and would fondle her when they were alone, over and under her clothes, even after Whitney asked him to stop. Whitney had confided to Amber in despair that her rape seemed both imminent and inevitable. The remaining three members of Alfonso, his whacky girlfriend Jessica, and Jenaro formed B-team, and they worked the swing shift, guarding Jacob's Bar and Grill from 4 PM to midnight. At last Amber spotted the Bowie-knife display. Uno had told her to pick up eight, one for everyone except Whitney and herself. She walked to the back of the deserted store and stood for a moment staring at the knives. Such thick blades, she thought, quite an impressive knife. And then for no apparent reason, she started to shudder, suddenly feeling the store was an eerie, creepy place to be in. Amber screeched in shock. It felt as if a lobster had snapped a claw down low on her left buttock. The pressure was incredible and it brought tears to her eyes. She turned instinctively and tried to jerk away and failed. Ricardo! He had materialized behind her as if by magic. "That was sloppy Amber," he said with a disdainful sneer. "Aren't you ever aware of what's going on around you?" "Please, you're hurting me," she whispered through clenched teeth. "This? This isn't hurting. You don't know what pain is Amber. Pretty Amber. Such a pretty Amber." "Ricardo please, let me go!" "I'm testing. Relax Amber. Relax your butt muscle for me. I want to test something." Amber felt like shouting back, "Test what?!" But she knew better than to challenge a direct order from Ricardo when she was alone with him. Desperately hoping Hernando would somehow appear soon, she took a deep breath and tried to relax. In a perfectly calm voice he went on. "That's better. When I let go, I want you to turn to the counter and drop your pants to your ankles, panties too." At the same time he spoke, his grip increased, and the pressure made Amber feel that her butt cheek was being torn apart in a vice of iron fingers. She gave an explosive gasp. "Then bend over the counter for me, knees wide apart, as quickly as you can. Arch your ass up nice and high." "Ricardo?!" "You heard me. I won't tell you again. Amber, I can show you what true pain is. Is that what you want? It's your choice. Move!" Ricardo released his grasp. Amber sucked in a crying breath and realized she had no time to decide. But she had to decide. Would her life end like this, filled with pain at the hands of a madman? She had witnessed Ricardo's version of true pain. She had been forced to watch Britney die from it, and had stayed up with Lynn the night she was branded. Was it her turn now? She had tried so hard to be careful, but would she die now in a sporting goods store? Uno had promised her she would not be hurt, but Amber was dismayed to realize Ricardo could probably get away with her murder. Hernando didn't know exactly where she was, and it would probably be easy to for Ricardo to hide her body in some useless store where it would never be found. The rest of the group would assume she ran away. Or was she still willing to pretend Ricardo would leave her unharmed if she played his game? Did she really have a chance to have her life returned to her?" "Frida got it back. I think she got it back for real," Amber thought. "She offered to tell me sometime, and I refused. And now..." Amber was out of time. She was beginning to see Ricardo's body relax as he decided she was refusing him. She had noticed the effect before, Ricardo's body looking totally relaxed before he would strike with lightning speed. What was his target now, her eyes, her throat, her kidneys? "Not my throat," Amber thought. "There are so few people left to torture. He would not make my death so swift." She finally realized she didn't want to die, not here, not now, not like this. "Okay!" she cried out loud and turned around, presenting her rump to Ricardo and fumbling with her belt. A moment later she bit her lip in frustration as she dropped her pants and panties to her ankles. Ricardo tapped the small of her back to remind her she wasn't finished. Amber leaned over the counter, bending at the waist and pressing her knees as far apart as she could. Another tap on her tailbone and she rotated her pelvis and arched her ass up, completing Ricardo's demand and her humiliation. The glasslike top of the counter felt cool against her tummy and breasts, but at least there she still had on her shirt. The counter was downright cold against the insides of her bare thighs and calves. Ricardo gave her butt a light tap, a warning she wasn't quite in the right position, and Amber tried to hug up against the counter as tightly as she could. She was arching her tailbone up as Ricardo had demanded, as high as she could raise it, putting so much weight forward on the counter and the balls of her feet that she was almost on tiptoe. Amber stood there shivering, her butt and genitalia completely exposed and open, and she waited with shut eyes wondering about her chances for survival. In absolute silence Ricardo poked the tender flesh on her butt where he had grabbed her so fiercely. Amber shivered on the counter, sensing that Ricardo was squatting on the floor behind her. She could feel his breath on her rump. She had no idea what would happen next. She was well aware that Ricardo was probing her right at his first choice for a branding spot. It felt as if he were testing the firmness of her bruised flesh. Did he think of himself as a surgeon, examining his patient before an operation? Was his interest sexual? As far as she knew, he had never checked out a hoof pussy from the pussy barn. He had not even participated in group sex with the selections of the other three muchachos. Ricardo had called her pretty. It was the first time Amber had ever heard him give a compliment to anybody, even if sarcastically. But was he being sarcastic? He was stroking the inside of her thigh with one hand while poking her butt with the other. At first the hand on her thigh was just a strong grip to lock her position. But now he was stroking up and down, back and forth slowly from her crotch almost to her knee, letting his hand brush against the fur of her pubis at the top of his stroke. Did he really think she was pretty? Amber shivered on the counter, gulping in great breaths of air. Did he really think this was how a man should express his interest to a woman? Was he going to rape and kill her? One thing for sure. If she were going to die here, Amber did not want to go meekly into the night. She quietly curled her hands into fists, fighting her rational mind which was screaming at her that she had no chance, not now. But Amber couldn't die without protest. She began to imagine spinning her body and striking back. She had seen Ricardo practice his martial arts and knew she had no chance, but she was still going to do it. Two thumbs pushed into the crack of her ass and pushed to the sides, completing the separation Amber had started with her spread legs. A finger pressing on her butthole caused a jolt of panic that shattered her thoughts of attacking. "You and Neto didn't have much butt sex?" Ricardo asked in a tone that was not really a question. He was so close, Amber could feel his breath on her anus. It was so bizarre. His voice was so calm, like a doctor's voice filling out a medical form on her. "Uh, no, I guess not." Amber whispered. "Please Ricardo..." "How often?" The fingertip was lightly probing the closed ring of exit muscles that was guarding her bowels. Then Ricardo pushed in stiffly, with enough pressure to depress the pad of his finger into the annulus of her outer sphincter. Amber worked mightily to control her panic, trying not to squeeze her anus and push the finger away. Ricardo would interpret that as a direct challenge to his domination of her. Amber grimaced at the thought of her pending rape... "Answer my question!" he hissed. Amber blinked. What question? Oh yes. Memories came flooding back, Amber aroused and on all fours, Neto panting in eagerness and lubing his cock before mounting her doggie style and taking her in her ass, fucking down into her bowels until Amber would scream at him to stop. Amber had found the couplings painful and she rarely submitted to the ordeal. She finally answered Ricardo's question. "Once a month maybe, maybe less." "Humph." He mumbled back, and he then pulled her ass cheeks so far apart it was painful. "Yeah. It looks it. I bet he used lots of lube too. Did Neto have a large cock?" Amber sucked in a deep breath. "Huh? I guess ... I guess I don't know." Ricardo paused. For the first time, Amber had puzzled him. He would have disciplined her for any defiance, and the current bruise on her butt was nothing compared to what he could raise. But he could hear from the tone of her voice that she was genuinely afraid and trying her best to be honest and speaking in simple truthfulness. Still... "How could you not know?" Amber trembled. "Neto was the only boyfriend I ever had." "That's impossible!" "I mean he was the only boyfriend I ever got physical with." "Really?" "It's true Ricardo." "So he took you as a virgin?" Amber sighed. "Yes." "And you never saw another man's cock?" "Not erect, no." "But what about the Internet?" "Oh, I don't know. There I guess, but I never thought to make comparisons. Please Ricardo, I'm trying to cooperate. Will you let me go?" She grimaced as she felt a tug on her tampon string. "When did you start?" "Butt sex?" Ricardo started tugging again, almost hard enough to pull the tampon from her vagina. Amber felt a squishiness inside her and thought Ricardo's manipulations were stimulating her menstrual flow. And in truth her womb was quivering from her terror. Without warning Ricardo slapped her hard on her right butt cheek, so loud it sounded like a pistol shot in the quiet store. Amber was surprised that after the initial sting, there was surprisingly little discomfort. Her adrenalin was suppressing the pain. "Don't get smart with me Amber. Your period." he whispered the deadly calm voice. Strong fingers pulled on both outer lips of her labia and separated her. Amber guessed Ricardo could probably see the red wet part of her almost saturated tampon, and then she felt the cheeks of his face pushing in and pressing against her thighs. Amber was hit with a wave of revulsion as she realized Ricardo was between her legs and smelling her. After a few moments there was also a soft wet touch unlike a finger that was running in a circle around where the tampon entered her vagina. Ricardo was tasting her too. "Yesterday," she whispered with a squeak. The tongue paused for a second. "Are you regular?" Amber blinked at how bizarre the conversation was, talking to a man whose face was pressed up against her sex and licking her menstrual flow. She could feel him tugging on her tampon to release more of her discharge, and it felt as if he had worked it about halfway out of her vagina. A hand came up between her legs and gripped her hard directly over her uterus, compressing and releasing, compressing and releasing. Amber felt her uterus cramp and spasm from the rough stimulation, and she felt like spitting in disgust. Ricardo was pumping her uterus to increase her menstrual flow, and it was probably working. Amber blinked. She was ignoring his question, and that was extremely dangerous. She tried to calm herself, resigning herself to her fate. "I used to be. This cycle I was two weeks late. Please Ricardo..." She took a deep breath and added, "Maybe it's the stress." "Hmmm..." Another pull, and Amber could feel the tampon sliding out of her. There was more lapping, and then the tongue stopped at her urethra opening. Amber sighed and trembled in despair. She could feel what he was doing. He had one hand pressing against the center of her butt. Amber guessed it was holding up the string on the partially extracted tampon. With the high arch she had in her back, her entire genital region was easily accessible. Ricardo had discovered her urine duct. At first he just probed the slit opening lightly with the tip of his tongue, causing Amber to shiver from the contact on the super sensitive tissue. Then his lips pressed in and he suckled the urethra slit area into his mouth. He began to suckle her. Amber was almost in tears trying to decide what to do. Was he trying to send her a message? Did Ricardo want her to release her bladder and let him taste her urine? Is that what he wanted? Guessing wrong either way would probably get her killed. Amber gasped. His tongue was now trying to enter her urethra duct. It wouldn't fit of course, but the tip of his tongue was pushing in and stretching the end of her duct, and the sensations were that of tiny electric shocks. The suckling was causing an intense need to urinate, and Amber was horrified to think that she was about to lose control of her bladder. And just how would Ricardo react if she urinated into his vigorously suckling mouth? Amber whimpered as she fought a rising tide of panic, and then without warning Ricardo released the suction on her pee slit. "Date of birth?" he asked calmly. Amber almost cried in dismay. There it was again, that surreal feeling of an office exam. Her life was a living nightmare. "February 2nd, 1999," she whispered obediently. The mouth and fingers left her labia and butt, leaving the tampon almost but not quite all the way out of her body. Amber could feel it dangling, the sticky wetness unpleasant against the folds of her labia. "You're a groundhog girl?" "Uh, yeah, I guess." A timeless period passed as Amber waited for the next insane question or insult against her body. The suspense from waiting caused an almost unbearable urge to urinate, but she bore down on her bladder valve with all the control she had left and kept it closed. And still there was no response from Ricardo. She finally dared to lift up her head and look back. She was alone. Or at least, she appeared to be alone. Was Ricardo still in the room, watching her from some hidden spot? The man could move like a ghost. Amber fought to keep herself from crying as she completed the removal of her soiled tampon and retrieved a new one from her discarded backpack. A moment later she pulled up her pants. So many questions, and none on them seemed to have answers. This had been by far her strangest experience yet with Ricardo. Why did he do it? And why did he stop? Did it have anything to do with her birthday? Her period? Games within games, was he really sexually interested in her or just teasing? Or perhaps there was some other motivation, something so completely foreign to normal thinking it would be forever beyond her comprehension. Would she ever understand? With one last fleeting look around the silent store, Amber shivered and headed down the stairs and back towards the Mall. "Wait," she thought to herself, "I never got the Bowie knives." She went back up the stairs and put eight of the gleaming knives in her backpack. She took one last look around the store. A strange place, she decided. It had almost everything for land or river wilderness exploration, but there were no bows or arrows. Uno and his entire group found that extremely frustrating. For all the Mall's opulence, there wasn't a projectile weapon or a wheel in sight. Wheels would be incredibly useful for transportation, and Uno had promised her many things if she were the first to find one. Uno ... Would he keep his promise? Should she tell him of her encounter with Ricardo? Would he protect her? Amber frowned. Hell, she had seen Uno talking to Ricardo in the lounge last night just before C-team's shift started. Did Uno put Ricardo up to this? Games within games, was this Uno's sick idea of a good cop, bad cop routine? Amber had no proof, but somehow it felt likely. Uno enjoyed having people dependent on him. Amber entered the spiral corridor and paused to consider. The urge to flee along the spiral away from Black Mall home was very strong. But Ricardo was probably watching her, and what would he do with her if he caught her in an obvious escape attempt? There was also Whitney. Uno had made it very clear to both of them. If either betrayed him, the other would suffer. Fleeing home would likely get Amber killed, and almost certainly doom Whitney to non-stop rape. There was only one choice that her conscience would accept. Amber steeled herself and briskly marched towards home. Time: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 11:36 AM "How are your knees Charles?" Madison asked as her group started to take another short break. Charles was carrying their heaviest load, and Tom wasn't far behind him. The three women's backpacks were half the weight of the men's. Charles had just finished taking off his enormous backpack and was leaning up against the white corridor wall opposite Madison. He gave her a kind smile and sighed. "Just this last flight, I think I'm starting to notice a bit of protest. I'm okay though." He reached with his hands and started massaging his kneecaps. Mandy was sitting right next to him, and after a few seconds she asked, "What some help with that?" Without waiting for a response, her hands came across and began massaging his right knee. Charles gave her a shy grin and then relaxed completely, sighing in contentment. He then turned to Mandy and they made eye-link contact without either of them meaning to. "That feels really nice Mandy, much better than what I was doing." "I was hoping you'd like it." Mandy blushed within her mind. In addition to the simple thank you, Charles was offering her a great deal of affection in the link, much more than she was expecting, and she hiccupped and broke the connection. Mandy kept her eyes averted as she continued the gentle massage. Charles sighed and closed his eyes and then verbally asked their leader, "Madison, how long will we rest here?" "Yeah, that is a question. Fifteen minutes I think. We need a good rest." Madison was sitting next to Tom. She locked eyes with him, making an offer in her mind. Tom smiled happily. A moment later Madison was massaging Tom's knees. Emily and Madison shared a brief mind link that left Emily grinning and Madison blushing, and then Emily spoke into her Leophone. "Yo Mark! Can I ask you a question about the stairs at your complex?" From within the mirror diamond array of Black Mall fifty kilometers distant came the response, "Sure Emily, what do you want to know?" "The stairs descending to your vegetable park, what are they like?" "It's a spiral staircase, identical in characteristics to the stairwells at the home complexes except it goes much further down. There's an eight-meter radius for the well with a four-meter annulus on top. Then there's the two-meter wide staircase. In the middle of the tread, it's a 30 cm run with an 18 cm rise. The staircase makes almost nine complete revolutions before reaching bottom. We measure our depth as 233 meters. And that looks about right as the height of the fake sky in our park." "Uh huh. Hey Mandy, need any help with that?" On a whim Emily who was sitting on the opposite side of Charles began to massage his other knee. Mandy looked across and gave Emily a friendly nod. Charles sighed happily at the sensations of being petted by two women at once. "Ah, heaven is such a nice place..." He reached under Mandy's arm massaging his knee and gently petted Mandy's knee, all the while keenly feeling for any nervousness on Mandy's part. But he felt no rejection of his offer for contact. He opened his eyes and offered to link with her again and she accepted. "Your forgiveness of me is complete, isn't it?" "Yes, I guess so. You can feel my emotions, can't you? This link is so amazing. It's almost as if ... Charles, do you understand my emotions better than I do?" He didn't answer her question, not directly. "To feel your emotions like this ... I see your gentleness Mandy, lots and lots of gentleness and forgiveness. It feels wonderful ... Thank you..." Charles sighed within the link and drifted away as he closed his eyes again. Emily got back to her conversation with Mark. "It's interesting. The run and the rise, thirty and eighteen are divisible by six I guess, but you say there're not an integer number of revolutions?" "No, it's a little short, maybe by about fifty, sixty degrees, somewhere in there." "Ah, curious. The builders of this place abandoned their fixation on mathematical completeness." Mark laughed. "Well, I don't know about that. I was talking to Jada yesterday. She told me about the 311 steps per flight in your stairwell. It got me to thinking. So last night Frida and I climbed back up to the top of our staircase for some exercise, and then counted on the way down. We both counted a total of 1,296 stairs." Emily blinked and laughed back. "Holy shit, six to the fourth?!" "Uh huh. I doubt it's a coincidence." Emily nodded and then repeated what she had already reported. "Well, the stairs here are interesting too. Same rise and run as yours but straight stairwells. I've been trying to find the signature six-fold symmetry the builders are so fond of, but so far I'm stumped. Twenty-five-meter corridors, 311 stairs, nothing fits." Emily paused and added, "We've been sighting the stairwell with the surveyor modules. The lasers can't pick up any deviations at all. It's a little frightening. Sometimes I wonder if this place was constructed to the precision of optical wavelengths. How do you build like this Mark?" He was silent for a moment and then answered simply, "Yeah, I know." Mandy stretched her tired legs and wiggled her toes within her boots. "Wouldn't it be nice if these were escalators and not stairs?" She said with a shrug. Charles' eyes blinked open. "Oh, hell Mandy, don't wish for that! What if this is our only access route?" Mandy looked at him and then shivered as she recognized his point. The expedition had just spent the last hour and a half carefully hiking down sixteen extremely long flights of stairs. Each flight was the equivalent of walking down a fifteen storey building. "What do you think student-of-architecture Emily?" Mandy asked playfully. "Would walking up against sixteen flights of down-moving escalators be physically possible?" Emily grinned back. "Ah, a fun question, thank you. Let's see ... Wow. I don't think anybody ever came close to building an escalator with a 56 meter rise, but assuming it's feasible ... Let's say the escalator is moving at 0.5 meters per second. That's a typical value. The incline is a little over thirty degrees, so let's say it's dropping a vertical meter every four seconds. That means you'd have to lift your body weight one meter every four seconds just to stand still. Hmmm..." Emily frowned as she stared at the stairwell they had just descended. "I don't know. You'd have to be able to run up thirty commercial flights of stairs in four minutes, or maybe forty flights in a common home. Could I do that? Run up a flight of stairs in six seconds, forty times in a row? I don't know. Keeping your balance as you ran against the moving stairs would be tricky, and pausing to catch your breath would be..." Emily shrugged. "I don't know if I could do even one, certainly not packing anything. Sixteen flights would be out of the question." Madison stretched as she considered Emily's musings. Her expedition was now almost 900 meters below the surface level. And unlike Mark's spiral staircase, the combination of linear staircases and horizontal corridors was providing no clue as to the ultimate depth of the stairwell. Madison thoughts turned to the past summer, when her family took their summer vacation in Paris. She remembered gazing across the city from the Eiffel Tower and being told the observation deck was 300 meters in height. If they turned back now, her team would have to climb the Eiffel Tower three times in a row. Her mind drifted. "My gosh, my parents, my sister, my cousins, all my family, all those people, all over the world! They were all alive back then!" The feeling would still take her occasionally, an overpowering urge to grieve. But this was not the time, not when she was leading an expedition. Madison frowned and pushed the thoughts from her mind. Mandy meanwhile was finishing taking a drink from her water bottle and she interrupted Madison in her thoughts. "Uh, Maddy, I need a toilet break." Madison sighed and nodded. The group quickly exchanged eye-contact with each other and went into their pre-arranged plan. They had toilet bags with them, somewhat to make the cleanup job easier for the servos but mostly because they all disliked the idea of leaving their excrements where others of the opposite sex could see it. With final nods all around, the two men went to the downstairs end of the corridor and the women to the upstairs end. There the two groups did their toileting in peace, secure in the knowledge that the other group would not peek. Any cheating would be visible in future links. Madison decided her bowels were fine and simply relieved her bladder into an inflating plastic bag. As she wiped herself dry, she had to smile in amusement. Tom! He had tried to hide it, but he had a playful curiosity in wanting to watch Madison pee or defecate. Not that he would cheat. Madison trusted him completely. Still, his interest in female bodily fluids and waste seemed to be limited to her, and not to Emily or Mandy. Madison wondered for a moment how she felt about that. As the two groups were returning to their gear, Cassidy gave a report from what had become their central surveillance center for the Mall, the Hilton complex at the terminal store of Green Mall. Cassidy was currently working a Mall monitoring shift with Ashley. "Jada, both installation teams are running about twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Expect Blue-Mall and Yellow-Brick to be completed by 1 PM." "Excellent, thanks Cassidy. If you get a chance, blink a good-job approval to the teams." "Sending the code now..." Jada leaned back at her console at the White Mall library and grinned. What a key improvement! The use of the Matrix sensors for signaling had enabled their society to run multiple missions at once and still maintain critical communication between the different teams. Lynn's and Akiko's recent breakthrough showed how the built-in monitoring system at the Hilton center could be used to eliminate the 64-channel limitation of the mobile system units. By 1 PM today, they would have almost the entire Mall visible from their command center. The only parts still not covered were the last 12.5 kilometers of Black Mall, and the small parts of the spirals around Hex Hall. The first 240 degrees of spiral rotations lacked the critical stores on the outside arc. All six spirals had their last sensor at spiral-mark meter-191, leaving Hex Hall and the first 160 meters of each spiral still unmonitored. After the teams finished their work, their quickest route home would be through the trap-door in White Mall connecting to the lounge directly above Jada. She would be able to smile hello to all of them as they came down to the library on their way to returning their bicycles to Blazo's Art Gallery at the Green Mall sky-bridge. It was only yesterday evening that Cassidy felt well enough to tell how her boyfriend Bambino had died. Segundo had never respected him, and less than two hours after they had split from Chico's main group, Segundo challenged Bambino's authority and demanded that Bambino give him his gun. Segundo went ballistic when Bambino refused and pointed the gun at him, remembering how Chico had faced Segundo down. But Bambino was no Chico, and after a brief struggle in which both Bambino's testicles were ruptured from multiple kicks to the groin, Segundo took the gun and fired three shots into Bambino's chest as he lay crying on the ground. Cassidy in a pique of fury then attacked Segundo with her bare hands. The mistake had almost cost Cassidy her life. Jada's mind returned to the present. Madison had just given the order for her team to proceed with the descent, and she had promised earlier to discuss with Jada first whether the group should abort the mission after sixteen flights. That discussion had never happened, and Jada felt a little upset. She asked Madison a question over the phone. "I take it you want to push on?" "Well, yeah Jada. Why? You're not thinking of pulling the plug on us, are you?" "I'm pretty close to doing that, yeah. Mark, do you concur?" "Ah, it's a tough call. Both decisions seem reasonable." Jada nodded at Mark's unspoken words. He had asked her earlier to continue being acting-in-command of the group, and he had just affirmed he would back up whatever decision she made. "Maybe this should be it then," Jada replied over the phone. "Aw, Jada..." came Madison's tired voice. "Close to five thousand stairs Maddy! If one of you twists an ankle down there, how the hell are we going to get you out?" Madison nodded. "I know. It's a risk. But the lives of the people from Party #2, the census counter is telling us they didn't all die. Perhaps none of them did. Jada, I'm really expecting to find these people trapped down here. Who knows what condition they'll be in? We could be their only hope." Madison carefully placed her heavy backpack on. For Party #2 to have survived a month, they must have found a source of water, but much of Madison's backpack was filled with food rations. Jada replied. "My primary responsibility is to protect you, not hypotheticals." She weighed Madison's point and made her decision. "Maddy, abort any time you want, and let's have this discussion again in another four flights." "Only four flights?! Jada..." Madison couldn't keep the whine out of her tone. "I know. Maddy, I can't let you walk into a situation that you can't walk out of. I just can't. And this means you can't go on much further. Another four flights, and you'll be down more than of full kilometer. And that'll be it. Understood?" "Jada, I think you're making a..." Madison sighed. "Oh I don't know, maybe not. I will obey you of course. And Jada, I do appreciate how risky this is getting. How about we both keep an open mind and think about this?' There was a short pause. "Okay. But don't explore beyond another four flights without new approval." "Understood. I'm cleared for another four flights, no more." Madison sighed and then smiled as Tom helped adjust her backpack. Afterwards he unexpectedly spent a few moments massaging her shoulders. When he finished, Madison turned and opened her eyes and mind to him and thought, "Wow, I didn't know how nice that would feel." And she couldn't resist. She asked for access to his short term memory and he granted the request. A second later Madison added the thought, "And thanks for not peeking! I know about your earlier desire." She almost gave him a brief kiss, but realized that would inappropriate while she was still in command of the group. She offered a friendly smile instead. Tom didn't reply in mental words, just a brief burst of emotional content before he had to work not to hiccup. He was clearly trying to maintain the lock. Madison tried to interpret what she was glimpsing, happiness and affection mixed in with a surprisingly large amount of shyness and hope that he wasn't being too pushy. "No, you're not being pushy," Madison thought back. "I'm enjoying your attention. Actually, can I ask you a delicate question? How are you and Lynn coming along? I noticed she didn't come to see you off." Madison would not have asked such a question verbally, but the mind link was a superbly intimate channel for transferring emotional content. Madison opened to Tom her core desires for asking, genuine concern, a desire for friendship, and a growing unformed desire for playfulness of which Madison had very little understanding but she wanted to show its existence to Tom anyway. "Oh, we're okay I think," Tom thought back, smiling at how much Madison was sharing with him. "But Lynn asked me not to link with her for a while. She thought she needed some time to decompress and sort things out. I'll going to try to just be friendly and not bug her for a while, for at least a few weeks." "Yeah. I guess that's understandable." "Oh, I know. I was part of a group of men that was raping her. I feel ... All this forgiveness Madison, I feel unworthy of it." Madison caught a glimpse of another idea co-existing with his shame. Tom was thinking Madison had very pretty eyes. Tom hiccupped from his embarrassment of revealing his other thought and broke the connection. Madison sighed and relaxed and helped adjust Tom's backpack, briefly patting his shoulders to show she wasn't offended. The group headed down the stairs a moment later. ------- Chapter 40 An hour later. The tired group descended to the landing and then walked across the corridor and took a long hard look at the next flight down. It looked absolutely the same as all the other flights, and they could see the beginning of the next horizontal corridor further below. "Take ten," Madison called out in a dejected voice, and then more forcefully, "and maybe more if anybody needs it. Try to stretch and relax your muscles as much as you can. We have a hell of a climb ahead of us." They had just descended their 24th flight of stairs. Madison calculated her expedition was close to 7500 steps and over 1.34 kilometers below ground level. Far above in the White Mall library, Jada sighed as she heard the defeatism in Madison's voice, and Jada felt like kicking herself for letting the away-team go this deep. For a while Jada was convinced that she should stop the expedition after twenty flights, but Madison had argued vigorously to try for one more set of four, and after polling everyone on the away-team and finding nobody wanted to quit, Jada had relented. And now the explorers would have to pay the price for her lack of discretion. Jada spoke into the library console, "This probably goes without saying, but there's no need to carry up anything but yourselves, the guns and locks, and as much water as you think you'll need. Have lunch if you want, and then just depot everything else in the corridor." The team had a pair of white mushroom locks with them, taken from two bookstores near the terminal end of White Mall. "Depot?" asked Emily with a tired laugh. Jada sighed back, "Well, no, I guess not. Abandon is the right word. I can't see us trying this again." Emily added as an afterthought. "And the servos might well clean up anything we leave. We can't count on any supplies being here if we return." Jada nodded to herself and took a moment to stretch at her console, turning to the window to admire the pleasant midday sunshine for a bit of cheer. "Such a day," she thought to herself. "Such good work in Blue and Yellow Malls, and Akiko and Lynn are so excited about the new Looking Glass project. I guess I was hoping for success here too. So far down, who could have imagined?" And then her thoughts turned to more personal matters. With her permission, Mark had earlier told Frida that Jada and Mark considered themselves engaged. He told Toshi too of course, but as Mark's wife, Jada didn't feel he needed any agreement from her to do that, and indeed Mark hadn't even asked Jada for permission, correctly assuming Toshi had an absolute right to know. But Jada had told no one yet on her side, and she suspected Mark's group realized that and would keep quiet about her engagement until Jada told them otherwise. And just when should she announce the blessed event? Jada wasn't sure. She felt a vague desire to tell Emily first, and she wanted to do that in person. Jada shook her head. This was not the time to daydream. She was directing an away-mission, and the people below were in a crazy situation. They deserved her full attention. Jada returned to listening, and caught part of a conversation Mandy was having with Emily. "But it has to end somewhere, right?" asked Mandy. "I mean, it couldn't go down to the center of the planet, could it?" Emily wasn't sure if Mandy was being serious or not, but she decided to take the question at face value. "No, I don't think so. Any opinions Mark?" From the other side of the Great Hexagon he replied, "If I had to guess, I would guess the builders of this place maybe have the technology to do such a thing, but no, I don't think they did either. What would be the point of ten thousand kilometers of stairs?" "Yes, I think I agree with you." Emily sighed and stretched, and then in an effort to engage her mind with something more interesting than their failure, she asked Mark to describe again his group's journey through the Black Mall diamond array. Mark and Toshi and Frida agreed, and they all told little tidbits of information as Maddy's team rested and drank water and munched down a few energy bars. "How did you decide to pick the bee park?" asked Mandy. "Did you try out any of the other environments?" Frida answered. "No. We had a long discussion about that the first day we were trapped here. We first decided not to walk where we might be visible from the outside of the building, and that includes the walkways that lead directly to the perimeter. And then we talked about whether we should wander the corridors at all. If Uno's team has managed to get past the ivy, it's possible we would meet. Why take the risk?" "Well," said Mandy, "you could explore the other environments." "Yes, it's tempting, I agree. And if time were against us, we would do that. But in our current situation, again, why take the risk? And our current environment was the only one labeled safe." Emily had been drifting, sitting close by Charles again on purpose and being rewarded with a nice massage of her tired knees. The group had developed an unspoken agreement that the guys would sit down first at break time, and if a woman wanted a knee massage, she would sit down close by. But now Emily's eyes popped open. "Huh? Labeled safe? Frida, what sort of label was that?" Mark butted in and answered the question. "I saw it when you were taking your janitor training. You know, the symbol you pointed out to me, the italic looking omega with a sort of tilde on top." "What?!" Emily shouted in an excited voice. "That's not the symbol for safe!" "It's not? Oh hell." And then in a sheepish voice, "Well, what is it the symbol for?" "I'm not sure, but I don't think it means safe. I would see it briefly when I went from one lesson to the next, when I successfully completed a lesson. I guess I can see how you made the mistake Mark. I remember pointing out the symbol to you, and maybe I wasn't too careful with what I was saying or guessing about. The two concepts sort of go together. Passing a test means you're safe from failing." Mark took a moment to think and then asked, "So it might be the symbol for success?" Emily thought hard. "Well, maybe not exactly. In the following days, I did notice the symbol appeared after I completed a lesson and was waiting for the next one to start. But it did not appear on my last lesson before a break or the end of the day, even if I aced the test." "Ah, that's interesting ... So, any guesses? What does it mean?" "I'm guessing it's the symbol for advancement. The system was telling me I was advancing to the next lesson. That's how I finally decided to interpret it." Ten minutes later. "Well, is everyone set to go?" Madison asked. Her people had unloaded most of their supplies and were just about to start the return journey. "Charles, are you sure you want to carry all that first aid gear back up?" He gave her a kind smile. "It won't be a problem. And it'll be handy to have if we need it." Madison smiled back. "Yeah well, okay then. Thanks. All set everybody? We have a hell of a climb ahead of us. Let's take this nice and easy. If anybody starts having trouble with a muscle, just sing out and we'll all rest. Time isn't an issue. Don't push it. Remember we have 24 times 311 stairs to go before we reach ground level." "That plus one actually," Tom said with a grin as he made a minor adjustment on his lightened backpack. Something odd clicked inside Emily's mind. It felt as if she were about to have an epiphany. She turned excitedly to Tom and hissed, "What did you just say?" "Don't you remember? The circular depression that starts the stairwell, that's one extra 18 cm step, right?" Emily blinked. Tom was right! To reach the stairwell from ground level, you had to take that extra step down. "My God," she whispered as her mind worked some numbers in her head. "Jada! We have to keep on going down. We're almost there!" "What?!" "Think of Mark's sanctuary, seven hexagons that you reach with six to the fourth steps. We're all betting the White Mall diamond is one big sanctuary, right? It's about six times as big as Marks. And so the depth would be proportionally bigger! Six to the fifth power is 7776. Don't you see Jada? 25 times 311 plus 1 equals 7776. We only have one more flight to go!" There was a pause, and then Jada replied, "Emily, that's pure conjecture. And remember you're a couple of kilometers west of the diamond array now. Your point about scale doesn't apply." Mark piped up, "It's an intriguing conjecture though, and an elegant way for the prime number 311 to be tied to the hex theme of the builders. It would be a hell of a coincidence if it's not true." Jada sighed. "Agreed, and I admit, one more flight ... Madison, are you up for this?" Tom answered before Madison could reply. "Heck Jada, I could just hike down with one of the Leophones and tell you in a few minutes." Madison nodded. "Let's both go. Jada, is that okay? Tom and I will descend another flight. The rest of my team will rest here. We won't continue if there's another stairwell." A few minutes later... Madison's excited voice, "Everybody, Emily was right!" Jada half shouted back, "What do you see?" "We've just walked down the last stairwell, just as Emily predicted. There's a final twenty-five meter corridor, we're walking it now. Of course Jada! Twenty-five meters for the corridors, twenty-five flights! The corridor length was a hint to the depth." There was a pause, and then "WOW!" Jada replied, "Wow what?" "The end of the corridor, I think it's an elevator entrance!" Acting on an optimistic hunch, the rest of the team had been repacking their gear to continue the expedition. In less than ten minutes all five were assembled at the bottom landing discussing how to proceed. Emily was keeping a log, and noted that their position was almost three horizontal kilometers from the start of the stairwell and 1400 meters below ground level. After confirming her intentions with Mark and Jada, Madison pushed the access button for the elevator. The result was somewhat disappointing. Their three-meter corridor led into the short end of a chamber that was a standard three-meter by four-meter elevator carriage. There was a familiar keyboard on the four-meter wall to the left of their entrance door. But the keyboard was without power. Their earlier optimism suddenly seemed premature. What next? Was the stairwell effectively a dead end? Emily performed an innocent experiment. She left a spare water bottle in the carriage and let the door close. They pressed the access button again and the door reopened. The water bottle was still there, apparently unchanged. What else was there to do? They tried a few combinations with other items, and the results were always the same. Their gear remained untouched. There seemed only one more experiment left to do before starting their return journey. With Jada's permission, Madison left her Leophone in the elevator and everybody listened as the door closed. They heard nothing. Madison already had her backpack on for the return trip, and she pushed the access button and the walked into the carriage and picked up the Leophone. Mandy was talking to Emily and Charles a few meters from the elevator. The door started to close with Madison still inside the elevator and Tom moved to hold it open for her. But on the spur of the moment, Madison waved her hand for him not to. He nodded his understanding. Just before the door closed, Emily glanced over and saw Madison disappearing behind the closing door, and then the door closed before she could react. Immediately to Madison's left, the four-meter wall opposite from the keyboard started to slide open. "Hey everybody!" she shouted into the Leophone, "the long entrance to the elevator just opened!" Madison stepped outside the elevator and described her surroundings. "I'm in a bare four-sided room. There is some recessed lighting, otherwise it's an empty chamber. The room is huge, I estimate the dimensions about ... Hold on, I'm making a measurement with the laser ... Wow! I'm reading eleven meters by eleven meters with four-meter ceilings. The elevator door is along the wall in one corner of the room, and there's also one door in the center of the wall opposite the elevator." Madison looked around the room, noticing the elevator was closing behind her. There was a lit access button adjacent to the door and she didn't feel too worried, just a little excited. "I have one more thing to report. The room is not exactly square. It has four squares sides, but the wall with the elevator, as I face the elevator, the right side of the elevator slants into the wall. It provides a little extra space." Emily's voice came over the Leophone. "Madison, could the angle from perpendicular be 24 degrees?" Madison considered the question. "Yeah, maybe. That looks just about right." Emily replied, "In that case, the other door out of your chamber is pointing due north, away from the southern vertex and towards the center of the Great Hexagon." Jada's worried voice came over the phone. "People, I don't understand the setup you're in. Emily, am I to understand you're not with Madison?" "Right, we're not together. Madison is on the other side of the elevator. The other four of us are still in the stairwell corridor." "What?! How the hell did that happen?" "It was my fault Jada," Madison replied. "I went to pick up the Leophone and stayed in the elevator when the door closed." "Maddy!" "I know Jada. I'm sorry. It was my bad, a spur of the moment idea. I wasn't trying to ... Well, anyway, I'm here now." Jada replied sternly, and Madison could hear her exasperation. "Absolutely do not explore further. Return to the rest of the group immediately, and then we'll talk about what to do next." "You got it." Madison returned to the elevator door and pressed the access button. She breathed a big sigh of relief as the elevator door opened. She entered the elevator and then suddenly felt a moment of confusion. Now what? "Emily?" she asked to the person that was standing just one meter away on the other side of the eastern three-meter door. "What do I do now? How do I get back to you?" "Madison, we're pushing the access button here, but the door isn't opening. Is the other elevator door open or closed now?" "It's wide open. I can still see into the square chamber." "Can you close that door? I don't think this one will open until the other is closed." "Okay. How do I do that?" There was a long pause. Emily knew from her training both how to type the command into an active keyboard or what verbal command to give with janitorial authority. But the keyboard was without power, and Emily had no janitorial authority in White Mall. She suddenly realized Madison might be in serious trouble. "Maddy, can you reach the exterior access button on your side?" "Sure. It's only a few centimeters outside the door. Want me to push it?" "Yeah. Stay inside the carriage and push it." Emily and all the other people on the bridge heard Madison sigh. "Emily, I pushed it. Nothing happened." Mark from Black Mall piped up. "Sis, step onto the landing platform. Try pushing the button and jumping back inside if the door starts to close." Jada spoke up. "Hey, is that safe?" Emily answered. "I agree with Mark. It's worth a try." A few seconds later Madison reported, "The door started to close. But when I jumped inside, it reversed itself and went back to full open." Over the next ten minutes the group explored the boundaries of their predicament. Madison and the rest of the team could pass supplies back and forth to each other. Simple gear left in the carriage would allow both doors to close, and then either door (but not both) could be opened. They tried synching the pushing of the access buttons over the Leophones, but always one door or the other would open, never both. And the four-meter door leading to the new chamber simply would not close while there was someone in the carriage. There was no way for Madison to get back. Other team members could join her, but the elevator appeared to be a one-way passage as far as people were concerned. The group entered into an intense debate on how to proceed. Tom in particular was adamant in expressing his desire to join Madison. Jada felt she was losing control of the situation. "Tom, no! Absolutely not! I will not send more people into something I don't understand." Jada paused for a second, remembering that Madison was Mark's sister. "Mark," she asked, "do I still have operational control over the away-team?" Mark thought for a second about the tremendous conflict of interest he would have as mission commander and answered, "Absolutely. Jada, you've done a flawless job so far, and I would probably recuse myself now even if I were in charge." "Right. Away-team members, listen up. I am not going to send more of you down a one-way passage, at least not now. Maddy, you're not in imminent danger, correct?" "Yeah, I'm okay Jada." "Right. Maddy, I want you to hang onto your pistol, your Leophone, and one of the White Mall locks. All other people on the away team, start transferring your extra supplies through the elevator. Start with the food supplies." Tom answered after a moment's pause. "Abandon Maddy? Jada, I might have a problem with that." "Tom, you are not allowed to go through!" "Jada, I can't abandon her, I just can't." "Tom," answered Madison, "I appreciate your concern for me, I really do, but stay on mission!" "Uh..." "Tom," added Jada, "we don't know where you'll be more use to Maddy, trapped with her or working up here on a solution with us. If it makes sense later for you to join her, then that's what we'll do. But for now I am ordering you to return with the rest of the away-team." "But what if Maddy's in a situation that two people could survive but one can't?!" Jada pursed her lips and thought for a long moment. "That's true. Maddy, are you up for a little exploring?" Maddy just laughed as an answer. "Okay to go through the next door then? I have my pistol out but with the safety on." "Yes, go ahead." "Okay, here I go. I should tell you Jada, this is not like a home-complex door. It's huge, four meters across and four meters high, all the way up to the ceiling, the size of a store door in the Mall. It's also opaque, a light creamy color. There's a simple access button. I'm pushing it now." A moment later Madison continued. "My gosh, it's a bathroom, and it's enormous! Wait a minute, I want to use the range finder ... It's a perfectly square room, thirteen meters by thirteen meters. The sinks work ... the toilets work ... And there's a great looking Jacuzzi here too, all ready to go, in addition to the showers. There's a clothes washer and drier too. Jada, I won't be having any problems with a water supply." Jada sighed in relief. "That's a good to hear. The away team can leave you several months' worth of food. If your position is safe, we'll have lots of time to figure something out." "Yes, agreed. There's also another door directly opposite the one I entered, same size door as before. I'm pushing the access button. It's another huge room. It looks even bigger than our home lounge. Give me a second to make a measurement ... I was right, seventeen meters by seventeen meters." Aggie meanwhile who had been quietly sitting with Jada asked, "What's the room like?" "A little bit of everything, lots of breakouts. There's a small kitchen area, there's an autodoc here, a workout area, lots of storage cabinets, a reading area, and a couple of tables and chairs. It looks like a lot of different functions of the home complex rooms all jammed into one big space. And there's another door directly opposite. Okay to proceed Jada?" "Check out the cabinets first. Is there any food?" "Okay, checking..." A quiet minute passed. "No, I don't think so. Lots of linens and soaps, kitchen utensils too, but no actual food." "This is interesting sis," Mark commented from Black Mall. "Your place sounds a lot like a much larger setup of what our home here is like." "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. And there's yet another door heading north. I'm about to open it. Wait, let me check something." A moment passed. "All the other doors I've passed through are still open. I think I'm okay on this issue. The interior doors don't lock. They just open and close. Going through the next door now." "Wow! I think I'm in the last room. It's different than the others, not a square, more like a corridor, five meters wide maybe, and very long. There's another door at the end, and it seems to open to the outside." "Outside?" asked Aggie. "Maddy, you're 1400 meters below ground!" "I'm just telling you what I'm seeing. The last door is transparent, just like a store door in the Mall, same size too. I can barely tell it's there. I'm using the laser now ... The corridor is nineteen meters long and five meters wide. There are three side doors on both the east and west sides of the corridor, equally spaced, normal doors, just like the bedroom doors in a home complex. Let me peek inside ... I was right! It is a bedroom, just about the same size as a home complex bedroom too. Jada, I going to guess we have six bedrooms here, I'll confirm later. Right now I want to check out the door to the outside." "Do not go outside," commanded Jada. "Understood. I will obey." A long period of silence passed. Jada didn't want to rush Madison, but eventually she started to worry. "Maddy, what are you seeing?" "I ... Uh ... I..." "Maddy?! Are you all right?" "I ... Uh ... Yeah, I'm okay! Jada, this is incredible, so incredible ... It's so beautiful!" "What are you seeing?!" "A world! An entire world! Let me use the range finder..." Another long minute passed. Jada half shouted into her console. "Maddy, report!" "Oh sorry! Okay! Range to opposite wall, over forty-six kilometers!" "What?!" "There's a world down here Jada, an entire world, in the form of a river valley. My God, look at the size of it! I'm at one end of a great cylinder lying on its side, forty-six kilometers long and almost eight kilometers across. The walls rise vertically for a while and then arch to form a cylindrical sky. There's a sun! It has the butter-yellow color of Earth! It's a line, a linear sun running the long length of the cylindrical sky, all forty-six kilometers ... Oh God Jada, the majesty of it! The river valley below, it's wild and free. It's so beautiful!" ------- Chapter 41 The following evening, at the Hilton Executive Conference Center Time: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 7:48 PM One nice thing about the Center, Jada thought as she exited the elevator and headed for the conference room, was that the monitoring hub allowed absolutely everyone to attend the meeting, even the two people who had the current monitoring shift. When the eight o'clock meeting started, they would have a full complement of twenty-three, including the four people who were dialing in remotely. Jada blinked in mild surprise when she entered the room. Hannah and Paige were present as the two people on monitor shift, but otherwise the room was empty. "There is a meeting here at eight o'clock, right?" Jada asked Paige. "Yep." Paige gave Jada a somewhat cryptic smile. "Hannah and I just finished some extra tests with the Looking Glass team. They'll be here in a few minutes." "Everything okay?" "Yeah, Looking Glass is looking good." Jada nodded as she sank into her plush chair at the head of the table. Today had been a very good day. Madison had been trapped in her strange new home for over thirty hours now, but was in no immediate danger and seemed to be enjoying herself in her new role as observer and reporter for the new world they now knew was below them. And what a world it was. As far as their measurements could determine, the new world ran due north-south and was precisely centered within the Great Hexagon, with its geometric center directly underneath the Hex Hall of the spiral Malls. The underground world had a rectangular footprint 46,656 meters long (six to the sixth) and 7,776 meters wide (six to the fifth), with the top of the great barrel-shaped dome of the sky perhaps an average of 1,296 meters above the surface of the river Madison had named the Mississippi. Madison's house was embedded in the southern end of the cylinder that formed the headwater area of the Mississippi. The view outside her home was that of a rocky glen with water gushing out of the rocks in multiple spots. The house was near the corner of the world, only a 130 meters west of the eastern cylindrical day. The ravines and the water flowed west and a little north for about a kilometer until it pooled into a lake. And from the lake flowed the Mississippi. It meandered east and west as it flowed north, sometimes as broad as a kilometer, sometimes as narrow at 200 meters. Madison estimated the trip would be more than fifty kilometers along the river before reaching another lake area at the northern end of the world. And it was a world, not just a sanctuary. With over 350 square kilometers of land and water, Aggie was convinced the environment was large enough to be self-sustaining, rather than like the managed park Mark was living in. Maddy had been correct in her initial observation, the world below was wild and free, sustained by an artificial sun and river perhaps, but free to maintain its own ecological balances. Madison had witnessed a full daily cycle of the sun now, and was enthralled with the design. The eastern edge of the sky-dome would begin to brighten before 5 AM, and then the linear sun would emerge about forty minutes later. The sun-bright line would spend the next fourteen hours slowly arching over the cylindrical sky, climbing the eastern half of the cylinder and reaching the top shortly after noon. Sunset on the western side of the barrel-sky occurred today at 7:20 PM, with a spectacular display of reds and purples and vistas of pastel colored clouds. Emily had pointed out a curious calculation earlier today. Near the bottom of the 24'th stairwell, the passageway from the surface came extremely close to breaking into the corner of the new world. Emily estimated the northern wall of the stairwell corridor was within three meters of connecting to the corner edge of the sky. The remaining four members of the original away team had returned without incident yesterday in time for evening dinner. It was very encouraging to see that people in excellent physical shape could make the round trip in one day without a problem. Tom had even led a second three-person expedition today to drop off more supplies for Madison, plus some new equipment. With a few minutes to spare, a large crowd of people entered the room. Jada noticed numerous grins and realized something was up. Promptly at 8 PM, Fatima started the meeting. First on the agenda was a progress report on Kiyoko's training, and she reported she expected to earn her credentials as Black Mall's janitor by 5 PM tomorrow. Fatima then turned the floor over to Akiko and Lynn who were project co-leaders of Looking Glass. The birth of Looking Glass had occurred just three days ago during a detailed study of the Matrix technical manuals by both women. They discovered the original sensors in the stores' doorways were not simple RF scanners for stolen merchandise but optical sensors that could be tied into the Matrix sensors if there was a direct line-of-sight connection between the two. The end result was that a Matrix scanner on the outside arc could target one of the simpler sensors up to the edge of visibility along the arc, and provide one jump of "look around the corner" surveillance. The capability was the foundation for a risky plan to return to the unlocked portion of Black Mall. Tom and Charles would walk a kilometer and a half past Rabbies Dram with a pistol and the group's one remaining Leophone, gambling that any ambush party from Black Mall would indentify them as returning members of Uno's group. A half kilometer behind them, a large team of workers would be locking down and installing new surveillance sensors in the Mall. Their target was to extend the lockdown to Herman's Wilderness Outfitters. Back at the meeting, Paige raised her hand to talk. "May I ask a question? During our first hike into Green Mall, I remember seeing a similar store less than a kilometer away from where we are now. There were kayaks there too. Why don't we just use those? They're only a kilometer from the elevator here, and it would be an infinitely safer operation." Mandy nodded. "Yes, I noticed that too, but I investigated those kayaks earlier today. The kayaks in Green Mall are small, maneuverable boats meant for white water. The kayaks in Black Mall are just what we need, large boats over five meters in length with lots of room for transporting gear. Paige, the big boats are the right design for an extended river exploration. They will be faster and more stable in straight-ahead paddling. They're just what we need. And besides..." Mandy turned to her leader with a grinning smile. "Jada, a number of us have been talking. We don't want to stop at Herman's Wilderness Outfitters. We want to go on another five kilometers." Jada gulped. "What do you mean? That would put us right on top of Black Mall's home complex." Mandy nodded. "Yep! Well, not quite. We'll stop a kilometer short. We want to take the Mall lockdown just to the point where we have line-of-sight access to the door sensors on the outside arc across from Jacob's Bar and Grill." Lynn picked up the conversation before Jada could reply. "We'll be able to monitor their home entrance, look right inside the Bar, know exactly how many people are in the Mall on either side, up spiral or down spiral. It'll be a tremendous advantage. We'll have a much better understanding of their routines." Mark's voice spoke over the intercom. "Uh, that was Lynn, right?" "Ah, you recognize my voice. Yes, hello Mark. Sorry, I should have announced myself. Mark, I wanted to remind you that if we ever observe all of Uno's people down in the Mall, we can mount an easy rescue mission for you. Not just you personally, Frida and Toshi too. And maybe we'll get lucky and have an opportunity to rescue Whitney or Amber." Kiyoko spoke up. "Mark, this is Kiyoko. I'm very willing to live at Esau's Bar and Grill for a while. I can wait for a jump code from the door sensors and be at Black Mall lounge on a moment's notice. I could command the door between the kitchen and lounge to lock and then reactivate the lounge elevator. If you don't mind hiking quietly through the ivy again, you would have a straight path home." Mark paused for a long moment before answering. "When are you thinking of doing this?" "Very soon, early Friday morning between 4 AM and 8 AM is our earliest window. We need one day to prepare and let everybody get some sleep. It's going to be a long night. That's the only time period were we have never observed anyone from Black Mall down in the Mall area. From what we've gathered from some monitored conversations, that's the second half of Ricardo's shift of guard duty at Jacob's. He's very unpredictable otherwise. Fortunately no one else is trying to randomize their schedule. We think we have a nice, clean four-hour window to get the kayaks and do the lockdown and installation." Mark's voice again. "Jada?" Jada read much into the simple tone of his voice. He was asking her opinion, and was also telling her he was not opposed to the plan. At least, that's what she thought. "It's a risky plan, but ... I think I agree with everyone here. The risk is worth it." Jada paused and thought silently to herself, "Assuming, of course, that the volunteers have no qualms about this." She said out loud, "Tom and Charles, you two in particular will be risking your lives at the point position. Are you okay with this?" The two men looked at each other and grinned after a second of eye contact. Then Charles turned to Jada and said, "Very okay. Consider this one of the steps on our path to redemption." Jada nodded and gave him and Tom a kind smile. "Oh, don't think like that. You guys are already forgiven. Anyway, okay! The mission in on!" Three hours later. Time: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 11:16 PM The elevator door opened in the first-floor library of Blue Mall, and Tom, Lynn, and Ann emerged and looked around. Ann shivered slightly in the 10C air. "Well, a bit chilly, but I guess it's what we were expecting. I'll go upstairs and make up a few beds. Lynn, want to come with me?" "Uh, I'll join you in a bit, okay?" The two women exchanged glances for a brief second, and Ann give Lynn a nod of understanding. "Sure, anything you want." She turned and gave Tom a grin and then left the room. Red, Green, and White Mall's home complexes were now in constant use, but Blue Mall's complex had been left vacant for so long that the interface system had flagged it as abandoned. Aggie and Emily had brought up this issue as the last item for the group meeting earlier this evening, adding that it might not be a good idea to leave Blue Mall in this state. There were vague references in their training of permanent lockouts for areas that were abandoned too long. Jada recognized the point immediately and asked for three volunteers to live in Blue Mall's home complex. Tom raised his hand first, then Ann, and then surprisingly to Tom, Lynn also volunteered. Their mission now was simply to live here for most of a day and get lots of sleep, and be alert and rested and ready for the mission on Friday. Tom and Ann and a dozen others would start biking from the Black Mall sky-bridge before 1 AM that morning, with Lynn and Akiko on critical monitoring duty at the Hilton complex and a final three-women backup team staying at the sky-bridge. Tom gave Lynn a shy grin and then orbited the library, turning on a few extra lights and powering up one of the two master teaching consoles near the beveled corners of the room. Lynn idly looked at a few books for a while and then pulled up a chair and sat down right next to him. She surprised Tom by offering eye contact, and he gladly accepted. "Hi. Thanks for linking," she thought. Tom barely noticed her stiff projected words. Her emotional state was too distracting. So much turbulence, too difficult to understand completely, but the overriding emotion was clear. Lynn was fighting an inner battle against a whole series of resentments. He thought back to her, "My gosh Lynn, what have I done?" "Oh, it's not you Tom, not directly. You see my thoughts. There is no anger here for you, nothing that's appropriate anyway. It's just that ... It's just where this is all heading!" Tom didn't understand, so Lynn opened her memories to a conversation she and a group of women had with Frida during lunchtime. Tom at the time was still deep below ground in his second trip down the great White Mall stairwell. Lynn let her thoughts run. "It's not just simple polygamy, multiple wives for one husband. Frida is thinking of a system that sounds more like group sex, where both the men and women select different partners for each child in order to maximize our biodiversity. And our children! We'll be asking them to let us be matchmakers for them, at least partially." Lynn mentally sighed and continued. "Right now we have the genetic code for only four males, Mark, Charles, you, and Gilberto's genome inside Toshi's womb. In the third generation after us, everybody with have the same four grandfathers. That'll be the best we can do. Everybody in the following generation will be hit with their parents being second-cousins to each other from four different male perspectives, from all four grandfathers." Tom considered for a moment and then asked in his thoughts, "Is that going to be a problem?" "We're not sure. We've never heard of humans breeding like this. Some of the other women were hopeful we might be okay. After all, there's lots of evidence in human history of small tribes surviving in isolation. And we're starting off with a great deal of biodiversity. The University was a melting pot and we caught a lot of foreign students with the Party invitation. We have Asians, Whitney is African American. Holly says her grandmother was pure Lenape Indian..." Tom nodded in his thoughts. "Yeah, so maybe we'll be okay. I remember some other African Americans in the tunnel too, waiting for the Party, maybe three or four..." Lynn nodded back. "I think you're right. Two of the nurses ahead of us were. Perhaps Fatima remembers which Party the others took ... It would be interesting to see what our children look like in four of five generations. All the distinctive racial traits are going to blend..." Tom shrugged in his thoughts. "I bet they'll be beautiful." "Yes, I think so too. Tom, may I access your memory, your thoughts about Madison? Thank you ... Ah, I thought so. Wow! I didn't realize how deeply your sexual fantasies were running! Don't you feel you're robbing the cradle? The girl was still in high school! She only turned eighteen a few months ago!" "Hey!" Tom felt too chagrinned to think clearly for a moment, but he fought an urge to hiccup and stayed within the link, and then saw in the clarity of Lynn's mind her last comments were purely playful teasing. She didn't mean her thoughts at all. "Thank you for not minding," he thought at last. "Oh, Maddy is a lovely person, body and mind. The fact that you find her sexually attractive shows you have good taste." "And our age difference is only two years!" "I know. I wasn't being serious, as you well know..." Lynn's thoughts turned philosophical. "Wow, a few months ago ... We were all back on Earth, Maddy was seventeen, I was gloating over my midterm scores and studying like crazy for my finals ... It seems like another world ... What a joke! It was another world!" Tom mentally grinned at her. "Someday soon we have to come up with a name for this planet. It deserves one." "Yeah. And the calendar change. Tomorrow will be the very last day it'll be the 31st of January, or the 31st of anything. I can hear the new poem. Fourteen days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have fourteen too, save February which also has fourteen." Another mental grin from Tom. "I think your poem needs a little work." A mental laugh, pure and clear in its cheerfulness. "Perhaps! I think I need a little work too. I'd like to go help Ann now, and I can see your desire to call Maddy. Ann and I will give you some privacy. And Tom, seriously, I'm not going to get jealous if you and Maddy become a couple." Tom stared in love at how deeply Lynn was opening her mind to him. "And still ... Lynn, I can see you're still interested in me." "Yes, I guess so. The mind link is so amazing Tom. If I make the effort and pull down all my barriers, I think you can understand where I am better than I can. Oh Tom..." Lynn was hit with an intense wave of complex emotions, and it caused her to hiccup and break the link. She turned and looked at the clock and commented, "Wow, all that in less than ten seconds. You and I must have a very good emotional rapport." Without waiting for a response, she got up and leaned over to kiss him. She meant for it to be a simple affectionate kiss of goodbye, but her lips met his, and before she knew it her hands were holding his head as she kissed him and she could feel his hands on her waist. Her lips drifted to kiss his cheek and then his ear. His hands drifted to hold her more securely. He started caressing the small of her back. Lynn sighed deeply, enjoying the physical contact but then she felt her hips wanting to rock forward and she shivered with a touch of guilt. "Tom? I like what you're doing, but it we keep this up, I'm going to get aroused." He kissed her ear and sighed back. "I know, me too." "So why don't I go up now and give Ann a hand?" Lynn straightened her body and pulled away from the hug. She shared one last lingering kiss with him and then left the library. Tom sat alone sighing for a moment, and then activated the console and placed a call to Madison. "Hello?" she answered on the third ring. "Hi Maddy. It's me Tom. I hope I didn't wake you." "No. I am in bed, but there's a thunderstorm going on outside right now. I was watching the display." "Ah. A loud one?" Maddy laughed. "No! It feels really bizarre! I'm sure there is thunder, but no sound is getting through the window. I'm watching the fireworks in total silence. Just the gentle sound of the air conditioning." "Uh huh. What's your bedroom like?" "It's very nice, just slightly larger than a standard home complex bedroom. Four of the six bedrooms here are without windows, but the last two are very nice, big windows almost from floor to ceiling all across the northern wall. The view is spectacular in the daytime. I took lots of digital pictures with the camera you left me today. I hope you'll be able to make good maps from the pictures." "Well, that's the plan." "Are you coming down tomorrow to pick the memory cards?" "No, just a small two-person team, Brandi and Jada." "Jada's coming down? Our great leader?" Tom laughed. "Yeah. She says she wants the exercise." "Ah. Those two will be the anchor team at the sky-bridge on Friday, right?" "Yep, along with Kiyoko. Jada wanted everybody else to take it easy tomorrow, get a good rest." Madison nodded. "Makes sense. Oh! Before I forget, thank you for the chocolate pretzels you dropped off. They're very tasty, and I think I know where you got them." "Yeah, how could I forget where I dropped off my pistol?" "They're very tasty pretzels." "Ah, it just took a few minutes." "Still, it was very thoughtful present." "Yeah, well ... I guess I just wanted to check in and say hello. Goodnight Madison. Take care." "Yeah, you too. Pleasant dreams." Both were feeling a bit awkward. Madison unexpectedly offered another endearment that Tom found very sweet, and then she hung up before he could reply. ------- Chapter 42 Time: Friday, February 1, 2019 6:48 AM Place: On the inside arc of Black Mall, at spiral-mark 69,300 meters Charles looked at the time on the Leophone and smiled. The triple mission of lockdown, surveillance installation and kayak procurement so far had been running flawlessly, and all three objectives were heading to successful completion. He and Tom were quietly hugging the wall along the inside arc of Black Mall in front of a small ten-meter wide store called Puppets Galore! It was stuffed with thousands of hand puppets, all different shapes and sizes, mostly animals, at least on the first floor. Charles had no idea what was on the second floor, and he certainly wasn't going to find out tonight. It would be absolutely insane to explore the issue. He and Tom were only 800 meters from Jacob's Bar and Grill. Charles took another look into the puppet store and grinned. A totally useless store now, but within a year or two, when perhaps the first children would be born, Charles thought this store might be a very popular stop. He eyed a cute lion puppet within five meters of where he stood. Hell, maybe he'd pick it up now, a little present for Mandy, maybe get something for Brandi too. She liked owls, and Charles admired a beautiful barn owl in the store. The owl looked almost real, and it would only take a few seconds to pick up both puppets. In order not be seen from the observation chair pressed up against the outside arc across from Jacob's, Tom and Charles were being extremely careful to stay within two meters of the inside arc. That allowed a thin 10 cm of a final safety buffer, and then conceivably they would be visible to the observation chair if the observer was looking just in the right spot. Currently Amber was in the chair, and she was doing a very diligent job with her binoculars. The first part of the mission was concerned with surveillance installation and kayak procurement only. This way, if they had to abort early, they would leave no visible trace of their presence in the Mall corridor and might have another chance later on. And the look-around-the-corner of Looking Glass was marvelous. Their group had chosen a mode of operation that on the surface seemed risky but in actuality had paid off a big safety dividend. They started advancing past Rabbies Dram shortly after 2 AM with their last Matrix sensor located in the last locked store of Black Mall at spiral-mark 62,560 meters. From there Looking Glass enabled them to enslave the lower-tech sensors at spiral-mark 63,471 and observe the full corridor for an additional 480 meters, and the outside arc for an additional 960 meters. A bored-looking three-person team of Alfonso, Jessica, and Jenaro had shown up at Rabbies Dram shortly after 1:45 AM. They did a ritualistic quick peek into the liquor store through the transparent door and then promptly headed back home. With the aid of Looking Glass, a small four-person bicycle team of Tom, Charles, Emily and Fatima followed them at a distance of 800 meters back, walking their bikes tightly on the inside arc. They kept in close communication with Lynn and Akiko at their monitoring center, and at the 63,471 spiral-mark, the two women gave a go signal to Emily and Ashley that confirmed no one in Alfonso's party was looking back. Emily and Ashley quickly dashed across the corridor and exchanged the old sensors with new Matrix units, enabling the sensors at spiral-mark 64,396 to be enslaved and adding almost a full kilometer to their scanning ability. Over the next two hours, they successfully completed the trick five more times. They had Alfonso's party under almost continuous observation. There were two short stops as Alfonso and Jenaro entered food stores for supplies while Jessica kept a bored watch outside in was seemed to be a very familiar routine. Not once did they turn and seem to recognize an additional ambush team in any of the stores. Uno didn't have the personnel to support such an activity anyway, and as the mission progressed Charles began to feel very confident ambush would not be an issue. Their last Matrix sensor now was at spiral-mark 68,230, and it had enslaved the sensor at 69,224, giving them a view of Brandi hugging the outside arc in front of Jacob's Bar and Grill at spiral-mark 70,098. Transporting the large kayaks was taking longer than anticipated, and Jada was hugely relieved their mission plan had an extra buffer of time for boat retrieval. It wasn't until 4:30 AM that they had loaded six huge kayaks on top of six-pair of nose-to-tail-linked sidecars and started slowly biking the massive boats back to the sky-bridge at 8 kph. According to their estimates, the boats would fit inside the 3x4x4-meter elevator carriages with only a few cm to spare by jamming the boats across the opposite vertices. The kayaks were that big. Once the boat convoy was under way, Charles' team near the home complex and the extra four team members that had helped to secure the boats at Herman's got busy with Mall lockdown. The side-cars picking up the kayaks had transported 400 mushroom locks to Herman's. As six women biked the kayaks towards home, the remaining eight people worked in a well-orchestrated dance of biking down the corridors and closing doors, while others biked bags of locks to prearranged drop-off locations and still others snapped the locks home and secured the stores. And now the time was approaching 7 AM. This was their target time for completing the sensor installation on the outside arc at spiral-mark 69,147 and heading home. Over the Leophone Lynn reported to Charles that the kayak convoy was just passing the 44-km spiral mark. Charles thought for a second. That was somewhat less than they had anticipated. The kayaks were still over seven kilometers from the sky-bridge. "But," Charles thought, "what the heck? They'll be back at the sky-bridge in one hour. Nothing wrong with that." Tom tapped his shoulder and motioned behind them. Charles was amazed to see Hannah and Ashley walking their bikes towards them along the inside arc. Ashley was walking first closing doors and Hannah ten seconds behind snapping in the few remaining locks as soon as the doors finished closing. "What the hell are you two doing?" Charles hissed as Ashley walked up to him. "Uh, using up the last of our locks. We figured, what the hell?" She reached over and pushed the button to close the door on the puppet store. "Ashley!" "Aw, come on Charles, we're no more visible here than you are." Charles sighed and looked back. Absolutely all the rest of their work was done, except for a single store on the outside arc at spiral-mark 69,147. Emily and Fatima were a hundred and fifty meters back, standing near the inside arc, waiting for a go code from Lynn or Akiko to switch the sensors and lock their last store. The extra distance back made a huge difference in the safe buffer area. Emily and Fatima merely had to avoid the last 115 cm closest to the outside arc. As Hannah walked up and snapped her last lock home, Jada's voice came over the Leophone. "Ashley, I agree with Charles completely. You and Hannah, get your butts out of there! Start biking towards home. Remember to hug the inside arc for a while. Charles, you too Tom, you should retreat to Fatima's and Emily's position. Fabulous job guys." A few minutes later at exactly 7 AM, Hannah and Ashley nodded their goodbyes and took off for home. The last four members of the mission team remained standing along the inside arc at spiral-mark 69,147. They were right on schedule, Charles thought, except for the fact that they still weren't done with the last store. Not bad at all. He was amazed at how much work they had done in so few hours. Charles chatted with Jada who had joined Lynn and Akiko temporarily in the Hilton Center, leaving the Black Mall sky-bridge open but temporarily vacant. The mission was looking like a complete success. The six women with the kayaks were within an hour of reaching the sky-bridge, and except for Fatima and Emily, all the women on the lockdown team were at various stages of biking home. The store at 69,147 meters was just a little bit closer to the home complex than they would have liked, but it was a large sixty-meter store and the next entrance at 69,087 was just a few meters too far away to be able to lock the sensors at 70,098. Jada made a command decision that the ability to scan directly into the interior of Jacob's Bar and Grill justified the small additional risk of targeting the closer store at 69,147. At 7:03 AM, just as Hannah and Ashley disappeared from Charles' view, Lynn observed Amber lowering her binoculars to rub her eyes. Lynn then gave the go code over the Leophone. Fatima and Emily rushed across the corridor and entered the outside arc store, a food store specializing in all types of nuts. Fatima carried a small, lightweight ladder with her which she and Emily used to reached the sensors at the three-meter height and replace them with the Matrix units. Fatima slipped the old units into a jacket pocket and zipped it closed. She and Emily then waited for the final go code to close and lock the door. Then the last four members of the mission team would start for home. Lynn's voice came over the Leophone. "Hold up for a while. Ricardo had come out to talk to Amber." Jada's voice added. "We have successful slavery of the sensors at 70,098. We can see right into their entry store. Beautiful work guys. This is great." "Who else do you see inside Jacob's?" Tom asked quietly. Jada answered. ""Just who we expected, Hernando. If you're thinking of Kiyoko, I doubt we'll have an opportunity." Jada was referring to another modification to the mission plan. Kiyoko and Brandi were currently in Esau's Bar and Grill near the hub area of Black Mall. If Lynn or Akiko blinked three fast yellow flashes on the Matrix sensor there, Kiyoko and Brandi would take the trapdoor to the Black Mall lounge and attempt to seize control of it. Time: 7:08 AM "How's it going Lynn?" Charles asked into the Leophone. "They're still talking. There are lots of little windows where you probably could have made it, but it's so hard to predict. Ricardo in particular, he makes so many quick nervous jumps. He likes to look away from Amber and use his binoculars when he's talking to her. He's also touching her a lot." "Yeah," Charles nodded. "That's sounds like Ricardo all right, especially when he gets nervous." Lynn continued, "Enormous binoculars, some kind of military model maybe, and he has a gun too. Hernando is sitting in a chair around four meters inside the door, also with a gun. What do you think Jada? Should we just try to push it?" Through the multiple monitors, Jada could see the situation at both positions. Fatima and Emily were waiting patiently inside the nuthouse near the door. As planned, Fatima had hidden her small ladder from view behind a store counter and would not bike it back with her. When they got the signal, they would push the access button, snap the lock home ten seconds later when the door finished closing and be off. Did it really matter if they were seen from 950 meters away? They had bikes and their opponents were on foot. Jada considered Lynn's question. Was Lynn right? Should she just try to push it? Jada took a deep breath. "Guys, let's give it a few more minutes. We have so many people still on their way home. I think time is still on our side." Time: 7:14 AM Ricardo paced nervously back and forth in front of Jacob's Bar and Grill. Uno's orders to the teams on guard duty were extremely clear. Stay on the first floor of Jacob's, or you could be in the corridor directly outside Jacob's door, but you could absolutely not wander away without first alerting Uno that something unusual needed investigating. Amber had never seen Ricardo so nervous. It was so bizarre. He was even petting her occasionally as he made his jerky little paces around her. It was nothing like their horrible encounter in Herman's. Here it was just a hand on her shoulder, a light pet of her hair, once he lightly held her ear as he stared with his binoculars in the direction of Rabbies Dram. Amber didn't know what to make of it. Was he even aware he was touching her? He didn't seem to be. And then his hand came to her throat. Amber gulped and tried to remain motionless, the memories of his iron finger bruising the flesh on her buttock playing out in her mind. His fingers were close to her windpipe, not quite there but close, and then they pushed in, firmly but not fiercely. "My God," thought Amber. "I know what he's doing. He's taking my pulse. I can feel my artery beating against his fingertips." Amber breathed slowly and tried to remain calm. A moment later the hand left her neck. Ricardo glanced at his watch. He started to walk back into Jacob's but then pivoted in the doorway and rapidly returned to the outside arc for another look with the binoculars. He glanced at the watch again and frowned. He still had another forty-six minutes before A-team relieved them and Ricardo would be free to explore the mall. Ricardo's problem was that he was feeling a desperate urge to explore now. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, he felt on knife edge, and he couldn't figure out why. He took another long look through his binoculars. Everything appeared the same. Still, why the hell was he so nervous? Was he smelling something, a few molecules of another person's perspiration, something below his conscious understanding but still something his brain could detect? Was he catching stray reflections off the diffuse surfaces of the mall? Were his eyes getting just enough of a signal to send him an alert? Almost unconsciously, he walked a few meters in the direction of Rabbies Dram. "Huh?" said Hernando who got up out of his chair. "Hey Ricardo, what the fuck?" "I want to check out the mall," he whispered in reply. He took another two steps. "Yeah, well, just wait a bit. You'll get your chance." "I need to go now." "Ricardo! No fucking way! Uno will have my balls if I..." Hernando froze in shock. Ricardo had spun around and was pointing his pistol at him, right at his face. "Go!" whispered Jada over the Leophone to Charles group. She had no audio of the activity at Jacob's, but was guessing what was happening and decided to gamble and take Lynn's advice and push the issue. Ricardo was starting to approach her team and Jada wanted no part of a gun battle between Ricardo and her mission team. Besides, Hernando was a perfect distraction for Ricardo now. You don't take your eyes off someone you're pointing a gun at. Hernando stared down the barrel of the pistol as Ricardo sneered at him. The muchacho's eyes were cold points of light, and he spoke with derision. "You're worried about your balls? I'll shoot out both your eyeballs if you don't shut the fuck up." Hernando stared back and forth at the gun and at Ricardo, furious at Ricardo's behavior but then deciding it just wasn't worth the effort to challenge him, at least not now. He made a hand gesture to try to calm the muchacho down, and Ricardo dismissed the compadre and turned around to look down the corridor again after tucking the gun in his waistband. He frowned deeply and a second later brought up his binoculars for a closer look, pressing himself against the wall of the outside arc for the best view. Emily had already sprinted across to the inside arc, but Fatima had remained on the outside arc to lock the door, and from 945 meters away, Ricardo saw Fatima snap the last mushroom home and then disappear from view along the inside arc. "Pussy in the mall!" Ricardo screamed. "She's locking the fucking doors!" Ricardo took the bare minimum of time to whip the heavy binoculars from his head and place them on the floor. He then pulled out his gun again and started to sprint along the spiral with all the speed he had. Hernando stared at him in shock for a moment and then shouted a warning to Amber to stay where she was. He then ran back into the home complex to summon Uno. Time: 7:29 AM Charles' team had dropped into their long-distance cruising mode with Fatima at the point, then Emily, Tom, and finally Charles. They were biking home in single file, running about halfway between the black centerline and the wall of the inside arc. Back near the Black Mall home complex, Fatima had done an admirable job of jumping on her bike in one fluid motion and quickly accelerating to 30 kph, faster than anyone on foot could keep up with. Over the last ten minutes, Fatima had slowed down a bit, but Charles was certain they had opened up a gap of at least two kilometers with any possible pursuit. He thought they were out of trouble as long as trouble didn't come looking for them. A flat tire or a bad fall right now would present a nightmarish set of alternatives. Best just to maintain a steady pace, he thought. What they had going now was working. So don't fuck with it, he decided. "Charles?" It was Jada's voice on the Leophone clipped to his shoulder. He could talk hands-free. "Yo Jada!" he answered. "Are we still being pursued?" "Yes. What you're doing is marginally okay, but can you pick up the pace a bit, or at least don't let it drop any lower?" Charles paused for a moment. "What's our situation?" "Ricardo is armed and is attempting to run you down. The man may be many things, but he is very fast. I'll give him credit for that. Right now he is at ... mark! 64.8 kilometers. And you've just passed 62.3 kilometers." "Oh, I know it. We just passed Rabbies Dram a moment ago. Wait a minute. Two and half kilometer difference? Is that all?" "Hold on... 2,490 meters right at this second. You're still gaining on him. Ricardo had a fantastic initial sprint, and has dropped back to an even 20 kph for last several kilometers. Still a remarkable speed considering he's carrying a pistol. You're between 25 and 26 kph right now. That's okay, but don't drop it any lower. Let's open up a buffer." Charles panted modestly and nodded as he biked. "Did he see our bikes?" "I'm certain the answer is no. He managed to close within 830 meters before your speed exceeded his, but he wasn't hugging the outside arc at the time. By the time he thought of running there, you were more than a kilometer out in front." Charles nodded thoughtfully. "Jada, I guess Tom and I could bike a bit faster, and Emily could put us all to shame, but I've talked with Fatima. She never had the opportunity to learn how to ride a bike in Kuwait. She taught herself just two years ago. As long as we're still gaining on Ricardo, I don't want to press her. She knows the situation. And Ricardo has to be exhausting himself faster than we are." There was a short pause and then Jada said, "Yes, those are good points. And I agree, time is on our side. I won't bring up the issue again unless he starts to gain on you. Wait a minute. Charles, something else has come up, nothing to do with your group. Jada out." And with that terse goodbye, the Leophone went silent. Charles continued to bike along the quiet mall, thinking about their situation. Having a side-car would be wonderful insurance if they had an accident, but all twelve of the precious cars were in use transporting the six kayaks. And something had distracted Jada. Charles began to wonder what else could be going on. ------- Chapter 43 Time: Friday, February 1, 2019 7:33 AM Jada, Lynn, and Akiko were in an intense discussion on whether to send Kiyoko the go code for seizing the Black Mall lounge. The scene outside Jacob's Bar and Grill was chaotic and it seemed a perfect opportunity, except for the fact that there was still one compadre and one taskmistress missing. At 7:17 AM, Uno and the two men of A-team had come charging into Jacob's with Hernando to check out Ricardo's initial warning cry. Uno was horrified to see that Jacob's door to the entrance to the Mall had been lowered, and his first thought was that an armed enemy might be in the Bar and Grill with them. Ducking low behind a dining table, he yelled at Diego to go get more help. Uno, Alfredo, and Hernando then began checking out the first floor. Diego returned with Alfonso, and the two slipped up the stairs and searched the second floor of Jacob's. Satisfied the place was empty, they carefully made their way back down the stairs, where Uno waved a sign to them that the store was clear. Diego walked over to the door and pushed the access button. Ten seconds later the door completed its four-meter rise. Diego peered outside left and right down the corridor. The time was now 7:27 AM, and by closing the door before she fled, Amber had provided herself a critical extra few minutes to run out of sight. She was now panting in a large drug store at spiral-mark 69,360 along the inside arc, just three stores away from the locked door of Puppets Galore! It had taken a lot of guts to follow the sprinting Ricardo rather than running away from him, but Amber correctly reasoned her best chances were on the side of Black Mall's home complex where Uno's adversaries had appeared. She had risked her life that he wouldn't turn around and see her running after him, and the risk had paid off. What she would do now was unclear. Just hiding for a while and letting things develop seemed the most reasonable plan she could think of. Perhaps she would look around the drug store for some sort of weapon. Amber was convinced that she had signed her death warrant by escaping from Uno's group, and she had no intention to submitting meekly to Ricardo's tender mercies if she were caught. Time: 7:33 AM Uno and four compadres were plainly visible hanging around the entrance of Jacob's Bar and Grill. There was no audio for Jada or her team to hear, but they could guess what he was yelling about. He was livid that Amber had disappeared. Lynn spoke and broke the silence in the observation room. "If we're going to risk extracting Mark, we need to decide right now." Jada nodded, her mind racing so fast it almost hurt. Mark and his group had already been notified a few minutes previously, and they were abandoning their sanctuary as quickly as they could. Hell, thought Jada. How could she have been so stupid?! Mark and Toshi and Frida should have been positioned at the start of the mission! But the success of the lockdown mission was based on the assumption that everything would be unobserved. It just didn't occur to anybody that failure from one perspective would open up an opportunity for success in another. Jada reviewed her reasoning with Lynn and Akiko one final time. "We're assuming the stairwell entrance into Jacob's is critical. Jenaro must be there guarding it. He has to be. Otherwise someone could lock the door and trap Uno in the Mall. Okay! Send Kiyoko the go code!" Two seconds later the Matrix sensors in Esau's Bar and Grill started flashing repeating bursts of three quick yellow flashes. Jada silently prayed she wasn't sending two people to their deaths. Flashback: Time: Forty minutes previously, in the bee sanctuary of Black Mall diamond array Mark, Frida, and Toshi had spent the last several hours monitoring the progress of the Black Mall operation, and then shortly before 7 AM Mark and Frida started feeling restless. The sun was up and it was a beautiful if fake day outside, and Toshi suggested the two go outside and stay nearby but also get some exercise. Toshi would continue to monitor mission progress on the Leophone and would call them if they were needed. About a hundred meters from their home, Mark and Frida started martial arts training that quickly turned into full-speed sparring. Frida tried some fairly advanced maneuvers and Mark was thrilled for a moment with her rapidly improving skills, but then she did something insanely aggressive, attempting a takedown by sweeping Mark's legs. If the movement were successful, she'd have a commanding position on him, but the setup left her horribly exposed and Mark scored two potentially crippling blows, a knuckle-punch to her throat and a powerful backhand directly to her solar-plexus, both times carefully pulling the punches and making just feather-light taps against her body. And then his legs were swept and he hit the ground with a thud with Frida straddling him and landing on top of his groin. Mark gave a soft "umph" from the impact. They both stopped and looked at each other. "Frida," said Mark, "that maneuver was absolutely absurd." "No it wasn't. I have you just where I want you." "But..." Mark gasped. Frida had lifted most of her weight off him and was rubbing the bottom of her pubis up and down, pressing lightly against his groin and penis. Mark's mind seemed to flash as it attempted an extraordinary shift in perspective. The attacking opponent pinning him had transformed into a lovely and aroused woman wearing only a bathrobe, and the bottom of the robe was open and she was rubbing her sex against his. The soft cotton of his own bathrobe was only barrier between their genitals. "Frida," he whispered. "Mark," she whispered back, and then she stared at him, pleading for him to lock eyes with her. There were no words, just infinitely complex constructions of emotions from both their minds, meeting and entwining and building something faster than either could comprehend. They saw the entirety of each other's lives, the intimate understanding of each other's childhoods, the hopes, the fears, the dreams, the desires, and how each child had become the person before them. Frida started to cry, and in the slowness of accelerated time, she removed her bathrobe from her shoulders and let it fall insanely slowly to her waist. Then she began to arch her body over Mark, eventually so far over that the eye contact was broken. Both their minds returned to normal time. Frida completed her maneuver. She had positioned her left breast over Mark's face and she thrust her chest forward, offering herself to her beloved. Mark stared at the tit before his eyes. It was so incredibly beautiful, fuller than Jada's breasts or even pregnant Toshi's. But beyond the sexual attractiveness lay the deep meaning from Frida's mind. Directly behind her left breast lay her heart, and that was the true gift Frida was offering now. Frida was asking Mark to take her as his wife. "It is February, you know," she whispered above him as she waited to be suckled. "Aren't women allowed to ask men to marry them in February?" "Uh..." Mark laughed. "Something like that I guess. But I thought it was at the end of the month on leap-years." "There are no leap-years anymore," whispered Frida. "Besides, Februaries are a lot shorter now. We have to make allowances." She paused and added, "Please Mark." It was never his intention to refuse her. His tongue came up and licked the nipple, and then his lips kissed and pulled the offered flesh into his mouth. Frida petted his head as he suckled her, crying and whispering the word, "husband..." Toshi came running towards them from their home. "Hey guys! So sorry to break this up, but we have to evacuate! Now!" Time: 7:35 AM A shivering Whitney was being held prisoner in the lounge by annoyed looking Jessica who was armed with a wicked looking Bowie knife. Whitney had been rudely pulled out of her shower a few minutes ago. She had been up for the last hour and was preparing for her daily shift with A-team when Jessica had burst into her shower area with the knife and ordered her out. Whitney barely had time to grab her bathrobe as she was hustled into the lounge. It was a drill Uno had forced her to practice several times, but one look at Jessica's wild eyes told her this wasn't a drill. So Whitney sat meekly in a chair, her hair dripping wet. She was shivering and trying to look harmless. Both Jessica and Whitney gasped in shock as the lounge elevator door began to open. Brandi! And Kiyoko!!! Jessica's jaw dropped, and then she raised her knife and growled an order for Kiyoko to obey her. Kiyoko laughed and displayed her gun and a large kitchen knife from Esau's. "Not today Baby Jessica!" she shouted. "You want to rumble with me?! I'm ready!" And then Brandi pulled out their group's fifth and final pistol. Brandi and Kiyoko had never fired a weapon in their lives, but Jessica didn't know that. Brandi flashed Jessica the most wild, gleefully evil smile she could manage, and then she and Kiyoko fanned out with the obvious intent of attacking Jessica from two sides simultaneously. "Drop your pants Baby Jessica!" Kiyoko howled insanely as she waved and twisted her long slicing knife. "It's time for your rectal exam!" Jessica's lips quivered in horror, and Kiyoko continued, "Don't worry, this knife might look sharp, but I promise, this'll be the last rectal exam you'll ever get! Hee Hee!" Jessica quickly decided she wanted no part of this insanity and she made a dash to escape through the kitchen. Brandi and Kiyoko allowed the maneuver but pursued her from five meters distant. Kiyoko kept giving fake maniacal laughs and calling out derisions and how she was going to disembowel the Baby and then slice her intestines into pieces for little sausages. They chased a screaming Jessica through the kitchen, the pantry, the bathroom, and then finally down the long corridor along the bedrooms, stopping at the top of the stairwell as Jessica ran crazed with fear around the annulus and then stumbled and half fell down the spiral staircase. "Oh boy, that felt good!" Kiyoko hissed in a whisper. "Brandi, don't cut this too close! Interface, I'm ordering test diagnostics. Enable all door closings on this level. Enable audio test responses. Set volume to maximum." There was an infinitely satisfying chirp that signified her command had been accepted. Then Kiyoko spun around and ran for the lounge elevator, and after a second of working with the beeping door, Brandi slowly followed, taking the time to leave all the bedroom doors ajar. Time: 7:37 AM Uno was standing in the Mall outside Jacob's arguing with Alfredo about priorities when a commotion inside Jacob's caught his eye. Jessica! It was her job to be guarding Whitney, and here was Jessica with Whitney nowhere in sight. What the fucking hell?! It took only a moment for Jessica to describe what had happened upstairs. They were being attacked from the rear! The sighting down here must have been a diversion! Uno screamed and ordered Diego, Hernando, and Jessica to guard Jacob's while he and the others raced into the bottom of the stairwell, hugging the sides to avoid being shot. Time: 7:43 AM Uno and three of his compadres were standing on the second-floor annulus outside the bedroom corridor. They had spent the last five minutes slowly making their way up the exposed steps, expecting any moment to be ambushed. But the stairwell had proved to be deserted. Except for Jenaro whose gun was currently with Ricardo, they were all armed, and their guns were out with the safeties off. Uno reached for the door, and as his hand touched the doorknob, there was a totally unexpected and semi-loud blat of sound. Uno jerked his hand away and stared at the doorknob. It had never made a noise before. Alfredo spoke after a moment. "The center wedge, it's running up and down now. It used to be horizontal." Uno nodded. All the doors in the home complex were like this, a circular indentation in the doorknobs on both sides of the doors, every door, the ones between the great rooms and even the doors between the corridor and the bedrooms. The wedges inside the indentations looked very much like locks, but none of them moved. Before now, they all seemed frozen in the horizontal position. Uno grabbed the doorknob again and tried to turn it, ignoring the annoying noise. The door would not open. "Try the wedge," Alfonso suggested. "You try the wedge," Uno growled back. "Uh, yeah, sure Uno." Alfonso touched the wedge and turned it easily to the horizontal position. As the wedge clicked home, the annoying noise stopped. "What the hell?" he whispered. He tried to move the wedge back but it would not budge. Alfonso then tried turning the doorknob. The door opened smoothly. The four men peered down the corridor. There where sixteen bedrooms doors, eight on each side of the corridor, plus a final door at the end of the corridor leading to the bathroom. That door looked closed, but horror upon horror, all sixteen bedroom doors were ajar. "Fucking hell Uno," whispered Alfonso. "We'll have to check them all." Uno frowned mightily but agreed with Alfonso's assessment. If they traversed the corridor without checking the rooms, they could be shot in the back or attacked from two directions at once. Uno sent Jenaro back down to get Diego's pistol, leaving only one gun to guard the Mall. A minute later Jenaro returned and then they slowly began to clear the corridor, Uno and Alfonso guarding the corridor forward while Jenaro and Alfredo would burst in the bedrooms one at a time and verify they were vacant. It was slow, nerve wracking work to check the closets and under the beds. Time: 7:46 AM In the past few minutes, Kiyoko had activated Black Mall's lounge elevator and assigned it a new access code which she then communicated to the Hilton complex through the elevator network. Just as Jenaro and Alfredo burst into their first bedroom eighty meters away, Jada walked out of the elevator carrying the group's fifth pistol. "Jada!" Brandi exclaimed. "You shouldn't be here!" She paused and asked, "Who's at the sky-bridge?" Jada shrugged. "Currently nobody, but the place is open and the kayak convoy should be there in five minutes. Brandi, Kiyoko, fantastic work!" "Thank you," said Kiyoko, "but Brandi's right. Jada, you shouldn't be here." "My life is not more valuable than either of yours. Brandi, please take Whitney to the sky-bridge and fill in the convoy when they arrive. I'll be the door guard." Jada took Brandi's place by the door leading to the kitchen. Brandi sighed. "Uh ... Okay, you're the boss. Whitney, you're safe! We have a marvelous group of people we're working with. I'll explain more soon." Brandi walked into the elevator with a wide-eyed Whitney and started to key in the appropriate twenty-character code. "Wait!" Kiyoko called out to her teammate, and then she walked up to Jada. "I should be the door guard, not you." Jada shrugged. "I'm in charge." "Jada, think! It's senseless to risk more than one life here, and I absolutely have to remain to run the next diagnostic and the final transfer. Get the hell out of here!" They locked eyes, and a second later in objective time Jada sheepishly nodded and then walked briskly to the elevator carriage. A moment later she exited the carriage with Brandi and an absolutely stunned Whitney. Somehow against all reasoning, Whitney found herself on the second floor of a kosher deli. She dimly realized the store's dimensions were that of a store in the underground mall. Time: 8:01 AM After a half hour of absolutely uneventful biking, Jada's voice came over the Leophone. "Hello Charles?" "Hey, how are you doing? Everything okay?" "Yes. I'll fill you in shortly. I just wanted to tell you, you're passing spiral-mark fifty kilometers right now, 12.4 kilometers to the sky-bridge." "Ah ... Sounds good. Are we still being pursued?" "Yes. Ricardo is still trying to run you down. He is currently 4.2 kilometers behind you." "Hmm. He's an amazing guy Jada. He's giving himself a hell of a run and with what he knows, very little chance of success." "Yes, agreed. He's an incredible runner. He's knocking off a kilometer every three minutes, stable as a bus. Your speed has dropped to 22 kph. Charles?" "Yeah?" "You're a great team leader and a great tactician. Not pushing Fatima was exactly the right decision." "Thanks. I know we've slowed down a bit, but Fatima's biking now with a nice easy rhythm. Another twelve kilometers of this will be no problem. How are the other teams coming?" Jada gave a small laugh. "The sky-bridge looks like an overcrowded airport right now, with a bunch of planes packed on the tarmac. We have both sides open, the deli and the coin store. Our first priority is to get all the boats unloaded and into the stores by the time you arrive. Bike inside and we'll close up right behind you. Charles?" "Yeah?" "When can we expect Ricardo to reach the sky-bridge?" Charles answered without hesitation. "Not as fast as you're probably afraid of, and I would bet probably not at all. Ricardo likes to pretend he's superman but he's not. My guess is he'll run out of gas after twenty kilometers." "That's a relief. I should tell you, we sent Kiyoko and Brandi in. Brandi is back and we managed to extract Whitney. Kiyoko's currently holding the lounge and waiting for Mark's group." "Whoa! Fabulous news! I only hope the compadres don't take out their frustrations on poor Amber." "Maybe not. There's a development there too. I'll fill you in when you arrive." Charles could tell by her tone that Jada had a boatful of issues before her. "Yeah, okay. See you soon." "Right. Jada out." Time: 8:07 AM Kiyoko heard the beep of the door between the kitchen and pantry and knew that Uno's team had finally progressed to that point in their reclamation of their lounge. Kiyoko closed the door between the lounge and the kitchen and said, "Interface, seal and execute integrity test on kitchen-lounge door, maximum test duration. Execute now." The doorknob wedged clicked to vertical and Kiyoko tested the wedge. It would not move. She shuddered in relief and then noted the time on the elevator display. Maximum testing time was twenty minutes. If Kiyoko were a security officer, she could order the door to lock permanently, but as a janitor her authority was limited to diagnostic testing. She knew her limits. She had almost unlimited authority to unlock doors in her presence, but locking doors was another issue entirely. Trying to run more than one integrity test in the same day in the same complex would be flagged as an abuse of her power. The interface might even overrule her command. There was nothing to do now but wait. Mark would call her through the network when he was clear of the ivy. They would then see if he had enough time to get here before the door unsealed. Kiyoko took a deep breath, staring at the locked door and trying to keep calm. For Mark's party to get here in time, they needed to call within the next five minutes or so. Toshi just wasn't that fast a runner. This was going to be close. ------- Chapter 44 Time: 8:11 AM Ricardo pulled up from his hard run and stood panting as the stared down the locked corridor. He glanced at his watch and estimated he had run eighteen kilometers in fifty-five minutes. Not his personal best but not bad, especially when he considered he was running with a fairly heavy pistol. But he felt exhausted now, and before he stopped he had been reduced to jogging at half his former speed. Water, he thought. He had done distance running before, but there had been water tables by the side of the road. He felt very thirsty now, tired and thirsty and hot from running in the dry air of the mall. Yes, it was definitely time to turn around. Where had that woman gone? Was it someone from their Party? She was just too far away to tell. And why hadn't he found her? He didn't think any woman could have outrun him. Maybe she had a bike or something. Maybe she slipped into a store and locked the door before he could see it. It was hard to guess which scenario was more likely. Fucking hell. Six to seven kilometers of both sides of the Mall had been locked down in just a few hours. One bitch couldn't have done that. It must have been a whole fucking army of bitches. Fucking hell. Uno's group had been made to look like utter fools again. And if there was one thing above all else that Ricardo detested, it was being shown he was on the short end of the stick when it came to brains. Ricardo swore as he walked and thought about their situation. Uno had turned out to be a real problem. The man just wasn't aggressive enough, and they were acting like a bunch of chumps with him in charge. Uno was a problem, and the problem needed a solution, a permanent solution. Their group needed to be playing more offense, not wasting time holding useless positions. Ricardo paused to consider. If he killed Uno, would the others follow him? For some reason he could not clearly identify, Ricardo thought Diego might be the only person he'd have a problem with. All the others feared him, and without Uno around Ricardo thought the others would gather and fall in line. Chop the head off the chicken and become the new head, as simple as that. But when? Soon, Ricardo thought, within the next couple of days if possible. They were wasting precious time, beyond what their bank of time could afford, and the most maddening part of it was that nobody seemed to realize it. Okay, when was settled. Next question, how? The matter called for a certain amount of delicacy. Ricardo smiled for the first time in days. Perhaps a certain amount of artistry as well, something that would really motivate the others to follow him. Hmmm... Time: 8:12 AM "Charles?" Jada's voice asked over the Leophone. "Hi Jada," he answered. "You were absolutely right. Ricardo has just given up. He's starting to hike back home." "Marvelous!" Charles then called out to everyone in front of him. "Our pursuit has given up. Five-minute break time!" Fatima stopped immediately and dismounted and gave her team leader a grinning smile. She then took a long drink from her water bottle and started to stretch her arms and the sides of her hips. The short break was very welcome. "What's our position?" asked Charles. Jada replied, "You are at spiral-mark 46.2 kilometers, 8.6 kilometers from the sky-bridge. Right now Ricardo is almost exactly six kilometers behind you and he's hiking in the opposite direction." Charles nodded. "Then we're home free. Any word on Mark?" "No, not yet. Kiyoko has her hands full. I'm not going to disturb her, at least for another few minutes." "Jada, was there something else going on? You made a reference to something a while ago." "Uh ... Oh yes, Amber! Let me fill you in." Jada spent the next minute describing how Amber was hiding out in an Eckhart Pharmacy at spiral-mark 69,360 on the inside arc. Charles immediately saw the opportunity for an additional rescue. "Jada, we have to go back. Once Ricardo enters Jacob's, we can extract Amber." Jada felt thunderstruck. "My gosh, yes. Thank you! Are you thinking of all four of you?" "No, just me and Tom. Emily and Fatima should return to the sky-bridge. But we'll need a side-car. Can you ask for a volunteer, someone's who's up for another sixty or seventy kilometers of biking?" "Yes, of ... One moment, we have contact with Kiyoko. Jada out." Flashback one minute: Time: 8:13 AM A welcome voice in the Black Mall lounge came from the elevator's keyboard speakers. "Kiyoko?" "Yo Mark!" she answered. What's our time?" Kiyoko could hear him panting slightly as he ran. "On my mark ... Now! Thirteen minutes and forty seconds." There was a moment's delay, and then a shout. "Yahoo! We're making our first turn now, one segment down, twenty-three to go, 2.3 kilometers. Expect us in twelve minutes, less." Kiyoko felt such a strong rush of adrenalin she almost felt like crying. "Not even close!" "Yeah, lots of extra time..." "Don't bother to talk unless you have to. Just give me a heads up when I should open the door for you. Or if you want, I can call out the time on your turns." "Yeah, okay, great, that'll help." Mark tried to control his excitement as he ran. Frida was right in front of him, and Toshi as their slowest runner was in the lead. At thirteen minutes and eleven seconds in the countdown, they completed their second hundred-meter segment. At twelve minutes and forty-two seconds, they completed their third segment. Kiyoko bridged Mark's line into the Hilton network and gave their home base the good news. Mark and Frida shifted their positions slightly as they ran and formed a triangle with Toshi as the forward point. Mark quietly studied Toshi feet as she ran. They were all dressed in simple bathrobes, but had their good boots on. That was essential for their silent journey over the black cobblestones. Mark was carrying the Leophone and their one mushroom lock from Black Mall. Everything else, including their homemade Leophone charger, was still at the bee park. Well, Mark thought, as least the torturous walk through the killer plants had given them a chance to rest from their run up the long stairs and the dash to the ivy chamber. Toshi looked like she had gotten back the nice kick in her heels as she ran. Mark called "time" as they completed their fourth segment, twelve minutes and twelve seconds. Yep, Toshi was setting a nice steady pace. Two hundred days, Mark thought. Their time in their strange park with the bees was just over two hundred days of subjective time. Such a strange experience. But it was also a wonderful experience, one that had Mark running now with two dear wives. Jada! He pushed the thought away. Not now, he thought to himself, not now. "Time?" he asked over the Leophone. Eleven minutes and forty-three seconds. "You're doing great Toshi," he called out. Mark took a moment to glance outside as they ran, trying to remember where the solar cycle was in objective time. It hadn't been a factor in their lives for so long. Perhaps an hour and twenty minutes until sunrise he thought. It was still quite dark outside. He didn't bother to check whether there were clouds or stars above. Eleven minutes and thirteen seconds at the next turn. Way to go Toshi... Time: 8:20 AM Uno was fit to be tied. He was standing and fuming silently by the locked kitchen door with his three compadres. Brandi and Kiyoko! They just had to capture them both. Kiyoko could describe the battle Gilberto's party must have had at Rabbies Dram, and Brandi would know the fate of Chico's expedition. Of course, the wayward bitches might need a little persuading before they decided to talk. But Ricardo could help there. Oh yes indeed. The man had magical fingers when it came to persuading people to talk. And both pussies were right on the other side of this fucking door! Uno slammed his hand against it. He decided he somehow could feel their presence with a certainly. But damn it, how to get through this fucking door? "I could fire a shot at the lock," Alfonso said doubtfully. Uno frowned and shook his head. "Remember? We tested. The door is other stuff." In their first week here, they had done numerous experiments, and found almost all the goods in the Mall were Earth stuff, but the materials of the buildings were what they called "other stuff". The difference? Earth stuff could not dent other stuff. Not even the tungsten drills from the hardware stores below could scratch other stuff. It was just one of the rules you had to live by. And where did that rule leave them now? Alfredo offered a suggestion. "I guess one of us could go outside and try to look through the windows." He paused and then gulped. "The pine park, not the sand park. Jessica saw two pistols. A person would be a sitting duck in the sand park." "Is that true?" asked Jenaro. "I never knew Brandi was good with a pistol, and I can't imagine Kiyoko knows about firearms. That stupid Jessica! She probably panicked for no reason." "Hey," said Alfonso, defending his girlfriend. "I'd like to see you stand up with a Bowie knife against two bitches with guns. And Kiyoko, I've seen Jessica's fingers up that cunt's tailpipe searching for contraband." The visions of it came to Alfonso's mind. Jessica's favorite position was to have her victim bend low with the face pressed to a table, standing with legs spread apart while Jessica held the back of the neck down with one hand while exploring the rectal cavity with the other. Alfonso gave a small shudder. Kiyoko was probably madder than a bat out of hell. He was surprised she didn't shoot to kill. Uno suddenly blinked. Hell, he was surrounded by idiots! "Alfredo! Run outside and up the stairwell! Take the walkway over. Signal to us what's going on! MOVE!!" Alfredo also blinked. Of course! He'd go back to the circular stairwell, then across the cobblestone walkway to the opposite vertex of their hexagon. There he'd go through a one-way door and take the stairs up and come along the three sides of the hexagon to be in the corridor on the other side of the lounge. Eventually, somebody would have to let him back in, but for now, the views through the windows would be excellent, and he'd be safe. Alfredo turned and ran as fast as he could. He had about five hundred meters to go, including ninety meters through some very cold snow. Time: 8:22:03 AM With the countdown on the door lock at five minutes, Mark's team started the nineteenth segment. Toshi had eased up just a bit over the last kilometer, adding an extra second and sometimes two on the segment laps, but now they had only six hundred meters to go, jogging the two sides of the last three hexagons between them and the vertex with the elevator. They should be at their destination vertex in three minutes. Time: 8:24:05 AM Alfredo reached the second floor of the southwest vertex and began to race along walkways, expecting to be in the corridor near the northeast vertex in less than a minute. Unknown to Alfredo, that 300-meter sprint would have him arrive simultaneously and the elevator vertex with Mark's team. But a ninety-meter dash through some very cold snow drifts had really done a number on his feet and ankles. He slowed up a bit from a sprint to a jogging run, thinking that an extra twenty seconds or so wouldn't matter. Time: 8:24:58 AM Alfredo turned the corner to jog the last eastern face of the hexagon and gasped in astonishment. Before his eyes a hundred meters down the corridor, he could see the vestibule door swinging open, and incredibly he could also see two, no three people jogging towards the door from the adjacent walkway. Alfredo screamed and charged down the corridor with all the speed he had. The other group had a big lead on him, with perhaps only ten meters to go before reaching the vestibule door. But Alfredo had a gun. He raised it and prepared to fire as soon as his first target exited the other corridor. From the kitchen windows, his teammates gasped at his actions. Time: 8:25:04 AM With only a few meters left before the safety of the elevator, Mark cringed in horror at the sight of an enemy combatant charging down the adjacent walkway. And then something extraordinary happened. The world around him seemed to drop into slow-time, even though he was not making eye-contact with anyone. It was a very strange sensation, as if he were moving underwater. Ignoring the question of what was happening, Mark reached in front of him in agonizing slowness and grabbed Toshi by her shoulders. He pulled hard and stopped her from running into the open corridor just in time. The backward force on her upper body caused her legs to start to fly out from under her, but Mark dropped his arms to the front of her thighs, well below her womb, and braked her legs in order to prevent her from sliding feet first into the firing zone. But Frida did not stop. She tried to race across the gap and Alfredo fired, and in slow motion Mark saw Frida's shoulder jerk and a spray of blood shoot out from her bathrobe. She make a very low frequency sound that Mark dimly realized was a scream, and then she was across the walking and into the vestibule before their enemy could fire again. Kiyoko was there standing and appearing as still as a statue except for her face that was slowly turning into a grimace at the sight of Frida's wound. But Mark and Toshi were still on the wrong side of the fire zone and Alfredo was charging fast, now less than sixty meters away. Mark acted without thinking. He dove low and raced across the zone and made it without being hit. He then stood up beside the statue-like Kiyoko and pulled the gun out of her waistband. In one fluid motion, Mark leaned low and then back into the outside corridor with his gun pointed in Alfredo's direction. Amazingly, Alfredo was almost in the same position, just a single stride closer. Mark's sensory input of the scene around him was extraordinary. He could see small details on Alfredo even though the man was still halfway down the corridor. And Alfredo seemed suspended in mid-air, almost frozen between one stride and his next. As Mark watched, he could also see Alfredo's pistol slowly dropping in angle. The man was trying to target him. Mark fired first. It seemed so ridiculously easy. The universe was focused to crystal clarity. Mark found it took no effort to place a shot within a centimeter of his target area, just to the left of Alfredo's breastbone. Mark fired again and again, placing three 38-calibre rounds directly into Alfredo's heart from a distance of fifty-plus meters. Mark almost fired again, but he could see Alfredo's body jerking backwards and starting to fall from the destruction of his heart. The adrenalin rush from the danger faded as fast as it had occurred, and Mark dropped back into normal time. Toshi was at his side seconds later, fiercely hugging her drowsy looking husband. "Mark! Are you hit?!" He gasped. "No! Just so tired. Frida?!" "I'm okay!" she cried from the doorway. "Come on! We've got to get out of here!" Helped by Toshi, Mark stumbled through the vestibule and into the lounge and elevator. With a minute to spare on the kitchen lock, Kiyoko executed the complex command she had programmed into the elevator. It transferred them to the first floor library of Red Mall and then deactivated itself. They dashed into the adjacent hospital room and helped Frida onto the autodoc table. Mark then collapsed in a nearby chair and started to fall asleep. ------- Chapter 45 Time: Friday, February 1, 2019 11:02 AM Mark drifted up slowly from his slumber. He was having a delightfully sexy dream, and as he stirred he realized a large part of the delightfulness was not fantasy. There was a naked woman curling up next to him in a huge bed, and she was gently caressing his scrotum as he slept. Toshi? Frida? No. Mark could tell from the tautness of the breast in his hand, and especially from the distinctive smell of the woman. It was a wonderful smell, faintly salty. It reminded Mark a little of fresh-cut grass or maybe hay. It was the wonderful smell of Jada. And then he remembered a bit more, being led by Jada from the hospital room downstairs to the big corner bedroom that she shared with Emily. She had undressed him and then herself, joining him in bed and crying softly, telling him over and over how much she loved him. Mark opened his eyes and saw Jada's face right in front of him, her eyes wide open. They both rode the roller-coaster slide of linkage. The rest of the room seemed to be suspended in time. "My love," Jada thought. Mark couldn't imagine her looking more beautiful. There was orange sunlight in the room, and it was catching in the stray threads of her thick hair. "Hi," he thought back serenely, and then he paused. "How are the others?" "Fine. Our operations were a tremendous success. Frida will be fine too. The bullet was only a deep graze, a lot of blood on the surface but no internal damage. Emily is very happy with what the autodoc is saying." Jada felt Mark sigh and relax within the link. "Mark?" "Hmmm?" "Frida and Toshi, and we suspect you too, your minds are much more powerful than when we last met. Will you do an experiment with me?" "Uh ... Maybe. What do you want me to do?" "Scan my memory. Don't ask permission, don't wait for me to offer it, just pick a memory and explore it." "Without your cooperation?! No way!" "That's what Frida and Toshi said too. They absolutely refused. But we need to know what your new abilities are like, what our abilities might become. Mark, you are my husband. I am your wife. There is no mental rape here. You have my permission. I'm just not actively supporting which particular memory you choose." Mark paused for a moment. While he considered, he felt the heartbeats of his beloved in his hand that was still holding her breast. "I love you," he thought. "I know, and I trust you without limit. So please Mark, pick a memory and explore." "Okay. Jada, you're in complete control. Just think stop at any time and I will." "Okay." And then the world transformed. Jada grunted from being slapped on her butt. That hurt! A huge adult had her across his lap, and Jada was so far over that the hair of her head was touching the carpeted floor. Jada's mind gasped as she remembered the unusual carpet pattern. Holy Shit! This was the year she lived with her parents on Isla Grande, just south of Miami Florida. This was her bedroom the year she was nine years old. And her father was spanking her. But it wasn't just a memory. This was absolutely real! Another swat. Ouch! The room faded for an instant and then reformed. The disembodied voice of Mark spoke to her. "I moved forward a bit, about twenty minutes I think." Jada was standing alone in her bedroom. She looked around in wonder, the tenderness of her butt ignored and then forgotten. Her bedroom! Yes! It was just like going back in time. She turned and saw herself in the full length mirror that covered the outside of her closet. It was a miracle. Staring back at her was her self-image as a nine-year-old, complete with the ultra-long ponytail her mother let her have. She was wearing a light cotton sundress, yellow with a thin white belt, and a worn pair of sandals were strapped to her tan feet. Jada was stunned. This was so unlike a dream. Her surroundings were clear and sharp and had the complex completeness of true reality. But she was in her childhood body, and she gazed at her young image in the mirror for a long moment. "Oh, the wonder of it," she whispered in her mind. "Mark, do you see me like this?" "Yes." And then a chuckle. "Wow Jada. You were a really cute kid." "Uh huh. But I can't see you." "Wait a minute. I can project myself into you memory." A brief dimming of the dream, and then Mark was with her. Jada blinked in surprise. Her mind somehow accepted the image as Mark, but it was Mark as a nine-year-old, a simple red tee-shirt, blue jeans and black sneakers. "You're a child too!" she exclaimed. "I can project as an adult if you prefer. But I thought it would be friendlier if I joined you at your age." The young boy looked at her and tried to give her a kind smile. "Oh hell Jada," he said. "You were much too old to be spanked like that. Was your father trying to humiliate you?" "I guess so, yeah. It wasn't sexual. Seriously, in all my life with him, he never displayed a sexual interest in me." Jada walked up to the boy and offered her hand. He accepted it and together they walked to the window. Jada sighed, admiring the yellow sunlight, brighter and sharper than the sunlight she had become accustomed to. "Oh wow," she whispered. "Look at the color of the sky!" Mark nodded in agreement, admiring the small residential boat docks a block away and the fresh salt air blowing in from the ocean. "Yes, it is very pretty here. I picked up a time marker when I first entered your memory. Earlier this morning, you looked at a newspaper, August 4, 2009, a Tuesday." "Yep, it all fits. Man, that was one hot summer." Young Jada let go of his hand and walked over to her child-sized dresser and opened it. "Wow. And here are the bathing suits I used to wear at the beach." She pulled out an orange two-piece and stared at it. "This is so incredible. The details Mark! This bathing suit means nothing to me now. Why should it? But here's the little tear from where I brushed against some coral. I remember now." "Of course you do, otherwise the tear would not be there." Jada nodded and walked to her closet and opened the door. She stood for a moment staring at her clothes and shaking her head. She then closed the door and couldn't stop herself from laughing. "The details Mark! Even the patterns on my dresses, I think they're all correct! And here's that little white paint drop on the brass of the closet hinge. I used to think it looked like a little white bug. My God Mark, the details!" Young Jada then gulped and her hand reached back and rubbed her rump through the sundress. "But I don't feel tender anymore." Mark frowned and burst out, "What your father did was outrageous! All you did was sneak into your parent's bedroom and look around a bit. All kids have that curiosity. And this was your first offense. He should have simply told you that you had to respect your parent's privacy and let the issue go." The young boy sighed deeply and went on. "Anyway, regarding your butt, I'm suppressing that part of your tactile memory. This is why I really hate doing this. That decision should be your decision, not mine. These are your memories. You own them." Jada turned her nine-year-old self-image to the child self-image of her husband. "Mark, you are an invited guest, and both of us have complete access to our adult memories and maturities. Correct?" "Yes, correct." "So this is absolutely not mental rape. You are in no way violating a nine-year-old girl. At my core, I am an adult who is simply showing you what I once looked like. We're simply sharing an experience I once had." "Well ... To tell you the truth, I feel like kicking your father in the balls. But that would be a complete mental fantasy." "Wow. You could do that?" "If you wanted us to play, yeah. The scene wouldn't be quite this sharp though. This is real, or at least was real. Dreaming up a scenario like that would be very fuzzy by comparison, especially since..." Understanding shocked Jada. "Because your mind would be the only mind running it!" "Well, yeah." "My gosh, I see! But when you and Toshi link, or when all three of you link,..." The young boy nodded. "At first it was as if we could look at old pictures in our minds. Then with some practice we could turn the pictures into motion pictures, movies. But it was Toshi who made the great leap. Her imagination is incredible. She discovered how to mix fantasies in with the memories, seize control of the memory and push it in new directions. And then she taught Frida and me. All three of us now have the power to make our dreams as real as our memories. We have the power to make our dreams be anything we want it to be. Well, there are some limits of course." "Oh, that's a relief! Otherwise you would be a god now in my dream world. May I ask?" "About the limitations? Sure. As a solo dreamer, I can make a very realistic solo environment, be in a forest or on a deserted beach, any area where I'm not interacting with other people. It doesn't have to be a real memory. It's as if I'm painting a picture and then the paints start to self organize and make all the logical connections. But if I imagined a busy city scene, the crowds around us would be indistinct. I can't duplicate the purpose behind so many different minds." "No, of course not." Mark leaned over and kissed Jada's cheek. "Were you ever in a dream Jada, back on Earth, where you realized you were dreaming? Did you ever try to seize control of the dream? Actively guide it in a particular way?" Young Jada nodded. "Yes, once or twice perhaps. The realization happened very rarely. I think I understand. But this..." She waved her hand around the room. "This is no ordinary dream. This feels absolutely real." A worrisome thought occurred to Jada. "And if dreams and reality feel equally solid, isn't that the same as editing your memory? Isn't that dangerous? You won't know what really happened in the past versus what was just wishful thinking." "No, that's not an issue. Imagine you watch a movie and then imagine a different ending you like better. You can still tell the difference." "Ah, that's good." Jada grinned at him. "Gee, what a temptation it must be to spend your life in ... My gosh Mark! Why do you bother with reality?!" The young boy grinned back. "That is a question, isn't it? But the answer is obvious. There's more to life than just play. For us to learn and grow from our dreams, we have to tether the fantasies back to reality. That's where this ability becomes a true gift. Our dreams let us explore acting in different ways without having to accept the consequences of our actions." Jada's hand came up and caressed the cheek of the young-boy / her husband. "But still, if you wanted to, you could live 99% of your time in your fantasy universe?" "Well, yeah, the temptation is there, especially for playtime or studying. Our subjective lives can be vast." The young girl sighed and played with her ponytail. "And only you, Toshi, and Frida have this ability." "So far. But all three of us are convinced Emily is right. There was something explicit in our bee park, something that advanced us. The obvious candidate for the change is of course..." Jada laughed. "The bees!" "Yes. It's very tasty honey, from some very ugly-looking bees which are in practice quite docile, almost friendly. They're about the size of my thumb." Young Mark glanced down at his hand. "I just felt your heartbeat again. I'm holding your breast, back in your bedroom at Red Mall." Jada glanced at her young body and touched her chest and laughed. "You mean back in a reality where I have breasts!" She took a deep breath. "Mark, you're right. Standing here like this, it would be so easy to slip back and just remain in the memory, be a kid again and spend a new summer here, especially if I can change a few things and have this summer turn out better than the original." Mark nodded. "And we could really do it if we wanted to. I suspect all adults dream of it occasionally, reliving their childhoods. Maybe even older children dream of it. But there's a danger in the temptation to spend too much time in fantasies." Jada turned thoughtful. "Yes, because eventually the dreamer must awake." Mark nodded. "Exactly. If the dreamer gets too greedy, he has to suffer the consequences of a reality left unattended." "Indeed ... Yes, I understand you now. So much power Mark, so easy to make mistakes." Jada sighed. "Let me tell you about our mission today. It's not complete. Let me tell you about Amber..." Jada explained for a while, until Mark felt another heartbeat within her adult breast. "So," the young girl said with a smile, "why don't we abandon Florida of 2009 for a while and get back to reality?" "Sure. Ready to go?" "Almost. One last peek." The girl paused for a long subjective moment, enough to spin slowly around the bedroom and gape one last time. "I wouldn't mind returning here. I want to play with you on the beach. Can we?" "Sure." "Okay! But for now, let's go!" Jada took a deep breath and opened her mind and eyes, and felt the warmth of Mark's adult body against hers in Jada's spacious bedroom at Red Mall. Time: 11:04 AM "Finally!" Ricardo thought as he passed the locked Puppets Galore! "I'm back in the unlocked part of the mall, both sides of it." He paused three doors later in front of a drug store. He was only a tad over 700 meters from home and could be drinking all the water he wanted in five or ten minutes in the kitchen. But hell, he was thirsty now. Ricardo went inside and started rooting around for a water bottle. "Bloody Hell!" hissed Emily from the Hilton Center. "Charles, hold your position. Ricardo just went into the Eckhart Pharmacy." "Oh no, he must have seen Amber!" Charles, Tom, and Mandy with a side-car were holding at position 67,800 meters. They had been pacing Ricardo with a two-kilometer buffer for close to two hours, and now as they neared their objective Emily had them close to within a kilometer and a half. It had been nice for Charles to be on a team with Mandy again. With their bikes, their job had been very easy, and they had even taken two store breaks, once for an early lunch and another for a toilet break in one of the many Mall lavatories. They now felt comfortably rested for the rest of the mission, in spite of being up the night before. Still, their energy now was a second wind. Bed would be very welcome tonight. Lynn had been dynamically retargeting the sensors at every door Ricardo passed, and Emily could now see deep inside Eckhart's from the opposing store on the outside arc. "I don't think so Charles. He just looks as if he's searching for something. There! He found it, a water bottle. Hell of a bad break. I hope Amber keeps a low profile." Meanwhile Ricardo was polishing off half of a liter bottle of water in a single swallow. "Oh man," he thought, "that tasted good." He looked around the store and grimaced. His damn sixth sense. It had served him so well in the past, and even this morning, but his nerves had been playing tricks with him for hours. He had the awful feeling people were staring directly at him for hours now. And he even felt something is this stupid store, something strong in fact. Fucking hell. Ricardo wearily exited and began the final short hop to home. He walked to the outside arc and saw their home-base observer immediately. "Jessica," Ricardo thought. "Nobody else does guard duty that sloppy. Fucking hell, she hasn't even spotted me yet." Ricardo kept walking in plain sight along the outside arc, wondering when the stupid bitch would finally bother to use the binoculars and look in his direction. Jessica finally did when he was a mere 500 meters away. He could have sworn she had pointed the binoculars right at him, but then she lowered them and started looking at her nails! Was the bitch legally blind?! Again at 300 meters! Unbelievable! She surveyed the corridor, or as least went through the motion of it, and had no reaction at all. Ricardo fumed and continued to walk steadily towards her. He finally saw her look again and jump when he was barely a hundred meters away. She called out to someone inside Jacob's and then tried to act nonchalant. "Not today, Baby Jessica," Ricardo thought angrily. "Not today! I'll have to clear it with fucking Uno, but that was gross negligence on guard duty." Ricardo gave a thin smile. He would push Uno for a Jessica spanking, no rods, just the flat of his hand. Five whacks would do it. Ricardo was sure Uno would agree because he never really appreciated what Ricardo could do with his bare hands. Baby Jessica was going to be in for one rough week. Ricardo thought he could break open her butt flesh with less than five whacks, raise a deep purplish bruise with three precise hits and then split open the puffy flesh on the fourth. The fifth whack would be for his personal pleasure. She might not even feel it, at least not at the time of delivery. Ricardo thought she would probably pass out on his fourth whack. At 11:15 AM, Ricardo pulled up outside Jacob's. He stopped a few meters from the sitting Jessica who was furiously staring at her nails. Alfonso was the sole person on guard duty inside the store. "Ricardo," the compadre called out wearily. "A whole shitload of stuff has happened while you went off to play with yourself. Where've you been muchacho? Go upstairs and report in to Uno immediately, and I'd get ready to eat some humble pie if I were you." Ricardo's body totally relaxed and he weighed the risks against the satisfaction of putting a 38-calibre round right up Alfonso's fat nose. Then he'd shove the pistol up the Baby's cunt and start explaining to her exactly what a total fuck-up she was on guard duty. And if there was one word of backtalk, just one, he'd pull the trigger, he really would. "It's not quite the right time," he thought calmly. "Let the situation develop." He said out loud. "Jessica has just fucked up on guard duty." Alfonso stared at him and then decided to cover for his girlfriend. "Nah. She mentioned to me five minutes ago she saw you coming." "That's right, I did," came an offended voice behind Ricardo. "I'll remember this," Ricardo said darkly. "Nobody lies to me and gets away with it." Alfonso gave a weary shrug. "Hey Ricardo, give it a rest. Jessica and I are supposed to be in the middle of our sleep cycle, and Uno still has us scheduled to start our regular shift at 4 PM." Ricardo shook his head. "Are you fucking insane? We're at war. If Uno put you on guard duty now, then you're supposed to be on guard duty now, not dozing off." He turned angrily away and continued to walk the Mall, in the direction of the Mex Grocer terminal store five kilometers distant. "Hey muchacho!" Alfonso called out. "I told you to report to Uno!" "Oh man, the guy is really asking for it, and he's so stupid, he deserves it double," Ricardo thought, but he simply replied over his shoulder, "I need to get some new rods." He calmly walked an extra hundred meters to a nearby hardware store. He took his time in the store, letting his thoughts drift for a bit, idly looking at the merchandise before finally selecting two aluminum dowel rods, a thin one and a much fatter one a full inch in diameter. It was 11:31 AM before he slowly walked up the spiral staircase and through the second floor of home. As expected, he found Uno in the lounge. Hernando and Jenaro were with him. The top man started to blither, taking twenty minutes to tell a story that Ricardo thought could have been said in five. So Alfredo was dead. No great loss. But Uno's analysis of what had happened this morning seemed a little strange. And Uno was so fixated on his own battle that he hadn't even asked Ricardo about his disappearance. Not that Ricardo had much to report. Ricardo felt so disgusted with his leader's performance that he felt like spitting. But instead he calmly tried to point out the flaws in Uno's reasoning. "My sighting of the cunt this morning, it was absolutely minimal. It's really a stretch to think of it as a diversion. I don't think she wanted to be seen. And Brandi and Kiyoko, what did they really accomplish? They scared Jessica but didn't hurt her. They seized the second floor here but didn't defend it. They had one stupid little gun battle with Alfredo and then they left." "Alfredo died in that battle!" retorted Jenaro. Ricardo shook his head and glanced at the elevator and continued. "You've missed the point. What was the purpose of our enemy's mission? To show us we had a weakness in our defenses?! It makes no sense!" "What do you mean?" asked Jenaro. "There was blood from Brandi or Kiyoko outside in the corridor, in the vestibule and in front of the elevator. Not much blood maybe, but at least Alfredo managed to hit one of the cunts. And then they took off, back through the elevator we think. Want me to show you the drops of blood? They're right there," he said, pointing with his hand to the floor in front of the elevator. "We also dragged Alfredo's body into the vestibule. Do you want to see it?" Ricardo ignored the offers. "You think that was the point of their mission?! To have that stupid duel with Alfredo?!" "It makes sense to me!" "Jenaro," Ricardo said softly, "Remind me later never to put you in charge of anything." "Hey, now wait a minute!" Jenaro said angrily, and he looked for Uno to support him in putting this upstart muchacho down. But Uno was motionless, sitting like a stone and just staring at Ricardo, and without the top man's backup, Jenaro sputtered something unintelligible and then shut up. Hernando though couldn't let the issue go. "Ricardo, we have an extra gun now that Alfredo is gone. Do you want the gun to be yours? Do you want to make compadre, frat boy? If you do, you'll have to show a little respect for your elders." With Uno and Jenaro by his side, Hernando thought his retort was safe to make and he expected Ricardo to back down, but all he got was a hard stare from their last muchacho. Ricardo's eyes seemed to be cold, gray whirlpools, and Hernando blinked and turned away. He was surprised that he felt like burping, and then was mildly confused when he realized it was not a burp he suppressed but a hiccup. "It's time," Ricardo thought silently. "Now is the moment." He stretched his arms and sides, preparing his muscles for what he suspected was about to occur, and then said out loud, "So now you think you have to defend the elevators too, huh? You've got Alfonso and Jessica at Jacob's, Diego and Amber in the library, and you three are on guard here? How the fuck do you think you'll be able to keep that up?" "Ricardo, watch your fucking language," Uno said wearily. "Jenaro is a compadre, you are a muchacho." Ricardo relaxed as he turned to his leader. "I am aware," he whispered simply. Uno blinked, not quite understanding Ricardo's response, but deciding to accept it as an apology. It was a monumental error. Uno went on, "And besides, I never said Amber was with Diego." It was Ricardo's turn to blink. "That's true, I just assumed. So Diego is solo right now. What did you do, lock Amber up somewhere? Why?" Hernando blushed and spoke up. "Oh, we didn't mention that part yet. I was the last person to see Amber when I yelled at her to stay put when you took off this morning." Ricardo felt stunned, as if an elevator shaft had just opened up beneath him. "So you think she's hiding in the Mall somewhere?" "Yeah, she's got to be, yeah." Ricardo felt almost dead inside. He was working with such stupidity. And then the feeling of death began to curl and turn livid. "So why didn't you move Alfonso to the edge of the locked stores?" Hernando looked to Uno for support and for the first time seemed troubled. "Well, we assumed Amber feared you so much, when you ran in one direction, she would run in the other. There are a lot more places to hide down the other end, and Amber couldn't escape with you down the other ... oh shit..." Ricardo stood up and looked at the time on the elevator display, a few minutes before noon. "There're a few stores I need to check out near the Eckhart Pharmacy, even though I'm probably too late. They would have been her perfect places to hide, totally invisible from your observation post with your fuckhead position and fucked-up observers. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm saying you're a bunch of fuckheads." Uno decided he could not tolerate this level of insubordination. He started to pull his gun out, the group's only 45-calibre pistol. Ricardo became a twirling flash of light, whipping his body into a tight spin and then lashing out with his thin aluminum rod, having the far end of the rod snap out and crack against Uno's temple just to the side of his left eye. Uno's head jerked from the blow and he dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Ricardo wasn't finished. He jumped up into the air and positioned his thick dowel rod in midair and let the full impact of his weight come down through the rod as a hammer blow against the already cracked bone in Uno's skull. The dowel drove through the weakened bone and traveled through the width of Uno's brain, killing him instantly. Ricardo glared at the stunned faces of Jenaro and Hernando. The two men trembled and bowed their heads, declining to challenge his authority. "That's not good enough," Ricardo said in a calm voice. "Give me your pistols." The two men handed them over without protest. "Now kneel before me and swear your devotion. Bow your heads to the floor." Time: Friday, February 1, 2019 12:28 PM "Charles?" Emily asked came over the Leophone. "I have something to report." "Aw Emily, don't tell me he's trying to run us down again. That would be totally ridiculous." Ricardo had appeared with Alfonso about twenty minutes ago in front of Eckhart's. At the time Charles and his Amber-rescue team had already completed their extraction and had been biking steadily at 30 kph for a half hour. Mandy was an absolute dynamo powering the side-car with a slightly shell-shocked but grinning Amber inside. Charles, Tom, and Mandy had debated a bit during their slow tracking of Ricardo as he returned home earlier. Mandy had brought with her three locks and she was eager to install them on the inside arc as a symbolic tweaking of Uno's nose. Charles had debated the benefit of that compared to leaving Uno wondering where Amber was and having him waste time searching the six kilometers of stores Black Mall had left to them. But in the end Charles agreed with Mandy's assessment. Uno would find the humiliation unbearable. So they closed and locked the three stores after Puppets Galore! And a little over a half hour later, it was Ricardo and Alfonso who had received their message. "What's our position?" Charles asked Emily now. "Oh, you're doing fine, approaching the forty-four kilometer mark. If you maintain your pace, expect to reach the sky-bridge in fifteen minutes." "Sounds good. Thoughts of a quick shower and some sleep are looking mighty attractive." Mandy who was biking furiously on his left with the side-car looked over and gave him a quick nod. It had been a very long night. "Charles," said Emily. "We know who the extra male death was. It was Uno. We think Ricardo killed him." "Ah..." Charles biked in silence for a while, lost in his thoughts. "What makes you think it was Ricardo?" "Ricardo has the other five remaining members of Black Mall dragging Uno's body on a sheet. We think they're going to dump it in the locked area of the Mall. Uno's head ... It's pretty ugly, all caved in over the left eye. A number of the former slaves are saying only Ricardo would be that vicious. And Ricardo is obviously in charge now. He's collected all their guns. Ricardo is the only one armed. He's got Uno's 45." "The poor souls," muttered Charles. "They've got nothing we want anymore, and a true psycho lunatic for a leader. May God have mercy as they rot." "Yeah ... Charles, there's one more thing to report. The population counter is now at 010:099. It appears a woman has died today too." "Huh? Who?" "We don't know. We did a head count here. It wasn't one of us, and we can see Jessica pulling the sheet. You should see her face Charles. It's crazed with fear. I think Ricardo has her believing she'll be tortured if she doesn't pull hard enough." "With that guy, it's not an idle threat," Charles muttered, and then got back to Emily's earlier point. "So some woman from Party unknown has just died." "Yes. It's a reminder of how completely we've been ignoring the plight of the other Parties. The surfaces areas of the hexagon are dangerous places to wander, and deadly if you don't know what you're doing." Charles nodded. "But now we have five new additions to our team." "Yes, and not everyone needs to be involved with exploring Maddy's new world. I think we'll have a very interesting meeting tonight, discussing our next steps. See you soon Charles." "Yeah. Take care Emily." Charles sighed as he biked. Their work today had been fantastically successful, but there was no feeling of celebration in his heart. He just felt so tired. ------- Chapter 46 One week later. Time: Saturday, February 9, 2019 8:22 AM Jada woke and stirred, kissing sleeping Mark around his face until he sighed and smiled at her. Jada then sat up and stretched and admired the views of the pine park out the eastern windows. Sunrise seemed just a moment away. Jada and Mark had married yesterday in the early evening, or more precisely, Toshi, Frida, and Jada had a joint marriage ceremony with Mark in the lounge. Everyone in their group except Madison was there. It was a very touching ceremony, and Jada, Toshi, and Frida all had tears in their eyes as they hugged each other. And later that night Jada had retired alone with Mark for her honeymoon. Toshi and Frida had insisted that they had a year's worth of intimate memories with Mark and it was now Jada's turn, especially since Jada and Mark would not be together after Monday morning. Jada accepted their kind gift without protest. Paris! She had never been there in real life, but now she felt very familiar with the city's layout. Jada and Mark had spent more than a subjective week there in a three-hour link, playing and laughing as they explored each other's bodies and minds. And then very early this morning they consummated their marriage in reality, offering each other their virginities. So much had occurred in the last week. Weighing heavily on all the members of the new society was the decline of the master census counter. The death of the unknown woman on February 1st had not been the end of it. There was another on the 2nd, two downticks on the 4th, and then one a day for the next four days. The census counter was currently at 010:092, and nobody was expecting the count to stabilize. People from parties unknown were dying, and the prime focus of their society was to save as many as they could. Why the new deaths now, after all the weeks of relative stability? Were there other ways besides the Mall for the six groups to reach each other, and if so, had an interparty war broken out? Was one group fighting within themselves, or trying to do something that had lethal risks involved? Perhaps the most likely conjecture was that at least one group of partygoers was trapped somewhere without food. After seven weeks of fasting, they were starving to death. This week had been spent in an intensive effort to prepare for a hexagon-wide search and rescue mission. They had also transported their six large kayaks down to Madison's location, one per day, along with large amounts of food and survival gear. Today would be their last day of preparation and training. All three janitors had been pulling in long hours as teachers, training the new recruits not to make the mistake that Madison had. And early tomorrow morning on February 10th, three volunteers were scheduled to descend and join Madison and begin practicing with the kayaks in the nearby lake. The group of twenty-five had voted and adopted a simple division of labor. There were five search teams of four people each, with one team was assigned to every Mall area except Black Mall. The final five people were called Team-0 formed a central control team and were not expected to be involved with exploration. Team-0 was headed by Kiyoko and included Lynn, Akiko, Toshi, and Holly. Akiko and Lynn were working on a communications project to activate a supply of two dozen Leophones found in a Blue Mall Radio Shack, and that work was considered to be so potentially beneficial, no one wanted to risk the two on exploration missions. Kiyoko was the janitor of Black Mall, and since they were not exploring Black Mall territory, she was the natural choice to stay behind and be a resource to give advice to the exploration teams without janitors. And as for Toshi and Holly, both women were pregnant and were considered too valuable to risk. A month of rapes by Uno's fraternity had resulted to two pregnancies. Holly had been vaginally raped repeatedly by Geraldo and Segundo, and once by Ernesto. Who was the father of her child was uncertain, but regardless, she was carrying a priceless and irreplaceable genome, and she would work in the Hilton complex along with Toshi as monitors and helping Lynn and Akiko any way they could. Team-1 was headed by janitor Emily and would explore the surface around Red Mall. Her team included Ashley, Frida, and Ann. Team-2 was headed by Jada and would explore the great underground world with Madison, Tom, and Mandy. Part of the selection process for Team-2 was to pick people in top physical condition which included Jada and Mandy, and there was also the added bonus that Jada was a world-class swimmer and Mandy was a world-class kayaker. Tom was a natural fourth for the team. He was physically very fit, an excellent shot with a pistol, and had spent years doing extensive canoeing in upstate New York. He was also determined to be with Madison. Team-2 would be the best armed group. Team-3 was headed by Mark and would explore the surface area of Blue Mall with Cassidy, Paige, and Whitney. Team-4 had the obvious choice of leader in janitor Aggie and would explore Green Mall with Amber, Charles, and Brandi. And finally Team-6 was headed by Fatima and would explore the surface area of Yellow Mall with Heather, Allison, and Hannah. Their society only had three working Leophones, and one would be dedicated to Jada's expedition. The other four search teams would share the remaining two phones, and communications between the search teams and home base was considered absolutely essential. Thus at most two search teams would be away exploring the surface at any one time. On their off days, the other teams would pore over satellite maps of their coverage areas and plan their new missions. Over the past week, there was one other issue that had been investigated, the advancement of Mark's, Toshi's, and Frida's minds. In a triple mind, the three could experience an accelerated time of around two hundred. The society tried many combinations of replacing one of the three with another person, but it seemed all three minds needed to be advanced for a triple link. But binary links between advanced and non-advanced minds were possible, with typical time acceleration of twenty to forty, and Jada and Mark thought their linkage was pushing the acceleration to a factor of sixty. That was also the value Mark could achieve with Toshi or Frida alone. And in his battle with Alfredo, Mark had demonstrated a brief ability to accelerate subjective time without the benefit of another mind. The experience had left him very tired, and the risks of attempting it again were unknown. The group had decided not to pursue the issue for now. Mark lifted a hand and lazily caressed Jada's cheek. "Oh, how I love sleeping in late," he said with a smile. Jada nodded. "Yes, I know. I feel decadent too. I just want to curl up and play with you and never leave this bed." She leaned over for a simple kiss, and then their eyes locks as she gazed at him. "This is so amazing," she thought. "A part of me is remembering our wedding as happening last night, but the Paris part of me is insisting our wedding happened more than a week ago." Mark thought back, "I know. It does get a little difficult at times, trying to align the two perspectives. In a sense, they're both real." Jada mentally nodded. "Yes, because the thoughts are real, they really occurred. Hah! Your calendar helps. It's so easy to follow, exactly two weeks every month. Have you noticed? The weeks now, they seem to start on a Friday and end on a Thursday. It didn't seem that way in January. But now the months have fourteen days, and it just seems so natural to jump to the new system. And thinking of new things, we probably should find Toshi and Frida, at least have breakfast with them." Mark smiled in love. "Feeling guilty?" "Just a bit. Last night was their wedding night too. I know tomorrow I'll be gone and they'll still be around, but still..." "Jada, it really is okay with them." "Oh, I know. Wow Mark! I have two sister wives! I have so much work to do." "Work?" Jada nodded. "I'm a little envious of Frida and Toshi. They seemed to have their relationship all worked out." "Oh. Well, it's a new culture for all of us. Hmm, you look so delightfully sexy..." Jada shivered in delight as Mark latched onto her breast and began to suckle her. She caught one last emotional construct in his mind before the link broke. It was primal, pure male sexual desire. Jada began to feel her own arousal, and the moment evolved into an hour of sexual frolic. For their final position, Jada climbed on top and rode Mark, vigorously bouncing up and down and staring at the pleasure she was giving her husband. Mark started to give short, shallow pants, and Jada realized he was about to cum again, less than three hours after his previous orgasm. She groaned at the end of the coitus but had the discipline to uncouple and grab a tiny soft cup from the night table and fit it over Mark's penis head. Then she grabbed the shaft of his erection and jerked hard. She was rewarded with two small splashes of semen inside the cup. "Mark, you sexual tiger!" she hissed. "I didn't know males could do this." Mark just gave her a brainless grin in response. Jada jumped out of bed and threw on her bathrobe. "Back in a few minutes." "Oh, I'll be here," he replied, still with his sleepy after-sex grin. Jada dashed down the length of the Red Mall home complex with her prize. She entered the lounge elevator and typed in the access code for the Red Mall sky-bridge. After the door closed, she got a warning beep that her destination sky-bridge elevator was currently open. She would have to wait. About ten seconds later both short sides of the elevator started to open. Jada took one step and realized she was headed into the Wing Yip Superstore. She gave a fleeting grin and turned around. It was at a meeting on Tom's and Charles' second day with the group that Brandi had suggested the creation of a sperm bank. The two men had laughed with approval and then insisted that one location in particular would be the perfect site. "Oh, men!" Jada thought now with a grin. "They can be so juvenile sometimes!" She turned and headed for the reserved aisle in the Wild Oats Health Foods Store. And there very unexpectedly was Holly, loading a sperm cup into Charles' bank. Holly turned to Jada and blinked. "Oh, hi Jada." Jada gave a quick nod back and then got right to business. First things first. Jada quickly placed Mark's second deposit next to the first one created just a few hours ago, and then she heard the door snap and hiss as she closed it. She shivered at the fearsome physics that must be taking place before her. On the day of the winter solstice, two days after Mark's and Toshi's unplanned trip to Black Mall, the women had started a long-term experiment that Mark had designed but never have time to do. There was a store called Agilent Technologies near the home complex of Green Mall that Aggie had discovered held a set of genuine atomic clocks, the finest 2018 Earth technology could make, not simply radio-signal receivers but the real thing. A pair of microphones recording the opening and closing times of the cabinets showed that the snap / hiss lasted three hundred milliseconds. The women then started series of experiments, using pairs of synchronized atomic clocks, one inside the cabinet and out outside. Their first experiment had taken ten hours, and resulted in no measurable elapsed time within the closed cabinet to at least five orders of magnitude. Indeed, within their error range, their first experiment seemed to suggest a negative time duration, something the women considered unbelievable. But then Aggie suggested their one data point would fit the model of time stopping at the very beginning of the initial closing hiss and at the very end of the opening hiss at the end of the experiment. Yesterday a similar experiment had been completed, but this one on a twenty-day scale. The results were the same as the first, and within their millisecond accuracy for measuring the beginning and ending of the hisses, they had now determined that time within the closed cabinets was slowed down by at least nine orders of magnitude, a billion to one. An elapsed second within the cabinet would be at least thirty-years on the outside, and perhaps much longer. Their sperm bank might last for many thousands of years. The storage of the sperm complete, Jada turned to Holly and tried to give her a proper hello. She offered eye contact, and then gasped at the intensity of Holly's unease and emotional turbulence. Holly hiccupped and broke the connection before Jada could probe further. Jada came over and gave Holly a hug. "Hey kiddo, you okay?" "Oh Jada, I ... Hey, this is your day with Mark. I caught a glimpse of your husband in your mind. I saw him lying in bed and waiting for you to return." "You saw all that?" "Yep. He's waiting for you right now. Jada, this is your honeymoon. Go back to him." "Holly, Mark will understand. What's wrong?" "Oh ... Oh hell, I don't know." Jada sighed. "I saw you making a deposit in Charles' sperm bank. I must say, I was a bit surprised. Holly..." "Huh? Oh no Jada! What a thought! I'm not having sex with Chico, uh, Charles. I was sitting in on a late-night discussion Aggie was having with her team over in Green Mall. Toshi was there too. Amber and Toshi and I stayed up after the others went to bed. I guess I fell asleep in the lounge." Jada nodded and then motioned Holly to follow her back to the sky-bridge. "Do you still think of Charles as Chico?" Holly sighed back. "A little I guess. I try to be careful and not call him that. He really has changed. I think he deserves his forgiveness. But I have so many memories, not of being raped by Chico directly, but I held Allison the night she took Mandy's turn. Chico raped Allison with his fingers, and she was crying afterwards. It's so hard to forgive sometime Jada!" Jada nodded and punched in the keyboard code for White Mall's home complex, the new home for Holly and Team-0. Jada also used the elevator to call Mark's Leophone and tell him she wanted to be with Holly for a while. A moment later the four-meter door silently opened onto the deserted White Mall library. The two women sat down on a couple of nearby chairs. Holly was extremely tense, and she started to talk almost immediately, at first picking something innocuous as an escape. "This morning I woke up in Green Mall. I got up and went into the kitchen for something to drink..." She sighed. "I was just typing my command into the lounge elevator to return home to White Mall when Brandi showed up behind me. She was wearing almost nothing, just some see-through lingerie. She had been with Charles..." Jada held Holly's hand. "And you volunteered to deposit Charles' semen in the bank?" "Sure, why not? Brandi was still obviously aroused. She looked like a woman who had stopped right on the verge of orgasm. So I volunteered and she gave me a really kind smile and then ran back to Charles' bedroom I guess ... I guess..." Holly started to cry. "Oh Jada, this is so difficult. Late last night, Toshi and I got into a very heated discussion. It was almost an argument." Jada held the weeping Holly in her arms and stroked her hair. She could see Holly's distress but felt clueless as to the reason. "An argument about Charles?" she guessed. "No," wailed Holly softly, "not directly. It was an argument about rapes and pregnancies and ... Oh Jada, I don't know if I want the child I'm carrying. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't!" Jada felt stunned, but she knew instinctively it was too soon to reply in words. She pulled Holly to her chest and held and petted her as she cried. They stayed that way for several minutes, Holly's crying evolving from wails to gasps and then to small shudders and finally to lots of deep breathing and sighs. "It's so difficult," she whispered at last. Jada nodded and kissed the back of her head. "Perhaps it's the most difficult issue our society ever had to face, here and now or even before. Holly? May I ask? What did Toshi say?" A very deep sigh and then a wail and the floodgates opened for an explanation. "Toshi was very upset with me! I've already discussed doing an abortion with Aggie, and Emily too. They think they know how to instruct the autodoc to end my pregnancy. Toshi pleaded with me not to abort the embryo. She even offered to become the mother instead." "What?!" "Oh, she knows she would have to have a long discussion with Mark about this, and you and Frida too of course. But she was horrified about my decision. She tried very hard to talk me out of it." "So you've already decided?" "Yes. Well, almost. Aggie and Emily are discussing among themselves where their morals are on this. They both think I should have the right to abort, but they're a little uneasy of acting on their own, without the matter discussed at our group meeting. If it weren't for that, I would have aborted yesterday." "Oh boy..." whispered Jada with a deep sigh. "You think there needs to be a group meeting too?" "Actually, I was thinking I agree with Toshi. Holly, if you can hang onto the child until it's born, I'd be thrilled to be its mother with Toshi. I think Frida would feel the same way. I'm certain Mark would." "Oh shit Jada! You don't know how difficult this is! You don't know what it's like to be raped by three men in one evening, over and over again! It went on for weeks!" Despite the harsh words, Holly did not leave the comfort of Jada's breasts, and Jada continued to hold and pet her. "Holly, is there some way we can help you? Help you separate the essence of the child from how it was created? Please understand me. It's not the preservation of a fifth genome. I'd rather we all became extinct rather than force someone to go through a pregnancy against her will. But I think Toshi is correct. Her child-to-be is innocent, and your child-to-be is innocent." Jada kissed Holly again and continued. "I'm thinking of all the deaths we've witnessed. It taught me how precious life is. Have you ever tried thinking of your fetus as a child?" "Uh ... No. And furthermore, it's not a fetus yet! I've done some reading. It's just an embryo." Jada shuddered. "You're right, I misspoke. I'm sorry." Jada continued to pet Holly's head. "I was only trying to share something, something Mark and Toshi shared with me two days ago." "Ah ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snip at you." "It's okay. Anyway, Mark and Toshi were having a linked dream, and the dream took a leap neither was expecting. Their child was a boy! After all the subjective months of thinking about Toshi's womb holding a girl, suddenly they had a dream about Toshi giving birth, and the child was a boy. Both of them swore to each other afterwards that they hadn't planned the dream. But there in their hopes was Toshi giving birth to a boy." Jada took a few deep breaths. "Have you ever done that Holly, think of your womb holding a boy or a girl?" Holly was silent for a long moment and then whispered. "No, not really. I just see the endless hours of being held down and violated. The men used to howl when they would orgasm, and I would feel like vomiting when I felt them release. I knew I was fertile and I was helpless and there was nothing I could do about it. They used to hold my legs high in the air. The man who had just orgasmed would be lying on top of me, pinning my arms and my body with his hands and weight, and the other two men holding my legs would be howling like buffoons, restraining me with my ankles held way up in a mock version of a missionary position. I couldn't even let the semen drain out." "Oh shit," whispered Jada. Holly continued. "It was almost a joke to them, a contest of who could bang me the hardest. My vagina would be so sore afterwards, even with all the lube they were using." Jada felt like crying. After a long moment of silently petting Holly, she whispered, "I believe it should be your decision." Another long pause. "Thank you." Jada struggled for a long moment before she could talk again. "Holly, everybody is still thinking of Mark and me as absolute rulers. I'm sure I can get Mark to see your side of this. We could authorize Emily to perform an abortion without a group meeting. Is that what you want?" A faint but immediate answer. "Yes. And the sooner the better. Today?" Jada nodded slowly. "Yes. Let me go back and talk to Mark now." The two women stood up, and Jada saw Holly was almost in tears again. They cried for a moment together, and then Jada wiped her eyes and left the library for Red Mall. ------- Chapter 47 Time: Saturday, February 9, 2019 10:35 AM Ricardo came silently into Black Mall library to check up on Diego's progress. As ordered, the man was busy working at one of the two interface consoles at the room's two beveled corners. Today Diego had chosen the side facing the sand park with the windows facing southeast, and a great deal of orange sunlight was flooding his work area now. Not that Diego seemed to mind. Instead he called out a simple greeting, "Hello boss." Ricardo grinned and walked over. "You remind me of Toro with Chico." Ricardo studied the complex monitor screen for a moment. "You know Diego, you're the only one I allow to be informal with me, and the reason is you're the only one who notices when I walk into a room." Ricardo looked around Diego's work area and saw the small mirrored sphere the compadre had suspended nearby. "Very good Diego, simple and effective." Ricardo pulled up a chair. "So tell me, what did you learn today?" Diego sighed and stretched. "To be honest, not a heck of a lot. We might be at the end of the line with milking information out of this console." Ricardo gave a deep frown of disapproval and took a moment to crack his knuckles. "I'd be very sorry to hear that." "I'm doing my best boss." Diego said defensively, and then he waved his hand over the keyboard. "But I think I've explored every folder available. My only option left is to go over territory I've already covered and see if I've missed anything. That's what I plan to do now." Diego typed a few strokes. "Here's what we know about Section Five. Jessica, Alfonso, Jenaro, Hernando, you and I are known by this system as Citizen ID Tags 24, 26, 27, 49, 50, and 53." Ricardo waved his hand dismissively. They had discovered this days ago by having their members sit and type a "Who am I?" question to the console. "Any ideas on how we might learn the IDs of the others?" Diego shrugged. "Nothing comes to mind. I think Alfonso's guess though is a good one. Our numbers are consistent with the order in which we entered the elevator at the start of the parties. I've got approximate ranges right here," he said, popping up a simple spreadsheet, "in case we ever need to guess. ID Tags 1 through 18 belong to It's My Party, assuming our guess of lining up the Parties with the Sections is correct. And then we came over. We just don't know which groups went next to which Parties." Diego added as an afterthought, "I don't know how knowing the other ID Tags would help anyway." He typed for another second. "And here's the employment section. As you can see, there are only six jobs that are active now, and three of the six slots are filled, the janitors for Sections One, Four, and Five, by Citizen ID Tags 148, 117, and 142." Ricardo sighed. "And it's impossible to get their names?" Diego sighed back. "I've tried everything. I keep being told I'm not authorized to get that information." "And how would you get such authorization?" Diego gave a humorous laugh. "I'm not authorized to know that either. I've even tried it one more level. I'm not authorized to know why I'm not authorized to know why I'm not authorized to know. You get the idea? It's a dead end." Ricardo sighed. "All right. What else have you found?" "Almost nothing. There does seem to be six equal Sections and a Section-Zero that's above everything. But since I'm not a potential candidate for any available job, the system is telling me zilch." "So somehow it knows it's you who's typing and not someone else." "Yeah, evidently. Interesting how the three filled janitor positions have such high Citizen ID Tags." "Those four women who came late to our party..." "Yes, Toshi, Ann, Kiyoko, and ... uh, what was the last name?" "Akiko." "Right, Akiko. And Kiyoko was with Brandi when they attacked us. A coincidence boss?" Ricardo just flashed Diego a quick grin as a reply, and then turned thoughtful. "What do you think Diego, seventy kilometers of mall?" In the past week, their away teams had traveled as far as thirty kilometers into the spiral, and had made estimates based on the changing curvature as to its ultimate length. "Yeah, at least, somewhere between seventy to eighty I think." "So with six parties, six Sections, we own about the last fifteen kilometers?" Diego shrugged. "I guess. And it seems one or more parties has found a source of locks make of other-stuff and buttoned things up tight. They've even locked about ten kilometers of the mall that belongs to us." Diego gestured to the census counter at the nearby elevator. "At least one man from Chico's expedition is still alive, more if other males have died. I bet Brandi knows who." He sighed and added, "I bet she knows who killed Alfredo too, a hell of a marksman." Ricardo frowned as he remembered his surprise when he examined Alfredo's body. It was the evening after Uno's death. Accepting Hernando's and Jenaro's story at face value, and the blood stains in the walkway backed them up, the precision of the shooting was phenomenal. There were three quick shots within a two centimeter radius directly on target with Alfredo's heart. And this from a distance of fifty meters with a Bersa pistol? One shot sure, two maybe with the wildest of luck, but three pushed the issue to a conclusion Ricardo hated. They were up against a world-class sharpshooter. And that implied it wasn't Brandi or Kiyoko who had done the firing. And that implied all sorts of things, and none of them pleasant. Did Brandi's and Kiyoko's arrival in the lounge have anything to do with the earlier disappearance of Frida? Were Brandi and Kiyoko a rescue mission? Ricardo saw it as a very dark possibility. It implied that the different groups might have long-distance communications with each other in order to synchronize such a rescue attempt, and that was just one more huge disadvantage they were up against. Ricardo had found a very effective way to control his new subjects. He organized Jenaro and Jessica into Team-A and Alfonso and Hernando into Team-B, and for the last week at least one team and often both would be locked down in the mall on a combination of guard, procurement, and exploration duties. Ricardo would secure the stairwell door to Jacob's with thick titanium bars, and there was nothing in their home complex that could dent the locks. If either Team were successful in killing Ricardo while the other Team was locked in the Mall, the two groups would be forever separated, both from each other and from each other's resources. The simple idea had worked very well. Over the past week, Ricardo thought he had played upon the fears of his team and had turned most of their terror into blind obedience. Jessica had even hinted she would sleep with Ricardo if he wanted her. So far the new leader had been neutral in his response, undecided which would be the most advantageous way to respond. His mind came back to the present. "Damn it Diego! I need more options. What are the Section-Zero jobs like?" "I don't know how you get to them, but yeah, it's a bunch of interesting titles, almost always starting with the word director. There's a Director of Energy, a Director of Security, Director of Health, Director of Safety, Director of Waste, Director of Advancement, there's even a Director of Astronomy." Ricardo closed his eyes and considered. "All but the last one sound like they might have some useful power." He paused for a moment. "What does the Director of Advancement do?" "Absolutely no idea. There's nothing here describing the jobs, nothing I can access anyway. Want me to show you how limited this is?" Ricardo ignored the offer. "Diego, you have to find me an application form." Diego was quiet for a moment and then sighed heavily. "This is the same problem Uno had." Ricardo blinked. "Uno knew about this interface?!" "No, I didn't mean that. I was thinking about the issue of exploration. Uno wanted to be more aggressive, he really did. But how? We've tried the walkways north of here and lost a lot of people. We've tried the shopping mall below and lost a lot of people. There's only one option left, and I can see your reluctance to explore it. The same feeling stopped Uno. But if you want an application form, that's where to search for one..." Diego glanced at Ricardo and looked embarrassed. Ricardo saw the point immediately. If he sent someone out to explore the buildings across the fields, they'd either find nothing and the exercise would be a failure, or perhaps they would find some great power that could be used against him. And if Ricardo went out himself, what would prevent the others from simply locking him out of the home complex? Ricardo realized what he needed was some sort of doomsday device, something that would make it absolutely essential for the people to let him back when he returned. Some sort of mechanical device? Perhaps a time-delay release of cyanide gas or something, and only Ricardo would know how to reset the device? Ricardo dismissed the idea as too blatant. Acting like that would permanently brand him as a weak leader, one who feared his followers. But where did that leave him? Should he try to explore the surface with everybody? "Diego, come with me." A few minutes later Ricardo had Diego place two aluminum dowel rods in the first-floor doorways at the southwestern vertex. Someone from the outside fields could now enter their home complex through the propped-open doors. Ricardo was still undecided on whether to abandon their home. Perhaps a better strategy would be to pretend to abandon it and try to set an ambush for their enemy returning through the elevator. Was there some way to encourage them to try? What could he use for bait? What did he have that his enemies wanted? He would have to brood on the issue for a while. Time: Saturday, February 9, 2019 11:43 AM Holly walked into the Red Mall hospital complex a little early for her noontime appointment. Clustered around the autodoc were her society's three janitors Emily, Aggie, and Kiyoko, and they all gave Holly quick and nervous smiles as she entered the room. Emily beckoned Holly to come over. At first Holly thought there was another woman already on the autodoc table, someone naked whom she didn't know, and that was shocking. But as Holly approached, she realized the person was some sort of hologram. She stood in awe at the quality of the projection, momentarily forgetting the turmoil inside her conscience. The image was that of an adult female, but it lacked a complete body. From the navel on down there was a cutaway view of the pelvic cavity, and the view was shockingly real. A complete female reproductive system was on display. The only difference from reality was that there was no blood flowing from all the exposed holographic organs and tissues. Holly gulped and stared in fascination. Emily spoke in a clear but quiet voice. "The autodoc is instructing us what we have to do to perform an abortion. I've set the simulation for six weeks after conception, is that about right?" Holly was still mesmerized by the hologram. She whispered back, "Yeah, I guess." Emily nodded and took a deep breath. "I'll run through it again in a moment. Holly, I should tell you, Mark wants to come down and talk with you before we do this for real. He promised it would be brief, just a few minutes." Holly nodded, not paying much attention. The hologram's legs were in stirrups, but not too high and not spread very wide. With the autodoc reclined in a lounge-chair setting, Holly thought the position actually looked comfortable, much more than she was expecting. Then Emily began explaining that the internal probes and sensors of the autodoc were much finer than what was available on Earth, and that she didn't expect the procedure to generate any significant physical discomfort. "In fact," she said in her continued quiet voice, "the first part of the procedure is the same as doing a medical checkup on the pregnancy. Toshi has already gone through this, and the autodoc is requesting checkups for her every two weeks." "Is Toshi okay?" Holly whispered as she continued to stare at the hologram. "Yes, the system is very happy with her. Here. I'm starting the examination phase." Emily typed a command and a very thin probe emerged from under the table. It was little more than a wire the thickness of a paperclip, and at the end of the wire was a sphere the size of a pea. The probe began to burrow into the hologram's vagina, and the cutaway view made its progress plainly visible. The smooth sphere gently pushed itself through the tight cervical collar of muscle and into the womb. It worked itself along the uterine wall until it was adjacent to the simulated embryo. Holly blinked as she watched. After all the reading she had done, she still wasn't expecting the embryo to be that big. A second set of simulated bio-readings appeared on the displays above the autodoc. Emily frowned at them dismissively and talked as she began to type repetitive commands. "There're all sorts of diagnostic information, the embryo's heartbeat and blood chemistry and a whole bunch of diagnostics on development, but that doesn't matter here. There. Sorry it took so long but the system insists the abort command be entered and verified three times." Holly nodded and finally tore her eyes away and studied the displays for a moment. "I'm I misreading this? Is it still showing two heartbeats?" Emily sighed. "No, you have it right. Holly, the system is insisting that you give the final command verbally. I'm sorry to put you through this, but frankly, it's a relief to me that you give the final order. I'll trigger the simulation now." A second later the simulation calmly spoke the phrase, "execute terminative sequence." Immediately the embryonic array of bluish-purple diagnostic readings flashed to a mix of orange and bright white and then to a bank of solid orange which then all went dark. Holly looked down and saw that the holographic embryo was gone. Aggie who was standing by Emily's side spoke up. "We're not completely sure, but we think the probe is equipped with a powerful ultra-sound capability, like what a dentist might use to clean away the tartar on your teeth, but much more powerful and precise. The embryo is pulverized by sound waves and the waste is suctioned out through the probe." Emily finished the explanation. "It's a very efficient process, super-precise and about as non-invasive as you can imagine. There will be no damage to your uterine wall. This will not hurt your ability to have children in the future." "And there, see that?" Aggie asked pointing. "The final step is to apply a bit of gel where the embryo was attached. The autodoc describes it as a small amount of hormones to help your body adjust to the end of the pregnancy." Holly nodded and then grimaced. "Let's get this over with. What do I have to do?" Emily shut down the stimulation and the holographic female vanished. "Well, your skirt was a good choice for something to wear. Take off your panties and hop up on the table." "Can I leave my shoes on?" "Uh, yeah, I guess. Sure." A moment later Holly was reclining in the autodoc. She looked up at the high ceiling and tried to calm her mind. She took several deep breaths and then said, "I'm ready. Please start." Emily nodded and started typing. While she worked Kiyoko came and offered Holly her hand. Holly accepted the offer after a moment, and gave the hand a tight squeeze. Kiyoko began petting Holly's head. Holly jumped a bit as she felt the probe enter her vagina, but the sensation was rather minimal and she just took lots of quick breaths and tried to ignore it. Pushing the pea-sized probe through her cervix was a bit more noticeable but still only minimally annoying. She tried to relax and let the probe explore her womb, trying to adjust to the faint sensation of something foreign moving around inside her body. Aggie came over and in an expression of kindness draped a light cloth over Holly's exposed pubis. And then the second set of diagnostic displays lit up on the board above her. Holly glanced at them and was surprised to feel disappointment that all the indicators were bluish-purple. She knew the color codes. The autodoc was telling her that her embryo was in fine health. "We're getting very clear readings," said Emily nervously as she studied the displays. "The autodoc is estimating conception occurred forty-three days ago. It's also saying the egg came from your left ovary. I have no idea how it knows that. There's even a diagnostic to show the sex of the embryo. So far Toshi has asked us not to activate it." Emily looked over at Holly staring at her. "Oh, I'm so sorry Holly. I don't know why I'm telling you this." Holly took a deep breath and squeezed Kiyoko's hand again. "That's okay. It doesn't matter." She looked back up at the ceiling. "Emily, please key in your verifications." "Okay," Emily responded with a small sob. She typed for a while and Holly watched her go through three repetitive sets of inputs. Finally Emily gave another small sob and wiped her eyes. She dropped her arms to hang limply by her sides. Holly felt like crying too, and she also felt a rising tide of panic on whether she really wanted to do this. But to revisit the issue would be unbearable. She took a deep breath and cried out the words, "execute terminative sequence!" ------- Chapter 48 Time: Saturday, February 9, 2019 11:56 AM Emily realized what had happened and turned around quickly, her face a mixture of guilt and shock. "Oh Holly, I'm so sorry!" "What's happening?!" Holly shouted back. "The displays are still showing two heartbeats!" "I know! Holly! I wasn't trying to deceive you! I'm one keystroke short of final verification. Don't you remember? Mark asked to speak with you before we ... before we acted. Holly, I'm so sorry. I should have said something. I should have reminded you." Holly growled something unintelligible in response and squeezed her eyes shut just as the door from the library opened. In walked Mark and Toshi. Mark was dismayed that Holly was already on the autodoc and he glanced immediately at the time. No, he wasn't late. Emily saw his distress and came up to him and whispered, "We started the preparation a bit early. Holly arrived a while ago and didn't want to wait. Mark, please make this very brief. This is an extremely difficult time for Holly, and trust me, you aren't going to change her mind." Mark sighed heavily and whispered back. "It's a difficult time for all of us." He took a second to hug Emily. Meanwhile Toshi had walked quietly up to the autodoc and leaned over Holly's shut face. She touched Holly's hand to announce her presence, and Holly's eyes blinked open to see Toshi's face directly above her. As the link began to form, Holly could see was so much sorrow in Toshi's eyes, sorrow and guilt. Holly was confused. Toshi was feeling guilty? Guilty about what? And beneath the guilt lay a mighty purpose. Toshi's eyes became a whirlpool, an irresistible vortex that sucked away the reality of the hospital room. Holly gasped and cried out, but the cry was released in a strange unknown chamber. Holly gaped in wonder at her new surroundings. She was standing in a huge underground chamber seemingly carved inside a mountain with a large pit nearby. The walls and vaulted ceiling were of rough rock. The floor was polished stone. And it should have been darker. Actually Holly thought it should have been pitch black. But it was not. There's was lots of light to see by, but miraculously there were no shadows. Where the hell was the light coming from? It was such a novel puzzle that for a moment Holly almost forgot the more pressing questions. But not for long. The reality of what happened finally came to Holly's mind. "Toshi!" she yelled out to the cavernous room. "I know what this is! This is one of your stupid mind games! I want out of here right now!" There was no response. "I demand that you get out of my mind right now!" Holly gasped that the room did not immediately dissolve. This was an unbelievable abuse of power by Toshi. But before Holly could further that thought, a distressed voice came from the pit in the center of the cavern. "I'm down here Holly." Holly walked to the nearby edge and stared down in amazement. There were stone stairs along the circular wall spiraling down to the bottom of the pit, and at the center of the floor below was a medieval torture rack, and stretched out cruelly on the rack was a naked Toshi. Holly walked down the stairs in silence and came to stand by Toshi's rack. At the head of the rack was an enormous wheel to control the tension in the chains, and Holly saw that Toshi was already stretched to painful tightness. Holly grimaced and looked Toshi in the eyes and shouted, "What is this madness?! Toshi, I demand that you release me at once! This is as bad as being raped. You don't have my permission to do this. You are raping my mind!" Toshi blinked in her pain from the rack. "I know, and I will spend much time in the future asking for your forgiveness. Holly, I wanted to talk with you so much, I pleaded with my husband for the opportunity." "What?! He agreed to this?!" "Not exactly. He made me promise to keep this voluntary for you. And I have, sort of. There is a way for you to leave here." "Tell me!" "Break my arms." "What?!" "I've set up this dream with full tactile feedback for me. If you turn the wheel, you will break my shoulder joints. I expect to pass out from the pain. I will fall to the floor in the hospital room and you will be released." Holly stared at Toshi in horror for a moment, and then bared her teeth. She reached for the wheel and started to turn it. Toshi cried out in agony and Holly could feel the reality of the pit around her start to dissolve. Toshi wasn't lying. One more jerk and Holly would be free. In the reality of the Red Mall hospital room... Mark and Emily were standing on the other side of the autodoc across from Toshi. "I don't know Mark," Emily whispered. "I can't imagine that Holly would want to stay in a long-term link with Toshi." "My wife promised me she would make this voluntary for Holly," Mark replied, "and I've never known Toshi to lie." "Well..." said Emily, still uneasy. "Look! Toshi's face! Didn't she just grimace?" Mark looked up. "I don't know. You think so?" "I thought she wobbled too, as if she were about to fall over." Kiyoko looked very concerned for her dear friend. "Let me go around and stand with her." Down within the pit. Holly realized she just couldn't do it. "Damn you Toshi!" she hissed as she stared at her jailor withering in pain. Toshi didn't seem to hear her, and after a second Holly reached over and released a ratchet, allowing the tension to come out of the chains. Toshi started gasping and taking in great big breaths. The reality of the pit solidified. Holly stood frowning at her. "You win. I'm not going to break your arms, even in a stupid dream. So how long do I have to stay here?" Toshi sighed. "Thank you. I promised Mark two minutes or less." "It's been more than that already!" "He never asked me whether I meant objective time or subjective time." "What? Oh ... So how much time has elapsed objectively?" Toshi paused for a moment. "I think we're running about a factor of forty." Holly nodded. "So, you want to keep me in this pit for eighty minutes? Okay. But I'm telling you right now, I'm not going to change my mind." Toshi shrugged. "You don't have the power to do that." Holly frowned. "What? You think I don't have the power to change my mind?" "No, quite the opposite. I think you don't have the power to keep your mind from changing. You can't decide now what your thoughts will be an hour from now. The human mind just isn't wired like that." Toshi took a deep breath. "Holly?" "Yeah?" "I'm not going argue with you, not about your abortion, not directly anyway. I want to tell you a little of my own life. I want to show you where I grew up and chat a bit about philosophy. The talk will be related to your decision in a general way, but I promise, it won't be too specific." Holly looked at Toshi warily. "Oh yeah? What kind of philosophy?" "I want to talk about emotions, one emotion in particular. I want to talk about fear." "Fear?" "Yes." Toshi looked around the pit. "It's something Mark and Frida and I have had to put a lot of time into. The power of our minds are so vast, fear could be deadly to us if we lost our higher-level reasoning. Monsters Holly, monsters from the id. The nightmares from our subconscious could destroy us if we didn't understand how to vanquish them." Holly stared at her naked jailor, considering the request. "And we don't have to stay here," added Toshi. "I have a much nicer place in mind for our chat." Holly managed a weak grin. "Oh yeah? A nicer place in mind? What a pun! So what do I have to do? Click my heels three times and say, there's no place like home?" Toshi grinned back. "If you want. Then you agree?" Holly replied by closing her eyes and starting to click her heels together, but before she could make the first click, she sensed that her shoes were gone and there was also warm sand under her feet and between her toes. Holly opened her eyes in the bright light and guffawed in amazement. She was standing along the shore of a deserted beach. No, not quite deserted. Toshi was there with her and like Holly was wearing a swimsuit. And nearby were two small children, a boy and a girl both at most four years of age. They were building a sand castle at the edge of the surf. Holly turned and looked around beyond the sand dunes and saw a forest. "Where is this place?" she whispered. Toshi answered. "Irino, Japan. My parents had some friends who had a beach house here. There's a modern city just to the other side of the trees. It's not far." Holly nodded. "Are we going there?" "Only if you want to. I'd prefer to hang out here. I have a lot of fond memories of this beach." There were some beach towels spread out on the sand, near the playing children. Holly went over and sat down and Toshi joined her. Holly reached into a cooler and pulled out a cold soft drink. She cracked it open and took a few gulps, feeling herself relax in spite of her efforts not to. The sand was warm but not hot, the breeze was clean and delightful, and the ocean idyllic. "This is a very nice memory," she admitted to Toshi. Toshi nodded and lay down, closing her eyes and wriggling her shoulders a bit. Holly stared at her. "Your shoulders, do they still hurt?" Toshi sighed deeply. "Almost no. And resting here is helping a lot. I'm very grateful to you Holly." "Well..." Holly was at a loss for words. Her eyes returned to the children. "Childhood friends of yours? They don't look oriental." Toshi laughed and shook her head. "Indeed not. They're the self-images of young Mark and Frida. We have shared our images so intimately, I'm able to project them." "Ah," said Holly, not understanding. She waited for her jailor to begin her dreadful discussion but Toshi remained silent, resting on the blanket for a while and soaking up the warm summer sun. After a while, Holly got up and went over to the children. She wound up spending half an hour helping them build the sand castle, and Toshi joined them just as the incoming tide began to tear the castle apart. It had been a beautiful castle, complex and designed with loving care, but an enormous wave came that went up almost to Holly's knees. After the swirling water receded there was nothing left. Holly expected the children to be dismayed, but they laughed and clapped their hands. As Toshi went back to lie on the beach towels, both children asked Holly to take them into the ocean. She tried for a while but the rip current was strong, and after fighting the pull for several large waves she returned the children to the safety of the dry sand. The children then asked Toshi if they could jog down the beach by themselves. Toshi sat up and gave her permission. Holly sat back down on the towels shaking her head as she watched the children run off. "So that's what Mark and Frida looked liked as kids?" Toshi nodded. "I've shared so many moments of their childhoods with them. That's exactly what they looked like." Holly nodded back and watched them go. "They're beautiful children. Is that the point you're trying to make Toshi?" "Of course. All children are beautiful. I'm not trying to hide anything Holly." Toshi started idly drawing in the sand with her finger. "I know ... And I did promise I'd chat with you. Toshi, remember your side of the promise too. My time here is almost over, isn't it?" "Yes, almost over. Don't worry. I will keep my promise." "Thanks." Holly took one more look and the distant children and then asked, "So, what did you want to tell me? You wanted to talk about fear?" Toshi didn't answer at first. She just kept drawing curved shapes in the sand. Eventually she said, "I had lots of fears when I first suspected I was pregnant. This was before I was rescued. There was one nightmare in particular. I had a child, and he was a boy. He was my child and he was very thin and weak and I was crying and trying to let him suckle but he would not take nourishment from me. My thin starving child was at my breasts and he was dying. And then he opened its eyes. They were Gilberto's eyes, and they mocked me for letting him die. My dying son had Gilberto's eyes and he was mocking me." Holly grimaced. "Toshi, you promised..." Toshi started to cry. "Mark! He was so kind! For a while he helped me dream the child to be a girl!" Holly hissed, "Toshi! You promised this discussion would be more general!" Toshi gasped and then sighed. "You're right, I did. Okay. What use is fear Holly, in a healthy mind?" "Huh?" "What should a healthy mind want from its fear?" "Uh ... Well, I guess fear keeps us out of danger. But it's not a pleasant emotion." "Are you sure? Don't people crave it sometimes?" Holly shook her head. "Crave fear? No, I don't think so. What are you thinking of Toshi? Could you give me an example?" "Sure. Do you like roller coasters?" Holly blinked in surprise and gave a brief nod. "As a matter of fact, I do, and the faster the better!" "So a roller coaster that's ultra-safe, slow and with gentle rolls, that would not be interesting, correct?" "No, of course not." Holly copied Toshi's habit and started to draw idle shapes in the sand. "I guess I see your point. When I want to ride on a roller coaster, I'm seeking danger, or at least the illusion of it. I'm seeking fear." "Yes, and what do you get out of it? What do you want from your fear?" "Well, the ride, it's exhilarating, it makes me feel super alive! My senses seemed sharpened. My awareness is at a peak." "Yes, exactly. And those are good reasons for wanting fear. Now reverse it Holly. What does fear want from you?" "Huh? Say that again?" "I was a Drama major. As an actor, one of the tricks I learned was to personify the emotions I was trying to recreate. I needed to get inside the emotions and thoughts of the character I was portraying. I discovered I could think of fear as both an emotion and a thinking entity. On your roller coaster, you want fear to exhilarate you, to be a spice added to your life. You want fear to enrich you during the ride. But what does fear want from you Holly, at the end of the ride?" Holly shook her head. "I don't understand your question." Toshi stood up and brushed the sand from her body. "My time is over. I will leave you now. You will be alone on this beach for a few subjective minutes, and then this dream will end. But before I go, I want to tell one thing about my life and my child's life with Mark. A short while ago our dream changed and now our child is a boy again. The dream changed, but with Mark I was ready for it. My son now suckles me in my dream, and he looks at me as he feeds, and he still has Gilberto's eyes." Toshi took a deep breath and shouted, "And thus my victory over Gilberto is complete! Because my son is healthy! And his eyes now look at me in love!" Holly blinked and turned away, stunned by the intensity of Toshi's emotions. She opened her eyes and looked at the empty sand before her and then slowly spun around. Holly was alone on the beach. The voice of Toshi came into her mind one last time. "Think Holly! Inside a healthy mind, what does fear want at the end of the ride?" Holly stumbled along the beach in the direction the children had taken, but her surroundings were no longer noticed. Toshi had laid Holly's fears bare before her. She could flee from them no longer. Geraldo! And Segundo! The fear of having a child that grew up looking like her rapists, the damning shame of hating and rejecting her own child, degrading her own child to be an echo of her rapes, it was all too terrible to face. But Toshi wasn't asking her to confront those emotions, not directly. Or was she? Holly felt the dream around her starting to become indistinct and she realized she had only moments before she would awaken. Holly wanted more time to think, but the dream was coming to an end. She thought furiously, "So what did Toshi want? Toshi wanted me to see fear from the other perspective, to think of the emotion as a person. Such a strange idea. Monsters from the id, that's what she called it. Fear as a monster. And the monster wants something. And it's a monster from my id." Holly felt stunned by an epiphany. "And so the monster is me! It's coming from my id! So deep down, the monster wants what I want. During a roller coaster ride I want to be frightened and exhilarated, so the monster wants that too. But what does the monster want when the ride is over? What do I want? Do I want a child like Toshi's, one who looks at me in love? What does fear want at the end of the ride?" Holly opened her eyes. She was reclining on the autodoc and she could sense the probe again. It was still inside her womb. Next to her on one side stood Toshi, and she was crying and being held in the arms of Mark and Kiyoko. On Holly's other side stood Emily, with Aggie slightly further away. Emily had a very worried look on her face. "Holly," she whispered. "Your eyes are so full of tears. Can you see me?" Holly gasped and said in a soft cry, "Yes. Emily, please stop what you're doing. I want to keep my child." Emily blinked and then spun around and quickly moved to the medical console. "At the end of the ride," Holly called out after her, "fear wants to be vanquished!" ------- Chapter 49 Five days later. Time: Thursday, February 14, 2019 4:45 AM Fatima shivered and her eyes blinked open at the end of a very strange dream. She glanced at the clock. It was three hours before sunrise and one hour before she wanted to get up. Was it worth while trying to coax her mind back into an extra hour of sleep? She thought for a moment trying to capture the memory her dream. Fatima had been a teenager again, back home in northern Kuwait before the terrorist attack, before the nuclear bombs. Her home was a hydroponics farm near the Iraqi border, and in real life her family grew tomatoes, onions, and melons commercially and figs for their own use. But in her dream her family was growing pumpkins, and in a corner of the farm one pumpkin in particular had grown to be monstrously large. Surprisingly no one else in her family seemed to care, and as the dream progressed the pumpkin started talking to Fatima when no one else was around. Did she really want to go back into that dream? Fatima decided no. Just before she woke up, she had discovered that the pumpkin had been lying to her. So instead she lay there in the silent darkness and thought about her life since the war. It was over four and a half years now. The attacks had occurred during a hellishly hot summer in mid RamaDHann of 1435 A.H. Fatima had just turned eighteen and was looking forward to her first year in college. But who could have foreseen the war? She wound up spending the next year in three different refugee camps before getting the opportunity to immigrate to the United States with her elder brother. Fatima sighed over the memories of coming to the University of Vermont in the fall of 2015. After the dryness of Kuwait and the refugee camps in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, the lush lakeside country around Burlington seemed like paradise. And who could have foreseen the end of the world? All the nationalism, the religious extremism, the never-ending focus on political factions and tribes, in the end it had all been so pointless. Such a waste, Fatima thought as she sat up in her huge bed. Such a waste of life, such a profound rejection of the gift. Fatima was in the home complex of Yellow Mall, and today would be her first away-mission as leader of Team-6. Emily had stopped by last night and dropped off one of the three priceless Leophones. Jada in the underground world had the second, and Mark would have the third today. Mark was the leader of Team-3 and he would be making the first attempt to explore the surface area of Blue Mall today with Cassidy, Paige, and Whitney. "Such a world," Fatima thought with a frown. "We had such an opportunity to have a completely new beginning. What was there to stop us? But as soon as the immediate threat from Black Mall was eliminated, what did we do?" Fatima closed her eyes and dropped into prayer. "All the old prejudices and desires to polarize ... Merciful Allah, are we doomed to it? Are we chained for eternity to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork?" Fatima asked this prayer not just as the leader of Team-6, but also as the new leader of a group of twenty-five people now called The Society. The collapse of their old government had started at their group meeting last Sunday night. Jada, Mandy and Tom had already joined Madison to complete Team 2, and they were in the living chambers next to the underground world. They had just finished their first day of a planned three days of practicing with the kayaks. Everyone else was at the Hilton complex at the terminal store of Green Mall. Mark was completely blindsided by a storm of protest over Toshi's actions the previous day in the Red Mall hospital area. The majority of the rescued women from Black Mall were complaining that Toshi holding Holly captive in a dream was at least as bad as kidnapping and a gross violation of Holly's rights to her own thoughts. Over the Leophone bridge, Jada could not sense the emotional intensity that this issue had raised and she started to defend her sister-wife Toshi. In his heart Mark agreed with Jada, and despite his best effort to mediate, he was quickly sucked into the polarization the issue created. As the meeting progressed his worst fears began to be realized. After Toshi's actions and lack of punishment, a number of the women had lost trust in Mark as leader, even to the point of voicing doubts whether Mark and his two augmented wives should remain in their society. At this point Jada as Mark's third wife lost her composure over the bridge and the meeting devolved into a shouting match. Faster than anyone would have thought possible, their society had walked to the edge of an abyss. Should they split to different societies? How would that work? Who would own which home complexes and the Mall areas below? Mark tried to make a joke that after two days of marriage, he felt as if he were getting entangled in a really nasty divorce. The joke fell flat. Fatima stepped in with a proposal. She argued that people from unknown parties were dying and it would be both insane and abominably callous to let the issue with Toshi interrupt their rescue activities. Emily and Aggie who up until this point had kept quiet chose this moment to jump in as the leaders of Teams 1 and 4 and strongly affirm Fatima's point. The group backed away from the abyss. Teams 1 and 4 would continue with their planned second and third days of exploration of the Red and Green Mall surface areas while Team 2 completed their final two days of kayak training. Teams 3 and 6, in charge of Blue and Yellow Mall surface areas, would continue their preparations for their planned exploration on the 14th. But they would also work with Team-0 to find a way to keep their society together. The original plan was to have Teams 1 and 4 (Red and Green Malls) explore in shifts lasting three days, while Teams 3 and 6 (Blue and Yellow Malls) had one-day exploration shifts during the rest day of the other two teams. The reason for the difference was that Emily and Aggie had janitorial authority in their exploration areas, and everyone was expecting them to be able to search their areas much more quickly and completely. The three days of exploration showed just how extensive the challenges were. The Great Hexagon covered an area of 1756 square kilometers, resulting in almost 300 square kilometers in each of the six segment areas, and exploration was a tediously slow process. The two search teams were entering vast three-dimensional mazes with convoluted underpass, overpass, and underground connections. There were often two and sometimes three underground levels to the maze, in addition to the two levels above ground. Visibility was often limited to individual hallways while underground, and numerous times progress could be made only through Emily's or Aggie authority to command access ports to allow their return journey. The three days of searching yielded many sketches of routes that were then digitized at the home complexes after sunset. Aggie's team had also found and activated an elevator very near the Green Mall home complex, similar to the outside elevator in the apple orchard of Red Mall. And meanwhile Toshi and Holly informally became the heads of the two political factions. The two were determined to find a compromise. The break came on Wednesday evening about a half hour before their scheduled group meeting. With the span of one minute, the census counter downticked twice, dropping from 010:092 to 010:090. The deaths renewed the group's sense of urgency for their search activities, and also drove home the point of how lonely their new world would be if they didn't find some way to reconcile their differences. After a surprisingly cordial two hour meeting, they decided to choose for a new leader by secret ballot, and after two rounds of voting Fatima was elected by a large majority. Her term would run until the end of the year, and the new government adopted the U.S. penal code as its rule of law, with the added provision that any forced mind linkage would be considered physical assault. Courts, juries, prisons, rights of the accused, life had been so hectic this past month, no one had appreciated how much of the needed formalism of their life on Earth had disappeared. All twenty-five members pledged allegiance to the new rule of law, and at the end of the meeting the group applauded when Toshi and Holly embraced in genuine affection for each other. Their society had walked to the edge of a cliff, but had rejected the last lethal step. Fatima sat up in bed and shook the thoughts from her head. Today's mission in the area everyone called Yellow Brick would require her full attention. Their first priority of course was search and rescue. Party #6 had left Earth with a treasure trove of nine men and nine women, but with the census counter currently reading 010:090, at least seven and perhaps all of those men had died. And from Emily's log of the census, a number of the deaths had occurred very soon after Stairway To Heaven had arrived at their home complex on December 21st. What tragedy did they endure? Their home at Yellow Brick was less than six kilometers from the eastern face of the Great Hexagon, and it was the most isolated of their home bases. It was their only complex where both the lounge and library elevators were inactive. Their theory was that Party #6 explored the first-level and opened the library elevator. Unfortunately they didn't leave any record of the access code it would have displayed, but at the time, how could they possibly realize its significance? Regardless, the quickest way now to get here was from the Eastern Mountain Sports store at the end of Yellow Brick Road. Yellow Brick's home complex was at spiral mark 59,326, so it was almost a sixteen kilometer bike ride to get here. Fatima was extremely grateful to Lynn and Akiko for getting the communications network up with the library consoles, otherwise their Leophone would be their only way of communicating with the rest of their group. Fatima had left her bedroom door open, and she sensed a person slipping down the hall towards the bathroom. She didn't see the person directly, but she had trained with her three teammates so closely, somehow she guessed it was Hannah. "A remarkable kid," thought Fatima. "She was still in High School when all this happened." Fatima sighed and got up and decided to join Hannah for an early shower. Meanwhile, thirty-two kilometers to the south-southwest and more than 1500 meters below ground, Jada's expedition was just taking off from the shore of the northern lake. It was still before 5 AM, but there was already a hint of day to come in the faint grayness of the eastern cylindrical sky, and a bright silver line setting in the west had provided ample light as they hiked down from their new home embedded in the northern wall. One of their most fortunate discoveries three days ago was finding a boat house and dock at the end of the short steep forest path leading down to the lake. The boat house was an empty rectangular box, but it was large enough to shelter their six kayaks. It could even be locked. Its door had the same simple twenty-key access code as the door from their home base. The code was clearly displayed, and anyone wanting access simply had to enter the code within one-minute without mistakes, otherwise the lock would beep and a new code displayed. The existence of the boathouse had simplified the logistics of their training enormously, so much so that they had even discussed setting off on their expedition yesterday rather than today. But yesterday had been the day of a major storm. Their rational minds insisted it was entirely artificial, but the experience of the strong gusty winds, the blowing rain, the thunder and lighting, to the senses it was all deeply real. And under the gloom of the dark clouds, the cylindrical nature of the sky was not too apparent. To the senses, the storm and the forested river world were completely real. And what an incredibly beautiful and wild world it was. It was a rain forest, but definitely not tropical. Typical temperature ranges for the days they had measured ranges from overnight lows of 5C to 10C, with afternoon highs of 15C to 20C. And in this cool paradise the days were slowly lengthening. It was Maddy's conjecture that the world represented Earth ecology and was following a 365-day cycle. Perhaps they were at mid-spring of a high northern or southern latitude simulation. Jada had never kayaked before, but she found the boats fascinating and fell in love with their beauty and functionality. She also experienced first-hand something that Mandy had taught her group in a crash course on kayaking. When paddling up to speed, a transverse bow wave would form a trough and then a second bow wave behind the trough. The stern of the boat also created a wave. If Jada paddled fast enough, the second bow wave would join with the stern wave near the stern and create a very noticeable drag. Mandy explained that this was a prime reason the longer boats were faster. With more of separation between the bow and stern waves, the longer boats could travel faster before the two waves overlapped. Their group had practiced extensively on Monday and Tuesday, and they all felt confident they could hold a 10 kph speed relative to the water for several hours at least. Relative to the water ... They were at the headwaters of the Mississippi, the name Madison had given the great river. Mandy estimated it was flowing southward at an average rate of 2 kph, or perhaps a little faster today with all the recent rain. They had fourteen hours of daylight today, and were leaving before dawn. They could easily make the far southern lake area in one day, but it was Jada's plan to make journey partway down the river and return home by nightfall. She felt she wanted to understand this world better before being fifty kilometers away from the security of their sanctuary. Mandy had positioned her kayak pointing south down the center channel of the Mississippi. She was moving with the current so that the unmanned kayak she was towing would not bump into her. Behind her tow was Tom who was also towing an extra kayak. To the left of Mandy was Jada, and on her right was Madison. Mandy looked carefully at each one of her pupils and nodded in satisfaction. She couldn't be more proud of them, especially Jada who had never canoed as a child. Mandy smiled and called out to her leader just as the great morning line of sun began to break on the eastern cylindrical sky. "All set to go then?" "Take us out Mandy!" Four paddles from six boats hit the water in unison. The great exploration had begun. Seven hours later. Time: Thursday, February 14, 2019 11:40 AM Four hours after leaving the Blue Mall home complex, Mark and his team were unexpectedly back home and rewarding themselves with an early lunch before taking off again. Mark was alone in the downstairs library preparing for their noontime departure. He was comparing satellite imagery with the route they had just traveled and taking a detailed look at the next set of obstacles. Shortly before 11 AM they had been approximately four kilometers southeast of home and had come across a modest but unusual building. It was almost featureless on the outside, a uniform hemisphere except for a single tunnel on the northernmost point of the sphere. The tunnel was invisible on the satellite imagery, and they found it had a noticeable upward incline that after five meters ended in a blank wall. But when they entered the tunnel, the end wall retracted to admit them, and once inside, their eyes lit up with delight. The inside of the hemisphere was absolutely bare except for a small core consisting of an elevator and stairs going up and down. Finding a working elevator would be a major prize and they headed for it immediately. More grins. The elevator was displaying an access code. Mark used his Leophone and spent a minute confirming the code with both Aggie at Green Mall and Holly and Toshi at the Hilton Complex. Then he touched a key, expecting the keyboard to blank out. It did not. The elevator was fully operational. Mark keyed in the code for the Blue Mall complex and a moment he and his team were back home. They returned immediately to the spherical building and then Aggie tried to join them. It was at that point they first discovered something unusual was going on. The Green Mall library elevator would not recognize the code. Aggie jumped to the Blue Mall library and tried the code from there. No luck. There was a brief, intense period of multiple testing and then the pattern became clear. Journeys both to and from the new elevator required Mark to be among the travelers for the transport to work. "Here, I brought you something." Whitney laid a tray by Mark's console in the library. It held some milk, a sandwich, an apple, a small pile of potato chips and a few raw vegetables. Mark smiled happily and began to eat. "Thanks Whitney. This is great." "Yeah." She pulled up a chair and sat down nearby. "Are you still thinking of leaving at noon?" "Yeah, pretty close. Will everybody be ready?" "Oh, I think so..." Whitney squirmed uncomfortably in her chair for a moment. "Mark?" Mark paused until he swallowed his bite. "Yeah?" "I'm glad I've found a moment to be alone with you. I want to ask you something." "Sure. What's up?" "Paige and Cassidy and me, your whole team, we were among the most vocal in condemning Toshi..." Mark stopped eating and thought for a moment. "That was a tough situation. But I'm not holding any grudges, if that's what you're asking." "Is that really true? I mean, she is your wife. I can understand if you're pissed at us." Mark shook his head and gave Whitney a kind smile. "Want to know something? I'm glad I'm not the leader anymore. And I think it's good for all of us. My time is better spent exploring and trying to earn my Section-0 status with the interface. And as for the rest, heck, I accept other people can have different opinions, even about Toshi's actions." "But she's your wife Mark. Jada's reaction I can understand. Yours..." Mark gave a small cock of his head, a body gesture that had become a polite way of asking for eye contact. It was more gentle than an open stare. Whitney looked away for a moment and then accepted the offer. She stared into Mark's eyes. The link formed at once. "Don't be afraid Whitney." Mark transmitted the request as a sub-vocal desire. "What makes you think I'm..." Whitney paused for a subjective moment. "Wow. I can read you so clearly. Are you reading me as well as I'm reading you?" Mark transmitted an affirmative gesture but then added, "My enhancement gives me super sharp input. But to answer your question in detail, I'd have to probe a bit into what you're experiencing, and I don't want to do that." "You can sense that I'm holding back?" "Yes. I don't mind. Really Whitney, you have an absolute right to the privacy of your own thoughts." "Cassie and Paige and I, the way you were defending Toshi, we weren't sure if you really believed that or not." Mark replied with a complex emotional construct, sorrow strangely mixed with a conviction that his own perspective was also valid, plus a request for Whitney to trust him. There was also something else there too, very low-level but part of the base foundation of the thought. Whitney gave a mental gasp. "Mark! Is that what I think it is?!" Another complex construct from Mark, embarrassment mixed in with playfulness. "Ah, desires. The higher-level reasoning centers guide and pattern the desires underneath. We can allow or prohibit avenues of thought, add structure to how they develop. I'm not trying to hit on you Whitney, but yes, I think you're very pretty." Whitney gave a mental humph. "I never dated a Caucasian. Did you ever date an African American before?" "No. I had some friends, but we never dated." "Uh huh. My last boyfriend was Pancho. He was Indian. His real name was Pankaj. That's what I used to call him before he joined that awful fraternity. He once told me his name was the Hindu word for lotus." Mark whispered a thought in reply. "I can't hide this. I saw him die. I ... I was the cause of his death." "Show me?" "It was gruesome Whitney, horrible. Six people were killed by the ivy. I wouldn't have done it if there had been any way to run away." Whitney could sense Mark's extreme reluctance, but she persisted. "Show me?" "Whitney, are you sure? Please..." "Show me!" And the world transformed. Whitney gasped as found herself standing next to Toshi and Frida in the bottom a transparent double-helical stairwell. And almost on top of them, on the other side of a clear barrier, stood Gilberto, Berto, and Pancho, and Nadine. Whitney watched in disgust as the men teased Toshi and Frida about being raped. Whitney's jaw clenched as she watched her boyfriend Pancho jerk off in full view of the women. Then Nadine started playing with Berto's nut sac. "This is right before they died, isn't it?" she whispered. Mark's voice replied in her mind. "Yes. Toshi and Frida both shared their memories of this with me." "Why?" "I felt awful about murdering Gilberto's group, even days afterwards. Toshi and Frida tried to show me what I did was necessary. They helped to accept what I had done." "Oh ... What exactly did you do?" Mark didn't answer, not directly. He simply let the dream unwind. Whitney's perspective remained in the stairwell. She watched Gilberto's party walk halfway down the black cobblestones, and saw Mark jump up and become visible high on a ledge to her left. Gilberto's team including Pancho started firing. Then Pancho jumped off the pathway, firing in midair and doing a belly flop into the ivy. He sank out of sight. And then the dream paused. "At this point Toshi and Frida turned and started climbing up the stairs. The ivy attacked the remaining five people just a second or two later. I looked over the edge of the ledge once the firing stopped. Whitney, I don't want to burden you with the images, but I will share what I saw if that's what you want. You knew these people. You deserve to know how they died." "No. Let me leave here." An instant later Whitney was back in the Blue Mall library. She found it astonishing to move from the dream to reality in a mere instant of thought, and to give herself a moment to recover, she turned her head to make sure the link was broken. After a few moments, she mumbled, "So that's it? He jumped to his own death?" Mark nodded and shivered. "Yeah..." Whitney gave a deep sorrowful sigh. "You never knew him Mark. When I first started dating him, Pankaj was a very decent man. That monster masturbating in front Toshi and Frida, I..." A long moment of silence passed. "Forgive me." Mark offered his hand again and Whitney accepted, staring at his hand for a moment as she held it. "And that dream ... It seemed completely real. I was there with them! Is that what it was like for Holly with Toshi?" "In terms of the quality of the dream, yes, I guess so." "Oh boy..." Whitney wrung her hands and looked nervous. "We were pushing for Toshi to be exiled over this. But being in a dream with you wasn't so bad. I was afraid..." "Of what?" "Of someone controlling my thoughts. Mark?" "Hmmm?" "Being exiled around here could be a death sentence. Does Toshi hate me?" "Heck no, not at all. And to the extent things almost got out of hand, I forgive you too. Really Whitney, let's leave the issue in the past. We have a good solution. Toshi is officially forgiven and we have laws in place to stop undesired dreams from happening again." Whitney surprised Mark by lifting his hand and kissing it. He gave her a shy smile. "I try to think of it as a growing pain. We have so many adjustments to make." Whitney stared at him for a moment and finally whispered, "Wow. You are so different from..." She didn't complete the thought, instead rising and leaving the library. Mark watched her go. A moment later he sighed and got back to his sandwich and maps. Time: 12:43 PM Four people were staring at a small portal in a deep chamber six levels below ground. Mark was having a lively discussion with Emily over the Leophone as Cassidy, Paige, and Whitney stood quietly by. "I don't know Mark," Emily said in a worried voice. "I don't think I'd try it even with janitorial authority. You're describing just too many symbols I don't understand." "Yeah, I'm not thinking of going through either. Pity though. I think your hunch is correct. This site might be part of core engineering." "Yes, in which case I'm astonished the first portal admitted you into the building." "Yeah. I've got a theory about that. The central interface allowed me a small upgrade in my command authority with the satellite last night. I think I'm starting to look like a Section-0 director to some of these low-level decision processors. I think that's why the elevator here is responding to me. And the upstairs portal spent a noticeable amount of time deciding whether to admit us into the stairwell. I was very surprised when the door opened." "Mark, do you want some free advice? Get the hell out of there." "Yeah, we're almost leaving. I just thought of an experiment I want to try." "Uh ... What are you doing?" "I'm placing my lunch apple in the airlock. I want to see if it's still there after we cycle the lock." "Uh..." Emily felt like objecting but couldn't think of a reason why. She finally asked, "Mark? Would you do me a favor?" "Sure. What?" "Are you doing the experiment now?" "Yep. The door just closed with my apple inside." "Oh hell. And I assume you're the one who's about to open it again. I was going to ask you to forget about this." "Really? Why?" "I can't say. Just a hunch I guess. Mark, do me another favor. Have the rest of the team stand as far away as possible. And run away as soon as you activate the open cycle." "Okay." There was a moment of silence, and then a series of yells could be heard over the Leophone. "Mark?! What's happening?!" "Wow!" came a squeaky voice. "Emily, thank you! You were so right!" "Mark! You sound like Donald Duck! What's going on?!" "An awesome display of cryogenics," replied the squeaky voice. "It's freezing in here! Leaving now." A moment later his normal voice continued. "We're heading up now. The floor of the portal, it was frosted with snow. I think it was the old atmosphere inside the chamber when I closed the lock." "Holy Shit!" "Yeah. Going through myself would have been fatal. I'm guessing the other side is super cold helium, still a gas but below the freezing temperature of nitrogen and oxygen." "How cold is that?" Mark thought for a moment as his group shivered and climbed the stairs on their way out. "I don't remember exactly, but I would guess about 60K for both. And the helium must have been much colder than that to flash freeze the air so quickly." "Mark! I've got another favor to ask you." "Yeah, I know. Agreed. No more exploration of the engineering areas. But it was worth a try Emily. I was hoping there would be a means of locating the lost groups here. I'd be amazed if their presence isn't being recorded on some of the core engineering systems." "It's not worth the risk, not now anyway." "We're on the top level, leaving the sphere now ... We're in the sunshine. It feels delightfully balmy out here." "Yeah. The library diagnostic here is registering 1C." Mark gave a thoughtful grunt. "Yeah. Our record low this winter was -27C. If the summers don't get too hot, this might be a very nice place to live climate wise. Well, anyway, we're going to continue our mapping." He paused to take one last look at the building. "This sphere is still a major find. I'm planning to return here at sunset and then hop back home." After Emily acknowledged, the team started hiking south through the soft snow. ------- Chapter 50 Campus plan of the University in the area of Yellow Mall. Overhead view of the underground world showing the path of the Mississippi. The river runs from south to north. Time: Thursday, February 14, 2019 3:10 PM Fatima's team walked as two pairs across 400 meters of an eighteen-sided enclosed park. They had just exited the southern dorm areas and were heading north to administration building. Fatima and Hannah in the lead and they took a moment to admire the view. It was very sunny day, and the yellow buildings on their right that held the classrooms and labs were bathed in the pretty orange sunlight of late afternoon. The stone walkway under their feet was covered with mushy snow. There had been some melting earlier in the noonday sun, and it was not quite cold enough yet to refreeze. With the planet's fast orbital period, the spring equinox was only fifteen days away, and as she stomped through the snow, Hannah took a moment to reflect on the remarkable transformation they were about to experience. They were at the beginning of a period when the world would go from eight hours of daylight in a day to sixteen hours in less than five weeks. "You know Hannah," Fatima said quietly as she pulled Hannah out of her climate daydream, "I don't think Party #6 ever came this way." Hannah looked about the campus one last time. They had discovered a compact university setting packing into an array of a dozen large hexagonal buildings surrounding a core open space of seven hexagons, with each hexagon the size of their home complex. The campus appeared completely functional, including a row of three hexagon dorms to the south which they had just finished exploring. Towards the northeast were impressive collections of classrooms and lab areas. Adjacent to the dorms was a hexagon of luxuriant dining and common areas to the east and a fully equipped exercise area to the west which included running tracks at ground level and a magnificent Olympic-sized pool below. The center hexagon on the northern face was an office complex that could serve as an administrative area. Finally, the three hexagons to the northwest formed a very extensive hospital area. The university could easily serve as a very respectable regional teaching hospital in any city on Earth. They had found the campus earlier this morning after traveling about four kilometers southwest of Yellow Brick's home complex. The buildings were extensive, and it had taken them the rest of the day to realize the campus was deserted, or more precisely, the two floors above ground and the first floor below ground were deserted. Fatima's team had discovered numerous doors that suggested one or more deeper underground levels, but unfortunately they were all double-door airlock-type portals, and it was part of their core mission plan not to use what could easily be one-way passages. Hannah turned and nodded in agreement to her leader's earlier remark. "Yes. The place does seem absolutely pristine." "Oh, it's not that. The servos would have eliminated any trace of their passage. But I'm trying to imagine what being in Party #6 was like. It was nine men and nine women. If they had come to this campus ... Well, just look at the place! This isn't a Castle Commonwealth shopping mall! And you can't possibly confuse it with residential housing either. If the couples came here, they would have been forced to realize something completely bizarre had happened." Hannah nodded again. "In which case they might turn back and attempt to return to Yellow Brick's home complex." "You think so? Unless they left somebody behind, there would be no way to get back in. The servos don't allow unattended doors to be propped open." Hannah shrugged. "But they wouldn't know that." "True. But if that's the way it happened, afterwards I would have come back here. There's shelter here and lifetime of food. Except for Mall access, everything we have at a home complex is here. And once they recognize that, I can't see them abandoning the campus again, not all of them anyway." "Ah, I see your point. Yes, they would try to explore, but this would be too good a home base to abandon. So what's the conclusion? Perhaps they left through the lounge after all. That was my original guess, remember?" Fatima nodded. "Yeah, I sure do." It had been a major point of discussion over the last several days. Yellow Brick's home complex joined its hexagonal perimeter at the southeastern vertex, and some preliminary short-range exploration had previously revealed that the exit paths from the first floor library and the second floor lounge did not connect with each other for at least three 100-meter perimeter segments. Fatima had gambled that since Party #6 had discovered the library elevator, they probably also left their home complex through the first-floor exit. But she was beginning to rethink that logic. Allison and Heather quickened their pace and caught up with them. "Well," commented Allison, "at least we solved one mystery. The infrared on Mark's satellite images, it's from the botany lab here." They were half through with their walk through the enclosed park. It the very center stood a very small six-sided gazebo, and the group walked through it rather than around. While inside, Allison took a moment to study the distances on the map she had been making since the expedition started. She called out, "I'm estimating this gazebo is fourteen kilometers east and three kilometers north of Hex Hall." She was referring to the geometric center-point of the Great Hexagon. Fatima nodded as she and her team continued north. Fatima looked at the sky and then at her priceless Leophone. They had about an hour till sunset. Toshi had volunteered to bike to their home complex and open the outside door to the library for them at 4:15 PM. She might have already started her bike trip. The team might explore a few more line segments along the way, but it was time to head home. Fatima sighed. They had learned a few things today but had found no trace of Party #6. They had not even found an elevator as Mark's party had done, and it was the home complex of Yellow Brick that could use one the most. When they reached the southern vertex of the admin building, Fatima quietly held the door open for her team. The opposite northern vertex of the admin segment was the only entrance and exit they had found into the campus that they were all calling Yellow Brick University. "What do you want to bet the second sub-level is full of elevators?" asked Allison as they walked along an office corridor. "It would be insane to have this office building be the only entry point to the university, especially for the hospital." "Not any more insane that the underground malls," countered Heather. "There are insanely few exits there. I sometimes feel claustrophobic when I'm down in the Mall." "I think I agree with Allison," said Hannah. "I wouldn't mind testing a few of the sub-level portals in the hospital." Fatima shook her head. "Our mission parameters are correct. Look what happened to Madison. We're not going to risk one-way passages, especially without clear evidence that Party #6 had passed through." "But the servos remove that kind of evidence!" "I know Hannah," Fatima replied with a sigh. "I know." Meanwhile, approximately fourteen kilometers to the southwest and more than 1500 meters below... "How are we looking?" Jada asked Madison who was standing on a high rock at the edge of the eastern shoreline and making notes in her log. "Not too bad," replied Madison as she sighted her laser again to confirm her measurement. "I'm reading we're about 2.7 kilometers east of the longitude centerline and just about five kilometers south of the latitude centerline. Along the river, we've come twenty-one kilometers since the boat house." Madison handed her log to Jada for inspection. Jada looked down at a very professional looking map. "Great work Maddy," she said quietly as she studied the map. "This is really excellent." Madison gave a odd smile, a combination of the pride in her skills with a bit of sheepishness mixed in. "Emily spent days with me on the Leophone while I was waiting for the kayaks. She taught me how to do this." Jada nodded and returned to her duty of scanning their temporary landing spot. The landscape was stunning in its beauty and bio-diversity. And underneath the appreciation lay a nagging sense of confusion. Was this a pure Earth environment? If she had to guess, Jada would say yes, but she lacked conviction. The forest seemed ... She couldn't put her doubts into words. She surveyed the camp's perimeter again. The forest looked wilder than normal somehow. Jada shrugged and thought, "And what am I comparing it with? Wilderness in national parks? Face it Jada, this is what a truly pristine forest is supposed to look like." They were camped on the eastern shoreline of the Mississippi, at a spot where the river was about to run almost due north for the next 700 meters. Over the course of the day, they had followed a great sine wave path as the river turned and head northwest for many kilometers before finally turning and heading back east. Their campsite now was in a particularly advantageous spot. Heading east from their location, there were only 600 meters of forest and then another 600 meters of foothills before the eastern wall of the cylindrical sky. Mandy and Tom had been gone for the last hour, carrying their high-resolution digital cameras and binoculars as high into the foothills as they could. Jada and Madison had made a similar trip about five hours ago, at the western bend in the river, leaving Mandy and Tom to guard the precious boats while they climbed high into the western foothills in search of the lost party from White Mall. So far absolutely nothing had been found to indicate the group ever came this way, but Jada was far from discouraged. The territory was vast. And they had discovered many things about this wondrous world, including some very useful insights into the Mississippi itself. There appeared to be deep channel often but not always near the centerline of the river. Within the channel, the river flowed onward at a steady pace of two kilometers per hour. But the channel was only thirty to forty meters wide, and outside of it the water was almost still. Jada revised her estimate of the downward tilt of the underground world. The river was not flowing due to gravity. Some other force was at work. And the depth of the river was unusual too. They had made numerous soundings, and had found within a few meters of the shore, the river typically showed six meters of depth before its muddy or rocky bottom. But in the central channel with the current, the river was much deeper, 35 to 40 meters. Jada had a vision of millions of paddlewheels turning and creating the current, though their sounding line never got tangled in anything more onerous than decaying vegetation. And the channel was cold, 10C at most, probably about 3C colder than the rest of the river. Considering the width of the river, Jada thought it would be nearly impossible to swim across without a protective wetsuit. And this led to an interesting question. If Party #2 were down here, which bank of the river were they on? The obvious choice was the eastern bank, the side with contained the entrance to the mall. But the area around the headwaters was a maze of beautiful glens, and it would have been possible for Party #2 to walk across the high rocks south of their boathouse lake and be on the western side. Jada's team would have to search both banks of the river. Jada scanned the trees again, wondering what was keeping Mandy and Tom. She thought they'd be here by now. It was such a relief to have two armed and competent people with the pistols. It allowed her group to perform the most critical part of their mission, ground exploration away from the riverbank. The forest was so thick and alive with the sounds of wildlife, a group of people a hundred meters from the shore could easily be missed by people passing down the river. Madison frowned and looked at the trees inland. "Did you hear something?" she asked quietly. Jada turned and cocked her head. "No. Quite the opposite in fact. Some of the birds have stopped chirping." Jada surveyed the forest again, the frown on her face matching the one on Madison's. Madison quietly unholstered her pistol. "I thought a saw something in the trees from of the corner of my eye. I can't tell exactly where. But the motion didn't look quite natural." Jada was armed with a large survival knife, and she stood still for a moment wondering if she should unsheathe it or perhaps grab a paddle from the kayaks. What was Madison nervous about? And then through some thick brush perhaps sixty meters away, she saw Tom and Mandy returning to camp. Jada smiled and waved. Tom waved back and Mandy lifted something up to show Jada proudly. And Madison screamed. Jada turned her head left in time to see a large animal rushing towards them, some sort of huge dog, her mind thought for an instant. Madison was already dropping into a firing position, bringing up her gun and trying to line up a shot. She realized in an instant that the animal was almost on top of her. There was no time to aim. She fired once and grimaced as the animal adjusted its trajectory, and then fired again as the animal leaped. She could see her attacker clearly now, extremely muscular forepaws stretched out with needle-pointed claws and a wide-open jaw packed with wickedly sharp teeth. Madison gasped. Those teeth! They were enormous! It was something out of a horror movie. There was another loud report, and then the beast slammed into Madison's chest, the open jaw just missing in the animal's attempt to tear out her throat. The impact of the blow was tremendous, and it knocked Madison off her feet and sent her flying backwards. She landed on the soft earth with a heavy thud, her head less than a meter from her kayak with the beast still on top of her. Madison realized in dismay that she had lost her pistol, and she wildly brought her arms up to protect her face and neck. "Maddy!" Jada screamed as she unsheathed her knife and rushed to help her fallen comrade. "I'm okay!" yelled Madison as pushed the animal off her and rolled quickly to her feet. "Where's my gun?!" She saw it lying nearby and dove for it. It took a few seconds to retrieve it and target the beast. Just before she could fire, Madison's mind registered the fact that the beast was unmoving. Was it dead? She paused wondering if she should fire again. Tom and Mandy arrived at the campsite. Tom had his pistol out and had it trained on the animal. "I think I got it," he called to Madison. "Don't fire unless it moves." "You got it?!" Madison said nervously, her eyes never leaving the beast. "Yeah..." With one hand on the pistol, Tom poked the carcass with a paddle, gently at first and then very firmly. The carcass remained an unmoving hulk. Then he walked around to the animal's front, took a close look and visibly relaxed and holstered his pistol. "It's okay. It's dead." "How can you be sure?" asked Madison, still targeting the animal. "Come take a look," he said simply. Over the next few minutes, Tom and all three of the women made a detailed inspection of the beast. Then Jada called mission-control at the Hilton. Soon everyone was bridged into the conversation, even Fatima's and Mark's teams who were still out on their away missions. After a brief explanation, Jada started to give a detailed description. "It's the size of a large dog, very muscular, especially in front. I'm trying to lift it now. Wow, a bit heavier than I thought. Maybe a hundred kilos, maybe more." "That would be a bit large for a leopard." "Yeah, I know. The closest thing I can think of is a tree leopard. Oh, I know. Maybe it's some kind of jaguar. Except for the oversized canines, maybe that would be about right." "Let me guess," asked Aggie over the bridge. "Not much of a tail, right?" "Correct," answered Jada. "The creature has a short, stubby tail. How did you know?" "Maddy said she thought it came out of a tree before it charged. A long tail is useful for balance in a long chase. But this animal leaped from a tree. I think it's designed for a quick pounce and kill." "I think you're right Aggie," Madison replied. "You should see these front shoulder muscles. It's like a jaguar on steroids. This cat is a weight lifter, not a sprinter. And these teeth! Aggie, this is insane!" "What are you seeing?" "I wish you could see this. There are wickedly long canines hanging out of the mouth. And the jaw is opened more than ninety degrees. I don't think a normal cat could do that. I've got a pretty grim image of what the cat wanted to do, tear my throat open with those canines and then climb my body into a tree. Maybe I shouldn't call it a cat. It's not a real cat. Close but not too close..." Aggie nodded to herself in the library of Green Mall. Unfortunately Jada's team had no way to transmit their digital pictures. That would have to wait until they cycled a memory card through the elevator at the bottom of the great stairwell. Aggie continued, "I'm entering the parameters you've mentioned into the library search engine. Maddy, what color is the beast?" "Spotted browns with a lighter brown fur. In the tree, its camouflage must have been excellent. It was invisible until it started to charge. And even then it was very hard to target. I see where my two shots hit. I think my first was on the right foreleg, a terrible shot, little more than a graze." Tom spoke up. "Maddy, it wasn't your fault. I was watching. The beast chose to pivot just before you fired." "Thanks. Anyway, my second shot hit its right shoulder. It was a solid hit but I don't think I hit anything immediately fatal. The bullet is probably lodged in a thick mass of muscle. And then there's Tom's shot, dead on the temple from fifty-plus meters. A master's shot, and it saved my life." Aggie replied, "I have a tentative match. My gosh..." Jada spoke up. "Aggie, what?" "The search engine is suggesting something called Dinofelis." Maddy gave an astonished shriek. "This is a dinosaur?!" Despite the gravity of the situation, Aggie didn't try to stop herself and she burst out laughing over the bridge. "No! Dinosaur is terrible lizard. Dinofelis means terrible cat. But this creature should still be extinct. The library reference labels the group a "false saber tooth" that existed from the Early Pliocene to the Early Pleistocene." "Uh, Aggie, what are those dates in years?" It was Mark's voice over the phone. "Oh, hi Mark. The range would be from five million years ago to about one and half million years." "Oh my gosh," Mark muttered over the phone. "This is huge." "How do you mean?" "Think Aggie. It implies the builders of this place had access to the DNA of an Earth creature extinct for a million and a half years. That would mean the builders knew about Earth that long ago. Perhaps they stayed engaged with us all that time. The implications are staggering. On those time scales, they could have been guiding evolution. For all we know, maybe they were guiding our evolution." Jada thought about Mark's point for a moment, and then softly muttered, "shit." ------- Chapter 51 It was twenty minutes after the attack of the Dinofelis when the conference call finally ended. Jada looked at her watch and thought that by using a little of the evening twilight, they still had almost four hours of decent light left. If they stayed out of the central channel, they could avoid the current and have the kayaks secured in the boathouse in less than three hours. Then there was a short two-kilometer hike across some gentle switchbacks to climb to their home sanctuary. Heck, they might even be back before sunset, but they definitely had to leave now. Tom and Mandy though had another idea. As they all broke camp, Mandy reported on her away-mission with Tom. "There's a huge lake coming up after the next bend in the river. You can't see it from here, but the Mississippi really broadens out, maybe a kilometer or more across." As he was lifting the first of his two kayaks into the water, Tom added, "And in the middle of the lake, perhaps dead center in the whole world down here, there's a small island. We estimate it's six kilometers from here. With the current, we could be there in a half hour." He turned and gave Jada a grinning smile. Jada paused and then blinked. "You're suggesting we head there now?" Mandy answered for both of them. "Well, it's an intriguing idea, isn't it? The entities who built this place adored playing with the geometry. This island is probably directly under Hex Hall and might even be centered under it. Tom and I think there's bound to be some useful treasure there. Maybe it's loaded with treasure. We're hoping for an elevator." "I think it would be safe," Tom added, "It's a small island, too small to support large predators." Jada blew a full load of air through her cheeks and repeated, "You want to go there now?! Are you two on drugs?" And then she gave them a playful smile to show she wasn't too upset with the suggestion. "Think guys. What if your buried treasure is surrounded by a certain type of ivy we've all come to know so well? If we explore that place and find we have to abandon it, it'll be after 5 PM by the time we return here. Even if we kill ourselves paddling, we'll have no margin for getting home before dark, and I'm talking about the boathouse, not back at the sanctuary. Don't you remember? We're supposed to drop off our camera's memory sticks." Mandy nodded sheepishly. "Ah, I admit I forgot about that. But first thing tomorrow?" Jada grinned. "I don't see why not. Uh..." Jada noticed for the first time the plants Mandy was carrying. Mandy had been displaying them to Jada from a distance just before the Dinofelis attacked. They looked so strange. "What are those?" Mandy proudly showed off her find. "Take a good look! Don't you recognize them?" Jada stared for a moment. "No, not at all." Madison also stopped and looked closely at the plants. One plant had an orange cauliflower-like top with spiral tentacles underneath with the thickness of carrots. Another plant was the size and structure of a head of lettuce, but with a dazzling array of leaves with multiple stripes of green. And a third plant looked like some sort of a vine with bunches of pale-brown spheres attached to it. The spheres were the size of giant grapes, roughly the size of strawberries. Mandy was still smiling. "Think of your banquet the day you first got here." Madison shook her head. "We had nothing like that. I would remember." Both Mandy and Tom were very still for a moment. "That's interesting," said Tom. "We did. It's not just the appearance. Mandy and I both recognized the smells, and we've also tasted the plants too. They're so delicious, it was hard not to." Madison walked over and sniffed the orange plant. "It does smell interesting." "It's like a spicy sweet carrot," said Mandy showing off the plants. "And this one makes a fabulous salad, and this is brown fruit tastes like a cross between a fresh fig and a soft-shelled walnut. I love these things! You eat the entire bulb, shell and all." Madison was very curious. "These plants were growing in the forest? That seems a bit odd. I would have guessed the climate was too cold for such ripe development." Tom spoke up. "Not exactly in the forest. They're growing high in the foothills, almost adjacent to where the rocks meet the sky. There are some terraced beds up there with warm soil, warmer than the air." Jada stared at the plant, considering what Mandy and Tom were saying. Yes, the bulbs were about the size of walnuts. "And you've eaten these things now?" she asked. Many replied, "Uh, yeah. But Jada, I know the plant. I've eaten it before. Tom has too." She looked at Jada closely. "Do you think we made a mistake?" Jada sighed as she looked at her two teammates. "I don't know. Probably not. I certainly hope not. Let's just head back. If either of you starts feeling sick, or anything unusual, tell me immediately." Tom and Mandy acknowledged the order. Their party of four disembarked a few minutes later. Time: Thursday, February 14, 2019 6:34 PM With their familiar boathouse visible and only one kilometer away, Jada finally allowed herself to relax. What a day! They had came so close to losing Maddy. Jada felt extremely fortunate to have Tom on her team. There was the shot that saved Maddy's life of course. But there was also his woodsman experience. He was calm throughout the entire episode with the Dinofelis, simply accepting the existence of the dangerous creature as natural part of the environment. In comparison, Jada felt very nervous after the attack. Jada turned and watched Mandy and Tom paddle for a moment. They were all tired, and these two had towed spare kayaks over forty kilometers today. That was a major piece of work. Jada's own arms were complaining from the exercise. She allowed herself to smile though. Kayaking was fabulously enjoyable! Jada took another close look at Tom and Mandy and thought to herself, "They seem healthy. From what I know about food poisoning, you don't exercise afterwards for three hours and not notice you've been poisoned. I guess they're okay." Jada allowed her thoughts to run as she paddled. "What's the bigger issue here? Have I watched too many horror movies back on Earth? Was I worried about alien parasites? If the entities wanted to infect us, have our bodies explode with baby spiders or something, they certainly could have infected us before now." Jada took a deep breath before her next stroke. "It's such a critical question though, when to be cautious and when to be bold. Fortune favors the bold, but you can't be bold if you're dead. The question becomes, how do you strike the balance? What principles do I use to guide my decisions? When should I be bold?" She paddled another few strokes. "Come on Jada! You should be able to come up with a few answers to that." "Principle #1: The intelligence of the entities is vast, but somehow they seem to have only a limited ability to understand our emotions and how we make decisions. Gifts that may have been designed in a spirit of generosity can still be dangerous, even deadly." "Principle #2: For all its dangers, the Great Hexagon is a lifeboat, not a prison, not a zoo. The gift of the mind linkage is just too beautiful to think otherwise ... My gosh! The pain I had when I rode in the elevator for the first name. It felt as if my mind were being torn apart. And then I took a big gulp of that hot chocolate, and the pain disappeared. Maybe ... Yes! Maybe the original human mind could not survive the journey. I had only taken one very small sip before. With everything else that's been happening, I had forgotten. I have to tell Mark about this, Fatima too." "And I remember how thirsty I became when I walked the corridor. Didn't Emily comment how thirsty she was too? Could there have been something there to make us thirsty, something in the air maybe, something to make us drink? What does that imply? I guess that the entities have a vast and detailed knowledge of human physiology. But from the drugs that boosted our minds, we already know that. But perhaps the mind boost was secondary. My gosh. Perhaps the primary purpose of the drug was to allow our minds to survive the journey. Maybe it was as simple as that." "And it's interesting how Tom and Mandy found some of their banquet food down here. It's not just six different parties. Sometimes it seems to me as if there were three different pairs of parties, each pair with its own gifts. Red and Green Malls, complementary colors, opposite positions on the hexagonal spirals, they both have the same distance of the home complexes from Hex Hall. Only 6.7 kilometers, what an advantage! And we shared the same banquet. All our conversations with Aggie, the first day we found her. After that we just assumed. We never bothered to ask Black Mall about their banquet." "White and Black Malls, complementary colors, opposite positions on the hexagonal spirals, the same distance from Hex Hall, over 70 kilometers, what a disadvantage. But they had compensations. Black Mall has the black diamond complex with the bees, White Mall controls the white diamond complex and an entrance to a whole new world. But they would need to cooperate with Black Mall to explore it. That's where all the kayaks were, only a few kilometers from Black Mall's home complex. And what about Blue and Yellow Malls? What are their special gifts? And what are their special dangers?" They soon reached the boathouse and Jada postponed further exploration of her thoughts as she helped store their precious boats inside. She then took a moment to check in with mission control. Lynn sounded quite cheerful over the phone and said there were several pieces of good news to share. But Jada asked her to hold off until Jada's team had safely returned to their sanctuary. The four made in there a few minutes after sunset. Jada gave a big sigh of relief as she closed the transparent door for the night. There were simulated displays of thick, heavy clouds moving in rapidly from the north. Jada saw a flash of simulated lightning. It looked as if it might be another stormy night. And Jada was not the only person admiring the view. Tom and Madison were by her side, and Madison quietly put her arm around Tom's waist and hugged him as they watched the weather move in. Jada wasn't too surprised. The two had become quite affectionate with each other, and Jada thought she would feel grateful too if someone saved her life. Tom returned the hug and gently petted the side of Madison's hip. Tom and Madison ... Jada had to smile as she watched them. The teams had been designed with the idea of keeping lovers on different teams. The standard was first suggested Mark and then implemented by Fatima when she became leader. True, Charles and Brandi were with Amber on Aggie's team-four, but Charles and Brandi usually acted more like close friends than people who were dating, even though they often slept together. But there was no choice regarding Madison being on team-two and exploring the underground world, and Tom was too perfect a match for the team's needs to be excluded. And so far Jada had no complaints at all with the budding romance within her team. Both Madison and Tom were being admirably disciplined about it. There was no horsing-around when they were outside on a mission. Mandy had even commented to Jada in private that she thought it was very sweet how innocently Madison and Tom were approaching dating each other. After all the forced copulations and stressed relationships within their society, Mandy found the simplicity Madison and Tom were seeking with each other wonderfully refreshing. The team's next hour was very busy, spent on unpacking gear, cleanup, and the planned exchange of their filled memory sticks with new blanks. The quick exchange by the elevator also left Jada's team with as many supplies as their four unseen visitors could carry. Emily's team had devoted their afternoon hiking down the great stairwell with many extra supplies, and they did it without the benefit of a Leophone. Jada's group exchanged a few notes with them before their return journey up the stairs, telling them a little of what they had found and that all was well. Jada also gave them samples of the local foodstuffs. Jada's group just had time to gather around the Leophone for their planned 8:30 PM conference call. They brought their dinner with them, fresh milk and sandwiches kindly dropped off by Emily's team, a welcome change from all the concentrated food they had been stockpiling in the sanctuary. But now it appeared there might they might also have a local source of fresh fruit and vegetables. Jada was eager to share their discoveries with all the other teams. And so she was very surprised when Holly announced at the beginning of their debriefing that Holly and Toshi were the only two people on the bridge. The two pregnant members of their society sounded very happy. Toshi broke the first piece of good news. "Expect another away-team to be at your elevator, maybe in another hour or so. Aggie's team-four is coming down. They're carrying something that you'll find very useful." "More Leophones?" guessed Madison. "Actually, we have a little progress to report there too, but no. This is from Mark's team. He was returning to his engineering sphere around 4 PM for a jump home, very shortly after our big conference call ended." "Yeah?" said Jada. Her team had already been informed of Mark's earlier find during that call. "Well, they were only about 300 meters from the sphere and they still had about twenty minutes to sunset. Mark decided they had just enough time to check out one more warehouse that they were passing. What a find! It's something that's been conspicuously absent around here. They found a type of firearm that seems to be made of orange plastic, long rifles with enormous bores." "My gosh," replied Madison, who had some knowledge of archaic weapons. "Plastic flintlocks and matchlocks?" "No!" laughed Toshi. "I shouldn't tease you any longer. They found flare rifles! Aggie's team is bringing two of them down to you, plus over sixty shells. They're quite heavy, almost a kilo each." "How do they work?" "I've fired one," Holly replied with a hint of a boast. "They work great! The shell is breech-loaded and the rifle is designed to be held against the ground. Then you release two safeties and jerk down on the outer tube. There's a very simple firing pin at the bottom of the tube that sets off the flare. It's a brilliant light. The flare lights at around fifty meters and goes all the way up to about 200 meters. Then it starts to float down. You get almost a ten-second burn, brilliant blue-white turning to yellow in the last second. Mark thinks the shell casing is some sort of aluminum-magnesium alloy. It burns too. There's nothing left at the end." "Could it be used as a weapon?" asked Mandy. "It's possible I guess," Toshi replied slowly. "Are you thinking against Dinofelis or against other people?" "Either." "Well, at long range, firing a flare at a cat might frighten it off. But we're thinking of these guns mostly as signaling devices. The projectile velocity never gets very high. As a weapon, the impact wouldn't hurt a human much." "But getting burned by the flare might," replied Mandy. Holly agreed. "Yes, true. And in a Mall corridor, if there were no cover, a barrage of the flares might inflict some injuries. But it would be a cumbersome weapon. It's single shot, and you have to set the safeties back on before you can open the breech and reload." "This is great news," commented Jada. "I take it we should be on land to fire this thing?" "Oh, I would think so, yeah. Firing from a kayak would be very tricky. Let's see, what else should I tell you? Right now everybody except Toshi and me is out transporting the shells to more accessible storage locations. All the away teams will be using them. Mark is acting as master of ceremonies with the sphere's elevator. And the census counter is unchanged, still 010:090. At least we haven't lost anybody today." "Holly," Toshi whispered as she gave her friend a playful nudge, "tell them about the Leophones." "Oh yeah!" Holly gave Toshi a friendly bump back. "Lynn and Akiko think they might get a fourth Leophone operational, hopefully sometime tomorrow." "Just one?" asked Jada. "Yeah. Turning them on is a lot more complicated than they first thought. There's seems to be a number of registration steps that are not repeatable with the other phones. At least I think that's what Akiko said. They'll have to do a lot of custom configuring for each phone." Jada next gave a brief report on her team's findings, and then they signed off for the night. It would be another very busy day starting before daybreak tomorrow. Madison and Tom volunteered to stay up and greet Aggie's team when they arrived and unload the flares from the elevator. Jada and Mandy gratefully accepted the offer, and the two women took quick showers and headed off to bed. In spite of the stressful day and worries about the decisions that might be on her doorstep tomorrow, Jada was fast asleep minutes after her head hit the pillow. ------- Chapter 52 Schematic of the central island of the Mississippi. Hexagonal island measures 100 meters on each side. ------- Chapter 53 Time: Thursday, February 14, 2019 9:35 PM Madison found Tom in their large, multi-purpose room. They had both taken showers about an hour ago and dressed for bed, but had stayed up to unload the flare equipment from the elevator before turning in. "You still up?" Madison called out. Tom looked at her and grinned. "Just about to turn in. I was looking at this flare rifle. The back wall of the breech has a very interesting reinforcement, some sort of thin clear coating, but it's as hard as a diamond." "Uh huh. There's a really neat thunderstorm going on right now. Want to watch it with me?" Tom smiled happily and followed Madison to her windowed bedroom at the end of the sanctuary. A moment later they were sitting close together watching the storm's fury. Madison sighed and leaned her head on Tom's shoulder. "It's funny, isn't it? To see the rain lashing against the windows like that, but to hear absolutely nothing." Tom nodded. "Yeah, I know. It seems spooky. I wonder if Jada has gotten used to it." Their team leader had the other windowed bedroom on the other side of the hall. Madison didn't reply. They sat again for a while in silence, leaning up against each other. Madison moved her arm and brushed the back of her hand against Tom's pajamas near his knee. A moment later they were holding hands. Madison gave out a big sigh. "It feels so different," Tom whispered. "Tomorrow will be the start of a new month. It really drives the point home, how new and strange everything is." Madison nodded. "Yes, and yet, some things are still the same. I feel so fortunate I still have my brother and my two best friends. And now I have you too, if you want me." Tom gave a playful laugh. "Hey, you're my girl. Of course I want you." Madison tilted her head up and kissed his cheek. "You saved my life today. I feel I owe you something." "Hmmm? Huh? No you don't." "It's what I feel though. Tom?" Tom lightly returned her kiss before replying. "Yeah?" "Your shot was incredible today. How did you do it?" "Ah. I take it your target practice has been at a pistol range?" "Yep." "Well, my dad has been taking me hunting since I was ... hell, I can't even remember how young I was when I first fired a gun. But I've eaten lots of rabbits that I shot myself. It's just a different skill, firing at a moving target. I'd love to teach you, but we don't have the ammo for it." "Does Charles know how?" "No. I think his experience is with pistol ranges too. He's a pretty good shot though." Tom's hand came up and stroked Madison's head, caressing her cheek and ear. "Ah, you're so pretty Madison," he whispered and then he sniffed. "And you smell delightful!" Madison giggled. "It's just my shower soap. I found a new kind down here I really like." She paused. "Do you really think I'm pretty? I have so many freckles..." Tom stretched and switched on a nearby light and then offered eye contact. A moment later Madison gasped and turned away blushing. "My gosh Tom! I knew you liked me and all but ... My gosh!" Tom chuckled. "You're really surprised, aren't you? Maddy, you're so pretty, gorgeous in fact. Hasn't anybody ever told you?" "No! I've dated, but you're the first one!" Madison gave him a fierce squeeze around his waist. "Oh, I wish we had lots of time, time to get excited and get sexy with each other. But if we start that now, there'll be hell to pay tomorrow." Tom kissed her and sighed. "Agreed. We need our sleep. But I think I'll dream of you." Another sigh. "It's so nice to be able to dream again. A month ago, everything was nightmares." "Oh Tom, don't feel guilty. You did what you had to do to survive." "I was an incredible coward. I look back on it and I'm horrified." "Of what?" "Of what I didn't do, of what I almost became. I had no idea, how..." He shuddered and remained silent, never completing the thought. "Oh, I don't know." "Hey mister!" Madison hissed. "Don't think like that! You're my hero! You are the person who saved my life. You are the person who thinks I'm super sexy! You are the person I'm thrilled to be dating! Tom?" "Yeah?" "Really, I am thrilled to have you as my boyfriend." "I know. I saw it in your eyes." "And I saw how you think of me. I hope I can live up to all your expectations. Your fantasies about me..." He petted her for a while and then whispered playfully, "Uh oh. I didn't realize I was letting that out." "Ah, but you were." Madison gave a soft laugh. "And we really need our sleep now. But someday soon, I promise, we'll have some free time together. Then we can play. Until then..." Madison hugged him and tried to kiss him goodnight. But the kiss lingered, and their arms and hands drifted from hugging to caressing. It was done in great gentleness, at least at first, but then a warm hand cupped Madison's breast through her soft pajamas and she whimpered for more. Her hand groped and found his penis, so stiff and erect. She popped it from his pajamas bottoms with one silky motion of her hand, and then her head dropped, engulfing his desire for her and sliding it to the back of her throat. Tom cried out in his pleasure, his hips making small, jerky thrusts upward into the warmth and moisture of Madison's mouth. Madison's eyes were wide open in semi-shock at what she had just done, but she kept his erection inside her mouth, pulling back a bit in order to suckle and running her tongue along the shaft, trying to lick the penis inside her mouth. Madison felt Tom's entire body tense up and she lifted her lips to his penis head just as he started to orgasm. Tom was shaking and moaning and thrusting his hips and Madison as she suckled and gulped felt overwhelmed with her own emotions. And then it was over. Tom was lying quietly and taking deep breaths with Maddy's head still in his lap, the softening penis pressing against her cheek. Maddy sniffed his penis and licked the glans and then swallowed the extra drop of semen she had caught on her tongue. She whispered, "Wow. That's the first time I've ever done that with a boy ... Wow..." "Maddy, I..." "It's okay Tom. I know you love me. I love you too." The lightening storm was over. In the very dim room Tom reached for Maddy and held her in a loving embrace, sighing deeply over the softness and warmth of this most delightful creature in his arms. Madison blinked as she started to drift. "Sleep! We won't get it if we stay together. I'll want to spend the night playing and talking with you." Tom nodded and kissed her. "Sometime soon though, we'll create some private time to be together." "Oh, absolutely!" More brief kisses, and then with a groan Madison led Tom to her bedroom door and pushed him out. She surprised herself by falling asleep very soon afterwards. Time: Friday, March 1, 2019 9:27 AM The convoy of six kayaks reentered the central current and started the last leg of their journey to the island Tom and Mandy had spotted yesterday. It was a beautiful and warm day, already almost 20C on land Jada thought, as she remembered the toilet break they had just taken. But here in the middle of the very cool channel it felt at least 5C less, with the channel water itself registering 9C. In addition to helping drop off the flares last night, Brandi had also thoughtfully given them a water thermometer. They had stopped at their old campsite and Jada had been somewhat surprised to see that the corpse of the Dinofelis was no longer there. The only evidence of their battle was faint traces of the cat's bloodstains. The forest around them had been very quiet, and Jada was very glad when they were all back in the safety of the water, or at least, relatively safe. She hoped Dinofelis shared the modern cats' aversion for swimming. It seemed a reasonable assumption. A cat who hunted as an assassin from trees would be totally exposed in the open water. The time passed swiftly. Within the current, they were easily making 10 kph relative to the shoreline, and as 10 AM approached, the small island Tom and Mandy had spotted yesterday was directly in front of them. Mandy in the lead kayak was the first to notice its uniformity. "Look!" she called out. "It's in the shape of a hexagon!" The Mississippi was huge at their location, Jada guessed they were 800 meters from the shore to the southwest and 700 meters from the shore to the northeast. And the current was picking up markedly. Jada had a sudden worry. She had no experience landing a boat with a strong current right up against the land. And the sprays of drops from her paddling were freezing! Was the channel getting even colder? Mandy realized the situation was getting dangerous and called for everybody to paddle towards the northeastern shore. They were soon drifting in calm water about a hundred meters from the eastern riverbank and a kilometer due east of the island, with the swift channel to their southwest. "What do you think Mandy?" Jada called out. "Is the channel up to 4 kph?" "Oh, at least. It's amazing how different the water is here! It's dead calm, and so much warmer! And did you notice the orientation of the island? The hexagon has vertices at true north and south, just like on the surface." Jada nodded as she dropped the cord with her thermometer for another measurement. "How can the channel speed up like that as the river widens?" asked Tom in a bewildered voice. "It should be just the opposite." Maddy replied with a laugh. "We have to stop thinking about this as a natural river. Remember what the builders of this world are capable of doing!" "It wasn't just the speed either," commented Jada. "I think the channel was getting colder too." She ran her hand in the water by her boat. "But here I think it's the warmest yet." She pulled up on her cord and took a look. "Yep! 18C. This is getting downright swimmable." She then stared at the faraway island. "Did you see the island's shoreline? It looked like smooth vertical rock, maybe a couple of meters worth. How the hell do we climb that from our boats?" Jada flashed Mandy a brief grin and added, "Aren't you glad it's not yesterday's storm after sundown when we're having this problem?" Mandy nodded her head sheepishly and then replied. "Jada, your concern is very appropriate. And that's not the only problem. We'd be trying to dock against a rock wall with a strong transverse current." She turned to their one male team member. "Tom, have you ever done such a thing?" He shook his head and looked worried. "Mandy, towing this second kayak, I don't even want to try." He paused for a moment and then added, "Why don't we circle around to the hexagon's downstream side? There might be an eddy area close to the northwestern face that's out of the main current." They discussed the matter briefly before agreeing to make the attempt. With the current at the island flowing due northwest, they decided to pass to the south of the island, and then hope to find a landing site on either the western or northwestern faces of the hexagon. In order to make their approach, they paddled more than a kilometer back upriver before turning and reentering the cold and swiftly flowing channel. A half kilometer from the island, the current was so swift they stopped paddling. Their goal was to pass ten meters south of the southern vertex and then glide with the current along the length of the island's southwestern face. Jada pulled up the cord with her thermometer and called out, "Seven degrees Celsius! Be extra careful with your boats! Water this cold can be deadly!" A short time later they hit their entry point. Jada estimated they were traveling at six kph. The trip along the hundred meters of the southwestern face would take one minute. Their plan was to bank hard to starboard as soon as they cleared the next vertex. Jada took a moment to study the rock wall gliding by her starboard bow. It looked smooth and vertical and a full two meters in height above the waterline. Landing here with a kayak would be truly impossible. Mandy was in the lead boat and paddled furiously as she pivoted around the corner. She had timed her maneuver very precisely, and the supply kayak behind her cleared the southwestern vertex with less than three meters to spare. Tom followed directly behind her, and then Madison. Jada was in the last boat and was disheartened after she made her turn. The western face of the hexagon was as high and smooth as the other sides. And while the island partially shielded her from the main current, the water around her kayak was very choppy and filled with swirling eddies. She kept up with the rest of her team with brute-force paddling. Mandy gave a yell as she rounded the northwestern vertex, and then Tom also gave a whoop as he made the turn. Maddy in front of her disappeared next, and then it was Jada's turn. She fought with all her strength to make the course correction, and was rewarded with a beautiful sight. Directly in front of her perhaps forty meters ahead were two brown boat docks attached to a very large orange boathouse. Jada couldn't imagine a more welcome sight. The water was still a bit choppy, but the northwestern face of the hexagon was almost directly downstream of the current and there was a nice little triangular pocket of water that was sheltered from the pull. Mandy and Tom were already pulling in to the two outside slips that two docks provided, and Madison was angling for one of the inside slips between the two docks. Jada maneuvered her boat for the last remaining slip. The group had a brief discussion on the docks and decided that once their boats were secured in the boathouse, all four of them would risk exploring the island together. The two docks were each two meters wide and nine meters long, barely adequate for Mandy and Tom with the job of docking with kayaks in tow. But the boathouse was fabulous, a large empty rectangular roof twelve by eighteen meters in area, enclosed on three sides but on the lower level open to the air facing the water. The floor was also terraced, providing two levels of storage. The higher level in the back of the boathouse was completely enclosed and was level with the rest of the island. After securing the boats in the higher level and unpacking their exploration gear, the group exited the boathouse through a rear door. The time was approaching 11 AM. "Well, we were right Jada," Mandy said quietly. "Treasure galore!" The surface area of the island was a stark contrast to the wilderness areas they had previously explored. Before them they could see what was obviously a managed park. The landscape appeared absolutely flat and was tastefully designed with small trees and vegetable and flower gardens. Here and there numerous servos could be seen tending the gardens. They reminded Jada vaguely of horseshoe crabs in their size and shape, and unlike the servos of the Mall and surface areas above, these servos seemed to have no concern about remaining hidden. And the building! Perhaps just fifty meters away, an enormous hexagonal building beckoned to them. In was pale yellow in color, and Jada noticed two doors side-by-side in the center of the northwestern side of the hexagon facing her. Although the angle was acute, she thought she also saw similar doors on the western and northeastern sides. Jada took a deep breath and glanced around the island. The long linear sun was shining high overhead, an hour east of the top of the cylindrical sky and the underworld's version of solar noon. The long linear sun cast such diffuse shadows. Jada grinned to herself as she thought it would probably drive a sundial maker crazy. And there was a slight and very pleasant breeze blowing from the north. Numerous wild birds were chirping in the stubby trees, The setting was so serene; Jada had to remind herself not to let her guard down. "Think the place is open?" Madison asked quietly as she stared at the central hexagon before them. "One easy way to find out," replied Tom. And with a nod from Jada, he led the way forward towards the massive building. As they began their walk, Jada called up mission control at the Hilton Complex and gave them an update on their situation. ------- Chapter 54 Time: Friday, March 1, 2019 11:25 AM Hannah and Alison from Fatima's team-six were manning the observation room at the Hilton Complex, and Hannah was trying to shake off twin feelings of panic and despair. Things had been going so well just a short while ago, but then it was one bad piece of news after another. First Fatima called on her Leophone about a half hour ago. She, Mark, and Kiyoko had taken off early this morning on an ad-hoc trip down the great stairwell of the white diamond complex. The primary mission was to test Mark's ability to activate the elevator at the bottom of the well, given his new abilities to work the elevator at the Blue Mall sphere. Their mission was unsuccessful, and after dropping off an extra supply of flares in the elevator, the group said they would soon start returning to the surface. Then Jada called and began her report about successfully landing on the island and walking towards a large hexagon. It sounded as if they were in a safe and peaceful situation, and then suddenly the line went dead. With growing alarm, Hannah and Alison tried reestablishing the connection but to no avail. Then Lynn and Akiko entered the room looking bone tired. They had pulled an all-nighter trying to get a fourth Leophone up and running, and they had failed. They were just checking in before jumping home to Red Mall and collapsing. Alison told them about their failure with keeping an open line to Jada, and the two telecom specialists turned around and hurried back to their makeshift lab to see if they could help. Earlier this morning, Aggie's and Emily's teams had joined together and taken the last remaining Leophone. As a group of eight, they were attempting a comprehensive exploration of the southernmost surface of the Green Mall area. Their last report stated that so far there was no sign of Aggie's lost party. Hannah called them back and updated Aggie on the problem they were having communicating with Jada's team. And then for several minutes, Hannah and Alison silently watched their Black Mall monitors as Diego, Alfonso, and Jessica carried heavy backpacks into Jacob's Bar and Grill. They were returning from far down the terminal end of Black Mall. This behavior had been going on for the last four days, and there was much speculation about what was hidden in the backpacks. The procurement teams were careful never to give a hint other than the packs were obviously heavy. The issue especially worried Amber. She was sure Ricardo was plotting something, but had no clue to the particulars. And once again Diego seemed to be in charge of the procurement mission, though he didn't flout his authority. And Jessica's face! Alison shuddered and told Hannah she almost didn't recognize her. Jessica's face was a frozen mask of fear, so different from her earlier haughty demeanor. Alison had never known of anyone so constantly on the edge of panic. It made Alison wonder what sort of psychological games Ricardo was playing with the last female member of his group. And finally, just a few minutes ago Hannah was horrified to see the census counter quickly drop from 010:090 to 009:089. Her mind jumped immediately to Jada's team and their inability to communicate with them. She and Alison followed protocol and began verifying the safety of all their different parties, including asking Toshi to do a bed check on Holly and Paige who had done the nightshift monitoring. Hannah confirmed that everyone on Aggie's team was okay, and she was just about to call Mark when an incoming call request appeared on her console. Hannah stared at the request in astonishment. It was coming in from a completely unknown location. Ten minutes previously... Mark was resting and leaning up against the bottom corridor wall about ten meters from the one-way elevator. Fatima was sitting right beside him, so close their shoulders were touching, and across from them and at the foot of the stairs fifteen meters away Kiyoko was unabashedly using her break to lie down. A few minutes ago she had even curled into a sleeping position and hadn't moved since. Mark's eyes were closed and he wondered for the nth time whether he had pushed the pace too fast in coming down the stairwell. He had asked Fatima and Kiyoko many times if they wanted more breaks, and they never said yes. Still, each one of them was carrying an extra dozen flare shells for Jada's team. The load wasn't too bulky, but damn, after a while on the climb down, Mark's knees really noticed the weight. He felt Fatima stir against his arm and then she give a soft laugh. "I don't believe it! Take a look. I think Kiyoko actually fell asleep." Mark opened his eyes and after a moment nodded. "Not a bad idea actually. Let's not rush things on the way back up." "Hmm. If it's any consolation, all the other teams reported they'd rather be climbing up the stairs rather than down." "Ah, that's nice to know..." After a moment of silence, Mark offered his hand to Fatima. She accepted it and gave it a friendly squeeze. "So, how's married life been?" Mark sighed. "It's been really wonderful. I miss Jada a lot, other than that life with Toshi and Frida has been idyllic. Toshi and Frida miss Jada too." Fatima nodded. "I'm very glad to hear it. There's so much that can go wrong with what we're trying to do." "You think of me as a guinea pig?" Fatima chuckled. "Well, maybe as a very handsome guinea pig." Mark thought for a while before replying, and finally decided to give Fatima a serious answer. "Inside a triple link, there's no place to hide an emotion like jealousy, but on the plus side, it also shows us there's no need for it. I guess in the end, it all comes down to free-will, and what we want to accept." "But what about Jada? Isn't she intimidated?" Mark looked uncertain for a moment, and then realized what Fatima was talking about. "You mean by being trapped in a dream?" Fatima looked a bit sheepish. "Like Holly I guess, yeah. I'd be a bit worried. I'm curious about what it's like, but I'd also be nervous about another mind taking over what I'm perceiving." Mark sighed. "I know. In Jada's case, she's running on pure faith and trust. It's not a problem." "Ah..." Fatima sighed too, and then rested her head against his shoulder. Mark turned and kissed the side of her head. "Fatima, may I ask? How are you doing?" She gave a small laugh. "What do you mean? Are you asking me about my sex life?" Mark blinked. "Wow Fatima..." "Wow what?" "Oh, I don't know. I was just thinking. When we first met a few months ago, I don't think you would have been..." "That direct?" "Well, yeah." Mark stared as his shoes for a while. "I guess I don't know exactly what I was asking about. It just feels as if, this past month anyway, we've sort of drifted apart. Life has been so busy, we've haven't shared anything personal." "Yes, I know. I'm still interested in becoming your wife someday, if that's what you're asking." Mark didn't know how to reply. He gave Fatima's hand a gentle squeeze and kept silent. Fatima sighed. "I'm sorry Mark. Somehow that sounded like a rebuke, and I didn't mean that way. It's just that..." "Yeah?" "Oh, I don't know. I've been the recipient of so many thoughtless comments. I know people don't mean to be coarse, but a number of the women think that because of my cultural background, polygamy is going to be a lot easier for me to accept than it is for them. And that's just not true." Mark's other hand came over and he started to caress the back of Fatima's hand. She continued. "Oh, it was there I guess in Kuwait, polygamy, now and then in the society I guess and certainly in the religion. But in practice, it really wasn't very common at all. Monogamy was the rule, and as a girl I never had any dreams about being a part of a harem." "No, of course not. Fatima, there's no harem in my marriage. We're all equals." Mark paused and gave a sheepish grin. "Except maybe when we're playing with each other." "Hmmm? You've piqued my curiosity. What do you mean?" "Ah, let me just say Toshi has an incredibly wild imagination. She likes to role play." Mark chuckled. "Sex with her can get a bit kinky at times. But it's always kind and loving." "Ah. And you're sharing this with me?" Mark blinked. "I have Toshi's permission, Frida's and Jada's too. We all agreed we should be open with anyone who might be joining our marriage. We've decided to be very open with you and all the women of our original group. That includes Aggie." "Ah ... Yes of course. Forgive me. I didn't mean to put you on the spot." "Hey, it's okay. It's a strange situation for all of us." He turned and kissed her cheek. "Especially for you Fatima. You're bearing the load of the political pressures now." "Exactly!" she hissed. "And they are so horribly coupled to everything else! It would not be politic for me to actively date you right now. What do you think Mark? You have three of the most vocal opponents to forgiving Toshi on your team. Would they consider me going out with you as sleeping with the..." "You mean you and Toshi being sister-wives? No, I honestly don't think so. We're gelling as a team. I've developed a lot of respect for my group, for them, for their abilities, and even for their opinions. I'm hoping that works both ways." Fatima was quiet for a moment and finally sighed. "Oh boy, that's a relief. Mark?" "Hmmm?" "Someday in the future, my answer is still yes. I still want to date you. Perhaps next year when I'm not leader any more. Do you mind if we put it off for that long?" "Hey, whatever you're comfortable with Fatima. There's no schedule for this. And besides..." Mark stared at her hand for a moment trying to think of what he wanted to say. He never got the chance. Their Leophone started to ring, and a very revved-up Hannah was on the line. "Fatima, Mark, Kiyoko!" she said excitedly. "We have a situation!" Time: Friday, March 1, 2019 11:32 AM It took just a few minutes to assemble everyone for an emergency conference call. The society had twenty-one people on the line, everybody but the four members of Jada's team. There were three pressing issues, the loss of contact with Jada's team, the assumed death of a man and a woman from the census counter data, and finally the mysterious communications request that had popped up on the library network. How were the three events related to each other, if at all? And why didn't Hannah and Alison answer the unknown call immediately? Fatima and Mark were having a hard time trying to understand the logic of not answering the hail. "It's my fault Fatima," replied Lynn. "Akiko and I were in our telecom lab. We had the best view of the incoming traffic. The unknown call had some very strange technical qualities associated with it. I needed some time to think, and I asked Hannah not to accept the transmission into our net. And then the call request vanished." Fatima asked, "How long was the call trying to link to our network?" "Less than a minute, hold on ... Uh, the correct answer is sixty-three seconds." Mark felt extremely distressed that his wife's team might have been in mortal danger and their call for help refused. "And you're saying we had just lost contact with Jada about a half hour previously? Lynn, am I missing something here? Why not assume the call was from Jada trying to reestablish contact?" "Oh, this wasn't from Jada's Leophone. I'm certain of that. The call originated from inside the library network, and it was coming in from a hung node. That's what I was afraid of. I thought the call might be coming from the library at Black Mall. Accepting the call would unlock their system, and once it's unlocked, we couldn't push them out of our communications grid without physical access to the Black Mall library. Do you see the problem?" "Ah..." Mark muttered. "Yeah, it's all one network, the library consoles, the elevator voice systems, our Leophones. If we accepted that call and it came from Black Mall, they could listen in on everything we put on the network, including this conference call." Mark was still distressed. "Lynn..." "I know, I know Mark! I'm so sorry! With a little more time, I think I would have decided to take the risk and answer the call. But it was a step of no-return, and Akiko and I were still debating the issue when call dropped off the system. This is all my fault. Akiko was urging me to accept it." "Mark," came another voice on the bridge. "This is Akiko. Lynn is accepting too much responsibility. It was the both of us that told Hannah and Alison not to pick up the call. Like Lynn, I also thought the issue needed discussion first. I gambled that we had more time to make our choice, and my gamble failed." "So where do we go from here?" asked Fatima. "The two deaths were either from Jada's team or from completely unknown party." "Or a known party. There's a third possibility Fatima," Hannah replied. "The two deaths could have come from what's left of Black Mall. We saw Jessica, Alfonso, and Diego enter their home complex from the Mall, and then the two deaths registered just a few minutes later. It might not have been a coincidence." Mark had a very grim look on his face and he was staring at the one-way elevator just ten meters away. Fatima reached over and gently touched his shoulder. She shook her head no. Mark objected. "But we can't just abandon them!" Fatima shook her head again. "Jada had a similar situation when Madison was first trapped. Jada made the right decision then, and I'm making it again now. We can think about a rescue plan, but charging in right now might just add to the problem." "But without their Leophone, they have no way to contact us. Can I at least leave our phone in the elevator?" Mark's eyes pleaded with Fatima's. Fatima turned her head away to break the mental connection Mark was trying to form. "No. The equipment is just too critical to leave down here. But we can leave them the batteries. Perhaps they had trouble with that. And we can also leave a note, telling them we'll be coming back down tomorrow and they can meet us at noon on any day in the future. Aggie, please be sure your search team is back home by sunset." Fatima addressed her next remark to everyone on the bridge. "Mark, Kiyoko and I will start our return journey now. You won't be able to contact us until we reach the surface and get new batteries for the phone." Toshi spoke up from the Hilton Center. "I'll leave you a fresh set at the top of the stairs." There didn't seem much else to do. The group agreed to accept any new calls coming in, and then Fatima closed the meeting with brief thanks for everyone's efforts. After leaving the phone batteries and a note in the elevator carriage, her team began their long climb home in a very somber mood. ------- Chapter 55 Later that afternoon. Time: Friday, March 1, 2019 3:52 PM Mark was working alone in his home library at Blue Mall. For the next half hour, the sand park just outside his window on his right would be lit with late afternoon sun and shadows. It was a peaceful setting and a great contrast to the turbulent worry inside his mind. The library elevator opened silently on his left and a very somber looking Frida walk towards him. Mark offered eye contact and was surprised when Frida declined. She walked instead behind him and hugged his neck and shoulders. Mark reached up and touched the hand that was against his throat. "Hi Frida. Meeting still on for 4:45?" "Uh huh." "Emily's team back yet?" "No, not yet, another half hour maybe. Emily promised she'd make the meeting." Mark took his wife's hand and felt it trembling. He put the back of her hand to his lips and softly kissed it. "You okay Frida? You didn't want to link?" Frida leaned low and kissed the back of his head just above his neck. "When I was a girl, my parents taught me never to dance on other people's graves, and that's what my soul is doing right now. I'm too ashamed to let you see my mind like this." "Uh ... What?" "I see you haven't noticed yet. The census counter dropped again about twenty minutes ago. That's the third drop of two today. It's now reading 009:085." Frida's point hit Mark immediately. Earlier before 2 PM, the census counter had dropped from 009:089 to 009:087, and combined with the morning drop, there was a dreadful fear that Jada's entire team had somehow been killed. But now less than two hours later, another two women had died. Frida's hope now was that all these deaths had nothing to do with Jada's team. "Strange how the deaths are occurring in pairs," Mark said quietly. "Oh yes. We were having a lot of discussion about that. There are several theories. Maybe pairs of people are trying and failing to do something that is mortally dangerous. What could their motivation be? Maybe people are committing suicide in pairs. Maybe..." Frida was silent for a moment and then sighed heavily. "But the end result is I'm feeling much more hopeful about Jada now. How about you Mark? Are you working on something interesting?" Mark nodded. "I think so. It seems the interface has made a small incremental boost to my access authority. I found a high-level file system for long-term resource planning. I have access to the top folder." "Oh wow! That sounds useful!" "Yeah, or at least it would be if I had access to any of the sub-folders. There are hundreds of them, and they all have very interesting titles. Unfortunately I'm locked out of everything I've tried so far." "Oh. So all you can see are the folder categories?" "Pretty much, but I still have about another hour to go before I test everything." "Ah. Then I should let you get back to work." Another kiss on his neck. "Have hope husband, for Jada I mean. I think she might be okay." Mark nodded and the then stood up and turned. He shared a long goodbye hug with Frida before getting back to work. An hour later... Fatima looked at the clock in the Hilton Complex and wondered whether she should send someone to the Blue Mall library for Mark. The meeting was supposed to start three minutes ago, and everyone else was present. It was unusual for Mark to be late for a meeting, even by a few minutes. She thought perhaps she would send Toshi or Frida. Fatima looked around at the people around her and sighed. Besides herself, there were nineteen people in the room, Charles and eighteen women. The group around her would have been considered a small, intimate party by Earth's old standards, but now, at least according to the census counter, it represented over twenty percent of the human species. It was a very sobering thought. The elevator that served the Hilton was just outside their meeting room, and Fatima heard Mark call out excitedly from the hallway. A few seconds later he walked hurriedly into the room. "Hi," he said. "Sorry I'm late, but it was worth it!" Fatima nodded and decided to let Mark go ahead with the presentation he obviously wanted to make. A moment later he began passing out the first of two sets of papers. "I know everybody knows this, but here's a list of everyone in our society." The paper Mark handed out showed familiar information that was sorted by ID Tag and grouped by original Party affiliation. The interface would tell anybody who asked what their ID number was. Party #5: 22, 23, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 39, 40, 41, 45, 51, 54 Party #4: 117 (Aggie) Party #1: 131 (Fatima) Party #5: 140, 141, 142, 143 (Toshi, Akiko, Kiyoko, Ann) Party #1: 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149 (Madison, Ashley, Hannah, Mark, Emily, Jada) Mark continued, "Sorry for not including the names for the first group. I was running out of time. Charles and Tom are 51 and 54. Anyway, I have some really great news! There is a Section-0 executive officer position with the title of Director of Long Range Planning. The position is vacant of course, but the interface allowed me to access an HR folder under the director's portfolio. The system is set up to show what people might qualify for various jobs within a number of different time periods." Paige looked up from the list that Mark had handed out. "So you can tell me which jobs I might qualify for?" Mark shook his head. "No, not yet. I was locked out of almost everything. But not quite everything! There was one high-level file the system let me see. It was extremely valuable! It's the master list of all eligible ID Tags that may eventually be assigned jobs. The list contains ninety-four ID Tags, and every one of our ID Tags is on that list!" Paige saw the reason for Mark's joy immediately. "So Jada's team is alive! All of them!" Mark grinned. "Yep! And it gets even better. Take a look at this." He passed around a second set of papers with the following information: Active ID Tags grouped by Party (for everyone outside of our society) Party #1: 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 16 (six women) - Red Mall Party #5: 24, 26, 27, 49, 50, 53 (five men, one woman) - Black Mall Party #6: 58, 60, 61, 63, 64, 68, 69, 71 (eight people) -Yellow Mall Party #2: 73, 75, 77, 78, 79, 82 to 86, 90 (eleven people) - White Mall Party #3: 91 to 94, 96 to 108 (seventeen people) - Blue Mall Party #1: 129, 133, 138, 139 (four people) - Red Mall Party #4: 109 to 116, 118 to 126 (seventeen women) - Green Mall Mark stared at the paper with the other people and said quietly, "We know who the six people at Black Mall are. I also remembered that Emily's original log recorded Fatima's description of the order in which the different groups of men and women left the tunnel for each party. I combined the two sets of data and managed to produce this breakout." Aggie shivered and gave out a soft cry. "So they all survived! All my people from Party #4 are still alive!" Mark nodded. "Green Mall is the only Party that hasn't suffered casualties, and Blue Mall has lost only one. Besides Party #5, all the other losses are concentrated in Party's One, Two and Six. Of the eighteen nurses that made the first trip to Party #1, only six have survived. And the people that rode the elevator with Fatima..." Fatima looked grim. "There were a dozen people with me when I made the journey, eight women and four men." "I remember," said Emily. "Many of them were my friends. They took off shortly before the drug really started to hit us." Emily stared at the second list for a while and then looked at Mark with teary sadness in her eyes. "You're saying that only four are still alive?" He nodded and then looked around the table. "We've talked about this before. Two separate groups of people left Party #1. A first group of twenty-one left shortly after 3 PM, and then another group of ten left after we had dinner. I remember coming out the kitchen with Jada and watching them leave." Mark was silent for a moment and then added, "If we only knew to warn them..." Fatima looked up from her handout. "I think I see what you're suggesting Mark. You're thinking that we should concentrate our searches in Red and Yellow Malls." Mark nodded. "That's where people are dying. The Party from White Mall also has multiple losses, but we already have a search team for that." He paused and sighed. "I know it's a difficult choice. I'm suggesting we abandon our searches in the Green and Blue Mall areas, at least for a while. I'm assuming that those two groups are relatively safe. And I know, we really don't know that for sure." Alison appeared deep in thought. She said quietly, "It was Yellow Mall that had the nine couples. Perhaps ... No wait, that doesn't work." Whitney looked at her. "Alison?" "I was wondering if the couples were trapped in a hopeless situation and committing suicide in pairs, in couples. But the last two pairs to ... to die have been pairs of women. And Mark, there's only one man left in all of the groups you've labeled "people", right? My gosh Mark. For the nine couples that were in Party #6, at least eight of their men have died. What could kill off the men so selectively?" Fatima was thinking furiously about all the decisions that were before them. She cleared her throat and said, "We need to get back to the discussion on how to help Jada's team. But I don't want to trap more people in the underworld, at least not until we can send in a rescue team with new Leophone. Lynn, Akiko, how about it?" Lynn looked at Akiko and then turned to her leader. "Bottom line is, we don't know. Maybe tomorrow." Fatima persisted. "Give me a probability for success." Lynn and Akiko locked eyes for a long ten seconds. Then they turned to Fatima and said simultaneously, "Sixty percent," and then Lynn added, "And perhaps eighty percent within two days. But if we haven't got it done by then, we'll need to do a major re-think in how we're approaching this. If it's not done in two days, it might take weeks." Fatima nodded. "Do your best. That's all anybody can ask. If I remember correctly, we already have all of the long kayaks from Herman's?" Paige nodded and spoke up. "That's right. But there's another sporting goods store less than a kilometer from here. They have six recreational kayaks called Little Auks. They're much smaller boats, just over three meters in length, but I think they would still be serviceable for day trips." Fatima nodded and let the conversation go on. The group discussed the pros and cons of an underworld rescue mission for another half hour before Fatima made her decision. "Tomorrow we should port four of the Little Auks to the bottom of the stairwell. I want to have a rescue mission set to leave by Sunday if we can equip them with a new Leophone. Charles, I want a small expedition, two to four people I think. I'm not quite sure how many yet, and I want the expedition to be armed. You and Mark are our last two people familiar with the pistols, and with Mark's growing authority with the interface, I consider him too valuable to send. Will you volunteer to lead the expedition?" Charles' answer was immediate. "Absolutely." "Thank you." Fatima looked around the room. "Tomorrow will be the day for moving the kayaks and planning our new search missions. We will focus our missions in the underworld and in the Red and Yellow surface areas. Team leaders, please meet after we close to discuss your options. We'll start moving the boats early tomorrow morning." Charles felt thrilled that Fatima was trusting him to lead the new team, and he offered a suggestion. "Why not port the boats to the top of the stairwell tonight, or at least to the White Mall library?" Fatima nodded. "Yes, good idea. Everybody, we'll meet back here again at 4 PM tomorrow." Fatima received many nods back and she closed the meeting shortly afterwards with a brief prayer. The team leaders then met with Charles to discuss the new division of labor. Later that night. Time: Friday, March 1, 2019 8:46 PM Old Burlington VT Earth Time: Friday, February 15, 2019 7:56 PM Sandra felt herself being shaken awake, and for a moment her sleepy mind wondered if she had overslept. She was supposed to be on guard duty with Thara tonight, the graveyard shift 9 PM to 5 AM. But she had not overslept. "Sandra, quick! You have to see this!" Amy hissed as she shook Sandra's shoulder. Sandra threw on her coat and followed Amy out of their shelter. Outside they met Margaret and Sachi and a number of other women who were staring excitedly down the long great corridor that had become their world. Margaret and Sachi were on guard duty now, and Margaret had her eyes glued to their group's only pair of binoculars. Sandra considered it one of their very few strokes of luck. During their first days in this vast and fantastic underground prison, Amy had pulled a compact pair of binoculars out of her purse. Amy was an avid bird watcher and her binoculars had proved to be a priceless asset to the group's survival. But now Sandra was confused at what Margaret could possibly be looking at in the night's darkness. "We did not imagine this," Thara kept repeating. "Oh no, we did not imagine this!" "There!" Margaret shouted and pointed with her hand. "Another flare! Take a look!" She quickly handed the binoculars to their leader, and Sandra had a good clear view of the last three seconds of the flare as it drifted down in its lazy arc. "Well, well, hello there little star," she murmured. "Like a diamond in the sky..." "It was fired from the central island. I'm sure of it," whispered Amy. Sandra slowly nodded. "I'm not absolutely certain but yeah, the azimuth and distance seem just about right." "So Derrick was right after all," said Carla, another woman standing close by. Sandra turned to her and frowned. Carla had been Derrick's second-in-command when he had seized control of the group from Sandra more than a month ago. Sandra replied in a flat voice, "Derrick also got himself killed, along with two innocent people who reluctantly obeyed his orders to follow him." Carla paused for a moment before answering. "So we're not going to check this out?" Sandra sighed. "Oh, I learned my lesson from Derrick. I'll give him that. We can't be passive when we have an opportunity to explore. We'll check this out all right. Amy, gather the troops for a meeting. I want to put a team together to visit the island tomorrow." Amy turned and reentered the cave. Several women but not the active guard followed her. Carla had remained standing quietly by her leader's side. After a moment Sandra asked her, "Opinions?" Carla gave a mirthless laugh. "Well, our situation is insane. Our whole world is insane, and from insanity one can imply anything. Derrick's death taught us both Sandra. We don't want to fall into traps." "You're thinking this might be a trap?" Another long moment of silence passed, and then a shout from Sachi. "Look Sandra! Another flare!" "I see it! Flare number three!" Sandra let Carla observe the beacon point of light through the binoculars. After it was gone, Carla looked at her watch and said, "I think the first flare occurred precisely one hour after sunset, one hour to the minute. And I think the next two flares were spaced two minutes apart." They waited another five minutes in silence without observing another. Carla finally answered Sandra's question. "I'm hoping it's not a trap." Sandra nodded and briefly touched Carla's shoulder in a sign of friendship. "I'm hoping that too." Meanwhile Sandra's mind was thinking furiously about the time and distances involved between their campsite and the central island. Sandra considered their campsite to be the one obvious spot in this insane world for them to live. On the high rocks above them were acres of delicious food growing in obviously planned terraces, a great contrast to the wild forest below. And there was a running stream here full of sweet water, plus shallow caves with small window-like holes in the front face that provided pleasant light in the daytime. It was an immense relief that the holes were too small to admit the predatory cats. The shelter was a key asset that made their survival possible. The only other choice to stay was the strange set of rooms at the entrance point to their world at the opposite end of the cylindrical sky. But that place though wonderfully secure had a deadly flaw. There just wasn't any food there. And roundtrip it was more than a hundred kilometer hike between the two ends of the world. The safety of the strange rooms just wasn't worth the danger and the effort of the trips to get there. Time and distances ... Fifty kilometers round trip to the river bank near the central island and the tantalizing boat dock and great pale-yellow building. And the time! At least there was lots of daylight now. They were approaching fifteen hours of daylight between sunlight and sunset, a great contrast to the eleven hours they had when they first arrived here less than two months ago. The two months were nightmare times, and they had started so innocently. One single mistake, so easy to make, so innocent, so logical, and it had turned so irreversible and deadly. Their mistake had been to attempt to go home without appreciating how bizarre their situation had become. They had let the door close behind them as they left the lounge sometime after midnight, the day after arriving at the party. They were all walking around in a dreamlike daze, unfocused with everything except for their sexual needs. And in their innocence they had let the door close behind them. That's all it took. And after that their doom was sealed. Sandra remembered how bewilderment slowly turned into panic as her group walked the great circumference along the second floor corridor. And then their panic was swept away by a second wave of sexual fantasy and release. Sandra shuddered as she remembered it. She remembered everything so vividly, the utter release of inhibitions on sexual desire, how she had begged Patrick to mount her and his wild eagerness for her. How silky his penis had felt when he slipped inside her. Patrick! She didn't even know him! Oh, the embarrassment and apologies that occurred the following morning. Everyone was in a daze. As a group they decided to delay discussing what had caused the breakdown in their morality and just find a way out of the insane loop of corridors. They soon found there were only two options to leave, and they were both at the opposite end of the loop from the lounge. There was an incredibly long staircase descending far below ground, and there was an exit door at ground level by some ivy leading to a really awful walkway made of razor-sharp black cobblestones. In spite of the sharpness of the stones, the stairs down went so deep it was frightening, and their choice seemed obvious. Two young women who were obviously close friends went outside first to look around. One of them was curious how the ivy could look so dense and healthy in such cold weather, and she bent down and plucked a leaf. That's all it took to turn bewilderment and panic into pure horror. The woman was engulfed in vines within seconds, and then so was her friend who bravely came to her rescue. The two women were torn apart with blinding speed, and Sandra never even knew their names. She never even knew their names... A half hour later they chose Patrick to lead them. He died two days later on Christmas Eve, sacrificing himself during their group's first encounter with the big cats. Sandra became the next leader and held the position until she was dethroned in a coupe by Derrick on the morning of January 9th. That was a little more than five weeks ago. "Ah, time," thought Sandra now as she stood with Carla in the darkness. "Even the time is strange here." The days were progressing so strangely. True, the insane world was artificial. Carla was right. From insanity, you can imply anything. But still, why have the bottom drop out of the predawn twilight and not the evening? When they first came here, sunset was around 6 PM and sunrise a little before 7 AM. Now sunset was a little before 7 PM and sunrise about 4:15 AM. It was Carla who had pointed out recently that the correct way to think about this was that solar noon was gently drifting back in time, probably by a little less than a minute each day. The linear sun would be directly overhead a little earlier each day. Why did the makers of this impossible sanctuary add such a drift? But then again, the sanctuary itself was impossible. Therefore its existence was insane to contemplate. But its existence was also irrefutable. In the end, the women had to accept what their senses perceived. So where did that leave them? It left them surviving by their raw will to live. They lived now in the world that was challenging them in ways that they had never been challenged before in all their comfortable lives. Sandra had never felt so alive. All her senses seemed sharper, her reflexes faster, her very mind clearer and more decisive. And through all the changes and horror, Sandra wondered if she would be able to hang on to the better part of her humanity, her compassion and nobility. It was still an open question. On her darkest days, she struggled to remember their importance. "Are you thinking of going yourself?" Carla's question pulled Sandra out of her thoughts. "No. It's a fifty kilometer journey round trip, more if the expedition had to make detours around the cats. I'd never make it, not yet anyway." Sandra sighed and sensed her left foot. The last month had been so difficult. Several days before his death, Derrick had ordered Sandra to lead a party and hunt one of the small wild boars they could occasionally see in the deep forest. Their weapons were simple spears, tree branches sharpened with the knives they had taken from the strange kitchen at the entrance to the world. The hunting expedition had ended in disaster. They had expected the pig to flee. Instead the small boar had turned on them with an incredibly vicious attack, slicing open the bottom of Sandra's left foot with its teeth before escaping and giving Roxanne a deep puncture wound in the gut with its tusks. Over the next week Sandra and Roxanne worried dreadfully about the mortal risk of infection. Through luck or fate or divine providence, Sandra survived but Roxanne did not. She died an agonizing death on the first of February, two and a half weeks after receiving her injury. Sandra turned now to Carla. "But we still need to investigate this. Carla, would you be willing to lead an expedition?" "Me?" "Of course. You're the best person in our group in terms of wilderness experience, and I'm not holding any grudges with what happened with Derrick. What do you think Carla, an expedition with half our group?" Carla sighed and answered, "Yes. For a trip of that length, it would be useful to have six people with spears." She paused for a moment. She hated depleting Sandra's home force so severely, but in the forest, her defenses against the cats would be much more effective with the higher number. "Can I pick my teammates?" She paused again. "Will you be okay, holding the fort with only four people?" "Five," answered Sandra. "My foot's feeling much better this week." She smiled at her subordinate in the dim artificial starlight. "And yes, you can pick whomever you want. Start before dawn. Give yourself as much daylight as possible." Carla nodded absently and stretched. "I know the people I'll take. I should tell them. We need to prepare and then get as much sleep as possible. We'll leave before 4 AM. Who's on guard duty tonight?" "Thara and I." "Ah yes. Well, can you wake me at three?" "Sure. Get some rest Carla, and good luck." Carla nodded and then on impulse did something that surprised the both of them. She leaned over and kissed her leader's cheek. ------- Chapter 56 The next day. Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019 10:40 AM Old Earth Time: Saturday, February 16, 2019 9:49 AM EST They were approaching the river at an angle, heading directly along the short direction of the sky. Carla gave a small shrug as she expertly scanned the trees ahead against possible ambush. Then she turned and got brief nods from Oona and Abit, two native Abenaki Indian women who along with Carla were in their senior year at the University. Their nods signaled their concurrence that the immediate path ahead was safe, and they moved silently as they rotated with Carla to take the point position. Carla fell back and guarded the rear with her eyes, quick flashes to the trees and brush. This was dangerous territory. They were getting close to the river, the prime hunting area for the cats. To let down their guard here would be unthinkable. It wouldn't be long now, one kilometer maybe to the shoreline, maybe a bit more to get to the shore point closest to the island. They had made excellent good time in the hills, breakneck time in fact, especially considering the fact that many of their shoes were falling apart. They had all come to this strange world dressed for a party, not for a two-month wilderness expedition. The long-term issues of clothing and especially footwear were critical concerns. A wounded foot could be lethal if it became infected. Carla had pushed her team as fast as it could go, and they had started their journey as much before sunrise as they dared. But the flares last night had inspired an eagerness Carla hadn't seen in two months. No one was complaining. And Carla had to grin at her current role. She was the only Caucasian in her group. Besides the two Abenaki, she had also taken all four of their group's Hindu women, Parni, Sachi, Suvarna, and Tajana. Over the last two months, these four women had practiced relentlessly to become the group's primary response team against an attack by the cats. To have all four of them on this mission was a choice beyond obvious. The Abenaki were the group's two best trackers and observers. Carla perhaps had the best military survival training, but she also had enormous respect for the Indian women's abilities to read and understand the wild terrain. Oona and Abit were first cousins, born in the same month and year and almost on the same day. Their parents had named them as a pair after an ancient tribal legend. The two women were unabashedly proud of both their local tribal ancestry and their great Algonquian heritage, and they had learned their native traditions and skills extremely well. Very early this morning when discussing which woman to take, Sandra in a gesture of support for Carla offered that she take both. That left only four people back at home, Sandra, Thara, Amy, and Margaret. It was a minimal force to leave behind, but Carla agreed with Sandra that it would be adequate. The only entrance into their primary cave was a short twisting hole that a full-grown cat would have trouble passing even when undisturbed, let alone with four spears waiting for it on the other side. There was ample food stored in the cave, an internal trickle of water, and regardless the cats were opportunistic assassins. Oona and Abit were as convinced as Carla that staging a siege just wasn't in the big cats' playbook. At twenty-five years of age, Carla was older by three years than anyone else in the group. She was a senior at the University majoring in criminal justice. Carla was also a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps. She had won her double chevrons after two year-long tours of duty overseas, and it was with a great deal of pride that she expecting to complete her four-year active-duty enlistment in the spring. Her hope had been to apply to the Vermont State Police Academy after getting her bachelors. Was that dream still alive? The unexpected question made Carla pause as she scanned a side cluster of trees. In her heart, the answer was no. Her memories of her family, her career, the causes of all her comrades in arms, of everything in her former life, in her heart she knew she would never see them again. The reality of the new world around her was simply too extremely different for it to ever connect back to her old life. Carla had no hope of returning. Her only desire was to one day perhaps learn how the realities of the two worlds had touched even once, the day she accepted such an innocent looking invitation to come to a party. Oona and Abit were walking slightly ahead of the rest of the group. Oona raised her left arm and clenched her fist. The whole team immediately froze. Carla silently slow-walked to Oona's and Abit's position. Oona pointed to some trees and then to nearby leaves showing the direction of the wind. Carla nodded her understanding and approval. With their defensive abilities, Oona's desire for a detour was probably unnecessary, but it would keep them downwind of a prime possible ambush site on their left. This last kilometer would be slow going, but within the thick forest, reckless speed could be lethal. Carla made two additional hand signals, one for gratitude and then another for permission for Oona to alter course. The team continued their journey. Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019 11:27 AM Old Earth Time: Saturday, February 16, 2019 10:36 AM EST Jada was walking alone, orbiting the 600-meter perimeter of their small island and making frequent scans of the opposite shorelines with her binoculars. The linear sun had been up for more than six hours now. Midway between two of the island's six vertices, Jada scanned for a moment and then moved on in a clockwise direction. The next face of the hexagon would contain the boathouse. She paused for a moment to admire the island. What a paradise! This place was as nice as a home complex, even nicer in some ways. The mini-mall was so close! Everything they needed was here, except in the one critical area of communications. That was so strange. They had worked for hours yesterday at the library console trying to unlock their Leophone. If only Lynn or Akiko were here, perhaps they would have succeeded, but who could have foreseen this kind of problem? Jada grinned at the budding romance between Tom and Madison. They had stayed up late last night with the Leophone and deserved to rest, but instead of napping now, after breakfast they had locked eyes in the great building's lounge area and had stayed that way ever since. If they were still locked, it would now be over an hour. Jada sighed and remembered the first time when her link with Emily became open-ended, when their trust for each other was so complete that there was no limit, no hiccups no matter how long they shared their thoughts. And during a group conference call a few days ago, Brandi and Charles had announced they could maintain an open-ended link. An excellent benchmark, Jada thought, for couples to achieve before publicly declaring commitment. Jada stretched and looked up at the sky as she turned the northwest vertex. Just about one hour before local solar noon she thought. That was when the linear sun would be directly overhead. Such a strange world. There were so many issues that her team needed to be addressing, but Jada had no intention of disturbing the two young lovers under her command, at least not until lunchtime. A flicker of motion caught Jada's eyes a few seconds after she rounded the vertex. With the side wall of the large boathouse a mere thirty meters in front of her, she turned to the river and raised her binoculars. A few seconds later she gasped. People! Lots of people! Six, no, maybe even seven! Several were jumping up and down and trying to attract her attention. Jada waved frantically and then ran to the boathouse. In less than a minute, she was back out and on the left dock, planting the large flare rifle and jerking down hard on the barrel. A bright diamond of light appeared in the cloudless sky a moment later. After a final wave, Jada ran back through the boathouse and towards the central building to gather her team. Less than ten minutes later, Carla's team saw four kayaks leave the docks. Oona and Parni, the two women with the sharpest eyesight, were sharing the binoculars and reporting what they were seeing. "All four people are coming here," announced Parni, "three women and one man. The boathouse looks deserted." "Maybe these four are all that's there," suggested Sachi. "Did you see how excited that first woman got when she saw us? How they all were?" "Almost as excited as we were," replied Carla dryly. "My point Carla, is that if there were more people on that island, I think they would have come out to see us. I'm guessing the island is uninhabited now except for these four." The shore team watched in silence as the four kayaks moved across the water. Somewhat of a surprise to Carla, the boats did not come straight at them. First they headed downstream over two hundred meters. The boats were soon about a kilometer away, so far that Carla thought they might not be coming to their position. But before she could explore that horrible thought further, all four boats made sharp turns to port and then headed directly for them. When they were two hundred meters away, Oona handed the binoculars to Sachi and said with a frown, "They paddle this river extremely well, as if they owned it, the man and one of the women in particular." "If they are the owners of this world," replied Abit darkly, "they have a lot of explaining do to. Seven people have been killed!" Carla eyed her two Indian companions askance. "Will you two knock it off?! We can't afford to blow this meeting, especially over a misunderstanding!" "Carla's right," added Sachi as she looked through the binoculars. "And you know what they say about first impressions ... Hey, wait a minute! The man paddling the kayak, I recognize him! He was one of those awful frat boys from the tunnel!" "What?! Here, let me see," said Parni as she grabbed the binoculars and took a long look. "My gosh Carla, she's right! This guy is a dead ringer for one of the guys in the tunnel!" "Do you think he belongs to Kappa Alpha?" asked Suvarna. "I think they mentioned some other fraternity in the tunnel, but maybe it was all a ruse!" Carla gave a loud humph voice. "People, shut this down! Friendly thoughts only, that's an order!" A few moments later the Jada's team approached the shore. About forty meters out, Jada stopped paddling and looked closely at the people waiting to meet them. She had been expecting joyous shouts and waves, desperate people gleeful over their rescue. Instead she saw a group of seven people watching her group very quietly. The situation made Jada pause. The rest of her teammates also stopped off her bow, Tom to port and Mandy and Madison to starboard. What followed was an awkward silence. Tom finally decided to break the ice. "Ahoy the shore!" he called out. "Ahoy the boats!" one of the women called back. "My name is Carla. Who are you?" Jada answered for them all. "My name is Jada. I'm in charge of this team." She pointed with her arm. "This is Tom, and this is Mandy and Madison. Madison and I are survivors of Party #1. Tom and Mandy are from Party #5. We're not sure, but we think you're from Party #2, Great Balls of Fire. Is that correct?" Several of the women on shore looked visibly shaken by Jada's response, and Carla replied at once. "Yes, correct! You don't know how glad we are to see you!" A moment later Jada and her team came ashore. What followed was a brief and intense discussion, sprinkled with frequent pauses for fierce hugs. Several members of Carla's team couldn't stop themselves from laughing at the riches of the central island described by Jada's group. The rescue team quickly learned of the existence of four additional Party #2 survivors, at the end of the river these people were calling the Missisquoi, an Abenaki word meaning "crooked river." Very soon after they landed, Tom and Mandy left and returned to the island, carrying notes on the shoe sizes of all eleven survivors of Party #2. It was one of their most critical needs, and Carla had told them of her commitment to return to her society's home base tonight and tell Sandra and the others of their rescue. Chatting with Jada and Madison while the others got the supplies, Jada made the offer that Tom should accompany them. Carla had noticed he was armed and accepted immediately. His gun would be an incredibly priceless asset on the return trip. The people on shore could soon see three kayaks approaching them, Tom and Mandy and a third kayak in tow loaded with supplies. New backpacks and boots and clean and wonderful outdoor clothes, what a luxury! Carla could hardly believe her ears. Were these people really saying there were stores in the basement of that pale yellow building, including an Eastern Mountain Sports?! In a very short period of time, the gear was unloaded and it was time for Carla's team to return home. The time was just past local solar noon and Carla was adamant about making it home before sunset. Tom would fill Carla's group in on many details on the way back. With the five kayaks here, Abit and Oona would return with the Jada's team and head back to the island. There was a final round of goodbye hugs and then it was time to separate. Jada saw Carla eyeing Madison's gun wistfully and Jada looked Carla in the eyes requesting a lock, and for an instant one formed. Carla had previously told Jada about being a U.S. Marine, and her desire for a gun was so pure and appropriate that Jada make a snap decision. "Yes, of course you should have it," Jada thought in the link. Carla's head snapped back in a hiccup so large she almost vomited. She stood for a moment gasping for breath and looking very confused. Jada turned to Tom and locked eyes. "My God Tom! These people don't know about linking!" "Maybe I should try to tell them on the way back to their camp." "You might want to wait until you reach it. The news is going to hit them like a ton of bricks!" Tom thought back the pictorial image of a nod and then politely disconnected from the link. Jada's mind returned to normal time. Carla was staring at her and said with hesitation, "I'm sorry, but did you just offer me Madison's gun?" Jada nodded. "Maddy, hand it over, the extra clip too." Madison complied without hesitation. "There are fifteen rounds in the clip that's loaded," she told Carla. "The spare has thirteen rounds." Carla took a moment to give the weapon a brief but very professional inspection, checking the safety and the fact that a round was already chambered in the breech. "Oh boy, two pistols. The caliber is a little light to use against the cats, but oh boy, you don't know how good this feels." She paused for a moment. "Thank you for the trust. You've given us both your guns." Jada nodded. "Oh, our island is safe enough. Take a flare rifle too. Tom brought over a dozen flares. We have a second rifle back at the island, and more flares too." At 12:43 in the afternoon, Carla's group started for home. Her group was equipped with new boots and wonderful backpacks filled with supplies, food and vitamins and even a large first-aid kit. Her group of six took off in very high spirits and confidence. Carla had to remind her team that they would still not challenge the cats if a confrontation could be avoided. But even she was grinning with optimism. Jada's team of five headed back quietly to the island. Oona and Abit had both kayaked in the rivers and lakes around Burlington and they were quite proficient with the boats. Not as good as Mandy perhaps, but they made the sharp turn out of the current to the boat docks more smartly than either Jada or Madison. It wasn't long after 1 PM that they were all safely back at the island and hauling their kayaks into the boathouse. The two cousins had been quiet for most of the trip, and the other women gave them time to adjust to their new situation. It was after the boats were secured that the two women finally began to get chatty. They all walked out of the boathouse as a group of five, and Jada asked if they'd like to circle the island before going inside. Abit and Oona quickly agreed. "This is so strange," Abit commented as they walked. "The water is so cold here. The spray from the paddles was freezing." "And the current is so swift," added Oona. "A drop in temperature from the shore I can accept, but the current is truly bizarre. The Missisquoi is so wide here. The current should be at a minimum." Madison nodded. "Yes, you're right. We have a model of a vertical loop of water, perhaps even rolls of water spinning downstream, powered by God knows what. We were planning to test if there's a return current deep underwater, but we haven't gotten to it yet." Madison paused. "May I ask? Who first called the river the Missisquoi?" Abit sighed. "I did. I remember it well. It was the morning of Christmas Eve, the day after we first left the safety of the strange rooms. It was our first big excursion day." Madison looked out over the river. "I used to call this river the Mississippi, but you guys named it first. I will call it the Missisquoi too." Oona commented on her cousin's earlier remark. "The rooms at the entrance to Wobanakik were safe enough, and the shower facilities were nice too. But there was absolutely no food there, and by Christmas Eve we hadn't eaten in three days. We had to abandon the safety. Patrick was in charge. He died in the late morning." Mandy nodded. "Carla mentioned a little about how that happened." Abit answered in a quiet voice. "Yes. We were so naïve then, so inexperienced. A cat attacked. Patrick charged it with a stick and a rock and that gave us time to run away. Looking back, if we had all fought, we probably could have driven the cat off. But in the terror of the moment..." "It was not your fault," Jada said gently. Oona sighed. "I tell myself that sometimes, but I really don't believe it. I'm ashamed of my lack of courage. One thing for sure, it won't happen again. Abit and I have sworn to each other. Upon the honor of our tribe, we will never flee from the cats again. We owe Patrick at least that much." Mandy tried to change the conversation. "Abit and Oona, I've never heard those names before. They're very pretty." Abit gave a small chuckle. "Our fathers are brothers. We were born almost on the same day. Our parents decided to name us after an old Abenaki legend, very ancient. It's vaguely similar to the story of Cinderella." Mandy smiled. "Oh yeah? So which one of you is Cinderella?" Abit chuckled again. "The analogy is not exact. In the Abenaki legend, a plain girl shows her bravery by going to another tribe and seeing a young man who is invisible to everyone but his sister. The plain girl proves she can see him by correctly telling his sister that his shoulder harness is made of a rainbow." "Ah..." "But that's not Oona or I. In the legend, we are the plain girl's evil step-sisters!" Mandy laughed. "Oh wow! Your parents named you after the evil step-sisters, huh?" "Yep!" Abit then turned to Jada and became more serious. "I recognize you from the University, from the swim competitions. You're Jada Horowitz." Jada nodded. "Yep, that's me." "You deserve to know then. Two members of your swim team were here, the twin dynamos." Jada gasped. "The Benning sisters were here?!" Abit nodded. "Their deaths were tragic." Oona spoke up. "Not just tragic. They were unnecessary." Jada shivered and gave a deep frown. "What happened?" "After Patrick was killed, we elected Sandra to be our new leader. That lasted about three weeks. During that time we make one and half complete revolutions around the world, staying in the highlands to avoid the cats. Sandra decided the caves at the end of the Missisquoi were the best place for us to be. Our footgear was wearing out, and the caves offered us a place to survive." Abit picked up the story. "Our stay at the caves there was short. Derrick demanded a new vote for leader, and promised us a more active campaign to escape from Wobanakik." Madison blinked. "Yes, you mentioned that name before. From where?" Abit smiled. "Ah, forgive me. Of course you do not know. My cousin and I named both the river and the world. Wobanakik means, place of the dawn. My cousin and I decided to create a new Abenaki legend, a story of a great cave where the dawn goes to sleep after its morning work." Abit's smile disappeared. "My cousin and I voted for Sandra. We thought her path was correct. We needed to act with patience. Amy was Sandra's close friend by this time and voted for her too. All the others voted for Derrick." Oona spoke up. "It was a difficult week. In one week we hiked almost another full revolution around Wobanakik. Derrick was getting very moody and authoritarian." Abit added. "Not just authoritarian. Derrick was petty. He began to pick on Sandra, always assigning her the dirtiest jobs." Oona continued the narrative. "One day we spotted a wild boar down in the deep forest. Derrick ordered Sandra and Roxanne to hunt it. My cousin and I tried to complain how foolish this was and were almost disciplined. To spare us Derrick's discipline rite, Sandra and Roxanne agreed to the hunt. It ended in disaster. Things were very tense after that. Our group almost tore itself apart. And rather than accept the fact he was a poor leader, Derrick marched us down from the foothills to the edge of the Missisquoi, very close to the very spot were we met. He proclaimed he would swim to the central island and he ordered the Benning sisters to accompany him." Jada cried out. "But the river is freezing here! We've taken measurements, 6C around the island! No one can swim in that, not without a wetsuit!" Abit nodded sadly. "And we had no idea about that. It was the 18th of January, and it was an unusually warm day. The water at the shoreline was cool but swimmable, we were guessing about 20C. It wasn't just Derrick. The Benning sisters didn't particularly want to go, but they didn't think the swim would be dangerous either. It was only about eight hundred meters through calm water." "And they just didn't make it," whispered Madison in a guess. Oona sighed. "We watched them die. We were so helpless. They got very near the island and then were caught by a current. They seemed to have a very hard time leaving it." Mandy nodded. "We've noticed that too. The current flows into its center, not just downstream, almost as if there were two convective rolls of water turning and pulling everything into the center path. It's great when we're kayaking and wanting to go downstream. We just find the current and the boats steer themselves." Jada shivered. "But for a swimmer, the river is deadly. The current traps you in the center of a super cold flow, 10C along most of the river and 6C around here. So all three drowned?" Abit was glum but tried to finish the story. "The Benning sisters were better swimmers and were out in front. As they neared the island, one of them started flailing, slapping her arms on the surface of the water and we think calling for help. From our distance, we couldn't tell who was who, but the other sister swam to her. They both struggled for a moment and then they both went under. They never resurfaced. It happened as quickly as that." Oona added, "Derrick was in trouble too. He was close to the women by this time but did not attempt a rescue, which was the correct decision. But perhaps the coldness dulled his brain. We think he tried to rest for a moment before swimming back, and the current pulled him as he floated into its central part. It happened very quickly, before he realized the danger. He died a moment later." Madison's eyes went wide. "Uh, did you say this happened on the 18th of January?!" Abit answered simply. "Yes." Madison turned to her leader and spoke in an excited voice. "Jada! Don't you see?! A man and two women dying on the 18th! We thought it was Mark and Frida and Toshi!" Abit was puzzled. "You know when people have died?" Jada was lost in her thoughts for a moment, remembering her husband's disappearance and feared death after his great battle with Party #5. She finally turned to the Indians and nodded. "Yes. Let us tell you about the census counters..." The time passed quietly. It was such a fine day, the five women completed their perimeter walk and then sat on the grass and chatted near the boathouse in a small garden of edible wildflowers. An unspoken understanding seemed to develop between the old and new arrivals at Wobanakik. The new arrivals had sad news that none of them could ever return to Earth, and they wished to become friends with Oona and Abit first so that they could better comfort them in their loss. Oona and Abit both felt profoundly grateful for the kindness. And the two cousins thought as much to each other, briefly linking and sharing their feelings. Jada gasped. She was too skilled with sharing thoughts not to recognize what she was seeing. "So you DO know how to link!" "What?!" Oona answered in a half shout, and her cousin looked bewildered too. "I'm talking about mind linking. What do you call it?" Jada stared at Oona and offered to link. Oona half tried and then hiccupped in rejection. The next half hour was a time of revelations. Abit and Oona had discovered their ability to share their thoughts about a week after coming to Wobanakik, lying under their winter coats together at the break of dawn and sharing their warmth against the last of the bitter cold night air. For the first day they were too stunned to speak, and afterwards they feared they would be condemned for hiding their power. And their fears were deeper than just against a condemnation. They assumed the power was theirs alone, ancestral myth and reality merging into a true nightmare. If discovered, they thought they would be judged monsters. They feared being ostracized or worse. Jada had seen this fear before, in her husband's thoughts and with her two sister-wives. She told Abit and Oona in great detail her group's struggle with accepting the new ability, including the full details of her sister-wife Toshi capturing Holly in a dream. Abit and Oona listened with rapt attention, a tremendous relief visible in their faces and body positions. Oona plucked a nearby flower and ate it thoughtfully. "So you know what it's like? The power almost drove us mad. The truth of physics and the truth of magic, the two can not coexist. The truth of one invalidates the other. All our lives, Abit and I believed in the truth of science. Our Abenaki legends at their core were parables, our honored ancestors' model for how the universe operated. The legends were our heritage and we cherished them, but in terms of actual belief..." "We were both seniors at the University," Abit said in almost a wail. "We were both modern students trusting the validity of science! And what we were experiencing with Wobanakik, with sharing our thoughts, with this strange land that was like Earth but not Earth ... Tell us plainly, we are ready to hear. This is not Earth, is it?" "No, not Earth," answered Mandy, her eyes offering the Indian women as much compassion as she could. "But it is a beautiful planet though. We have satellite images, back on the surface. It is a beautiful planet, full of promise for us, and we think our Parties are the only ones here. The planet is fully worthy to be our new home, and we have been given a phenomenal amount of resources to get started." "And I can see it in your eyes Mandy," Oona replied. "You have no hope ever to return to Earth, do you?" Mandy shook her head. "No, no hope at all. We will share this with you soon." Mandy took in a deep breath and sighed. "Tell us it's not magic," Abit begged in a whisper. "Oh no, not magic," answered Madison firmly. "But the science displayed here is showing us things Earth scientists would have declared absolutely impossible. Time dilation inside kitchen cabinets, teleportation through elevators, plant life that acts as if it is self-aware..." "The killer ivy!" Madison nodded in sorrow. "We've lost people too, not in our society but others. My brother Mark once used the ivy to kill a group of people that were hunting him and two of his wives." Abit nodded thoughtfully and turned to Jada. "She means you?" Jada smiled. "Almost. Madison is speaking of Toshi and Frida, my two sister-wives." Another thoughtful nod. "Jada, I don't mean to be impolite, but this sounds rather surprising. Your group has adopted polygamy?" Jada nodded. "Oh yes, and the reason is obvious. There are a lot more women than men on this world. The ratio is on the order of ten to one." "What?!" "We'll give you the full details soon. We'll tell you everything. But first..." Jada stretched in the afternoon sun. This really had turned out to be a delightfully pleasant day, and Jada felt grateful for the good fortune. "Come! We'll show you our beautiful home first!" ------- Chapter 57 Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019 3:45 PM Three hours after leaving the river and already half-way home, Carla felt so confident about their situation that she called out a fifteen minute break. They had been jogging along a ridgeline roughly two hundred meters west of the edge of the cylindrical sky, a short gully on their left, and a broad drop on their right to the forest below. Within a few minutes, the four Hindu women drifted away to a spot about twenty meters distant. They sat and chatted while munching on some of their new high-energy food bars. They were also giving Tom and Carla a bit of privacy, something Tom did not fail to notice. He smiled at Carla and said, "You operate a very close knit team. A few subtle hand gestures and they discreetly give you the opportunity to pump some information out of me." Carla grinned back at him as she realized Tom was not offended by the maneuver. "Well, not subtle enough if you picked out my hand signs. But I would like to ask you a few questions. Do you mind?" "Oh no, not at all. That's part of the reason Jada sent me." Carla nodded and felt herself relaxing. Tom was being so honest with her. It reminded Carla of Jada, and how much trust Jada offered her. Carla stretched her tired legs and took a moment to reflect on the forest below. "Wobanakik is a very pretty world, if you don't have to fear it." Tom nodded and joined her enjoying the view. "The surface of the planet is beautiful too. You should see the satellite images." Carla scrunched up her nose. "You have satellite images?" "Better than that. Jada's husband Mark has partial control of an orbiting telescope." "My gosh. How did you people swing that?" Tom sighed. "It's a long story. Much of it isn't even my own. Parties #1 and #5 fought a war..." Carla nodded slowly. "I remember you and ... Mindy?" "Mandy." "Right. You and Mandy were from Party #5, and Jada was from Party #1 and she is in charge. Did Party #5 lose the war? Were you a prisoner?" Tom shrugged. "It wasn't that black and white. Fortunately I never had to fight myself. Another guy named Charles and I surrendered to Party #1. They gave us an opportunity and told us they would forgive us and we accepted. My fraternity ... We enslaved the women who were with us. Many of them were raped. We had a lot to be forgiven for." "My gosh..." Carla squirmed uncomfortably on her rock. Tom saw a question in Carla's eyes and added without thinking, "No, thank God I didn't rape anybody." Carla blinked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get that personal..." Carla felt momentarily confused. She was unsure whether she asked the question or not. She had no clear memory of speaking, but somehow she felt she had asked Tom if he had forced himself on a girl. And his answer! She was looking into his eyes as he spoke, and it was as if she saw straight into his heart for the truthfulness of his reply. That was so strange. It was as if there was no place to hide a lie in what he had just said, no place at all. Carla shrugged off the strange feeling for future analysis and got back to what she wanted to ask. "Tom? One burning question, is getting back to Earth possible?" He shook his head sadly. "I'll tell your group everything this evening, all the details. But no, there's no hope, none at all." "That was my intuition too, but why are you so sure?" Tom's jaw twitched and he whispered, "Sunday December 23, around 6 AM Eastern time, two days after we got here, Earth's sun had a collision with a neutron star." "What?!" Carla had half shouted and she noticed four sets of eyes from her team turn to her. She gave a brief hand gesture that everything was okay and they uneasily went back to their break. Carla sat like stone for a moment and then whispered, "But everything is not okay..." Her eyes were filled with tears and she began to cry. Tom came over and put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her as she softly wept. Her other teammates looked at them in confusion but did not interfere. Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019 3:55 PM Paige and Allison were working a monitor shift at the Hilton Complex and were grinning at each other as they watched their screens. Akiko and Lynn had just announced that they had activated a new Leophone. New kayaks and supplies were already positioned at the bottom of the great stairwell. Tomorrow's rescue mission into the underworld looked like a go! Paige turned back to her monitor screen and her smile slowly fell from her face. Alfonso and Jessica had been guarding Jacob's Bar and Grill. On a typical day, Paige would have guessed the two lovers still had four more hours to go on their twelve hour shift before being relieved by Jenaro and Hernando. The schedule had become routine. Paige would see Diego only briefly in the Mall, perhaps a few times a week, and Ricardo almost never. The other two pairs would rotate shifts at 8 AM and 8 PM. Paige's face twitched as she remembered a scene from an hour ago. She had watched something with Allison and then called Fatima and received permission to delete a video, something they would normally archive. Alfonso had copulated with Jessica while they were on guard duty. It was somewhat embarrassing to watch and also hard not to watch. The actions of the two spoke volumes about what kind of emotional pressure they were under. The two had been orbiting the store and making quick peeks with small mirrors down the mall corridor, just as Ricardo had trained them to do. And then after one series of observations that showed them the usual dull corridor, seemingly be chance Jessica was standing both directly in front of Alfonso and directly away from him. She simply put down her mirror and lifted the back of her skirt, exposing the flanks of her naked skinny rump. That's all it took. Her longtime lover pushed her G-string aside and then unzipped his pants. Jessica bent forward slightly, legs apart ... She jumped a bit when Alfonso entered her, but she seemed to like her fucking once he got started. But her eyes! They never left the freezer which was the back wall entrance into their home complex. And her face ... Paige couldn't get the phrase "terrified rabbit" out of her mind. Here was a woman who had tortured Paige, the one who had driven her to exhaustion when Paige was assigned "pussy-on-the-hoof" duty. Jessica had also laughed when she explored Paige's rectum for nonexistent contraband, and yet, Paige found herself feeling nothing but pity for Jessica's plight. Even her lover's orgasm inside her brought her no peace, just a quick jump for some tissues while Alfonso zipped his pants. And now Jessica was looking terrified that her master had somehow discovered her fornication. Hernando and Jenaro had just entered the store, followed by Diego and then almost shockingly by Ricardo. To her knowledge, all six remaining people at Black Mall hadn't been down in the Mall together since the day Ricardo killed Uno and had the others drag his body into the Mall for disposal. As Paige stared and made sure they were recording, Allison connected Fatima and told her what was going on. It was a particularly fortuitous day that Ricardo had picked to have his entire team down in the Mall. In preparation for their new missions, the Society had no away-missions out on assignment today. Kiyoko and Cassidy who were currently sleeping in preparation for their night shift duty, but for everyone else, within a few minutes they were all watching the unfolding events at various library stations. "Do you notice all five men are armed?" Fatima's voice said over the network to no one in particular. "All five men have guns..." Charles replied with a tone of mild correction. "Uh, Charles, what's the difference?" asked Hannah. "We can't see if the guns are loaded. It would be just like Ricardo to set something up like this, where nobody knows who is really armed and who isn't." "Ah, got it. Thanks." "Yeah, no problem Hannah ... My guess would be nobody except Ricardo is really armed ... Hey everybody, look at this! They're all coming out of the store!" "Emily! Where are you?" It was Fatima's voice over the network. "Your team has a Leophone right now, correct?" "Yes Fatima. Ann has it, and we're both here in the Red Mall Library." "Excellent. Emily, take the Leophone and bike to the trapdoor at Esau's as quickly as you can. Don't do anything there. Just get in position and report back." "I'm on my way. Fifteen minutes..." The last part of her comment was faded as Emily raced from the Library with Ann in close pursuit. Paige wondered why Fatima would ask such a thing. Kiyoko had reset Black Mall's lounge elevator to a new code during Mark's rescue. Anyone in their society could now go there from any active elevator. Ricardo's people were acting very strangely. They all stood in the Mall corridor just outside Jacob's Bar and Grill. They just stood there, talking to each other and pulling out notebooks. Then they stood in front of the store opposite Jacob's and began taking notes." "What the hell are they doing?" Holly asked after a while over the network. "They seem to be taking inventory," Toshi answered. "That's my guess." "But why take an inventory from outside the store?" It was Fatima's voice. "Toshi, where are you?" "Hi Fatima. I'm sitting with Holly in the telecom lab. We're getting a very good view of this. Akiko and Lynn are with us too." They watched their monitors in silence. After about two minutes, the group of six moved to the next store on the outside arc, coming up the spiral in the direction of the hub. Again the five underlings appeared to be taking notes while Ricardo looked on. He idly took a few practice swings in the air. Jessica flinched as the cane came near her ear, but she didn't stop writing. "Fatima," Toshi call out. "I agree. It doesn't make sense to do an inventory like this. Could they be making drawings of the floor plans? Or..." "Or what?" "It's a trap!" came Amber's voice in a shout. "I think they're baiting us!" Fatima's mind flashed back to the day Uno died. As Ricardo and his remaining people dragged Uno's body in the mall, it occurred to several people that someone could take the elevator to the Black Mall lounge and go down and lock the door leading into Jacob's. But when they attempted the transfer, their origination elevator signaled its destination was in use. The obvious implication was that Ricardo had opened the elevator carriage at his home lounge and then blocked the door from closing. Should Fatima order a new attempt now? She sat back in a comfortable chair in her home library at Yellow Mall and considered. If they did the test from an active elevator, it had better be Kiyoko doing the jump, because the transfer would activate Black Mall's elevator, and Fatima had to assume Ricardo knew the access codes to the other lounge locations. Only Kiyoko could deactivate Black Mall's elevator again. "Opinions anyone?" Fatima asked over the network. "Should we attempt to lock Ricardo from the surface?" "If you want to try it," said Lynn, "I volunteer. Akiko is nodding she's willing too. We have a few extra Black Mall mushrooms here, and we can use the new Leophone. Can someone wake Kiyoko up and have her jump here and join us?" "Wait a minute people!" Amber said in an excited voice. "Think! This is probably exactly what Ricardo is expecting us to do!" "But Amber," Paige replied, "we can monitor their presence. We can see everybody in their party. Look, they're moving down to another store now. And the further they move from Jacob's, the safer this is for us." Fatima asked a question. "Amber, are you worried about booby-traps?" "Sure, trip wires, chemical explosives, poisons, something anyway. Ricardo knows the risk he's running. I'm telling you Fatima, I wouldn't even nibble at his bait. Even if we test with the trapdoor, we might set off an explosive. That would tell him we could see his party down in the Mall. Why not leave him guessing about that?" Fatima could find no flaw in Amber's argument. Over the next hour, they watched Ricardo march his team over two hundred meters from Jacob's before Ricardo had them all turn around and return home. Soon there was just Alfonso and Jessica in the Bar again and it was as if the entire excursion had never happened. Allison was sitting by Fatima's side. "Well, that was interesting. Want me to tell Emily to head home?" Fatima nodded. A few minutes later Emily and Ann were traveling a half kilometer to the trapdoor that led to the White Mall lounge. It was their quickest way home. "What do you think Allison," Fatima asked. "How is this situation going to evolve?" "Well, if I were Ricardo, eventually I'd see surface exploration as the only way out of my box. He could lock two people down in the Mall semi-permanently, just to prevent us from snapping a lock on Jacob's. And he'd have to leave somebody upstairs in the home complex, just to let him back in when he returns. That's probably the one problem he doesn't have an answer for, the one thing that keeps him from roaming." Fatima nodded. "That's my analysis too. The only thing preventing him from exploring the surface is how to force the people in the home complex to let him back in." "He needs some kind of a doomsday device." "Huh? I'm not familiar with the phrase." "Oh, you know Fatima, a doomsday device, like I infect you with a deadly disease, and I'll give you the antidote after you let me back in." "Oh hell. Well, fortunately I never saw any of the stores in the Mall selling plagues." Ann shrugged. "I'll tell you one thing. Amber is really worried about Ricardo, afraid he'll figure some way out of this." There didn't seem to be anything left to say. After a moment Ann patted Fatima shoulder and got up to help with dinner. Meanwhile, in the northwest foothills of Wobanakik... Carla offered Tom her hand and helped pull him up a steep ledge. A few minutes later he had a chance to return the favor. "Thanks," Carla said as she smiled at him. Tom smiled back and then glanced at his watch before continuing the hike with her. Carla squinted at the linear sun. "What time do you have?" "5:10." "Huh?! Oh, wait a minute. You people are on a different time, right?" "Yep. I picked up this watch a while ago in the mall I was telling you about. It jumps over the time from 11:59:07 PM to midnight. It's the right watch for down here too." Carla nodded. "Because otherwise solar noon drifts backwards. We've noticed that." They walked together for a while. Tom almost lost his footing once and Carla caught him in a friendly embrace. "Careful." "Yikes. I'm usually not this clumsy." Carla grinned and gave his arm a brief pat before letting go. "Oh, it's not you. It's the light. This time of day, it gets very bright here in the western foothills. The sun is so close and it's so diffuse! I never realized how useful shadows are in bright light. It's the one thing I hate about Wobanakik, the lack of crisp shadows." Tom nodded as he shielded his eyes against the bright rocks. "Yeah. Everything looks washed out now. It reminds me of skiing moguls on cloudy days near dusk. You know the moguls are there, but you just can't see them." "Tom, can I ask you a personal question?" "Sure." "How hard was it for you to cope with the end of Earth?" "Ah ... It wasn't easy. I had to rearrange everything." He took another few steps. "There's missing everybody who was important to you. That's hard. And then there's stamping cancelled on all your expectations. There's new stuff to hope for, that helps of course, but you have to say goodbye to all the things you were hoping for in your old life ... Carla? You were a U.S. Marine, right?" "How did you know that?" Tom blinked. Jada had seen much in her brief mind-link with Carla, and she had shared her information by linking with Tom a few seconds later. Tom hated the thought of misleading anyone, but he also agreed with Jada that the trail was not the place to talk about mind links, so he said simply, "I learned it from Jada." "You did, huh? I guess maybe Abit and Oona told her. A bit surprising, but I never asked them not to." Tom persisted. "Being a U.S. Marine, what was it like?" "It was a tremendous amount of hard work, physical and mental. You wouldn't believe the volume of material I had to memorize just to complete boot camp. Why do you ask?" "No particular reason ... Actually, I was sort of curious, with your background, why aren't you in charge?" "Ah ... Well, you answered my personal question. I guess I should answer yours. My first couple of days here, I was kind of out of it. It took me longer to recover from the mind drug than most of the other women. It really was a shocking loss of morality. And by the time I could think clearly again, Patrick was in charge and he was doing a good job. I didn't have any particular desire to overthrow him." Carla walked for a while in silence and then added, "I'll tell you the whole story. It was late morning on Christmas Eve. We were about two hours into our first big excursion into the forest. Suddenly people started screaming and running. There was a monstrous tiger-looking thing charging us and everybody else except Patrick was running away." She paused for a second to step over a wobbly rock. "But Marines are trained to run TOWARDS the battle, not away from it. I ran towards Patrick without thinking. It was almost an automatic reflex. I picked up a rock along the way." Carla gave a big sigh. "So fast! The cat got to Patrick first. He tore half his neck open in an instant, not from a bite. It used its forepaws and claws, incredible power. Patrick wasn't decapitated but not far from it. The cat turned to me and growled. I froze. All I had was a rock in my hand, standing about twenty meters away." Carla shivered. Tom said very gently, "Since you're still alive and telling me this story, I deduce you did not throw the rock." Carla shook her head. "I backed off. Patrick was my comrade in arms, and I let the cat take his body." "Carla..." "Oh, I know. I've talked about this with Abit and Oona. I'm a hero to them for doing as much as I did. But I'll tell you Tom, backing off, it felt like a really shitty decision. And meanwhile Sandra took charge and got everyone back together into one group. Afterwards a number of people wanted Sandra to lead. I had no objections. She's a very calm person, and I mean that in a good way. Sandra thinks very clearly under stress. I had no objections to letting her lead." Carla took a graceful leap up a large step and turned to help her new friend. She then got back to her story. "After a few weeks our group developed some emotional problems. People were depressed and frustrated. Derrick offered to make me second-in-command the day before he took power. It's a lot of responsibility being on top and having people's lives under you, and I thought Derrick had the right vision for finding a way out of here. It was a huge mistake. I should have listened to the Indians." Tom gestured with a questioning expression to the women ahead of them. Carla smiled and shook her head no. "I meant Abit and Oona. We call these other women Hindu, just to avoid the confusion." "Ah, makes sense." "Yeah." They walked another few steps. "I'm proud to be a Marine," said Carla quietly. "I will always be a Marine, even if I'm the only Marine." "Did you want to make a career of it?" "I was undecided. When I was overseas, my assignment was in ground electronic warfare. That was pretty interesting. I was expecting to graduate this spring. I was leaning towards police work, becoming a State Trooper if I could, but I also had the option of becoming a mustanger." Tom smiled. "A what?" "My C.O. was very interested in getting me to re-enlist. He said he'd offer me OCS on the spot, the moment I got my bachelors." "I know C.O. means commanding officer, but OCS?" "Oh yeah, sorry for all the jargon. Officer Candidate School. That's what a mustanger is, an officer who comes up through the enlisted ranks." Carla sighed. "You're right Tom. All the dreams, there's so much that has to get stamped cancelled." He nodded, and not surprisingly to either of them, they held hands as they continued their journey. ------- Chapter 58 ------- Chapter 59 Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019 10:53 PM "Such decadence!" Oona thought with a big grinning smile. It was her second bath of the day and this one was sheer heaven, naked and submerged up to her neck in a hot bubbly Jacuzzi. It was three hours after linear sunset and she had turned the bathroom's lights to super low and the ceiling to 100% transparency. A full moon was directly overhead and it was bathing the room in beautiful silver light. Oona would normally be asleep this time of night unless she was on guard duty. But the sensual pleasure of this bath was irresistible. Two months of wilderness dirt had finally been separated from her body. Oona wiggled her toes and glanced at a clock in the dimness. Another few minutes, she thought. She turned off the water jets and then floated in the still water, arms and legs stretched out. "It feels so nice to be pampered," she thought. She floated and gazed up at the familiar image of Earth's moon. It was all a fake of course, but damn, it looked good! Oona didn't think she could tell the difference even with a telescope. But the orbital track of the linear sun's silver cousin was absurd. It always tracked the centerline at the top of the cylindrical sky, moving from south to due north, perfectly perpendicular to the east-to-west orbit of the linear sun. And the phases of the moon were random, one night to the next. Oona never knew what to expect. If it came at all, and it did most nights, the moon would always make its appearance at the southernmost tip of the cylindrical sky within three hours of linear sunset and then float north at the pace of a fast walk. The moon would take exactly six hours to move across the forty-six-kilometer length of sky. Tonight a full moon had risen right at sunset and now was directly overhead. The light inside the bathroom was easily bright enough to read a book. "Jada's home really is magical," Oona thought. "Not true magic, everything here is based on science, I know, but still..." Each of the eighteen rooms on the upper level had individual controls for controlling the transparency of the ceiling, and the extreme setting Oona had chosen for the bathroom now had made the ceiling absolutely disappear. It was still there of course. Their beautiful home was delightfully warm. But the ceiling was completely invisible. There were twenty ceiling controls in all, all on the upper level, one for each of the eighteen upper rooms, one for the corridor loop between the twelve bedrooms on the outside and the six public rooms towards the core, and then finally one control for the great core itself, a grand hexagonal sunken courtyard eight meters high and 8.83 meters in length for each of the six sides. Oona floated and remembered Madison's explanation how that distance was determined by the outside hexagonal side length of twenty-four meters dropping a perfect factor of e. So much information! The island home complex was positioned exactly below and was exactly the same size as a place called Hex Hall that was a couple hundred meters above the fake moon Oona was gazing at now. There were eighteen rooms in the living area of this wonderful home, each having generous four-meter ceilings and a more-than-ample sixty square meters of area. There were twelve bedrooms ringing the outer perimeter, and then six public rooms on the inside, a recreation room, a kitchen, a lounge, a library, a hospital area, and finally this perfect bathroom. Each of the twelve bedrooms had a door leading to the outside gardens and a door to the central corridor. Both doors were located near the radial partition wall near the central of the hexagonal faces (the radial walls that were opposite the radial walls at the vertex locations). Each of the six public rooms had a single entrance, a door to the encircling corridor at the center of their outward face. The inward faces overlooked the stone courtyard four meters below ground level, where six bands of ribbon stone completed exactly three revolutions in a exponential spiral. Madison had told Oona and Abit it was a subset of Hex Hall above, where the colored ribbons make 3.5 revolutions. And the six colored bands led to six underground stores, reachable through stairs connecting the upper-level gym area with a CVS Pharmacy below. Each of the six stores had more than 200 square meters of floor area and was brimming with goods, packed all the way up to their four-meter ceiling. Besides the pharmacy, there was an Eastern Mountain Sports clothing store, an Ace Hardware store, and three different food stores. With their strange cabinets that could defy the passage of time, the stores offered enough provisions to last a lifetime. And perhaps they would have to. Jada's group was extremely distressed to learn the results of Party #2's exploration of Wobanakik. After two months of searching, no trace of an exit had been found, and they had searched the northern end intensively, the Black Mall area Jada had hoped would be a prime spot to find a way out of here. Jada's group had stunned the two Indians with the news of Earth's destruction, but Oona and Abit had shocked them back as they described how they might all be forced to live in Wobanakik for the rest of their lives. Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019 11:53 PM Tom was lying on the cave floor trying to get some sleep. The floor wasn't quite as cold as the night air maybe, but it was still chilly. As he drifted in a dream, Tom wondered if the floor was being heated a bit from below. The nearby fields of tasty fruits and vegetables certainly had dirt warmer than Tom would have expected. The air was cold through ... Cold... A hand touched his shoulder. Tom came up from his doze and opened his eyes. Carla was kneeling beside him and she whispered, "I thought I saw you shivering. Your blanket has fallen off. Do you want some company? Not for sex, just for warmth." Tom looked around and noticed all the other women were sleeping in pairs or triplets. He nodded happily and a moment later Carla lay curled and butting back into him. Tom held her with his arm around her waist. Carla gave a deep contented sigh and started to fall asleep almost immediately. "Full moon tonight," she whispered drowsily. "Another two hours it'll be here ... overhead ... very bright, then poof, all gone ... Hmmm..." Tom kissed the back of her sleepy head in reply. It had been a very busy evening. The joy created by their arrival at base camp had evaporated when Tom explained how Earth had met its fate. People were in shock, filled with grief over the deaths of all their loved ones. Tom debated furiously with himself whether to mention the gift of mind linking, and then decided to do it. The news was greeted with skepticism bordering on derision. Not by Sandra through. Tom found he really liked her, a very capable and compassionate leader who was the only person besides Carla willing to try to link with him. In the light of a compact infinite-battery device, both women helped Tom prove to the others that mind-linking was a real phenomenon. Carla made a soft cooing noise in her sleep. Tom had seen her happiness in her eyes earlier, such trust! He could almost open-end link with her, the ability felt very close, and that was something Madison and he had accomplished only this morning after weeks of trying. Well, there was precedent. Tom had heard that Mark and Toshi could open-end link the very first time they tried linking with each other. Such trust, and it there was also more. Carla had dropped all her defenses as she and Tom touched minds, allowing Tom to see a rainbow of unshielded emotions spinning in turbulent complexity. Carla was dancing in her thoughts. "Do you mind if I show you this?" Carla had asked, her mind overflowing with laughter within the link. "I'm feeling a dozen different emotions all at once, timid and excited and I'm probably not making any sense. Do you mind if I show this?!" And then she had hiccupped before Tom could reply. But afterwards she didn't miss the hopeful smile on Tom's face. Tom shifted slightly now, getting more comfortable, his hand resting lightly over Carla's ribs just to the side of her breasts. Tom wondered briefly if Carla felt too thin, but then he remembered she was all agile muscle on the trail. He kissed her again and fell asleep enjoying her warmth. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 2:07 AM Mark was curled up asleep in his bedroom at Blue Mall. Much earlier his hand had spent an hour caressing his wife's pregnant womb, and it was now lying still on Toshi's hip. Frida and Toshi a while ago had decided they liked alternating nights sleeping with Mark alone rather than the three of them sleeping together, and Mark had happily complied. There was a gentle hand touching his neck. Mark opened his eyes and turned. Fatima was there, dressed in a thin robe over cotton pajamas. With a nod of her head, she asked Mark to join her outside the room. Mark glided out of bed, leaving Toshi undisturbed. A moment later he was with Fatima in the corridor. "What's up?" "I got a call from Kiyoko. She's on monitor duty tonight with Cassidy." Mark blinked the sleep from his eyes and frowned. "Black Mall?" "No, the census counter. It just dropped by two, down by two women. I was already awake so I came myself." "Oh. Okay, I'll go now." "I'll come with you." Mark nodded. That made sense. Blue Mall's library elevator was the only one working and that's how Fatima would leave here. They walked together to the end of the bedroom corridor and then down the massive circular staircase to the first level. From there they would walk the hundred meters through the home complex until they reached a library console. "Everybody else asleep?" Mark asked with a yawn as they walked through the multipurpose room Jada liked to call the music room. "I think so," Fatima yawned back. "Earlier Cassidy said Charles was up very late with Lynn and Akiko..." "Hmmm?" " ... in the telecom lab, but I'm sure they must have knocked off by now." "Charles in the telecom lab? What was he doing there?" Another big yawn. "No idea. Working on something I guess." At last they were in the library. As he approached the interface, Mark glanced at the census counter by the elevator and confirmed Fatima's report. The counter was reading 009:083. Mark had agreed with Fatima about this procedure the day after he discovered his access rights to the job-planning portfolio. If there were more deaths later this night and Mark hadn't checked the logs, they would not know the order of the deaths, and perhaps that information would someday be important. Mark had agreed to check the job planning logs immediately whenever the census counter changed. "Both deaths occurred in Party #1," he whispered after a moment of typing. "IDs #1 and #4 are no longer here." Fatima gave a deep sigh and rested her hand on Mark's shoulder. "I feel relieved. Oh hell Mark, why do I feel relieved? We've just lost two more precious lives and we don't even know their names." The question had an answer, but Mark knew Fatima didn't need him to speak it. He sighed in his own relief. His wife Jada was still in the portfolio, along with everyone else in their society. And the deaths had not occurred in Green or Blue Malls, two populations they were hoping were in stable situations. There was nothing left to do. Fatima would return to her current sleeping quarters, her original bedroom in Red Mall. But as she turned to the elevator and home, Fatima was swept by a strong impulse and she turned back to Mark and hugged him. He hugged back. It was pure compassion and comforting affection at first, but as the hug lingered, their hands dropped and they began petting each other's butts. Fatima sighed and whispered. "Sometimes at night, I wake up and realize I just had a sexy dream about you. I was having one tonight when Kiyoko called." They shared a few kisses. Fatima made a soft humming noise and Mark felt the tip of her soft tongue touching his lips. The tongue withdrew before he could decide how to respond. "I should get back to sleep," yawned Fatima, "and Toshi deserves you tonight, not me." "Hmmm," Mark nodded sleepily in agreement. And yet, the warmth and softness of Fatima felt wonderful in his arms, such a perfect fit, as if she always belonged... Mark blinked and looked at her. Fatima's eyes were open, her mind receptive, and a strong link formed immediately. For a long while the link was completely non-verbal, expressions of sexuality and tenderness flowing back and forth without words. "Do you notice Mark?" Fatima thought at last, "How easily our minds are fitting together? I love you." Another long moment passed, the two minds exchanging emotional constructs. Finally Mark verbalized a thought. "Do you really want to wait till next year?" Fatima thought the construct of a sigh. "Perhaps not. You know my desires for you. Let me think about this when I'm not so sleepy." A final kiss, a playful hint of future sexuality as Fatima brushed the back of her hand against his penis as she turned, and then they parted for the night. They were both back to sound asleep a short time later. ------- Chapter 60 Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 5 AM With linear daybreak just moments away on the opposite side of the sky, a dozen people began marching south to what everyone was hoping would be a much better home. The new supplies and especially the new footgear had everyone in very high spirits. After the first hour of uneventful hiking, Carla looked around her group and noticed the only one who wasn't smiling was Sandra. She drifted over and asked if Sandra's injured foot was okay. Sandra replied that the new boots felt fabulous and were making walking as easy as she had hoped. She then pointed to the end of the eastern sky behind them and projected a thought with their new form of communication. Carla received "What's up with the sky?" before both of them disengaged with minor hiccups. Carla turned and saw immediately what Sandra meant. The linear sun had risen on time and was shining with normal brightness, but in the arch of the sky behind them, the northernmost part of the eastern cylindrical sky was slowly losing its blue and turning a dirty gray and yellow. It was a new phenomenon. They had seen many storms in the last two months but nothing quite like this. "Think we can out-walk it?" asked Carla. "Somehow I doubt it," replied Sandra. Carla frowned and agreed with Sandra that they would have to keep an eye on the weather. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 7 AM "Thanks everybody for coming so early," Fatima said as she looked around the conference table at the Hilton. She waved her hand at a breakfast buffet Aggie and a few friends had set up earlier. ""Feel free to get something more to eat if you're still hungry. But I'd like to start the meeting now. As you know, yesterday's events with Black Mall threw off our schedule a bit, and Charles also asked me for extra time to design his rescue mission. Charles, have you finished picking your team?" "Yes. After discussing this with a number of people, I'd like to propose a minimal two-person effort. I have asked Lynn to accompany me and she has accepted." Fatima had to work for a second not to show a negative reaction. She considered Lynn and Akiko priceless assets due to their expertise with telecom technology and so far had kept them off the rosters of the exploration teams. But Fatima decided Charles deserved the right to make his case, and within a micro link she told him her mind was open and to proceed. "Right. Well, my decision is based on maximizing the chance for mission success while minimizing the risk to our society. That's why I want to keep this effort as small as possible. Lynn and I both know how to canoe and can look after each other. I think we'll make a good team. And finally, and this is critical, our problem with Jada's team started when we lost communications. I've listened to the logs. Her team had successfully landed at the island and Jada was describing a peaceful scene outside the boathouse. And then her signal was cut off. I'm betting the problem might be with her Leophone." Fatima replied, "But we're sending a new Leophone. And even assuming you're right Charles, what could Lynn do with a broken Leophone in a wilderness environment?" "Fatima, can I answer that?" asked Lynn. "You're right, I could probably do nothing with a broken Leophone in a wilderness. But Akiko and I are still suspicious of that strange call we got after we lost contact with Jada. It might have come from the underworld, but there's no way to check that out from this end. Also, last night with Charles' help, Akiko and I automated the activation of the new Leophones. You'll get a new active phone about once every two days. Akiko doesn't need me here for that." Fatima turned to Akiko. "Akiko, are you comfortable doing this solo?" She nodded. "And I hope to have a second activation bench working sometime tomorrow. You should soon be getting a new phone every day. Lynn and I have the problem nailed." Fatima thought for a moment and then said, "What about you Lynn? Do you feel comfortable with going?" "I do. I'd also like to add that Akiko is easily my equal in troubleshooting the network. I'm the better choice for Charles only because of my canoe experience." "Look at it this way," Charles said finishing his case to Fatima. "If we send a rescue mission without a telecom specialist and then lose contact with it, what are we going to do? Send yet another team? Eventually we'll have to send either Lynn or Akiko down there to see if the problem is with the network. Why don't we do this now before we have more people down there? And I should also add" "Charles," interrupted Fatima. "It's okay. I agree." Charles shut up immediately. One of his mottos was, when you strike oil, stop the drill. Fatima asked, "How soon can you leave?" Charles locked eyes with Lynn for a few seconds and then both rose from their chairs. He said, "We'd like to leave right now. Lynn and I have finished breakfast. It was great Aggie, thanks a bunch. Fatima, we'll listen to the rest of the meeting on the phone. All our equipment is already pre-positioned at the bottom of the stairwell. Lynn and I will be traveling light and making good time. We'll check in right before we go through the elevator. It should be before noontime." Fatima nodded her approval, and after briefs goodbye hugs with their friends, Charles and Lynn left the room. They would jump to the library at White Mall, then go up to the lounge and begin their 2.5 kilometer hike around the White Mall diamond array before beginning their descent. Fatima moved to the next order of business. Yesterday shortly after the end of Black Mall's strange excursion, Fatima had asked Mark to form a group and discuss the feasibility of turning the tables and having their group bait Ricardo with the goal of trapping his group down in the Mall. Fatima wanted to turn the last five kilometers of the Black Mall spiral into one large prison. Mark looked around the table and shrugged sheepishly. "Nothing really brilliant came up, but I would like to go over a few things. We came up with four possible routes to interact with his group. The most obvious is the elevator system, but even testing with the trapdoor is not without risk. We know zilch about the underlying technology. What if using the trapdoor enough times activates their lounge elevator? We have no evidence of this but what's the proof it won't happen? And that's assuming Ricardo has the carriage unblocked, in which case we may be playing into his hands. I agree with Amber. Yesterday Ricardo wanted us to use the elevator system to get to his home complex. I'm as certain as Amber he had something cooked up for us." "Nevertheless, my study group recommends we begin a test program with the other trapdoor, the one to White Mall. Given the behavior of the elevator at the bottom of the great stairwell, we should test whether the trapdoor works with just cargo or needs a person inside to activate it. We should also do a stress test of at least forty jumps and see if there's any variation in the trapdoor behavior." Mark paused for a moment to take a sip of water. "Route number two is the Mall system. What could we do to get their attention? Fire a flare at them? Roll a bowling ball down the corridor? Amber is worried that if we ignore the possible threat of someone hiding in ambush near the edge of the locked stores, Ricardo will realize we know there's no threat and deduce we can indeed monitor the corridor around his location. And all the scenarios our group considered ran the risk of us being shot at, with almost no possibility of trapping Ricardo in the Mall unless he did something really stupid." "Route number three for contact is to use the library network system. Do we have a chance of catching someone at the console who wants to surrender to us? What's the risk of a double cross, Ricardo turning the tables and baiting us into another trap?" "And finally, route four is using the flares near the Black Mall surface perimeter as a means of communications. We only fired a few outside so far, three kilometers south of the Blue Mall home complex. Ricardo's home was thirty kilometers away and it was daylight at the time. I'm not too worried the flares were seen. But potentially we could use the system at night to send signals to his complex." Mark finished with a shrug. "And that's as far as we got. If somebody has a better idea, let us know." Fatima agreed to the suggested testing of the trapdoor to White Mall, and Holly and Ann volunteered to do the work. Fatima then got to the last item on the agenda. "As you know, Mark checked the job log very early this morning and linked the new deaths of two women to Party #1. We've discussed this scenario before. We will assume all the recent deaths occurred in Red Mall unless the census counter and Mark tell us otherwise. For today, both search parties will target the Red Mall area." Fatima glanced at the time, 7:22 AM. "The sun should be rising at this very moment. Team leaders, assemble your groups and depart as you see fit. Good hunting to us all." A few minutes later Fatima and Mark were the only ones left in the room except for Kiyoko and Cassidy who were still on monitor duty until 8 AM. The two women sat at the other end of the room watching their displays, purposely giving Mark and Fatima a bit of privacy. "So," said Fatima, "do you have your day mapped out?" Mark nodded and stretched. "The interface offered me another two-hour course on orbital positioning. Of course I accepted. After that I'll probably work out in the gym for a while." "Don't tell me, are you still practicing with that sword?" Mark grinned, "Well, maybe a little. It's too beautiful a weapon to resist. Hey, do you want to meet later for lunch?" "Sure, sounds nice. Just be careful with the sword." Fatima hesitated a moment. "Mark?" "Hmmm?" "Are you disappointed with not being allowed to go out on search-and-rescue?" "Oh, I don't know. A little maybe. I see your point about pulling me off the exploration teams. And I'm on call if they need any advice. Still..." "Still?" "Well, it does feel a bit like fighting a war from behind a desk." "Yeah. Tell me about it." "You too?" Fatima nodded. "I think I'm doing a competent job organizing everything, but the experience of being a team leader and leading the expeditions at Yellow Brick..." "It's fun!" "Yeah, it sure is." The two lovers took a moment to link and smile at each other and then it was time to go. They shared an affectionate kiss before going their separate ways. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 8 AM Three hours into their march, Carla called her first major break, a full fifteen minutes of downtime. The troops took off their backpacks and stretched out. Sandra took the opportunity to lie down and stretch out so completely, Carla thought it looked like she wanted to take a nap. Carla walked over and sat down beside her. "Are we half way their yet?" Sandra asked in a quiet voice. Carla replied, "Almost. We're halfway through with the foothills I think, then about another three kilometers to our pickup spot by the riverbank. Sandra, how are you feeling?" "What's our pace?" asked Sandra, ignoring Carla's question. "As the crow flies, we've hiked a little more than eleven kilometers I think, four kilometers an hour for the first two maybe, and a little over three kilometers this last hour. It's good performance, considering the terrain and the mini-breaks we're taking." Sandra gave a deep sigh and closed her eyes. "Hell Carla. I'm the only one without a backpack and I'm slowing everybody down." "Sandra, how are you feeling?" She kept her eyes closed as she gave an honest assessment. "Tired but I still have some energy. My problem is my legs. My muscles are so weak. I just haven't done enough walking this past month." "Sandra, I remember how your foot looked after the boar sliced it open. I have nothing but admiration for what you're doing now." "Carla, If I start to slow down too much, I want you to" "Sandra, if you ever find walking too difficult, just tell us. We'll carry you. We'll use the stretcher if we have to. It'll be an honor, and I really mean that." "Well ... thank you," Sandra whispered. She took a moment to reflect on all their new abilities from the supplies that had come back with Tom. The new gear included a folding stretcher that had come with the first-aid kit. Sandra opened her eyes and the sight knocked her out of her pleasant thoughts. "Oh hell Carla. That sky is something out of a horror movie." The entire eastern half of the sky, from their position and then back northward was filled with a enormous rotating spiral of gray and dirty yellow bands of clouds. The phenomenon had been growing and becoming more organized over the last two hours, and its counterclockwise rotation was now unmistakable. And the air! Wobanakik almost always had a fresh and breezy smell to it, both on the stormy days and in the sun. But now the air felt flat and very still. Sandra was beginning to feel a sense of dread. "Do you think we should turn back?" she asked quietly. Carla thought for a moment and finally shrugged. "I don't know what this is. I've been assuming if a storm breaks, we can bundle together in a gully with our ponchos until the storm blows over, but I don't know what this is. If it is a storm, it seems the worst part of it might break back north. Assuming three-plus hours to get back, I don't know if we'd make it." "Let's move on then. My leg feels better. Let's go now." Carla nodded and called out an order, and after a moment for final stretching and putting on backpacks, the group continued its journey to the south. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 9 AM About eighty minutes after setting off from the Red Mall lounge, the Society's two combined search parties reached a spot that Emily on a previous expedition had nicknamed Water Hole #1. They were now approximately three kilometers south of the home complex in a triangular wedge of a half-sized hexagon, an isosceles triangle fifty meters for each side. The waterhole was one large open area and offered food, bathroom facilities and sleeping accommodations. The two search teams had remained together until now. There were two one-way passages they had passed through to get here, and they would be relying on Emily's command authority to return home at the end of the day. It was Emily's conjecture that at least one and perhaps both groups of people that left It's My Party came through here on or slightly after December 21st. Her key piece of evidence was that some of the time-sealing food cabinets at the waterhole were not completely full. This fit their experience at their home complex and Mall explorations. All the cabinets they had found started out packed to the brim but the servos would not restock depleted goods. As she stood and surveyed Water Hole #1, Emily took a moment to review her analysis. The path to this place provided many alternatives to coming here, but at each junction, Emily thought the route that led to here seemed the more likely choice, either better lit or wider or looking more like the main thoroughfare. Assuming a group of puzzled people trying to head south to a parking lot, Emily had a strong suspicion one or both groups came through here. And since it was a reasonable place to stop, perhaps the people that had left shortly after 6 PM had met up with the original group earlier in the day, the eighteen nurses who had left around 3 PM. What would they have said when they found each other? Emily tried to imagine the scenario. The second group might have arrived here about eight o'clock, after going through four different one-way control gates. Perhaps they even would have tried to prop some of the doors open. It wouldn't have worked. Outside of a home complex, propped-open doors automatically triggered a low-level security alert, and the servos would remove the prop as soon as they could do so unobserved. Emily thought the people winding up here must have been confused and wondering what the hell was going on. And by the time they got here, they would have been heavily involved with the effects of what the Society was now calling the booster drugs. Emily looked about the triangular space. Was this the scene of a sex orgy? Her mind was guessing yes. There were three doors to Water Hole #1, one in the center of each of the three faces. There was the northwest door from which they had entered and two exits, one to the southwest and one due east. Their plan was for Emily's team to explore to the southwest, an area she had named The Wilderness for its extremely high density of one-way passages. Aggie group would head east to an area Emily called The Labyrinth. There were very few one-way passages in this section but it was a 3-D maze of convoluted passages, a true nightmare that would severely test Aggie's team and their ability to chart their position accurately and not get lost. After a few hugs and many brief links of goodbyes, the two teams headed out through the separate doors. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 10 AM Lynn turned to Charles as they reached the bottom of yet another long series of 311 steps. "Time for a little break?" He grinned back. "My knees are saying that sounds like a really good idea. And it's time to report in anyway." They took off their small backpacks and rested on the floor a few meters from the stairs. Charles got out the new Leophone and after dialing for a moment said, "This is bathtub to rubber ducky, bathtub to rubber ducky, come in rubber ducky." A laughing voice answered him. "This is rubber ducky I guess. Before I decide to come in, what's the water like?" Charles recognized the cheerful voice as Hannah's. He was reporting in to the Hilton monitoring station where Hannah and Paige had been on duty since 8 AM. "Well, the water is just fine so far. Lynn and I are at the bottom of flight sixteen, nine more to go. So far the trip has been uneventful. Another hour and a bit and we'll be at the bottom of the well." "Sounds good. I'm entering your progress into the mission log right now." "Is Paige there with you?" asked Lynn. "No, not at the moment. She's next door in the cartographer's room helping Fatima with some of the spatial data from Aggie's team. They had a bit of a scare a few minutes ago." Lynn's eyebrows went up. "Oh yeah? What happened?" "Aggie thought her team had somehow walked into a closed loop with no way out." "Holy shit!" Lynn exclaimed. "Are they okay now?" "Yeah. It was a false alarm. The problem was caused by a large spiral passageway, really huge, maybe about half as large as a standard hexagon. At first they thought it was a double spiral. They spiraled into the center and then spiraled out. But then the path turned around and spiraled back in. Aggie said some people on her team were really nervous. They thought they somehow got trapped on an infinite loop of a double spiral." "So what happened?" "They got the center of the structure for a second time and found a stairwell descending to a basement level. That's when Aggie realized it was really a triple spiral. Why such a maze would ever be built is a real puzzle. But anyway, they walked down the stairwell and are beginning to explore the lower level now. Getting their data for the chart shouldn't take long. I'm expecting Paige to be back here in a few minutes." Hannah paused for a moment as she looked at a monitor. "All's quiet at Black Mall. Alfonso and Jessica went on duty as usual at 8 AM. And oh yeah, I should tell you, after Mark finished another one of his courses, he found a new tidbit of information in the job log. A folder containing the job title of Medical Technician has just moved into a parent folder labeled pending activation. Mark thinks we're about to be offered more employment opportunities." "Wow, that's interesting. Do Emily and Aggie know?" "Yep. They're very happy. They'd much rather have the autodocs operated by people who have gone through better training. Their janitor course barely touched on how to run the units." "Yeah, I remember Emily complaining about that," replied Charles. "Well, thanks rubber ducky. Keep up the good work. This is bathtub pulling the plug on you and signing off." "Yeah, take care guys. Hope to hear from you in an hour." And with that Hannah hung up. Afterwards Charles and Lynn were unusually quiet with each other. They were sitting close to each other, shoulders lightly touching, their legs splayed out directly in front of them. For a moment, they both sat in silence staring at their boots. And simultaneously they turned to each other and linked and both thought the question, "Mind if I ask you a really personal question?" And then they were both so startled by the identical question that they laughed and broke the connection. "Ladies first," said Charles. "No, if it really is my choice, I'd like to hear your question first." Lynn was surprised to see Charles blushing. "Well, okay." Charles offered his eyes again to Lynn and a strong link formed immediately. Lynn was surprised to see Charles' mind in a state of deep turbulence. There appeared to be two questions he was trying to ask, and the questions kept folding in on themselves, making it impossible to understand either. One question seemed to be of major practical importance, and the other... "Charles!" Lynn thought. "Are you asking if I'll forgive you for something?" He thought back the pictorial construct of a nod. "If this is something from the days of Chico, there's no need. You already have my forgiveness for everything that happened then." "I'm still so embarrassed by it. I can't accept your forgiveness if you don't even know what you're forgiving me for." "Oh, very well. Go ahead." Sharp images came flooding into Lynn's mind. Chico had checked her out for several procurement expeditions, forcing her to become hoof-pussy and drag the supply sled clad only in bra and panties and wearing ankle and wrist cuffs. And here now were raw images from her companion's mind when he named himself Chico. So many images! Memories of Lynn's panties clinging to her shapely butt as she muscled the sled back from Mex Grocer's, the rise and fall of her breasts as she labored, and most embarrassing to Charles now, memories of him massaging her feet during some of their breaks. Lynn suddenly understood her friend's shame and projected back the construct for laughter. "Oh wow Charles! You have a foot fetish! Does Brandi know about this?!" "Uh, yeah I guess," he thought back. Lynn's hand slowly came up to caress his cheek as she thought, "Want to know something? Dragging that sled without arch support used to hurt my feet. I actually kind of liked what you did. It certainly made my days less painful." "Still..." "Charles, link deep into my emotions and understand the following: I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you. I had very little fear when I was hoof-pussy when you were leading. It was nothing compared to pulling duty with Gilberto..." A sad and painful memory floated into Lynn's consciousness, and she shared it with Charles. "I think this happened about two days before Toshi was rescued," Lynn thought. She could feel Charles becoming captivated by the mental images she was sharing. "Toshi and Ann and I had just finished lugging a very heavy load of beer to the home complex, and Gilberto and Santos and Fidel were checking us into the pussy barn. Jessica was there and insisted we undergo a rectal exam. Ann went first, and then it was my turn. I was scared to death. Jessica had me bent over and her damned fingers up my butt and I had three men leering at me. Gilberto thought I looked so hot he unzipped his pants and started masturbating right there out in the open." Charles mind was filled with shame. "And I led this. Gilberto reported to me." "Jessica finished with me and moved on to Toshi before Gilberto got fully erect. About halfway through the exam, Gilberto pushed Jessica aside and shoved himself up Toshi's butt. He anal raped her right there in front of all of us. I felt so helpless. And Jessica was just laughing. I think she was hoping this would happen. She kept egging Gilberto on and asking him to be sure to check deep and report anything suspicious. The bitch! Toshi knew she was pregnant with Gilberto's child by that time. I can't imagine what a horror this must have been for her." Charles mind was in turmoil. "Dear Charles, don't you see? I'm telling you this to compare your behavior to what I actually had to fear. Your foot massage actually helped me, and to the extent you thought it was sexy, I forgive you. And you think I have a cute butt? So what? I used to go jogging along the beach with some friends during the summer. We were always catching the boys' eyes with our bikinis." A faint whisper of a thought in reply. "Thank you." Lynn smiled within her mind, her hand by this objective time caressing his cheek. "I'm glad I could help." And then the internal smile turned playful. "And if this matter ever bothers you again, just tell me. I'll keep telling you I forgive you for as long as you want me to." Charles grinned back in mental gratitude. "Okay." "Now what was your other question?" "Do you want to be in charge? I mean until we find Jada." "Oh!" Lynn thought for a moment. "Did you think I might be uncomfortable being under you again?" "Walking down the stairs, the thought finally occurred to me. With all the excitement of the planning, I never considered this might be ... awkward for you." "It's not. And if we get attacked by a Dinofelis or something, I'd much rather jump to your orders than the other way around. Charles, relax! I trust you. Our current setup is the correct one. Now, my turn! Ready for a personal question?" "Yep!" "I was wondering ... And I don't mean for you to break any confidences ... So if I'm prying, just tell me." "Huh? Lynn, what's up?" "I can see it in your eyes, how much you're anticipating seeing Mandy again. You can probably see something similar in me, how I'm looking forward to being with Tom." "Yes, I see it." "I was wondering ... If I may ... Brandi, is she really a girlfriend to both of you? How does that work?" "Ah ... Well, the three of us have known each other since we were little kids. We used to go fishing together in the summers, even before high school, just the three of us. We were pretty close. We never really drifted apart." Lynn thought of a nod for understanding which was also a request to continue. "And eventually we became adults. I guess Brandi would consider me her primary boyfriend, but she also would occasionally want sexual stuff with Tom, and somehow ... This is kind of difficult to explain because I've never really figured it out myself, but somehow I really didn't mind very much. We were a threesome, and if Brandi and Tom wanted to have a sexual part to their friendship, I really didn't want to feel jealous about it. And then we came here." "Yes," nodded Lynn inside her thought. "Then we came here." "Fatima thinks there are so few guys, we'd really be doing our gene pool a favor if women have multiple fathers for their children. Brandi and I have already talked about this. She wants a child from me someday, and one from Tom, and maybe even one from Mark." "Mark?!" "Yeah, through artificial insemination if we can figure out how to do that, or just the old-fashioned way if he's willing. Brandi thinks it would be better to keep the conceptions as natural as possible, and not just for medical reasons. Brandi wants to conceive through natural means for the bonding, so she and the men can be the natural parents to the different children. She told me she wants us guys to feel that we've sired our own children." Charles sighed within his thought. "All this stuff is years in the future of course. But this is what Brandi is thinking, about how things might turn out." "Wow. Does Mark know about this?" "Uh ... I doubt it, and now that I think about it, Brandi never exactly gave me permission to tell anybody, so..." Lynn nodded. "I won't repeat this, I promise. Thank you Charles." A moment later they broke the link and were soon walking down the next flight of stairs. ------- Chapter 61 Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 11 AM Mark was home in the large bath area of Red Mall, drying himself after a quick shower. He had put in a very strenuous hour downstairs in the gym, and was expecting to be back at the library communications console within a few minutes. Charles and Lynn would soon go past their point of no return. His arms and thighs were a bit tired, but Mark was pleased with the results of his workout. He now considered his sword to be an adequate weapon against a large charging animal, even something as fierce as the pictures of the dead Dinofelis that had come back in the last batch of memory sticks. Mark had been experimenting with pushing his mind into accelerated time, similar to what he had experienced in the gun battle that killed Alfredo. Mark was teaching himself how to add just a short burst of accelerated awareness into key moments of the sword maneuvers. He had found he could use the enhancement without fatiguing himself if he limited its use to a second or two. As Mark dried his hair, his mind jumped to the unexpected video of Jada. Madison had thoughtfully snapped a moment of video as Jada had climbed into her kayak shortly after their encounter with the cat. There was no particular reason for the video. Maddy just had some extra free memory on the stick and wanted to give Mark something to enjoy. With the pleasant image in his mind, Mark moved the towel behind him to finish drying his back. The door in front of him to the pantry room then flew open and Hannah came walking in rapidly. Their society had evolved an unspoken code of conduct when meeting in bathroom areas. It was a strange adjustment to make, but the bathrooms on this planet were so culturally different than Earth. They had complete male / female integration of the bathing and toileting areas. Their group had finally given up on the concept of bodily privacy within the bathrooms and their new social custom was just to ignore the presence of the opposite sex as completely as possible. So Mark turned his head as he finished drying his back and he tried to admire the artistry of the door leading to the bedroom corridor. It was thus to his great surprise when his naked body was embraced in a fierce hug by Hannah. "I was hoping I'd find you," she cried in a breaking voice. Without thinking Mark let go of the towel and hugged Hannah back. He felt her body trembling. "Hey, what happened kiddo?" This felt so strange. Hannah was the youngest member of their group. A senior in high school, she had turned eighteen just days before coming to the Christmas party. More than once Mark had struggled with how to express his feelings for her. She was extremely cute and Mark thought she had perhaps the kindest and gentlest mind of anyone he had ever met. Mark's struggle was that he could switch back and forth from desiring her as someone very sexually attractive, to thinking of her as a kid sister he just wanted to protect. He felt that way now, switching rapidly back and forth from one perspective to the other. And now here she was pressing herself against the front of his naked body and they had their arms wrapped tightly around each other. But Mark knew Hannah wasn't considering this to be a sexual encounter, and in his love for her, he forced his mind to adopt a similar perspective. Mark just hoped his groin would tag along and not do what it would normally want to do in such a situation. Mark kissed her forehead very tenderly and whispered, "Hannah, what happened? Is someone in trouble?" "Not for us," Hannah whispered back. "Black Mall, something really brutal. I felt like puking. Fatima told me to take some time off, take a nap if I wanted. Toshi took my place." Hannah paused for a moment and then trembled again. "Tell me? Uh Hannah, mind if I get dressed first?" "Huh? OH! Yeah, so sorry!" Hannah released her grip and turned her head politely away, allowing Mark to take a step to his nearby clothes. A moment later they both walked out of the bathroom. To save a few seconds, Mark led the way to the lounge and from there they jumped to the library below. Mark was at the console a moment later. Hannah was sitting very close by and occasionally she rested her head on his shoulder. They joined the conference call with time to spare. Charles and Lynn were just starting their descent on their last flight of stairs, and as they went down Paige filled them and Mark in on the recent events at Black Mall. Alfonso and Jessica had been fucking on guard duty again and Ricardo very discreetly had slipped into Jacob's Bar and Grill with them. Hannah and Paige had felt so hopeless. They both wanted to warn the lovers of the dreadful danger they were in. A few minutes later all six members of Black Mall were down in the bar. Ricardo's administration of punishment was swift and brutal. He held Alfonso against a wall with his cane, and then before Alfonso's eyes his girlfriend was doubly raped by Jenaro and Hernando. Hernando forced mounted Jessica in her rear and then bent her backwards to be on top of him as he lay on his back, forcing her legs open with his. Then Jenaro entered her open vagina from above. Jessica's body was sandwiched between the two men and they fucked her brutally. Paige thought Hernando orgasmed and Jenaro did not, but both men stopped their fucking when Jessica passed out, perhaps from not being able to breathe properly. Then it was Alfonso's turn. Hernando and Jenaro held him by his arms and legs, holding him off the floor. Then under obvious orders from Ricardo, Diego kicked Alfonso in the groin three times, fast, full-body kicks with the flat top part of his foot, first one kick, then another swift two, each blow strong enough to lift Alfonso's body into the air from the impact. Hernando and Jenaro then dropped Alfonso to the floor where he vomited. Mark turned and kissed the top of Hannah's head which was leaning against his arm. The brutality had been too much for her to bear. Hannah sighed at the kiss and snuggled into his shoulder, her arm coming behind Mark and hugging him around his waist. By this time Lynn and Charles had completed their descent. Mark had been hoping that perhaps by now there would be message in the elevator. That would mean as least someone from Jada's team had made it back to the entrance rooms from the underground world. But the elevator was as the supply teams had left it yesterday, stacked to the brim with four small kayaks and supplies. There was no message from their lost teammates. Keeping the phone link active, Lynn and Charles held hands and committed themselves by letting the elevator door close behind them. The longer four-meter door leading to the first of the underworld's entrance rooms opened at once. Lynn wanted to check out the entire place immediately, but Charles overruled her, insisting they unpack all their supplies from the elevator carriage before they let the door close. He explained to Lynn that if they found later that the elevator door on their side no longer opened, he wanted to discover that unpleasant fact with the carriage already unpacked. To everyone's relief, the new Leophone was still working perfectly, and the unloading would take a few minutes. Mark excused himself, and Toshi who knew that Hannah was with Mark promised to call him back when Charles and Lynn were finished clearing the carriage. "Why such brutality Mark?" Hannah whispered. "I mean, why not just..." Her voice trailed off, never completing the thought. But Mark understood the deep meaning of Hannah's question. "Oh, I'm not too surprised about this. I'd be more surprised if this were a chance discovery. I bet Ricardo set them up. He knew they were making love on guard duty and he set them up to fail." Another crying whisper, "Oh dear God, why?" "It's the old political game of divide and conquer. It's how Ricardo stays in power. It's how Stalin stayed in power. You divide your subjects into little groups and then you give some of the groups absolute power over the others. You encourage people to brutalize their underlings. Think Hannah. If Diego decides now he wants to overthrow Ricardo, can he conspire with Alfonso? Can Jessica confide in Jenaro or Hernando? The key to Ricardo staying in power is to be sure his top people have blood on their hands." "Shit!" cried Hannah. "Yes, I see it! This is just how his horrible mind works! And he's succeeded!" Mark and Hannah sat quietly holding each other until Toshi called back, and then they all listened as Charles and Lynn reported their exploration of the empty sanctuary at the end of the underground world. The dialog was uneventful; everything appeared in order until the two explorers reached the front door. "It's unbelievable!" exclaimed Charles. "The sky! What the hell?!" Lynn tried to give a better description. "There are spiraling bands of yellow clouds everywhere! The whole sky is like this. It's like looking up inside slow moving tornados. There's a dirty yellow light everywhere." "I'm going outside," said Charles. "Charles," Fatima's voice came over the phone. "Err on the side of caution. That's an order." "Yes, right, I agree. I'm outside now. This feels really weird. I'm surprised there's no wind, but there's none, none at all. But the air seems charged with electricity, and the sky looks as if it's about to drop the mother of all hammers on us." "People," replied Fatima, "Get back inside and button up. Charles, Lynn, there's no sign of Jada's team, is there?" "No," answered Lynn. "But we can't see much from here. I mean, we can see a lot of far away stuff, but it's just like we expected from the pictures. The forest is blocking our view of where the boathouse should be. Fatima, our original plan was for us to leave the kayaks here and do a fast check down by the lake that starts the Mississippi." "Back inside now, both of you!" There was a moment's pause. "We are Fatima. Charles is closing the door now. The door is closed. Okay, we're safe." There didn't seem much else to do in the immediate moment. Charles and Lynn went into what they thought was Madison's bedroom and sat down on a comfortable couch and kept up a report on what they were seeing outside. It soon became obvious to all that the strange weather phenomenon would probably go on for hours. Fatima asked Mark if they could put off their lunch date until tomorrow and he agreed. Mark signed off and kissed Hannah again, moving his arm and giving a return hug at her waist. She seemed emotionally exhausted. "Hannah?" he asked gently. "Do you want to go to bed?" "I am tired, maybe even a bit sleepy. But somehow..." Over the last two months, Mark and Hannah had shared much, and Mark considered her an intimate friend. Without linking and without even a verbal explanation, Mark knew exactly what Hannah was saying. The raw brutally had really upset her and she didn't want to be alone anywhere, not even her own familiar bedroom. "Want to listen to some music? I've got some free time and I found a really interesting selection of pastoral music in the archives a few days ago, duets for guitar and oboe, very pretty." "Gee, could we? That sounds really nice." A short while later Mark and Hannah were sitting in a huge super-sized double recliner in the music room. Mark had programmed a number of pieces. "The first series will be the duets I mentioned," he said, "and then if we're still around there's Handel's Oboe Concerto #3 in G minor Largo." "Sounds perfect," Hannah said simply as she kicked off her shoes and pulled off her socks. She pushed the recliner to a deeply-reclined setting and then lost herself in the music. The time passed peacefully with the soothing instrumentals. Mark felt a hand pressing a question into his thigh and he and Hannah were soon holding hands. Hannah sighed deeply and finally started to unwind. Mark reached up and petted her head, light caresses at the side, occasionally tracing her ear through her hair with his fingertips. Hannah signaled him with body language that she liked what he was doing. "Oh why Mark?" she whispered. "Why? Jessica was crying during her rape. I could see it but not hear it. She deserved to have her cries heard but I couldn't hear anything." "Try to get some rest Hannah." Hannah nodded and did not speak again. It was a fortuitous time for a retreat. Mark had nothing scheduled for the next several hours and he had discussed this plan with Toshi. He had her full approval and Toshi could come and get him at any time if something unexpected came up. Halfway through the Concerto Hannah finally fell asleep. Mark slowly reached over to the remote and reduced the volume. He turned and stared at Hannah for a long while. Her hair felt wonderfully soft against his hand, and she looked so young and beautiful sleeping by his side. "What an honor," he thought, "to be here as her comforter, such a genuine privilege. Such a beautiful face, so pretty..." He lay quietly and enjoyed the music and watched over Hannah as she slept. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 noon Over the last four hours, Sandra's group had traveled another twelve kilometers south. They were now about three kilometers due west of the spot on the riverbank where they had planned to meet with Jada's group. They had stayed in the highlands, making good time along the flat ridgelines, much faster than the slow pace needed for moving safely through the forest. And now at last they had come to a critical decision point, to stay in the foothills until the storm broke or to descend. Before them was a glen providing easy access to the forest below. Over the last few minutes, the sky had been getting ominously darker, more gray and then darker gray mixing in with the yellow spirals in the sky. The rotational speeds of the great vortices were also increasing and the light was fading, and yet the air was unbelievably still, with not even a whisper of a breeze. Their world was filled with deadly visual warnings but nothing for the auditory or tactile senses. The net effect was the feeling of sitting atop an atomic bomb. Tom walked up to Sandra and Carla and said without preamble, "Why the hell are we stopping?" Sandra tried to explain her reasoning. "We were debating whether to face the storm here or in the forest." "Are you guys nuts?! We've got to get out of these foothills! We've got to get out of here now!" Carla frowned and turned sharply to Tom, wanting to defend her leader. But Sandra wanted to understand Tom's logic. "You clearly are seeing something here that we aren't. Wouldn't it be more dangerous to be in the forest when the storm breaks? We could get killed by a falling tree when the wind kicks up, and the cats" "Fuck the cats!" Tom half-shouted back. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Pardon my language, but we've got to leave now. In all your time here, have you ever seen healthy trees that had been blown over by wind? Look at these rocks in the highlands, all these smooth surfaces! I don't think it's water erosion. I think it's wind erosion! I think these rocks have been blasted by tornados. Sandra, Carla, we've got to get out of here!" It was as if Tom had flipped a switch of understanding inside Sandra's mind. "Holy shit!" she hissed, and then she shouted to her troops. "People! We're heading down to the forest! Don't stop if the storm breaks! Don't stop for anything! Whatever you do, make it to the trees!" They descended as rapidly as they could. Over the last three hours, Carla and Tom had been taking turns holding Sandra on her weak side, and the support had allowed them to keep up a three kilometer an hour pace, perhaps double what they would have achieved with the stretcher. Now it was Tom's turn to aid Sandra for the trip down the glen, and Carla noticed with a great feeling of appreciation both how much support Tom was giving Sandra and yet how gentle he was with her. "You're a strong guy Tom," Carla commented with approval as they descended. "And sharp. In thirteen weeks, Parris Island could have made a Marine out of you." He grinned in spite of the tenseness of the moment. "Thanks. I used to be on the wrestling team back at the University. Grabbing and pushing other people's bodies around is my specialty." Sandra spoke up after they navigated a particularly tricky rock. "How long do you think we have?" "Well," said Tom, "I'm guessing we have until solar noon. It's so easy to think of this as a real world, but remember it's all a fake. The sky is all mechanical. So the storm is artificial too and that means it must be on some sort of timer. I've learned the entities that created this place have a love for symmetries. I'm guessing they'll start the storm at solar noon." Carla nodded and make a request with a hand sign for Tom to show her his watch. "12:07 PM," she called out. "So that gives us another twenty minutes," panted Tom. "That's good. We should be ... well into the trees ... by then." He and Sandra had just descended over two large boulders. Carla marveled how Tom seemed to glide with Sandra on their rapid pace down the glen. They were moving so fast, Carla decided to look back to see if everyone was keeping up with them. So far everything was looking good. And the dark forest was coming up rapidly. It was a dangerous place, and they were rushing into it. Carla shrugged at the change in perspective as she tried to think of the deadly forest as a safe haven. Meanwhile at the central island... A party of five women stood anxiously in the open lower segment of boathouse, staring at the forest to the west with high quality binoculars. Less than an hour ago Jada had ordered the six kayaks to be returned to the secure and enclosed upper level of the boathouse, and recently she had even ordered everyone off the docks. She was worried about a super-sudden break to the storm, and a wall of wind blowing someone into the deadly cold water. Oona didn't quite seem to get the idea. "It's so dark under this overhang. I think I would be much more visible on the docks." Jada shook her head and said simply. "No way." "Well, how about I go up and stand outside next to the boathouse? That would be okay, wouldn't it?" "No, I'm sorry Oona, but it wouldn't. What if a sudden gust knocks you off the island? I don't want to risk anyone being outside right now." "Not even to return to the central building?!" "Well, I guess we could sprint that in less than ten seconds. Okay, if you want to go back to the main building and the wind is not blowing yet, you have my permission. Just tell me first that you're going." Abit was standing next to Oona and she sighed. "I think what my cousin really wants is to be visible from the mainland and to see some signal from Carla. Why haven't they fired a flare yet?" Jada frowned. "We never did get around to a firm understanding about that. That was my bad, I admit it. I could have coordinated this better." Madison thought Jada was taking too much of the blame. "I think the general idea was that Tom would fire one flare as they were about to descend from the highlands, and another if they reached the shore at some other location. But take a look at the sky Abit. Perhaps Tom just didn't want to fire a flare at all those spirals. Or maybe they were too busy preparing to get under cover, I don't know." Mandy spoke up. "I'm betting they turned around a long time ago and are safe back at their home caves. Aborting the hike today would have made a lot of sense." Jada nodded thoughtfully. "I hope so too." Oona growled. "I really want to be more visible from the shore!" Jada looked at her kindly. "Oona, your concern does you credit, but what's our understanding? Am I in charge here?" Oona nodded reluctantly. "Yes. Carla was quite clear on that point. And I'm sorry if I'm being a whining guest." Jada blinked. "You're not my guest! I don't own this place any more than you do. Oona, we're teammates. I want to be in charge because I think that will make us safer and more effective." Abit replied, "Do you really think standing outside at the island's edge outside the boathouse could be that dangerous? How fast could the wind possibly rise?" "I don't know. With all the other miracles I've seen, I'm not going to assume anything less than instantaneous." Jada shrugged. "And don't forget where we are. The wind will pack more of a punch down here." Abit looked puzzled. "Huh?" "Ah," said Maddy. "Let me tell you something my brother found out. We think this planet and Earth had just about the same atmospheric pressure at sea level even though this planet has slightly less gravity. But our takeoff point back on Earth was probably between 170 and 190 meters about sea-level, and from the data from the orbiting telescope, we think the surface complexes are about 400 meters above sea-level. Do you remember your ears popping in the elevator the day we came here?" Abit's eyes lit up in recognition of Madison's point. "Yes, I remember." Maddy continued. "But now we're about a kilometer below sea-level, and there weren't any airlock changes in pressure coming from the bottom elevator out into Wobanakik. The air is dense here, probably denser than it ever got on Earth. The wind is going to pack an extra punch." Jada was hit by a sudden intuition. "Oh hell! We shouldn't be here! It's not safe!" Madison turned to her. "Huh?!" Jada started directing her charges up to the higher enclosed levels of the boathouse. "Come on! Everybody into the upper level. I'll explain later. Move!" ------- Chapter 62 Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 12:24 PM Carla estimated they had come almost a kilometer into the deep forest, with perhaps two kilometers to go before reaching their intended rendezvous point at the river. Parni was leading her spear team at the point of the party, followed by Amy and Margaret who were on either side of Sandra and helping her with the breakneck pace of the travel. Behind these three was Thara, who in her former life played softball at the University and was their best team member for throwing rocks. Carla and Tom walked on the left and right sides of the main group. They were the group's armed escort and primary defense against an attack from the side or rear. In normal times, Carla would never dream of fast-walking through the forest like this. But the area seemed preternaturally quiet. Even the trees seemed to be bracing for what has about to happen. Carla scanned the high branches ahead of them, her mind super alert from her adrenaline. They were traveling much too fast to give the canopy adequate inspection before passing under it. Carla prayed that Tom's and her intuitions were correct and that the cats were hunkering down somewhere else. "Two minutes," Tom called out from the other side of the party. "Carla, Sandra, how about over there?" He pointed to a small alcove that was fortuitously sheltered by thick brush and several very large trees. Carla nodded and began steering the group without even bothering to check with Sandra. This shelter looked far better than anything they had seen so far. Carla felt a strong sense of relief for the find, that is until she and Tom led the way into the alcove. To their left perhaps ten meters away a boar and sow were lying huddled close together. Both animals grunted warning sounds but amazingly they neither fled nor charged. Carla stared at the beasts with Tom by her side as the rest of their party filed into the alcove and moved to the right opposite side. "I don't believe it," whispered Sachi. She had held her spear out as a warning to the animals, and was amazed to see them ignoring her. Tom nodded and whispered back, "Peaceful co-existence. I've heard of things like this happening before on Earth, animals putting aside their differences when disasters strike." The group was soon sitting at the opposite end of the alcove. Suvarna, Tom, Tajana, Sachi, Carla, and Parni sat in a semicircle facing the pigs, and the remaining four women were behind them. "How long do we have?" whispered Suvarna. Tom looked at his watch. "Less than a minute I think. Why don't we follow the critters' advice and get down low to the ground?" The group got very low to the ground. The moment was so quiet they could hear themselves breathing. Their companions in the alcove would occasionally give deep grunts, but they continued not to move. "Tom?" whispered Tajana as she nudged his ribs with her left elbow. "Hmmm?" "Back on Earth, how long did the treaty last?" "Huh?" "I heard you mention to Sachi, about predators and prey calling a treaty when there's a forest fire or something. But how long does the treaty last once the fire is out?" Tom was staring into the boar's eyes as Tajana spoke, and the boar was glaring right back at him. "Uh, yeah..." he mumbled. Before he could speak further, the time turned to a few seconds after 12:27 PM, and the storm broke with shattering explosions of thunder. At the central island. As expected, all was quiet inside the upper level of the boathouse. Jada had noticed the effect the afternoon of her arrival. Once all the doors were closed, absolutely all outside noise was blocked. But light could still pass freely though the transparent partition wall that separated the upper and lower levels of the boathouse, and what Jada saw now make her gasp. The sky had gone crazy! There were dozens, no, hundreds of tornados dropping from above, fast spinning vortexes of dark gray smoke that thinned and elongated as they descending from the sky. And a mountain of water was rising from the river, incredibly fast! Within seconds the lower level of the boathouse was inundated with a deep swirling mass of what Jada assumed to be near freezing water. The water quickly filled the lower chamber and then began to rise against their partition wall. "So fast!" thought Madison in amazement. The water was soon reaching the top of their wall. The river surface was now at least four meters above their heads. Madison had an insane flashback of a trip to Asia her family had taken when Madison was eight years old. They had visited the Churaumi aquarium on the western edge of Okinawa, and Madison remembered staring in disbelief at giant whale sharks swimming on the other side of a vast underground viewing wall. And now it was happening again! Several very large fish had entered the lower level area of the boathouse, including one beast that looked like ... Madison gasped in astonishment. The creature whipped its elongated neck and pressed its head against the partition, staring eye-to-eye with a frozen Madison for a moment. It tried to bite her with a jaw filled with wickedly sharp looking teeth, and then in frustration it left the boathouse with one great twist of its body and swish of its tail and flippers. Madison semi-shouted in a hoarse whisper, "A Loch Ness monster?! Did I really see that?!" "The island!" Abit exclaimed, momentarily forgetting the sea monster. "It must be under water!" She ran to the back windows of the boathouse and looked out. "No, my gosh, no it's not! How is this possible?!" The five women ran to the side windows. For a long moment they stared in silence, trying to make sense out of what their eyes were telling them. Jada finally decided the scene reminded her of the parting of the Red Sea in the old "Ten Commandments" movie. The water was up four to five meters above the surface of the island, but it was frothy and not coming over the land area, as if it were held back or repelled by some invisible wall. Mandy moved to a control and turned the ceiling to 100% transparency, and then her jaw dropped. The sky above them was a crazy mix of spinning yellow spirals and dark gray funnels. The women gasped and stared at each other. The scene outside was beyond comprehension. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 1 PM A gentle but persistent hand was shaking Mark's shoulder near his neck. Mark opened his eyes and saw his wife Toshi standing in front of him requesting eye contact. He linked immediately. Toshi's mind was in an unusual state, genuine fears and concerns mingled with a surface veneer of amusement. With their advanced linking abilities, Toshi shared her visual cortex with her husband. Mark saw himself through Toshi's eyes. Toshi was grinning because Mark's hand had come up and cupped the underside of Hannah's breast after they had both fallen asleep on the recliner. Toshi smiled as Mark hastily withdrew his hand. "I was only teasing! And besides, you are not my child, and Hannah is not a cookie jar!" "Uh, yeah..." Toshi finished the playful thought. "Seriously Mark, Hannah is a beautiful person, inside and out, and I can see how pretty you think she is. I have no objections if you want to pet her." Mark grinned and thought back. "She is lovely, but I was just trying to console her." "I know. It looks as if you did a good job too. I'm glad." Toshi gave a mental sigh and switched gears. "Can you untangle yourself? Fatima asked me to find you. The census counter just dropped again. It's now 009:081." "Oh hell ... Yes, of course." Mark tried to rise without disturbing Hannah but was unsuccessful. Toshi delinked and then explained verbally to her what was going on. "And the storm Charles and Lynn were expecting broke about forty minutes ago. It's massive. The underworld is filled with tornados right now, hundreds of them." Hannah nodded and needed no further explanation. She stood up and smoothed out her skirt that was bunched near her waist, and then noticed both she and Mark were barefoot. Hannah looked at Toshi sheepishly and linked. "Mark was a perfect gentleman with me!" "I know. Hannah, relax!" "This is the first time I've fallen asleep with a man!" Toshi grinned. "Did you enjoy it?" "Yes! But..." Hannah grinned back as she saw the playfulness in Toshi's mind. There was no jealousy at all. "Thank you," she thought quietly right before she delinked. The three of them then headed to the library. Mark sat the console and began typing as Hannah entered a conference call already in progress. Everyone except Jada's team was on the bridge, including Charles and Lynn and Aggie's and Emily's teams out searching Red Mall. After a moment Mark announced, "It's the same as early this morning, another two IDs from Party #1, IDs 138 and 139. They're not longer in the job file." There were several sad sighs of relief over the bridge. Fatima summed up their feelings. "So it appears Jada's team and the remaining members of Party #2 are successfully surviving the storm." "Perhaps Party #2 is not even in the underground world," replied Frida who was with Emily in The Wilderness. "We never had any clear evidence they ever went down there." "Oh, I don't know about that," replied Lynn. "Madison thought some of the kitchenware and some other supplies might have been missing from the entrance rooms here. The problem was the place is so loaded with supplies, it was difficult to be certain. Wow!" Mark's voice, "Wow what?" "I think a tornado just ran across the window right in front of me and Charles. It was impressive!" Fatima asked, "Can anything survive out there? Is the world being destroyed?" Charles locked eyes with Lynn for a moment and then he answered, "We're both hoping the world is okay, but it's tough to tell now with all the debris in the air. The highlands are getting blasted, at least here they are. But the forest, we don't know. Jada might be okay if she's hunkered down somewhere near the river." "For all we know," replied Frida, "perhaps Jada is not in the underworld now either." Aggie switched topics and commented on Mark's original report. "Another pair of deaths! What could these Red Mall people be doing that's so dangerous?" Mark knew it was a rhetorical question. "Any progress Aggie?" "Some. It's already in the mission log. There are several paths that need investigating, but the portal types are suggestive of one-way passages. We're mapping them for Emily's team to check out tomorrow." Emily replied from her position in The Wilderness. "The rate that these people are dying, tomorrow might be too late. The previous pair died what, ten hours ago? And now there are only six people left. Fatima, can I pull a double shift and keep searching after sundown? I'd like to ask for volunteers." Fatima felt stricken with a conflict of interest. She was still hopeful her dear friend Husna was among the six remaining survivors, and yet her first duty was to balance the value of the search and rescue with the safety of the away teams. She would not have them searching while exhausted and more likely to make a fatal mistake. "Emily," Fatima answered, "let me consider that for a while. For now plan on returning home as scheduled." Emily acknowledged over the phone. "Well, okay. But that'll only give us about another two hours of search time before we have to start heading back." "I know." Aggie spoke up. "Fatima? A compromise might be to let us all camp out at Water Hole #1 for the night. I'm asking for a show of hands ... Everybody here is willing." "For my group too," Emily added hopefully. The proposal seemed reasonable and Fatima accepted the idea. "All right, agreed. Emily, Aggie, use your judgment. You can search into the evening, but make sure everyone gets a good night's sleep before starting out tomorrow. And be sure not to deviate from the mission standards. We've spent a lot of time assessing the risks. I believe our current rules are correct." "Yeah, agreed," replied Emily. "I don't want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt either. Thanks for letting us camp out tonight." The call ended a moment later. Hannah decided to return to work at the Hilton, and Mark got into a long chat with Charles and Lynn. Lynn made a comment that the outside reminded her a bit of the Wizard of Oz movie. In a brief moment of partial clearing, she could swear she could see large trees being uprooted from the land and sucked up into the sky. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 2 PM Ricardo handed naked Jessica a second large glass of water and she gulped it down without question. "Does that help?" Ricardo asked. He had not given her explicit permission to speak, so Jessica just nodded her head. Ricardo thought the training session was coming along admirably. The terrified rabbit was finally realizing that she had found a safe harbor, and the depth of her relief was so profound that she was offering Ricardo absolute obedience. She was even becoming relaxed about her nakedness, facing Ricardo with her arms hanging loosely by her sides, totally unashamed that her breasts and pubis were on display. Her only concern was to understand his next command. A simple hand gesture and she lay face down on his bed. Ricardo gave a light tap on her skinny butt. Jessica's hands jumped to her ass cheeks and she looked at him to confirm that this was what he wanted. He confirmed by tapping her thighs, and she arched her hips and separated herself, stretching her legs to the sides and pulling her ass cheeks apart. Then she took a deep breath and waited. Ricardo sat of the bed and pulled a tube from a nearby night table. His finger was soon circling her bruised anus, applying the hemorrhoid cream to the tender welt-like tears of her sensitive skin. He recoated his finger with the cream and then penetrated deeper, spreading the smoothing anesthetic along her rectal wall. The rectal interior was bright red from its recent pounding, and Jessica shuddered at how good the cream felt. "How's that?" he asked. Jessica decided that the direct question implied a permission to speak. "It feels much better. Thank you Ricardo." Ricardo hummed a response and took a moment to examine Jessica's butt, very pleased with the submissiveness Jessica was offering him. Ricardo inspected the damage to her rectal opening and smiled. Her anal muscles had been stretched but not torn, and the welts from the friction of her butt fucking were not severe. Ricardo's morning's plan had been executed perfectly. Her new master moved to straddle Jessica above her shoulders, and with his left hand he reached under her neck and took a firm grip on her throat, locking his strong fingers around her trachea but still allowing her to breathe. Ricardo felt a brief tension as Jessica wondered what he wanted her to do, and then she took a deep breath and sighed, waiting in obedience for her next command. The pulse of her heart was slow and relaxed, a perfect confirmation of the absolute trust she was offering Ricardo in exchange for her survival. Since Jessica could not see him, Ricardo allowed a large smile to spread across his face. "Excellent," he thought, "and I knew it would be like this. I foresaw everything. When an ego as huge as Baby Jessica's collapses, it collapses completely. She's like soft clay in my hands now. I am her savior, and I can mold her into anything I want." Ricardo released her throat and made one last inspection of the anus. Her double rape might have appeared spur of the moment, but the sequence had been carefully planned. Hernando had one of the smallest penises Ricardo had ever seen. He was also someone Ricardo had noticed who would orgasm very quickly after mounting a girl. In their earlier times, Hernando would almost always mount one of his hoof-pussies at the end of a procurement mission, and Ricardo had never known him to take more than a few minutes to blow his load into any female unfortunate enough to be under him. He was thus Ricardo's perfect choice for Jessica's butt mount. Hernando had worked to make his sperm deposit from underneath while Jenaro fucked from above. Jenaro had very clear instructions about keeping most of his body weight on top of Jessica's breasts. Squeezed between the two men, Jessica couldn't open up her rib cage to breath. The timing had been perfect. Hernando fucked like lighting and Jessica to feel his insemination of her rectal cavity just before Jenaro's weight finally drove her unconscious. Ricardo wanted the last moment of her punishment to be a living hell. And Alfonso had abandoned her to her fate! The body positions might have seemed haphazard to Jessica, but the entire affair had been carefully orchestrated. Ricardo had never spoken and had never come near Jessica's field of vision. As far as she knew, he had not even been present during her punishment. The first she had seen him this morning was when she awoke from her ordeal wearing an adult diaper and lying on his bed. For a while, Jessica had silently watched Ricardo working with some papers at a nearby desk. She was totally unaware he knew she was awake, having turned away from her just as she began to regain consciousness. Her mind floated back to the memories of the horror. Jessica and her lover had been discovered, and then her lover had abandoned her. Jenaro had twisted Jessica's head before her fucking and forced her to stare at Alfonso standing just a few meters away, her longtime lover doing absolutely nothing to prevent her double rape. And with Jenaro's body pressing down on her, she could not see Ricardo's cane directly above her threatening Alfonso with mortal injury if he tried to interfere, if he so much as moved. Jessica in her horror thought that Alfonso had betrayed and abandoned her. She never witnessed his punishment. And perhaps, Ricardo thought, she would never see him again. There was still much to consider on that issue. But in the short term, everything was clear. Ricardo and Jessica would stay topside while Ricardo continued Jessica's indoctrination, and meanwhile Diego, Jenaro, and Hernando would begin work with their new slave Alfonso on the next phase of their project. The work would probably take a week, a perfect fit to Ricardo's plans and his estimate for how long it would take for Jessica's training to set. And for now, it was time to do a little testing. After Jessica drank a third glass of water, Ricardo got up briefly to strip. He had his slave lie down again on the bed, this time on her back, and then he joined her, kneeling at her shoulders. It was the perfect time for Ricardo to begin learning Jessica's body. He started with her face. Fingers that could deliver intense pain began tracing her facial contours, her jaw and cheeks, her fine shape of her ears, her lips, her nose, the arteries and glands around her throat, lightly but thoroughly inspecting every facet of her head and neck. Jessica lay still and accepted the examination, even when Ricardo probed under her eyes, pinching and lifting the eyelids to inspect their undersides. His fingers spent a great deal of time feeling the top of her head, traveling through the fine straight hair, a natural strawberry blond in color. It was shoulder length hair and Alfonso was in love with it. Jessica would sometimes pull it back in a ponytail, but most often she used a hair band, a very old technique which had recently come back into fashion. Her arms were next, tracing Jessica's hands, the tendons and muscles in her arms, probing her ribs under her arms, sensing and remembering spots she found particularly ticklish. Then he stroked her breasts. They were quite petite, especially when she was lying on her back, Ricardo guessed halfway between an A and a B cup. And Jessica had very boyish hips, only a slight feminine flair at her pelvis. Ricardo knew she was twenty years old. But with her height of 160 cm in bare feet and her very fresh and youthful face, Ricardo thought that with the right school clothes, Jessica could easily pass at being in junior high. He smiled at the possibility. There were endless supplies of clothes in the mall. Ricardo moved to the bottom of the bed and examined her feet, probing the balls of her feet, sniffing between her toes, finally moving up to her calves and thighs. Eventually his fingers traced the bones of her pelvis, pushing in below her navel to frame the position of her uterus and ovaries. The examination ended at her labia, opening her and sniffing her. With one hand opening and pinching her outer lips, Ricardo's other hand firmly gripped her dense pubic fur and lifted up, popping her pink clitoris from its protective fold. Jessica gave a tiny gasp but said nothing. She spread her legs a little further, offering Ricardo her sex. But Ricardo had other ideas. He came and positioned his groin near her head, pressing his limp penis against her cheek. Jessica assumed Ricardo wanted oral sex and slurped the penis into her mouth. Ricardo was still and watched her silently as she tried to suckle him erect. He was somewhat surprised. Her technique was actually quite good, and it took a fair bit of control for him to keep his penis limp. But Ricardo wanted to see how Jessica would react. Her reaction was exactly what he was hoping for. Jessica began getting nervous from his lack of sexual response, and she tried to make eye contact with Ricardo to see if he was angry with her. That was unexpected and one of Ricardo's most intense dislikes. He hated making eye contact with anyone, and he gave a short warning grunt of disapproval. Jessica replied immediately with a whimper of understanding, and Ricardo had to concentrate not to grin. She had suckled his penis far into her mouth, all the way to her throat, and the sensuous warmth and moisture and excellent suckling action had pumped Ricardo into a half erection despite his best efforts to ignore Jessica's blowjob. Her whimper had vibrated her throat tissue against his sensitive penis head. The sensation was almost enough to make Ricardo smile with delight. But to show appreciation now would ruin everything. It would show that he valued her, and it was far too soon for that. So Ricardo kept a poker face, and after a moment Jessica popped the penis from her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and with her eyes obediently downcast, made feather-light tentative licks across his scrotum. Her meaning was perfectly clear. She was asking, "Is this what you want?" Ricardo sighed and spread his legs slightly, a response Jessica correctly interpreted as, "Maybe. Let's see what you can do." Ricardo gave her ample time to demonstrate her abilities. She really was quite skilled at suckling testes. She played with his left nut first, lots of kisses and licks and caressing the orb with her lips, and when she finally slid the fat orb into her mouth, Ricardo blinked at how gently the trick had been accomplished. Her tongue was now probing the soft scrotal tissue behind the testis, and the testis itself was being caressed and fondled so gently, it didn't feel as if it was inside her mouth at all. Ricardo closed his eyes and imaged his sac being immersed in warm and moist layers of silk. And the nut was slowly slipped from her mouth. The tongue traveled, away from the sac, licking and tasting the bottom of his well-muscled ass cheeks, lightly at first but then diving in to find his anus. Ricardo relaxed his butt muscles and let her penetrate him with her tongue. He blinked a moment later at the pleasure. Jessica had pushed in with her lips and was now suckling his anus, her tongue lapping up and down and in circles while her lips increased their suction. She took a brief moment for a breath, and then her tongue returned, bringing a great deal more moisture to the sensitive opening. Jessica hummed a question to her master as she resumed her suckle with the new wetness. "Is this what you want?" Ricardo thought for a moment. In truth this was the best anal rimming he had ever experienced. Jessica's technique was exquisite, and she didn't seem to mind the fact that his butt was not particularly clean. But this was not the time to let her score a victory in pleasing him. So he left the bed and told her yes, she was being a very good girl, but that he had other things to attend to now. Jessica asked him what he wanted her to do. Ricardo told her simply wait on his bed until he returned, to simply be obedient and not leave the bed. And then he left the room. He smiled to himself as he exited. He had not given her permission to go to the bathroom, and he wondered how she would eventually handle the full bladder from all the water he had told her to drink. He thought about her as he sat in the lounge. So much work to do, with Jessica's training and all the jobs that needed doing before they could begin exploring the surface. Ricardo tried to park the worries for a while and drift into a nap. But his sleep was strange. Although Jessica had completely different physical characteristics, in his dream Ricardo thought she looked like Amber. ------- Chapter 63 Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 3 PM After two and a half hours of frequent downpours and constant wind, Carla thought the storm was finally coming to an end. The ground felt solid again, the thunderous vibrations had ceased, and the sky through the canopy above them was the brightest since before noontime. Carla's mind returned to the most immediate problem at hand, how to leave their shelter without upsetting the two wild pigs camping out with them. The matter required some delicacy. And Tajana, she was feeding the beasts. Carla turned her head to her as Tajana tossed the pigs another tidbit, a broken-off hunk from one of the new high-energy food bars. As before, the sow went for it, but this time the boar snatched it first and appeared to swallow it whole. The sow grunted her disapproval and then turned her eyes to Tajana. The gesture was an almost unmistakable request for another piece. Carla grunted her own opinion of this questionable activity. But as Tajana turned to look at her, the boar suddenly rose and trotted from the alcove, with the sow following a few seconds later. Carla grudgingly gave Tajana a nod and then stood and stretched her legs and arms. After all the time huddled close to the ground, it felt great to stand again. After a moment to orient themselves and put on their packs, the group left their shelter. The forest! It had such a different feel to it. The world around them seemed more airy, more open. The canopy had been thinned by the storm, no question about that. But where were all the broken trees and branches that should have been lying on the ground? There were many small branches to be sure, but very few large ones, and not a downed tree in sight. And the air, it smelled so clean and fresh, and it was filled with the rich odors of the damp earth. Sandra took a moment to reach down and scoop up a handful of the loose soil. The new black soil seemed everywhere, very thin in most places, falling down between the blades of the long forest grasses, but there were also thicker piles scattered haphazardly. Sandra pointed one out to Carla, and her eyes went wide with recognition. "The trees!" she cried as she pointed. "There was a large one there just yesterday, very tall with lots of rot in its upper branches. The tree, it's gone!" Carla turned to Tom and linked. "Can you believe what I think?!" she thought in a burst of astonishment. Tom nodded and suggested she verbalize her idea to the group. Carla broke the link and said, "Tom and I think the storm was a well managed version of a forest fire. The storm thinned the forest and took out a lot of the diseased wood." "Selective pruning," Tom added. "Perhaps this world is more actively managed than my group first thought." He looked around for a moment and then got down to business. He walked a few meters to a clear opening in the canopy and a moment later fired a flare. A few large birds made excited calls at the disturbance. Carla was standing by his side surveying the thinned trees. She inspected her pistol for a moment and then commented, "The storm might have made my job a bit easier, but there's still no reason to get careless." Tom nodded. "Besides us, what do the cats like to eat?" Carla shrugged. "I don't know, wild pigs I guess. There are also forest deer we've caught glimpses of, low to the ground, the size of fat dogs with thin legs. I'm sure the cats would love to chow down on those. Maybe they hunt the smaller animals too. We just don't know." Meanwhile the group had organized into their original traveling formation. "Okay people," Carla called out. "Stay sharp, no surprises, and we'll all be at the river in less than an hour." The group resumed its eastward journey along the gentle downward slope of the forest. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 4 PM All five women were outside the boathouse, scanning the riverbank with binoculars for the arrival of Sandra's group. Jada would occasionally glance at the linear sun and wish she could somehow stop its motion. There was still almost four hours till sunset and they had already moved all six kayaks back into the water. They should still have plenty of time for the four round trips it would take to ferry a dozen people to the island. Mandy, Oona, and Abit would take off as soon as Sandra appeared. Abit locked with her cousin Oona for a moment and then made a suggestion. "Why don't we leave now and wait closer offshore?" Mandy turned her head to Jada and added, "It would save some time. I have no objections." Jada nodded. "Yeah, seems like a good idea. Try to stay about a hundred meters offshore though. And remember to watch us if we need to send a return signal." Soon three women were towing three canoes to the west, preparing to enter the current at an angle before cutting across it. Jada and Madison were the only ones left on the island. Madison sighed as she watched her friends paddle away. "I take it you're not worried about sea monsters." Jada sighed back as she scanned the shoreline. "We've seen no sightings since the storm, and we've had no sightings before the storm. I'm gambling it's a creature of the deep that only came up during the storm." She scanned for a moment more and then continued. "And besides, I really don't think it was a plesiosaur. That's a creature of the Mesozoic. That wouldn't fit this time period at all. But Maddy, it was on your side of the room. You're the one who got the best look at it. What's your guess for its size?" "Yeah, I've been thinking about that. Maybe about the size of the really large croc, five or six meters, but not a croc. I saw gills on its neck. This was definitely not an air breather." Jada nodded. "Well, remember the sounding results. There's certainly enough room for the critter to hang out below. And with the cold water, I'm betting it doesn't have to eat very often." Jada sighed. "And the threats from the forest are real. Sometimes you just have to choose." Jada was referring to the unknown depth of the Missisquoi in the immediate vicinity of the island. They had been doing soundings of the river since their first day out on the kayaks, and had found a remarkable pattern to the river's depth. More than thirty meters from shore but not in the central channel, the Missisquoi seemed to have a very uniform depth of six meters, and in the central channel the depth was thirty-six meters. But here at the island, Abit and Oona completed a final measurement after the storm. They tied a hammer to some fishing line and lowered the hammer from the edge of the dock. A full hundred meters of line played out before they tied on a second line and continued the descent. At two hundred meters, as Abit was tying on the third and final line that they had brought from the sporting goods store, Madison made a prediction of 216 meters, and Jada had laughed and commented that the guess was almost too obvious. And it was too obvious. The third line played out completely without finding bottom. Abit stared at Jada in amazement and asked if they should get more line and continue the sounding. Jada decided against it for the moment, and the two cousins labored to retrieve the hammer from 300 meters below. The head was ice cold when it finally broke the surface. Jada's mind returned to the memory as she watched Mandy and the two Abenaki park their kayaks in a holding position about ninety meters offshore. Mandy turned and waved at Jada, and Jada waved back. But the true nature of their island refused to leave her mind. Without the water around them, Jada suspected the island would be a flat plateau with sheer cliffs on all six sides, plunging 300 meters or more. Jada had seen the water miraculously rise. Could it also miraculously fall? If so, the island could rapidly turn into a very formidable prison. As she stared across the picture-postcard scene, Jada felt certain the idyllic forest and river still hid a great many secrets. Success! What a relief! Tom and a large party of women appeared in a small clearing by the shore. Madison led out a whoop of joy and Mandy and the Indians began paddling towards shore. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 5 PM Emily's team popped up into an oval dome above the second-floor maze the group was exploring. Emily had to smile at the setup. The dome was one of the many dead-ends they had found in The Wilderness. This particular one seemed to be a combination rest-stop / amateur observatory. The dome was invisible, and at the southern foci of the oval there was an impressive reflecting telescope. The console adjacent to it was filled with advanced automatic controls, but from the look of things one could also use manual positioning for just horsing around with the sky. Emily took a moment to give Mark a call and report the find. "It's so strange Mark. I think the telescope is at the exact southern focus of the oval, and the top of the spiral stairwell at the northern focus. Around the perimeter are some beds and chairs, and a toilet, sink, and bath area! It's all right out in the open near the clear wall. It's convenient, and we're all taking advantage of it, but there's no chance for modesty at all, inside or out. Two months of living here, and I still can't get over the lack of privacy in the toileting areas." Mark chuckled with his memory of Hannah from earlier in the day. "Yeah, I know." He gazed out a nearby window. "Beautiful evening out." "Yes it is. Still a bit of twilight left. Yes, it's very pretty." "Say Emily?" "Yeah?" "How long would it take you to retrace your way to the Waterhole?" Emily sighed. "Close to an hour I guess. If we were in a hurry, we could try to do it faster, but I want to be meticulous in the trace-back. This last half hour seemed more like The Labyrinth than The Wilderness. Without our notes we'd be in serious trouble. There are frequent rest stops that are very pleasant, unusual but pleasant. But none of them so far has had any food. I'm very happy we're carrying full packs of rations." Mark sighed back. "The lost members of Party #1 wouldn't have been carrying rations." "Yeah, I know. My group has been talking about that for the last hour. It's been fifty-eight days since the Christmas party. It's the right time scale for people to be dying from starvation. But why would they be checking out in pairs? Suicide pacts?" Mark gave a low grumble. "Somehow that doesn't sound quite right. Maybe for one pair, but for so many? I think there's something about this we're still not getting." "Yeah, agreed." After a moment Emily signed off and her team returned to the lower levels of the Wilderness. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 6 PM Jada returned to the docks from the central complex, smiling at how well the day was ending. Madison had finally convinced Sandra to let the autodoc inspect her injured foot. It still seemed a little scary to trust a machine to decide on the care and treatment of a human body, but one couldn't argue with the results. Jada had left Sandra with Madison and several other women, walking to the docks where Parni and Sachi were observing the last pickup run of the day. "How's it going?" Jada called out as she stepped on the dock. Parni lowered her binoculars and offered them to Jada. "They're just landed two minutes ago. Want to see?" Jada took a look. Tom, Carla and Thara were the last three to be picked up, two pistols and rocks and all three were also armed with spears. Tom of course would not need to be towed back. Jada thought this last run would be the easiest run of the lot. "So, did Sandra opt for the autodoc?" asked Parni. Jada nodded. "She finally did. It's a good thing too. From what little I understand of its diagnostics, the unit wasn't too happy with her foot. It might be spending some time with it." Parni nodded. "I was suspicious about that too. It was one nasty wound, and Sandra drove herself very hard today." Jada nodded again as she watched the away team. Tom and Carla had chosen to be the last to leave. Carla paddled about ten meters off shore and then covered the landing site with her pistol while Tom departed. Then he turned about a dozen meters offshore and covered Carla's retreat to thirty meters offshore. It was their last hold point. With Carla covering at thirty meters, Tom came to her and then she turned and they both paddled side-by-side from the riverbank. Jada nodded with approval. "Very smooth, as if they rehearsed it. Carla seems to be a good kayaker." Sachi nodded. "Jada?" "Hmm?" "We're rescued. This is great, but what happens next?" "A couple of things. Do you remember the large console in the library here?" "Uh, yeah, vaguely I guess." "It seems identical to the ones on the surface, but for some reason there's no connection to something we call the interface, a sort of master program that is running this world, here and on the surface too. Madison is suspicious our satellite phone somehow got electronically entangled with the console, and now neither is working." "Oh. Did you consider destroying the phone to unlock the console?" "Yeah, we did. I would hate doing that, but maybe as a last resort, it's something we'll try. Our problem is the phone and the console still don't work even when Mandy took the phone to the riverbank today. Smashing the Leophone might not help, and I'd hate to lose it." Jada watched for a moment as the away team paddled upstream before turning into the current for their final run home. "And I'm also very anxious to set someone back to the entrance rooms and leave word in the elevator about what has happened." Sachi nodded. "Yes, of course. But why didn't you go yesterday after Tom ... Oh, the cats." "Yeah. You guys had both our pistols. I didn't want to risk it. But Tom and Mandy will leave first thing tomorrow morning, Carla too if she's willing. I want to leave word in the elevator before our leader sends a rescue team for us. I'm just hoping she hasn't done that already..." " ... because that would mean more people trapped down here," finished Sachi. Jada didn't reply at first. She stared instead at the riverbank backlit with the glow of the late afternoon sun. "Such a beautiful world," she whispered, "but there's got to be some way to leave it." Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 7 PM Ricardo finally returned to his bedroom and grinned at the sight. As he had ordered her, Jessica was still sitting on his bed, and her face was tense and sweaty from the struggle of holding her bladder. Deciding that such obedience needed to be rewarded, Ricardo gave her permission both to toilet and shower, and Jessica with nods of thanks ran from the room. While she was gone, Ricardo laid out her clothes for tomorrow, items Diego had delivered less than an hour ago. Ricardo smiled as he surveyed the clothing. They were very modest by Jessica's former standards, simple pre-teen skirts and blouses that completely covered the abdomen, back, and both shoulders. It was very different than what Jessica would usually wear, but all that was about to change. In the coming week, Jessica would find a sanctuary in her new clothing. When dressed, she would be treated as a little girl, one with a very strict father. And when she wasn't dressed as a pre-teen, well... Ricardo grinned. Her only alternative would be to wear nothing at all. But Ricardo wasn't planning on permitting that for several days. "Training takes time and patience," he thought. "My role of absolute father must be developed first. She will call me padre." Ricardo looked at the clothes thoughtfully as he felt the soft fabrics. It was going to be an interesting week. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 8 PM Jada's organizational meeting had started at seven o'clock and had just ended. Sandra asked if Jada would like to walk with her as she tried out her healed foot, and of course Jada accepted. They left their grand house about ten minutes after linear sunset. The western cylindrical sky was filled with fading pastels of orange and purples with a hint of green. "This foot feels absolutely marvelous," Sandra commented as she walked by Jada's side. "I would never have imagined a contraption that looks so much like a..." Jada grinned. "Like what?" "Like a high-tech version of a torture rack! I can jump now, stamp my foot, it feels fine! It's so incredible! Even my weak muscles are better. How is that possible?" Jada shrugged. "How does it work? No idea. But my husband back on the surface has a hunch the autodoc can expand or compress the passage of time, locally I mean, within selected areas of tissue." Sandra blinked. "Manipulate time? How is that possible? I don't think I even understand the concept." Jada decided it was a rhetorical question and did not answer. The two women continued their walk in their small park. Jada finally commented, "I feel like saying again what I said at our meeting. Welcome to our society!" She paused for a moment and added, "I can imagine it might have been difficult to give up your leadership position." "Ah, delusions of power, huh?" "Yikes! No, not at all. I meant giving up the responsibility for other people's lives. I was acting leader of our group for a while. Stepping down had a weird feel to it, very strange emotions." Sandra grinned. "I wasn't being serious, but now I will be. So far, it's a great relief more than anything else. I'm just happy everyone was so agreeable. And besides, Fatima's term expires at the end of your ... at the end of our super-short year, right?" "Yep. Our government is still a work in progress. It's still a wide open issue, what we'll eventually create. Your input will count as much as anybody's." Sandra nodded. They had come to the northern vertex, and they looked out over the dark waters as the last of the light faded from the sky. "It's such a relief," Sandra said dryly, "to be outside and not having to worry about getting mugged by a cat." "Oh yeah, I bet." Sandra breathed deeply, enjoying the sweet spring air. "Jada?" "Hmm?" "This underground world, I know it's synched with the daily rotation on the surface, but is it on the super-fast yearly cycle too?" "Uh, we're not sure. Maybe not. We were tracking the changes in the daily sunrises and sunsets and trying to estimate the full yearly cycle from a small part of the curve. My roommate from the University..." "Emily?" "That's right, Emily. She said a best fit might be something about half-way between a 168-day year and a 365-day year, but she needed a lot more data." "Well," Sandra replied, "We've kept good logs, almost two months now." She then paused and laughed. "Or four months, if we use your new system. Perhaps someday we'll be able to send Emily our data and she what she can make of it." "Send it to her? Heck, I'm hoping to hand it to her in person." Smiling, the two women continued their stroll around the park. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 9 PM Fatima started the meeting an hour past the usual time, but she wanted the two search teams back at the Waterhole before she started and Emily's team just made it. It was a short meeting. Lynn and Charles finalized their plans to leave the entrance rooms at daybreak, which in the underground world was expected to occur at 5:03 AM. They said their goodnights and dropped off to head for bed. Aggie and Emily next spent some time reporting their findings. They sounded a bit tired, both from the full day of walking and their lack of results. They outlined their schedule, quick showers and a late meal now at the Waterhole, a sleep period from 10 PM to 6 AM, an hour for breakfast and plotting new routes, and then taking off shortly after 7 AM, hopefully before the expected 7:15 AM sunrise. A sleepy looking Akiko gave a short report on Leophone production. She hoped to have the second production bench operational by noon tomorrow, producing its first activated phone on March 6th. Meanwhile the current bench would activate their fifth phone on March 5th. Akiko yawned and said that in another week, all away-team members could probably carry their own phone. Fatima thanked Akiko for her hard work and told her to get some rest. Mark talked briefly on the issue of the new job position of Medical Technician. Two members from Fatima's old away team, Alison and Heather, would always be on call as Party #5 applicants for the position as soon it activated. Mark would check often throughout the days and hopefully see the opportunity before Ricardo did. Their society definitely did not want Ricardo or one of his people to grab the slot. For Charles' and Lynn's benefit, Hannah gave a summary of the day's events at Black Mall. Charles gave a long sigh after she finished. "Jenaro and Hernando, somehow I'm not surprised. But that didn't sound like the Diego I knew." Lynn was sitting by his side and she shrugged. "Perhaps he thought he had no choice. Ricardo can be very subtle sometimes, in how he motivates people to do things. Holy Shit!" Mark was the first to ask. "Lynn, what?!" "A flare! A flare! A flare was fired! It's a dark, clear night. There's no mistake!" Charles added. "It's not close. I would guess twenty kilometers or more. The central island would be a good bet. Stand by ... Lynn and I are going outside to fire a return signal." Lynn reported a moment later that they sent their signal. Less than twenty seconds after their flare died, a second flare was seen in the far distance. It was very upbeat note on which to end the meeting and raise hopes for the next day. Fatima dismissed everyone with a short prayer. Afterwards Mark wound up playing a quiet game of chess with her in the library. He would occasionally check the employment folder as they played, but the new job position was still pending. The game ended in a draw. Fatima sighed as she helped put away the pieces. "I keep thinking of Emily and Aggie, how we're losing our chance of rescue. ID Tags 129 and 133, those are the only two left in the group I traveled with, right?" Mark nodded. "And there are now four survivors from the first batch of eighteen nurses, ID Tags 5, 7, 10, and 16." "I feel so selfish, but I keep thinking of my friend Husna. I followed her into the elevator, but I think there was also someone on my left as I walked in. My ID Tag is 131. If the person on my left was counted first, then Husna is #129 and she's still alive. Otherwise..." Fatima frowned in frustration. "Oh, I just can't remember." Mark smiled at her. "I'm amazed you can remember any of that level of detail. We had no hint it would be important." "Yes. Well, the woman with the great memory, that's me." They shared a brief kiss and then both headed off to an early bed. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 10 PM With great effort, Lucia turned her thin body on the lumpy bedding. The makeshift mattress held both her and her partner and was made from clothes that other people no longer needed. So weak! Such a long time now since there was any food. The sensations of eating seemed like distant memories, impossible to recall. But her mind refused to be glum. Not today, not when Husna had finally agreed to take the trip with her. They would face eternity together, breathe and then not breathe in the shelter of each other's souls. Lucia sighed deeply as she debated the energy involved to get up and drink some water. She felt thirsty but finally decided to wait till morning. Her dear partner, she was still so reluctant to begin the trip. She had such a profound fear of suicide offending her God. But this wasn't suicide! It was a puzzle to Lucia, but once the trip started, she was sure she would understand. One great pleasure left in life, but perhaps it was the greatest pleasure of all, the pleasure of acceptance into another's soul. With great effort, Lucia moved her arm and caressed sleeping Husna's hip. It was all bone under a thin veneer of skin. Time: Sunday, March 3, 2019 11 PM Hernando threw himself on a bed inside a store that not too long ago was called the pussy barn. The irony of the situation was not lost on him now, and he tossed and turned as his mind ran over the events of the day. Eventually a voice came from a nearby bed, "Fucking Hosannas Hernando! Get some fucking sleep and stop with the fucking noise!" "Fuck you too compadre," Hernando replied, but there was no anger in his voice. As a matter of fact, the complaint from Jenaro was almost welcome. Hernando felt like talking with someone, and Diego had been acting so aloof this evening. Well, fuck that momma's boy in the butt, Hernando thought dismissively. And talking to Alfonso was out of the question. But Jenaro now, why, he and Jenaro were true compadres... "Hell of a day," Hernando called to the other bed. "Yeah, hell of a day. It started out so sweetly too. Jessica's cunt was still wet from fucking with Alfonso. She was one slick piece of meat to hump down into." "Yeah, not bad from down under either. A super tight butt, I had to ram her open." There was a moment's pause and then a giggle. "Alfonso bedded down for the night?" Hernando laughed. "Yep. It would take the wisdom of Solomon for him not to be." "Huh?" Hernando laughed at his own joke. The servos would normally not tolerate barriers in the corridors or store entrances, but they would not come to remove them while people were present. Under Ricardo's orders, earlier this evening he and Diego had chained a bed to a fixed position under the overhead door of Jacob's Bar and Grill. The bed was securely chained both to the Bar inside Jacob's and also directly to a counter in the store across the corridor. And chained to the bed was Alfonso. Pushing the door close button now would guillotine Alfonso's body in half. It was great motivation for the fallen compadre to stay awake while on guard duty tonight. "Notice Diego decided not to sleep here tonight?" Jenaro grumbled. "Yeah, I noticed." "Fucking prissy motherfucker. He thinks he's so much better." Hernando turned uncomfortably. Those were his thoughts too, but to say them out loud? "Well, he got Ricardo's ear on things. We've got to be a little careful." "Well..." Jenaro was silent for a while, and then whispered, "Prissy motherfuckers can have accidents. Prissy motherfuckers can just disappear. People will think the prissy motherfuckers just wandered off. It happens all the time." "People?" "Yeah, you know, people." "Fucking A, Jenaro, I know what people are! But you're talking some really bad ass ideas, we go doing stuff like that without Ricardo's" "Oh, fuck it! I'm not talking now. Just keep it in the back of your mind." "Uh..." Hernando never got around to more of a reply. He lay thinking for a long while at what Jenaro was suggesting, and then he heard his compadre start to snore. "Shit on a dipstick! A cat getting reamed would have a sweeter sound. Maybe this is why Diego took off." But he was too tired to move. Hernando pulled his pillow against his ears and tried to sleep, and remarkably he did. But then again, it had been a very long day. ------- Chapter 64 Time: Monday, March 4, 2019 8 AM They had left in the predawn twilight more than three hours ago, Jada and three teammates in four kayaks, staying on the western side of the Missisquoi about half way between the shoreline and the central current flowing in the opposite direction. They were traveling single-file and Tom was in the lead boat, followed by Jada, Mandy, and finally Carla. Jada estimated they were just about under the long-axis center of the cylindrical sky, and they had about another five kilometers to go before reaching the headwaters lake at the southeastern corner of Wobanakik. The boathouse there was their destination. So far it had been an idyllic morning, a bright linear sun and cool spring breezes around the river, perfect weather for kayaking. The river along most of their journey varied from three to four hundred meters wide, but they were in a particular stretch that was barely two hundred meters wide, and Tom was setting a path forty to fifty meters from the shore. It was still a decent buffer against the dangers of the forest, but Jada was glad they would not be getting any closer. Numerous times wild birds would call at them as they passed. Tom stopped his paddling and grabbed a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. "Boats!" he called out. "I see two boats!" Charles and Lynn were in the cold central channel, paddling towards them and making good time. The two groups met a few minutes later. The rest of the morning passed quickly. There was a brief conference call with the new infinitely precious Leophone to report their situation to the surface, a trip back to the boathouse at the headwaters, and then a group effort to port the two spare Little Auks still in the entrance rooms down to the lake. It was at the boathouse that they had their second conference meeting, discussing their options with the surface for over an hour before deciding on a course of action. Tom and Carla would stay at the entrance rooms with the Leophone, with one of the touring kayaks and one of the Little Auks in their boathouse. Lynn, Mandy, and Charles would each tow a Little Auk and return with Jada to the central island. Courtesy of Emily, the two groups also exchanged a coding convention of dozen different messages they could send to each other by the timed release of two flares. It was almost noon by the time the group cast off for their return trip to the central island. The central channel was a great asset for traveling downriver. Jada had the impression of paddling along a conveyor belt. The boating was enjoyable, and her relief was strong that her society now knew of their situation and of the eleven new members of their society. Thirty-six people now! And it was so nice to hear Mark's and Toshi's voices on the phone. Still, a great nagging worry never left Jada as she paddled. How would they ever leave Wobanakik? Time: Monday, March 4, 2019 1:07 PM The phone rang on a belt strapped to Emily's waist and she answered it. It was Mark which was unexpected, and then in a premonition, Emily dreaded why he was calling. "We've lost two more people, haven't we?" She heard Mark sigh over the phone and say, "ID Tags 10 and 133 are no longer in the system. The census counter is confirming it, 009:079." Mark heard Emily mumble a curse in reply. She took a moment to tell her team, and then he asked her, "How's the search coming?" Emily didn't pull any punches. "Mark, this is so frustrating! We're still in The Labyrinth, been here since dawn checking corridors Aggie's team flagged for us yesterday. They're much more extensive than we anticipated. This place is literally a 3-D maze, three to five layers of structures. It's so convoluted, as if we're tracing strands in a bowl of spaghetti." Emily paused for a moment and looked around at the corridors and her tired teammates. She half shouted, "This could take years!" Mark heard several deep breaths over the phone, and then Emily continued. "Right now we're in a sublevel three floors below ground. It's a nightmare of twisting corridors connected by steep staircases and sometimes even ladders. That's my decision right now. We've come to a T-intersection in the corridor, and there's also a ladder here. You decide Mark. Do I go left, right, or up a level?" "Uh, go up." "You got it, up it is." Mark asked Emily as she climbed, "Still lots of side rooms?" "Oh yeah, tons. And we're finding such odd supplies in them too, precious metals, board games, a number of bathrooms, just about everything except food. And oh yeah, this is something I already told Fatima about. About fifteen minutes ago we found an archery room, bows, arrows, crossbows, targets, just about everything related to archery. The room even has a shooting range." "Oh wow." "Yeah, it's quite a setup. We just left it for now, but we have the position recorded at the Hilton." "Crossbows are a formidable weapon." "I know. I handled a few of the bolts, wicked deadly." There was a pause as Emily changed mental gears. "Hell Mark, we're on the new level now, and we can't even call out. The doors block sound completely, and a lot of the side rooms have additional rooms. Every little alcove as to be inspected.' Mark couldn't think of what to say besides offering encouragement. He kept it brief and let Emily return to her work. Time: Monday, March 4, 2019 6 PM There were two consoles at the island library. Lynn was working at one in the corner of the room along the wall corresponding to the northern vertex, while Madison was busy at the other station along the northwestern vertex wall. Midway between them was library's only entrance, a door leading to the hexagonal corridor that orbited the six public rooms. Behind them on the opposite side of the room was a transparent wall that overlooked the large core atrium four meters below. Up on the surface, sunset today occurred at 4:44 PM, but her in Wobanakik the linear sun was still shining and would set at 7:50 PM. If Madison turned around, she would see butter yellow sunlight flooding into the kitchen on the east side of the atrium. She would also see Jada staring out across the atrium and watching Emily in the library. Meanwhile a number of other women in the kitchen were busy preparing a fine dinner, a banquet to celebrate all their recent progress. Jada left the kitchen and walked counter-clockwise past the lounge and into the library. Both Madison and Lynn gave her brief smiles as she entered. Jada grinned and came to Lynn first and said, "I know you've only had about an hour, but how does it look?" Lynn rolled her eyes. "Wow! I can't take the pressure!" And then she got serious. "All indications are that this is going to be an immense job. Don't expect anything soon." Jada nodded. "Any guess at all? Days? Months? Years?" She paused for a moment. "Lifetimes?" Lynn shook her head. "No guess yet. But I think it's an open-ended system." "What does that mean?" "Well, that means there's good news and bad news. The good news is there will always be something to try. On the other hand, there are effectively an infinite number of things to try, and I'm not going to live that long." Jada and Lynn heard Madison groan across the room. Jada patted Lynn's shoulder and said, "Well, I better let you get back to work." "Uh huh. Jada?" "Yeah?" "This Friday, when a team goes back to the entrance rooms, I should go too." Jada blinked. "You can work better from there?!" "No. I can't work there at all. The interface is here. But I need to talk to Akiko, bounce around a few ideas. I'll return here at the end of the day." Jada thought for only a moment. "Sure. Consider yourself on the river team." Lynn nodded and got back to work. Jada wandered over to Madison and gave her a friendly smile. "You look busy." Madison smiled back. "And I've found something too. Look at this!" Madison displayed something on her console that reminded Jada of a slightly distorted sine wave. "Time is on the horizontal axis," Madison said with a bit of pride. "The vertical is the length of a Wobanakik day. I hereby predict that a year down here lasts 252 days." Jada eyes lit up. "Great work Madison! How did you do that?" Madison looked momentarily sad. "There was a woman named Roxanne in Sandra's group. She had a diary and a digital watch. She recorded the precise time of linear sunrise and sunset since the first day they got here, every day she could until she died. And then Thara took over the recording. I had to correct for the slightly shorter day but that was easy. The data describe enough of the yearly cycle to tell me what the annual period is. It even tells me our simulated latitude." "Which is?" "The best fit to the data is to imagine us on a planet with a circular orbit and an Earthlike axis tilt of 24 degrees. Pick a spot at 42 degrees latitude, north or south. And let the orbital period be 252 days. Roxanne's data fit that scenario perfectly." Madison typed for a while and brought up an additional chart. "When Sandra's group came here, Wobanakik was in the last phase of its winter. They've lived here almost a full season. See the maximum day range of 4:52 AM to 8:01 PM? I'm predicting we'll get there in another eighteen days, April 8th on our new calendar." Jada thought for a moment. "My gosh Madison, it's exactly a three to two ratio." "Yep! Two years here are exactly three years topside. It would make for some interesting living if we could travel back and forth." Jada nodded, thinking of the implications. She had a sudden thought. "Do you think we should start a new calendar?" "Hmm? What do you mean?" "I mean create a new calendar for Wobanakik. It would be easy, just have three weeks per month instead of two." Madison looked horrified. "Hell no Jada! The surface is the real year. We're just living in a glorified cave down here. I hate the thought of some mechanical timer forcing us to adapt to its settings. It seems so arbitrary." Jada pulled up a chair and sat down besides Madison. "Oh, I don't know Maddy. I'm not saying to forget about the topside calendar. But Wobanakik is large enough to be its own world. We could call the summer solstice July 1, year one W.E., and let each Wobanakik month have three weeks. That would put us in early June now." Madison looked skeptical but considered the idea. "Well, I guess that would align the months with the seasonal changes. Yeah, maybe something to consider. Anyway, what's for dinner?" "Ah, a real feast. Hungry?" "You bet!" A moment later all three women left the library. Time: Monday, March 4, 2019 9:47 PM Emily was pushing her time in The Labyrinth past her limit. In her heart she knew that Fatima had told her to return to the Waterhole by 10 PM, and Emily had twisted that into a command to be RETURNING to the Waterhole by 10 PM. But even that stretch would only give her about another ten minutes of search time. Emily looked fretfully over her tired group of Ashley, Brandi, and Whitney. They all deserved a good rest, though no one was complaining. It had been a very long day. But this was a prime search area and Emily didn't want to abandon it before checking out all of its tiny rooms. They were in a series of sixty-four small rooms arranged in 4 x 4 x 4 cubical grid, a configuration Ashley had labeled a box-maze. Emily suspected there was only one way in or out of the box, an innocent looking door at the end of a corridor that would open from the outside but not from the inside once the door remained closed for more than a minute. It was thus the perfect setup for a trap. Two or more people could test the door easily and think they were okay, but once the door remained closed for a minute, everybody on the inside would be trapped. Emily's group had come across numerous such doors today, and it was only through Emily's janitorial authority that they managed to exit the mazes after searching them. And in their current box-maze there were several rooms on the second level that they still hadn't found how to reach. Emily's team walked into a corner room on the top level and was surprised to see a window. It was not designed to be opened, and Emily assumed it was unbreakable. She took a second to glance at the stars in the moonless sky. Whitney tapped Emily's shoulder and gestured with her arm. There was a ladder array on the opposite wall, with a closed door in the floor leading down. Whitney walked across the small room and slid the door open. She peered down into the cell below. "Looks like another storage area. But there's another ladder on the wall opposite this one. That should get us to the second level." Emily nodded as she jotted down the geometry in her notebook. "That should be it then, the last three rooms on the second level. Let's check this out and we'll be finished for the night. I'll check in with Fatima. I hope she doesn't chew me out too badly." The group went four meters down the ladder and then across the small four-meter by four-meter cubical room. They soon descended into an identical looking storage room. No one was bothering to see what the cabinets contained. "Just two more rooms to go," thought Whitney wearily as she led the way. She went to a side door in the cube and slid it open, revealing one of the ubiquitous toilet and bath areas that were so common to The Labyrinth. And there on a pile of clothes in the center of the small room lay two people. Whitney blinked as her mind tried to comprehend what she was seeing. At first she thought they might be large, deflated dolls. It should be physically impossible for a real person to be this thin. But then Whitney saw an arm move and a head turn, and she cried out in sorrow. A second later she brushed the pity aside and leaped to help the starving people. Twenty minutes later. "They both seem be resting peacefully now," Emily reported over the phone. "We haven't spoken verbally yet, but Fatima, they've just shown us they have excellent linking abilities. Their names are Lucia and Husna." Emily heard Fatima give a small cry over the phone. "Emily, do you need assistance?" "They're so frail, I'd be inclined not to move them for a while. But they both seem to be holding down the saline and sugar solution. And there is a purse here with an empty bottle of vitamin tablets. Maybe that's what saved them. We've given them our blankets ... Fatima, do you want us to move them tonight? I'd be inclined to let us treat them here for a day, maybe even two. All my teammates will be happy to stay." "Emily, how long would it take to bring them to the home complex?" Emily sighed. "It's not going to be easy. It's an hour walk just back to the Waterhole, and if we have these people on stretchers, the ladders are going to be a problem. I really don't want to drop anyone." "Yes, all right, keep them where you are. There are no signs of the remaining two missing nurses, are there?" "No, not in this box. I'm hoping to link again in a few minutes, after we try another few sips of the sugar water. I'll ask again. I got a very strange answer before, incoherent, something about a trip." Fatima acknowledged and rested her head on Mark's shoulder. Toshi was on Fatima's other side and was hugging her around her waist. Fatima turned to her future sister-wife and locked eyes. "It's so strange Toshi! Relief and sorrow, all mixed together!" "Do you want to rest?" asked Toshi. "I could dream you to a nice beach, or a quiet place by a lake." "No, that's okay, thank you. I want to stay in normal time." Fatima broke the link and returned Toshi's affectionate hug while she waited for Emily to report back. ------- Chapter 65 Time: Friday, March 8, 2019 5 PM It had been a long but very productive day, and now Jada was in the homestretch of returning to the central island. She was in the lead boat and had a clear view of their destination only two kilometers ahead. Her convoy had just entered the southeastern end of the highly elongated central lake that contained their home, and at that point they had split in two. Jada and Mandy were both in expedition kayaks and towing Little Auks. Lynn was also paddling with them. On their right and pulling away were Madison, Charles, and Parni, paddling three additional kayaks to the unexplored northwestern shore near its closest approach to the island. Madison jokingly characterized this last part of the mission as installing a telephone booth. So many wonderful supplies they were bringing back! Fatima had sent down the fourth of their society's five captured pistols. Now Carla and Tom at the entrance rooms and Madison and Charles here were all armed. And Fatima had also given Jada two of the brand new Leophones. Lynn was carrying one back to the central island, and the team heading for shore intended to padlock the other one in a strongbox and chain it to a tree. Fifteen people would be at the island tonight, with a total of ten kayaks in the boathouse. The days were still full of things to do. Mandy was giving two classes per day in kayaking and the two library consoles were literally in constant use, with Lynn having the absolute right to use one whenever she wanted. Everybody else used the sign-up logs. And yet there was also much free time. Their stay here was beginning to feel like a vacation. Sandra's team was still overjoyed with the change of venue. No fears of animal attacks, opulent bedrooms and fabulous food, watching a movie or listening to music in the lounge, working out in the gym or just strolling the six hundred meters of the island's perimeter, in total it was an insanely idyllic life. Jada's one worry was when would it start to get boring? Well, that was a worry for another day. Jada's mind returned to the bittersweet news of the end of the search for Red Mall survivors. Only two women had been rescued, all the others had perished. The census counter had dropped to 009:077 late yesterday evening. And the news from Black Mall was so quiet, it seemed ominous. There had been no sighting of Jessica since the day of her disaster with Alfonso. There was no sign of Ricardo either. But the other four men were working furiously gathering supplies they were very careful never to reveal, and Hannah reported that the treatment of Alfonso was horrible. He was being worked figuratively and perhaps even literally to death. The river current was now its maximum and the hexagonal island fast approaching. Jada brushed the extraneous thoughts from her mind and concentrated on inserting her kayak into exactly the right flow line. Meanwhile, approximately six kilometers south and 1.5 kilometers above... Fatima walked into the cubical room serving as Lucia's makeshift bedroom. She took off her backpack and gave the patient a kind smile. Lucia grinned back from her cot and said hello. "Sorry I took four days to get here," said Fatima. "It's great to see you sitting up though." "Ah, you must be Fatima. Husna has told me so much about you. I'm honored." Fatima laughed. "Hah!" "I gather Husna is sleeping?" Fatima nodded and sat down besides the cot, her eyes even without linking clearly showing her happiness over Lucia's improving condition. Lucia grinned. "Well, I've had great care. Emily turned my stomach back on in just the right way, juices and milk the first day, crackers and breads added on the second, and then yesterday we started on small portions of egg and meat proteins." Lucia raised her bone-thin arm and stared at it for a moment. "I must still look like a scarecrow to you, but this is really a big improvement, and I have so much more energy now." In spite of the boast, Lucia then took a deep breath and yawned before looking at Fatima's backpack. "I take it you didn't come with Emily?" Fatima shook her head. "She's taking a well deserved nap right now. Besides, we don't need her to get here, just to get back." Lucia nodded. "Right. Emily and Whitney explained that to me, some of the others too. They told us everything, what this place is, the destruction of the Earth, all the things you've done and are trying to do. I take it you know all about us?" Fatima shrugged. "The gist of it from talking to a few of the away team. I haven't had time to listen to the audio recordings." She pulled a bottle out of her backpack. "Here, I brought you something, fresh grapefruit juice!" Lucia took a large sip. "Ah, delicious, thank you." After another sip, she continued, "Fatima, I'd be happy to fill you in on the details of what happened to us. Do you want to hear a summary?" "You up for it?" "Sure! And thanks for not linking. I guess you know, it speeds up the body's metabolism. Emily advised Husna and me to avoid it until we regain a few more kilos." Fatima nodded. "Right, I understand. I gather that's what speeded up your starvation process." "Yeah. I was talking about this yesterday. Your three super-minds were here for a visit, packing in more supplies." "Super-minds? Oh, you mean Mark and his two wives." "Uh huh. I couldn't resist. I cajoled Mark into linking with me for a few seconds. What awesome power!" Fatima looked puzzled. "That's an interesting comment. Mark and I, we're not exactly engaged in a formal way, but we both expect to marry someday." "Yes, I know." "I find it's a super smooth transition to link with him, with Toshi and Frida too, and it is exhilarating to enter the dream worlds they create, but I never felt any particular sense of power." Lucia dismissed Fatima's remark with a shake of her head. "That's because you haven't practiced enough. My group was isolated for two months. We had nothing to do except link with each other, and the skills and sensitivities grow with practice. Believe me, your three super-minds are awesome!" Fatima grinned. "Okay, I do believe you. I can't wait to tell Mark your opinion of him. He has a bashful side. It's fun to make him blush." Lucia nodded. "I saw a little of his love for you in our link, for all of you. Want to know something? Part of his embarrassment is being sexually interested in so many women at the same time. He still hasn't adjusted to it." "He showed you that?" "I saw it. He wasn't particularly offering but he didn't resist my probes." Fatima tilted her head in puzzlement. "Imagine lying down and letting someone explore your body, explore it completely, your entire skin, in between your toes, the inside of your mouth and nostrils, everyplace possible. That's what Mark sort of allowed me to do with his mind. It was a mini trip." "Hmm ... Emily explained that concept to me a bit, your concept of tripping." "It's a real phenomenon, more than linking, less than what Mark can do. There were eight of us trapped here. Emily calls this place a box-maze. Tripping allows two minds to mesh very tightly. It allows one mind to shield the other from its fears. It's how we would face eternity when our bodies were giving out, how we'd spare ourselves the fright of dying alone. It's amazing how easily Mark can unwind from tripping. For us it's very difficult, and the death of one mind would pull down the other linked with it." Fatima sighed. "If only we could have started our searching sooner." Lucia shook her head. "I know your history Fatima. None of this is your fault." She yawned again and lay back down on her cot, taking a moment to fluff her pillow. And then she began to tell Fatima her story. She started with a question. "I was in the very first elevator ride to ... You still haven't named this planet, have you?" Fatima shook her head. "We haven't, and it deserves one, I know. For a while we were thinking of waiting until we had joined up with everyone possible, wait and get everybody's input. But this morning I was talking to Mark's sister Madison down in Wobanakik..." Fatima looked at Lucia and asked for confirmation with her eyes. "Yep, your care team is keeping us up to date on what's going on." Fatima nodded. "Madison made a suggestion today. Of all of us left, you are the very first human to arrive here. Maddy thought you should have the right to name the planet." Lucia eyes lit up. "Oh wow! That'll certainly put me into the history books!" She gave a nervous laugh. "Anything at all? You really wouldn't mind if I called it Luciaworld?" Fatima grinned back. "Well..." Lucia turned serious. "From what I understand, our first two days here weren't much different than what you experienced. We found this place absolutely bewildering, but everybody was assuming with were just trapped in a mall we couldn't understand. Uh, let me start at the beginning." Lucia took a deep breath. "A few of us noticed a strange invitation, the morning of the 21st. No one knew how it got up on our bulletin board. But it was kind of intriguing, and as fifth-years many of us had shifts scheduled over the holidays, either at Children's or the State Hospital or at Fletcher Allen's. So we were going to be around over the holidays. Nobody had heard of a fraternity named Kappa Alpha before, but checking out its party seemed a nice, innocent diversion." Fatima nodded her head. "The symbols aren't even Kappa Alpha. Close, but the Greeks never dotted their alphas." Lucia nodded back and continued. "The tunnel to get here was so strange. I wanted to turn back and just leave, a number of my classmates did too. But then somebody wondered if the guys from Beta Sigma Rho would follow us. We definitely did not want to be caught alone in a deserted mall with those creeps. And there were a lot of people in the tunnel. It seemed safer to stick it out and go to the party." "My classmates and I arrived at an empty lounge. It was our first warning of how bizarre this place was, an incredibly delicious banquet, super opulent surroundings, and the place was absolutely deserted. The food pacified us for a while and we chatted how strange the views were out the windows. We saw the big soccer field to the south. That was a real puzzle." Fatima nodded quietly. "Yes, the following day, for us too." "Anyway, by the time the rest of our group arrived with Husna, well, by that time we had had it with how ridiculous this all was. Most of us decided to head back to campus, get there before dark. We thought we had lots of time. Nobody had any idea we were walking into a nightmare." "It took us about two hours to reach what you call the Waterhole. By then it was pitch black outside and we were totally confused. We tried to retrace our path and found a locked door about a few hundred meters behind us. We came back to the Waterhole. A few hours later the rest of our group joined us. They had chosen the same path. And by that time, the drug was already affecting us. Things got ... wild, downright ugly." Fatima looked at her closely. "Really? We were having a mini orgy too, back at our lounge, but we weren't cruel with each other." Lucia shook her head. "You had one guy and six women, and Mark is a really sweet guy. We had four highly competitive males, a whole bunch of females, and a drug that took the lid off absolutely everything. It was bad Fatima. I'm not blaming anybody. With the drug, I don't think the men were accountable for their actions. But the end result is they started organizing us into four harems, and we girls were ... I'll be blunt. We were so hot to be fucked, we didn't mind." Fatima grimaced. "Shit. This is similar to what happened at Black Mall. But over there, the men already had their pecking order established. They were much more efficient in dividing up their women." Lucia sighed. "There was a lot of bad blood created. I was a part of two harems. I lost my virginity that night, to ... wow, at the time, I didn't even know his name. And when I tried to switch to a third harem, a fight broke out, a bad one. There's a kitchen area at the Waterhole, food and dishes and several drawers with cutting utensils. The men armed themselves with knives, and soon the women started to get knives too. We were four armed camps, drunk and fucking and growling at each other." Fatima shivered as she tried to imagine the scene. "But afterwards, once the drug wore off..." "Yes, we got back to being semi-rational. Most people kept their knives though, a bit of protection against how strange our situation was. It was a cloudy day outside, I remember that. Nobody could get a signal on their cell phone, but there were outlets in the room. A few people were charging their phones anyway. We made a breakfast in the Waterhole's kitchen area. We had no idea how precious the food was." "It was such a strange room Fatima! Such a huge isosceles triangle, with the toileting area right out in the open next to open sleeping areas. It seemed so bizarre. Who builds like this?!" Fatima just nodded sympathetically. "We took a vote and decided to wait in the triangle room, even with the absurd toilets. We tried to create a bit of privacy with some furniture and sheets. People were making simple pickup meals in the kitchen, being haphazard with the food. We had no idea how precious it was." "Sunday was the day we thought we went insane. We saw the massive orange sun rise through the windows, and then the alien stars at night. It was as if someone had yanked away our sanity. This just couldn't be happening, and yet it was." Lucia's voice broke and she whispered. "A couple of people, a man and a woman, they went truly insane. But nobody realized it yet." "A number of people were considering our plight to be a divine judgment against us. I know this sounds crazy, and it was crazy, but at the time I semi-believed it myself. We stayed in the triangle room for three days, propping the doors open and making little excursions to the southwest and east. Christmas night, maybe about 10 PM on the 25th, we had bedded down early. Four days had gone by now and the realization was sinking in that we might be waiting in this room for eternity. There were so many wild religious ideas..." Lucia gasped and then continued. "Two people, Eric and a woman named Samantha, they thought our group was being damned for its divisiveness. They thought we needed a Moses to lead us out of the wilderness. We laughed at them ... and they tried to kill us, kill the men and have Eric become Moses. Christmas night I was asleep. Suddenly there was a lot of yelling. They had already killed two men, slit their throats as the slept. They were trying to kill a third. We had a battle ... Eric and Samantha were stabbed to death ... I helped stab Eric..." Lucia sat for a moment, shivering slightly, not speaking. Fatima came to her and hugged her. "I remember," Fatima whispered. "My group noticed the census counter drop very soon afterwards, Christmas night. It was the day we found Aggie at Hex Hall." Lucia gave a deep sigh. "You can probably guess what happened next. We stayed that night in the room, but the following morning, the four dead bodies, all the blood, everybody wanted to leave. So we split into two groups of about a dozen people each. What fools we were! All that food in the room, and most of us just grabbed a water bottle. What incredible fools!" "The first group left through the southwest door. My group went east. We thought we were being smart. We were carrying a huge amount of odds and ends to prop doors open. We traveled a couple of kilometers. The buildings were so bizarre, a nightmarish maze. We tried to turn back. One door had our prop to keep it open, but the next door was shut with no way to open it from our side." Fatima nodded. "Propping doors open is a low-level security violation. The servos remove them if the prop is unattended." "Right. We wandered into this maze of sixty-four rooms before the end of the day. We were shocked when we couldn't leave. We had tested the entrance door twice. But we were trapped, twelve people with no food. That was December 26th." Lucia paused and gave a big yawn. "You know the rest." "Tired?" "Yeah, a little. I had a meal just before you showed up. I guess it's making me a little sleepy." "Ah. I should let you rest. Want your pillows fluffed?" Fatima wound up petting Lucia's head and describing some of her hopes for the future. She only stopped when she realized Lucia was asleep. ------- Chapter 66 The following afternoon. Time: Saturday, March 9, 2019 4 PM Diego was silently thankful he did not miss his required rendezvous time in Jacob's Bar and Grill. For almost the past week now, he had dutifully been at the entrance store three times a day at eight-hour intervals, and the door to the surface had remained locked. But this afternoon as he stood by the door, it opened and Ricardo waved for him to follow. The two men were sitting together in the Black Mall library a few minutes later. Ricardo started looking at some notes. Diego had the impression his master was intentionally trying to ignore him. He knew enough not to attempt to start a conversation, even though he was very curious about Jessica. So he waited patiently, careful not to show any annoyance for being treated like a domesticated animal. Diego simply turned his head and gazed out the library windows. There was still about an hour of orange daylight left, and he could see complex and turbulent bands of white clouds in the teal heavens above. After six days of underground living, the simple sight of the dome of the sky was truly enjoyable. Ricardo finally looked up and said in a flat voice, "Diego, I need your opinion." Diego waited a moment for Ricardo to continue but he did not. Diego finally replied, "Sure boss. What's up?" "We'll soon begin surface exploration. Who do you think I should station at the dead man's switch?" Diego was surprised Ricardo would ask him such a question, and by accident he did something he tried never to do. He looked Ricardo directly in the eyes, just for an instant. Then he raised his eyebrows and before he could stop himself, he blurted out with exasperation, "Oh hell boss. You're going to assign me that job, aren't you?" Ricardo's face flashed a quick frown. "What? Did I say that?" Diego felt momentarily confused though he struggled not to show it. He had no clue how he had guessed Ricardo's choice. It was almost as if he could read his master's mind. He knew Ricardo's decision, he knew his master's real motivation, he even knew the lie Ricardo was preparing to tell him. Diego felt very unsettled. What the hell had just happened? He knew it was dangerous to talk to Ricardo without understanding, but the continued silence felt very awkward and he couldn't delay his answer. "Yeah, I think you did. I guess I know how your mind works boss. You wouldn't have asked me that question unless you've already decided to place me there." Ricardo lowered his head when he heard this. The silence stretched on for a long moment with Ricardo just staring at his hands. "I had no idea he could guess my mind so easily," he thought silently to himself. "I'll have to work on this. I will not tolerate being predictable. I will change or Diego must disappear. One way or the other, this will not happen again." Ricardo gave a deep sigh and said out loud. "You're right. Can you see why you're my logical choice?" Diego was outwardly calm but inwardly terrified. His mind was spinning, afraid he was at the moment of his own death if he fucked up the answer to Ricardo's question. But what to say? To reveal Ricardo's true motive would be a disaster. Instead Diego put on his best poker face and pretended reluctantly to concede a point. "Well, I guess maybe I do. The rational choice of the person at the dead man's switch is to let the returning party back in no matter what the circumstances, and I've got the most rational mind around here." Ricardo nodded, staring at Diego closely and looking somewhat relieved. "Hole in one Diego, hole in one. That was exactly my thought." Diego added hastily, "I'm not comparing myself to you of course." And then he lowered his head meekly. His mind was racing wildly. Ricardo's true motive was so clear to him. Outside exploring the surface, Ricardo trusted that Jessica and Jenaro and Hernando had neither the courage nor the intelligence to challenge him. They would need Ricardo to return home and would not risk a mutiny. For all their swagger, Jenaro and Hernando were natural-born followers. Being directly responsible for their own survival terrified them. But Ricardo had a totally different opinion of Diego. If Diego found an opportunity to escape, would he take it? Escape might be as easy as finding a lockable door and pulling it closed behind him. Ricardo was determined never to give Diego the chance, and that meant Diego must be forever under lock and key. Diego wanted to say more. In fact there were a million questions he felt like asking, but he knew the limits for what Ricardo would tolerate. So he waited obediently for his master to proceed, and wasn't surprised when Ricardo said nothing. Instead Ricardo beckoned Diego to follow him. A few minutes later they were standing on the second floor of the southern vertex of their home complex. Ricardo was surveying the fields surrounding them with binoculars, and the dead man's switch was directly beneath them on the first level. Diego tried to remain calm and not think about what a miserable experience the switch was going to be for him. Ricardo handed Diego the binoculars. "Take a look. There's still enough light. Go out two kilometers from here, any direction." Diego scanned for a while, unsure what Ricardo was driving at. "You mean all the buildings?" Ricardo made a disappointed clicking noise. "No. The buildings are about two and half kilometers away. I said two kilometers." "Right, okay..." Diego surveyed the scenery for a full minute. The ground outside was flat for about a kilometer, but then it turned into a wild and crazy landscape, no trees, very few bushes in fact, but full of moguls. The area vaguely reminded Diego of a vast miniature golf park. All it needed were a few mechanical windmills and a big plastic T-Rex on the eighteenth hole and the illusion would be complete. Or did all the little hills and valleys form some sort of maze? Diego remembered Ricardo's words. What was at the two-kilometer mark? Diego stared for a while and finally guessed, "Some sort of moat?" "You see any water out there compadre?" Diego thought he heard derision in his old title. "Uh, no, I don't. Some sort of ditch then? And there might be a grass berm in front of it too, on this side. It's hard to be sure..." Diego slowly turned in a half circle. "Wow! I see what you mean. It might encircle us!" Diego lowered the binoculars and waited for Ricardo to say something. All he received was a stern warning to tell Jenaro and Hernando nothing of his visit. Ricardo finished with a curt hand gesture. It was time for them to head back down to the mall. Ricardo walked a few meters behind Diego as they returned to Jacob's, and after Diego entered the walk-in freezer, Ricardo closed and sealed the stairwell door behind him. The men had parted company without uttering a word. Diego's thoughts returned to Jessica. She had been invisible during his stay topside. Was she even still alive? Ricardo had made no mention of her. Of course, she simply could have been ordered to stay in a bedroom during his visit. "Jessica," Diego thought. "If ego were an Olympic sport, she would take the gold. That's what I used to think. Now though ... Poor kid. Nobody deserves being forced to play Ricardo's mind games. Poor kid..." Diego let out a deep sigh and went off to find his former frat brothers. The following morning. Time: Sunday, March 10, 2019 6:30 AM "I'd like to start the meeting now," Fatima said over the bridge. "Team leaders, will you announce where you are and who you're with?" "This is Jada at Pelican Island," said Jada. "With me are Lynn and our six escorts, Parni, Sachi, Suvarna, Tajana with spears and Charles and Madison who are armed with our pistols. I also have the flare gun." Frida was sitting by Fatima's side typing the minutes of the meeting. "Jada," she asked her sister-wife, "Is your position safe?" "Oh yes, this is overkill. I just couldn't see a reason not to do it. It's a fine day and we can see all of Pelican Island from here. There are no predators. This far from the central current, it's actually warm, the air and the water too. It's a great day for swimming." Jada was reporting from a small oval island slightly over one kilometer due east of their home hexagonal island. Pelican Island was less than a hundred meters from the Missisquoi's eastern riverside and it was the location Madison had built a "telephone booth" for their remaining Leophone. Madison had named the island after seeing a large bird flee from it when their kayaks first approached the island on Friday. Their other Leophone, the one Lynn had carried to the central island earlier on Friday, it had ceased working several minutes after Lynn had landed. The phone had abruptly died while Lynn was still standing on the docks. Another voice spoke up on the bridge. "Tom just gave me a hand gesture to speak. This is Carla. We're about one kilometer from the entrance rooms. We're returning home now." Fatima blinked. "Carla?" Her cheerful voice answered, "Yes, Tom made an offer to me last night that we divide the leadership. I'm in charge when we're outdoors and on land. Tom is in charge on the river and inside the entrance rooms. We're returning from my morning kayaking lesson." "More like our morning workout," Tom added. "Carla is already an excellent kayaker. We were practicing towing techniques." Another voice spoke. "This is Mark at the box maze. With me are Lucia, Husna, Emily, Aggie, Whitney, and Heather. Our night here was uneventful. We are all in high spirits and are set to begin the transfer operation as soon as this meeting ends." Mark was referring to plan to transfer Lucia and Husna back to the Waterhole and perhaps all the way back to the home complex if the first leg of the trip went well. Almost the entire path would be indoors, and Mark's team had a pair of lightweight folding wheelchairs for the transfer. For the stairwells and ladders, Mark had designed a padded harness from a sturdy backpack frame, and he would carry Lucia and Husna in the spots the wheelchairs couldn't go. Mark had practiced with backpacking Ann the previous day and he thought the transfers with the lighter Lucia and Husna would be no problem. Fatima described her location. "Toshi and Holly are asleep right now after working the graveyard shift. Everyone else is here with me at the Hilton. We have two items on the agenda. Lynn wanted to do a follow-up on what she reported last night, and there is a new development at Black Mall that Amber will talk about. Lynn, do you want to go first?" "Sure." The others on the bridge could hear a big yawn. "Sorry. I was up working most of last night. I'd like to confirm yesterday's diagnostic that the interface down here has scheduled some sort of system reset. I think I managed to understand the countdown shortly before we left to come here. If I'm reading this correctly, the reset will occur in five days, next Friday, maybe shortly after noon. I want to recheck my analysis, but that's what I think now." Holly spoke up from the Hilton conference room. "So you think the communications system is going to reset all by itself?" Lynn answered. "It's hard to know, but if it doesn't, there're a couple things I can do to try to nudge the process. I'm almost certain there is some type of resonance phenomenon linking our two dead Leophones with the library console here. But it's not simply a matter of distance. The first dead Leophone went all the way back to the entrance rooms. The resonance lock did not break. Yet the phone we're using now is only one kilometer away and is unaffected." "Lynn, this is Mark. Is what you're doing dangerous?" "Well, potentially, sure. I'm pushing buttons on a machine I don't understand. But we do that every time we sit down at a console." "The reason I'm asking is that the spring equinox occurs next Friday, I think a few minutes after noon. I'll check my logs when I get back home." There was a long pause and then Lynn replied, "Uh Mark, I don't see the connection." "Yeah, neither do I, and that's what's worrying me. Why schedule a communications reset at the exact moment the sun crosses the equator? Somehow I'm guessing it's not a coincidence." "Oh. Okay, I see your point." Another yawn. "I'd still like to try to get the interface online. We have a whole bunch of volunteers down here that are eager for janitor training." Everyone knew the point Lynn was making. Would a White Mall janitor have the authority to activate the one-way elevator at the entrance rooms? It was an enticing possibility, and thus far their only hope for leaving Wobanakik. After a nod from Fatima, Amber spoke next. "As Fatima mentioned, we're seeing a lot of building activity outside of Black Mall's entrance location. They have poles and wire mesh and dozens of roles of aluminum foil. It's pretty obvious they're going to construct a barrier. If they cover the wire mesh with the foil, we'll lose our periscope into Jacob's." Aggie answered from the box maze, "Well, if they do that, they'll have to keep their barrier under constant surveillance for it to work. Remember how quickly the servos tore down our barricade? It happened minutes after Segundo died." "I think we should assume Ricardo knows this," said Amber. "His team down in the mall has had plenty of opportunity to run experiments." She leaned back and thought of the rules they had learned. Supplies intentionally left in the mall would be left alone. But trash, human waste, or anything that impeded the free flow of traffic was removed as soon as the material was unattended. Ricardo would need to schedule continuous monitoring for his barrier for it to work. The group around Fatima started kicking around ideas of how to respond to the barrier's erection. At first, most people thought they should do nothing, but Amber made a counter argument that that was what Ricardo was almost certainly assuming they would decide, and thus probably not their best move. After that the discussion became more complex, and Fatima dismissed the meeting to let the other teams get on with their work. Time: Sunday, March 10, 2019 8:40 AM Mark looked up. In front of him were sixteen meters worth of ladder that he was about to climb with Lucia on his back. Already at the top level were Husna, Aggie, and Whitney. Also still with him were Emily and Heather who were giving Lucia's harness a final safety check before the ascent. Afterwards Emily folded the lightweight wheelchair and secured it to Heather's back. The group also had a nylon rope they could use to haul the chair up, but Heather had no problem carrying it and it was a bit faster to let her port the chair on her back. "All set?" Mark asked his passenger. Lucia arms were hugging his collarbone, and a playful voice said near his ear, "Giddy-up!" A second later Mark felt Lucia's heel lightly kick his butt. Mark blinked. "Yikes! Sorry Mark! I didn't think I had the strength to do that!" Mark grinned and began climbing. The ladder was an integral part of the building, its rungs flowing directly out of the wall. Hand over hand, one sure step and grip after another, Mark was taking his time. There was absolutely reason to rush. "This is the last ladder before the Waterhole," he said as he approached the halfway mark. "It's easy from here, just a few long corridors and a single flight of stairs heading down. We should be at the Waterhole in twenty minutes." Mark could feel Lucia nod against his shoulder blade. She said quietly, "It'll be a strange emotion to see the place again." At the top of the ladder, they got a cheerful smile from Husna, and then Aggie and Whitney helped Lucia out of her harness and into the wheelchair that Heather brought up. Afterwards Mark glanced at the time and called a three-minute break. The group spent the time stretching and drinking from their water bottles. Lucia sat sipping a bottle of lemonade that Aggie had handed her, staring out the windows on their new level. It had been a raw, cloudy dawn when Lucia had last seen the outdoors two hours ago on the top floor of the box maze. Now the sky was still very dark, and wind driven sheets of rain and wet snow were slamming against the window by her side. Lucia reached up and traced the window with her fingertips. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to these windows. They're so clear they're invisible, and yet they block all the sound, and the surface feels impossibly warm." "And these windows are absolutely impossible to break," added Husna. "We tried for weeks. We hit the window at the box maze with absolutely everything we had, with zero results." Heather nodded. "Jada and I ran some experiments shortly before she went down to Wobanakik. We don't think the window is made of matter, nothing that we would recognize anyway." Husna looked perplexed. "Huh?" "The material properties are beyond anything that makes sense. The reason it feels warm is because we can't measure a heat transfer coefficient. Maybe it's exactly zero." Husna frowned. "It can't be exactly zero. At the atomic level," Heather interrupted. "You're making too many assumptions. Don't think of this stuff as matter. Jada jokingly calls it frozen time." Lucia turned and stared at Heather. "Frozen time? What is that supposed to mean?" Mark spoke up. "It's a wild conjecture, a crazy model for how the overhead doors in the Mall work. They feel vaguely like thick plastic when they're moving up or down, but once their fully extended, there's a tiny flash of light and the door becomes rigid and impervious. Jada calls it adding a touch of frozen time." Lucia growled. "Oh, I hate this kind of stuff! You build a model without ever defining what you mean, and then you think you're making progress. I defy you to explain the concept of frozen time. Wouldn't that imply that time itself has a temperature? What is the thought?! What is the concept?!" Mark grinned. "Welcome to the club. It drives us crazy too. But the reason we picked the phrase frozen time is because of the time delays we've measured for light passing through the windows. Remember the experiments Heather was mentioning? We found it takes about 200 milliseconds for light to pass through the windows of our home complex. We can measure the delay. We also estimate the window is about two millimeters thick. So the velocity of light within the window is about one centimeter per second." Lucia gave an exasperated gasp and then stared out the window while moving her head back and forth. "That's ridiculous! That would imply an index of refraction of ... of thirty billion! But I'm not seeing any bending of the light!" Mark laughed. "Yep! Excellent point Lucia ... You have to throw all the principles away, Snell's Law, the principle of least action, everything! It's an observable fact that the window slows but does not bend the light." Husna was staring at the storm and gave a deep sigh. "So I'm watching the storm with a 200 millisecond time delay?" "Yep." Husna digested Mark's answer for a moment and finally said, "It's scary. The builders of this place, the technology here, millions, billions of years ahead of us? Do the builders think of us as some sort of..." "Insect?" offered Lucia. Husna shuddered. "I remember hearing once that Earth's biosphere developed multi-cellular life about six hundred million years ago. Perhaps the word I wanted was bacteria. Even for an insect ... I would hope most people would feel squeamish about torturing an insect. But we have no concern at all for bacteria. Spray the disinfectant on the table and wipe it clean. Does anyone give a passing thought that the bacteria might have found their deaths unpleasant?" It was a sober reminder of how much they didn't understand. Lucia glanced up and locked eyes with Mark for a brief moment, and then they held hands as she finished the rest of her lemonade. A moment later they began the last leg of their trip to the Waterhole. ------- Chapter 67 Overhead view of the crescent maze surrounding the Black Mall diamond complex. Black Mall's home complex is the southernmost hexagon in the array. To the northwest is the perimeter wall of the Great Hexagon, and to the south is the line of buildings Ricardo is trying to reach. ------- Chapter 68 Five days later. Time: April 1, 2019 5 AM Jada was at the core hexagon lying on her bed and gazing at the morning through a large bank of windows. She and Madison were now sharing the northern of the two bedrooms that faced due east, and while Madison was still sound asleep, the dawn had awoken Jada five minutes ago. A pretty morning, she thought. The overhead dome was filled with fluffy white clouds, a pure cornflower blue sky, and the bright butter-yellow light of the strange linear sun. Madison had made a measurement a few days ago and confirmed an early suspicion. The linear sun was not uniformly bright along its length. It was brighter near the north and south poles of the cylindrical sky. It had an intensity profile that provided equal sunlight along the entire length of Wobanakik. Their society had made a lot progress in the last several days, both at Wobanakik and on the surface. This past Monday Fatima remembered a sporting goods store along Yellow Brick Road that had never been checked out, about three kilometers up-spiral from the segment's home complex. Her memory was accurate, and at the 56.3 kilometer mark, the society discovered another six of the Little Auk kayaks. Over the next few days, Jada's group of seventeen people went from being five kayaks short to having a spare. And believing in safety in numbers, Yesterday Suvarna and Tajana had remained with Tom and Carla at the entrance rooms when the new kayaks were transferred to the central island. Today was the day Lynn would try to push the interface system out of its resonance lock with the Leophones. It was a very brief window of opportunity, opening just before 12:13 PM today and closing a few seconds later. It was critical that the opportunity not be missed. Yesterday Lynn had found their next chance would not occur until another 504 days, another two Wobanakik years. Jada had scheduled an easy morning for everyone, even cancelling Mandy's morning kayaking lessons so that some unexpected issue wouldn't run into the scheduled noontime reset. So the group had a mini-party yesterday evening. Madison made a ton of popcorn and they all watched a movie in the lounge. Mandy dressed in her pajamas had unashamedly curled up by Charles' side. And now everyone would have nice easy morning. Most people had said they would just sleep in and have a late breakfast together at 9 AM. But Jada was fully awake. She got up, put on a bath robe and headed off for a shower. She gulped a moment later when she walked into the bath area. Charles was there and he had evidently just taken off his robe and about to step into the shower. He quickly turned his head the other way, pretending Jada hadn't entered the room. He hung his robe on a hook and walked a bit stiffly into the shower area. Jada felt a pang of nervousness and also a slight pang of guilt. According to their new social custom, the correct response for both of them was to ignore each other's presence while in the bathroom. If Charles had truly not noticed her, Jada would probably have turned around and come back twenty minutes later. But she was sure Charles had seen her, and in her bathrobe too. It seemed to Jada that to turn back now would be a mild insult to Charles. She would be making a statement she didn't want to rely on Charles to be polite and follow the new rules. And how would this look to the other women? Jada had told them of the new social custom established on the surface. Would she be a hypocrite if she turned away now? Jada admitted to herself that the answer to that question was a simple yes. So she disrobed and was soon washing herself on the opposite side of the shower room. Charles was polite throughout the bathing. Over the soft hiss of the high pressure sprays, Jada thought she heard him sigh several times, but he was true to the social standard and did not steal glances at her. And as the end of Jada's shower neared, she heard Charles turn off his faucet. He calmly walked across her field of vision as he left, and Jada's peripheral vision caught a quick glimpse of a semi-erect penis before she thought to turn her head away. Her mind drifted to the image as she finished bathing. It had never occurred to Jada that the common bathing areas might be more difficult for men than for women. But as she headed for her towel and robe, she had to admit it was much easier for a woman to hide sexual interest. Charles had tried his best to live up to the new moral codes. Jada sighed and made a mental note to give him a friendly smile later when she got the chance. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 6 AM Fatima stretched at the break of the new day. The day's new light was just touching the top of the hexagonal perimeter outside her bedroom window. She left her Red Mall bedroom and went down the circular staircase to the first floor, and then marched briskly through the silent rooms to the library. A review of the sensor logs confirmed what her eyes were telling her about the outdoors. The temperature was at a minimum, -2C now and that was also the overnight low. Spring was in the air! Equinox day! There were twelve full hours of daylight now, and incredibly in only another six weeks they would see the sun at midnight. So fast! Fatima suspected it would take many, many seasons before the novelty of the 168-day year wore off. She took a quick look at the census counter by the elevator, still 009:077. The number had remained constant since Husna's and Lucia's rescue. At the other mall locations, Green and Blue and Yellow, the situations of their Parties were still such a mystery, but at least they had evidently found enough stability to survive. Fatima offered a prayer of thanks for that. It was such a joy to have her friend and confidant Husna again! She and Lucia had arrived at the home complex on Sunday about five hours after leaving the box maze. Initially Husna and Lucia were both somewhat reluctant to let the strange and fearsome looking autodoc treated their wasted bodies, but several of the women from Black Mall gave rave reviews on how the autodocs had cured them of the abuses of their enslavement. Lucia volunteered to give it a try. It was a very interesting process to watch. The system spent a full five minutes probing her and running diagnostics, and then laid out a treatment schedule of six one-hour periods, two per day, and when Lucia nodded and Emily typed in her acceptance, the treatment began. Lucia's body was covered neck to feet in sensors, and a moment later she said in a worried voice that she could feel and move almost nothing. She was breathing normally and could talk and open and close her eyes, but for everything else below the neck, it felt as if her body were almost turned off. What followed were quivers over her entire body. At the end of the hour, the probes and sensors released her, and Lucia sat up. She said it felt as if her entire body was being lightly poked with pins and needles, and then she gazed at her arm. It was still thin, but the views of the bones were gone. Instead the arm showed clear evidence of new muscle and even a hint of body fat. In three short days, Lucia and Husna were returned to full vitality. They now appeared as wiry adults, still a bit on the thin side but with healthy layers of sleek muscles which they were still learning how to use. The autodocs had transformed their wasted frames into athletic bodies. Power, speed, and endurance were all there. Over the last several days, their new job was learning how to use it, practicing in the gym and adding grace and coordination to their restored abilities. Fatima next checked in with the monitoring team at the Hilton. There had been no change during the night. For three full days now, their monitoring abilities had ended at the barrier Ricardo's team had constructed. From the sensor side, it appeared as a blank six-meter by four-meter wall of aluminum foil. It only took a few hours to build. The four men under Ricardo started early Monday morning, creating a sturdy aluminum grid of folding and extension ladders lashed together with steel wire. They build the framework a few meters up-spiral from the entrance to Jacob's and then covered its outward face with chicken wire. The final step was a double layer of aluminum foil folded and tied into the wire, first a horizontal layer and then a vertical. Afterwards Diego swung a small chicken-wire door closed and the barrier was complete. It was simple but effective and completely blocked their ability to scan beyond it. Fatima's strong opinion was to let the issue rest, and she was amazed that Amber was slowly winning converts to her idea that the Society should probe the barrier. At last night's meeting, Mark was her latest convert. Risking a confrontation with a violent, depraved, and armed group still made no sense to Fatima. With four of the five Society's pistols down in Wobanakik, any gun battle at Jacob's would be their one gun against Ricardo's five. The Society would be up against four 38-calibre pistols and an oversized 45-calibre pistol that used to belong to Uno. Fatima considered it almost insane to risk such a confrontation. But Amber was persistent. Ricardo must know he was trapped in a box. His only way out would be to explore the surface. He would need to leave at least two people behind, one down in the Mall to prevent the servos from tearing the barrier down, and one person topside to let the returning exploration party back in home complex. That meant Ricardo could take at most three people with him. There was much discussion at the meeting over how Ricardo might divide his group. The debate to challenge the barrier revolved around a core question: Did the Society want to rescue the person or people left guarding the barrier? After long discussion, there was a general consensus that the Society would be interested in rehabilitating Jessica and Diego if they got the chance, and marginally Alfonso as well. Ricardo, Jenaro, and Hernando were considered too hard-core and dangerous to deal with. Should they engage with Black Mall again? Fatima was still resisting the idea, but there was another meeting scheduled at 1 PM today, and she was trying to keep an open mind. She valued Mark's opinion very highly, and it unsettled her that he had switched to Amber's argument for contact. Fatima took a deep breath and tried to put the issue out of her mind. The network reset at Wobanakik was six hours away. That should be her focus now. She got up and headed for the kitchen hoping to find some company for breakfast. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 7 AM A final test on Diego's chains and then they were off, a party of four consisting of Ricardo, Jessica, Jenaro, and Hernando. They began their like heading slightly west of due south across the open grassland. The beginning of the berm maze was actually somewhat closer directly southwest, but further south along the barrier wall, there appeared to be pinkish structure, some sort of tower with stairs up to the top level of the berm maze, and that's where Ricardo was headed. There had been a nasty, slushy storm the previous Sunday, then three days of very moderate weather, and then finally yesterday one last taste of winter, cold blowing winds that had left a dusting of snow. The thin frost had not yet started to melt, but Ricardo expected it would soon. For three days Ricardo had kept his men down in the Mall, everyone except Alfonso armed and waiting in ambush for their enemy to make an appearance. But the enemy had never shown, and Ricardo was now willing to gamble they never would. Alfonso was the lone guard at Jacob's now, chained as before under the overhead door at Jacob's. After some thought, Ricardo let Diego leave Alfonso a gun. Their male slave swore to Diego he would defend the opening with his life. Ricardo had grinned when he heard this. What a joke! What choice did Alfonso have? And early this morning Diego was chained to a small area on the first floor at the southern vertex of their home perimeter. He had twenty four-liter jugs of water with him, several months' worth of dry food, a mattress, a commode, and an ample supply of plastic bags to store his waste. At Diego's request, Ricardo also let him have binoculars and a few books from the library. Diego's instructions were simple and clear. He was to open the door only when Ricardo returned, and most emphatically not if any of the other explorers returned without Ricardo. Only Ricardo would have the key to unlock Diego from his chains, and the chains appeared to be made from the other-world stuff that would be impossible to break. And so after leaving the bare minimum of two people behind, Ricardo's team of four headed south an hour after sunrise. It had been months since anyone had done any walking outside, not since being on Earth, and now the experience felt somewhat novel. They quickly hiked across the first kilometer of flat grassland, occasionally turning back to glance at their receding home. As they walked, it became apparent they were walking down a slight incline. Both Jenaro and Hernando found it difficult to keep their eyes off Jessica as they walked. She looked so completely different than the person they knew before. The new Jessica was dressed in bright but modest clothes, a style completely different from the low slung jeans that used to show off her bare hips and abdomen. With her boyish hips and smallish tits, Jenaro thought she looked like a twelve-year old who was just entering puberty. Her hair was braided in girlish pigtails with ribbons, and she was skipping like a schoolgirl with childish delight. And her eyes! Jenaro had only glanced at them once. Fucking hell! Jenaro somehow got the impression that Jessica was thinking of Ricardo as the most wonderful person in the world. She had a crush on him, thinking of him as a father she was desperate to please and also someone she was desperately hoping to get sexy with. Jenaro shook his head in confusion. How did he know all this? He had no idea, but he was certain he was right. And the hike continued, the men walking and Jessica often breaking into skips. As they approached the pink tower, Ricardo turned and looked back towards home. They had dropped about three meters in their one-kilometer hike. This was consistent with Ricardo's earlier estimate that the perimeter wall to the berm maze was seven meters high, and also that the top of the wall was level with the second floor of the southern vertex. Ricardo also noticed something that was not visible from the home complex. Two to three kilometers to his right was the great twelve-meter wall that cut off all access to the northwest. As the perimeter wall of the maze approached this great wall, the grasslands in front of it began to drop. By the time the two walls touched, the drop was enormous, the last hundred meters of grassland dropping down at a steep 45 degree angle, with the walls more than a hundred meters from base to top. Attempting a crossing there would be truly impossible. At last they came to the base of the magenta-pink tower. Except for the color, Ricardo thought the edifice looked like a small Mayan temple. It had very broad bank of steep stairs. Ricardo gave Jessica two hand signals, one to make some measurements with the laser rangefinder that he had taught her how to use, and a second command to give a verbal report. Jessica complied at once, smiling in happiness for the chance to be of use to her new father and hopefully future lover. "Stairs are twenty-five meters across," she called out a moment later. "The rise reads seven meters exactly, and the run 9.77 meters. I count thirty-six stairs." Jessica then looked timidly at Ricardo's hand of command. She was hoping for the sign of approval. Should he give it? He had not asked her to count the stairs. But Ricardo decided her overwhelming eagerness to please him was just what he wanted, and he rewarded her by pinching his thumb and middle finger together. Jessica bowed her head in gratitude and turned away just as she had been taught, a bright smile on her face. A moment later the group walked up the stairs. Ricardo spent a long moment staring at the very strange scene at the top. It appeared their journey was about to become much more challenging. Before them was a seemingly endless expanse of small random moguls, surprisingly uniform in height. Ricardo guessed the smallest to be just over a meter, while the tallest about the height of Jessica's neck. But it wasn't the uniform height that was so bizarre. It was the composition. Ricardo and everyone in his group stared in disbelief. The mini hills were made out of ... shaving cream? That's what it look like anyway, gigantic mounds of fluffy pale green shaving cream, heaped up in rolls a meter-plus high and running for as far as the eye could see. But thankfully they did not have to walk through the cream. There was a narrow, gently winding path before them, with a smooth floor that looked like plastic and sea green in color, much darker than the pale shaving cream. The sight before them was so ridiculous that Hernando couldn't stop himself. He started laughing. Ricardo gave him a hard stare. "Touch it!" "Huh?" Ricardo shifted his cane to his more powerful strike hand. "You heard me. Touch the foam." Hernando's mouth twitched. He nervously took his backpack off and rooted around inside for a probe. Ricardo let this pass without comment. Hernando finally pulled out a Bowie knife and tried to scratch the foam with its tip. The tip dipped in and out of the foam without leaving a mark. "What did that feel like?" asked Ricardo, genuinely curious. "It didn't feel like anything. I couldn't tell I was touching anything." Hernando tried again, a deeper cut, and then he moved the flat of the blade through the foam. "Same thing, nothing at all. I can't even feel that it's there." After a moment of hesitation, he sniffed the knife blade. "Doesn't smell like anything either." Hernando sheathed his knife and tried to pretend he was finished. Ricardo angrily tapped his cane on the floor. Hernando responded with a quick nod and then slowly moved his finger towards the foam, acting as if it were about to burn him. And then his fingertip made contact. Hernando looked puzzled. A few seconds later he pushed his entire hand into the foam and then pulled it out, staring at his hand. "Fucking hell! I felt nothing at all. I was pushing into air!" That didn't make any sense to Ricardo. "Try scooping some up with both hands." "Uh ... Yeah, sure, okay." Hernando cupped both hands and tried to scoop the foam from its pile. The result surprised everybody. The foam rapidly climbed up the insides of his hands and then slid off and fell quickly back into the pile. Ricardo felt baffled. What was this stuff? Some sort of super fluid that had no viscosity and was as light as air? Ricardo had a vague memory that liquid helium could act something like this. But hell, they were just standing out here in the open. This was not cryogenic temperatures. And besides, light as air? But the foam fell rapidly, as fast as a solid object. Ricardo had seen it. Why didn't it just float in the air if it had the density of air? Fucking hell! If it had no viscosity, how could it stay rolled up in fat mounds? Ricardo shook his head as if to clear it. Who cares?! The important point was the foam did not appear to be dangerous, and they had a path before them that would be easy to follow, and it was heading where Ricardo wanted to go. Things could certainly be a lot worse. So without further thought, Ricardo herded his group southeast along the gently curving path, the pale green foam on their left and right a short meter away. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 9 AM It had been a bizarre hike of almost two hours, but Ricardo's group could finally see their goal. The sea-green tower at the other end of the crescent maze was directly ahead and now only a few hundred meters away. They would be there in minutes. And it was none too soon for everybody. After ten kilometers of walking, the monotonous path was now quite difficult to walk. It was less than two and a half meters wide, and everybody's muscles were aching from the forced march down the narrow centerline. "What a strange maze," thought Ricardo. It was in the shape of a giant crescent. They knew that now, having walked back and forth in lazy serpentine switchbacks across its fat meaty center. Ricardo estimated their position now at approximately two kilometers south and two kilometers east of home. He took a moment to glance back over his shoulder at the path behind. Why did he call this place a maze? There were no branches in the path they had taken. It was one simple undulating path, a piece of cake. But a nagging thought in the back of Ricardo's mind was warning him something this bizarre shouldn't be so easy to cross. Because if crossing it were this easy, what was the point of having the foam? Shortly after 9 AM, they reached the opposite side of the maze, and there they met another real challenge. Their path ended at a tower similar to the one they had used to enter the maze, but here at the outer perimeter there was a significant difference. The new tower was taller than the tower they had entered through. Here the walls were a full six meters above the floor level of the maze, and as before the maze floor was seven meters above the ground level of the grassland beyond the tower. Ricardo could see clearly now the great line of buildings that was his destination. They were about a half kilometer away, and it Ricardo wanted, they could reach the buildings in a few minutes. But before they could reach them, they had a major decision to make. There were no stairs in the new tower. Instead there was a huge parabolic slide. If they took the trip down, how would they get back up? Could they climb the slide? Ricardo signaled Jessica to make some measurements with her laser and then he told Hernando to feel the slide. Ricardo had decided to keep picking on Hernando for this trip. The last thing he wanted to do was to treat the two men with him equally. "Oh yuck!" Hernando cried out. "It's covered with oil!" He pulled up his hand and stared at it. It was bone dry. "I don't understand," he grumbled. "I could feel the oil. I swear it." Ricardo tried next, and then stood up and thought furiously about his options. For a second he wished he had Diego here for his opinion, but then his mind angrily dismissed the useless wish. It was essential Diego remain where he was. But what to do now? The slide was the same color as the tower and the perimeter walls, a sea green slightly darker than the floor they were walking on. But its texture was completely different. It felt slipperier than oil over glass. And why had it taken them so long to learn this? Ricardo cursed himself for not feeling the texture of the perimeter wall before they climbed the stairs of the pink tower. The walls were so perfectly clean. Not a speck of dirt was clinging to them. But it just never occurred to him to touch the walls. Ricardo tried to force himself to feel optimistic as he looked at the slide before them. Perhaps with a long pole ... Yes! If they had a long pole, they could extend it from the bottom and then rope-climb up the pole. That should do it. But should they assume they'd find material for such a pole in the buildings beyond, or should they return home and make one from materials from the mall? Ricardo didn't want to waste a day, but he didn't want to be cut off from returning home either. And to Ricardo's dismay, Jessica decided to speak out without asking permission. "The slide, I measure twenty-four meters horizontal with a seven meter drop. Whoever built this place, they picked a Pythagorean triple, 7, 24, and 25." Ricardo stared at his slave, astonished she would make such a blunder, and with such useless facts too. But Jessica was staring at the slide lost in wonder, not even looking at him. Ricardo gripped his cane tightly for a moment, but then decided this was not the place to discipline her. Tonight though, back home, he would have to reintroduce her to the pain that misbehaving children deserved. Back home, yes, the decision was obvious. Ricardo would not willingly take a route that could not be retraced. He turned his group around and began retracing their path through the foamy hills. It would be a long and frustrating march back to their home hexagon, and they walked in silence. ------- Chapter 69 Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 11 AM It had been two hours since they had left the green tower and its gigantic slide, but time was the least of Ricardo's worries now. He and his group knew they were in trouble more than an hour ago. The worries began when their narrow path through the foam swung far into the northern wing of the crescent maze. They had not traveled this part of the crescent on their previous trip. The inescapable conclusion was that the path through the maze was dynamic. The consequences were frightening. What if their path turned into a closed loop? Would they be trapped in the foam forever? For the moment, that particular fate did not seem likely. They were approaching the green tower again, and this time from the northwest and not the southwest as before. After another few minutes of walking, Ricardo and his people were again standing at the top of the fearsome parabolic slide. Ricardo took a deep breath to calm himself as he considered his options. He was leaning towards jumping off the edge of the maze with everybody, but wanted to be sure he wasn't overlooking something before taking that irreversible slide. Scenario A: They go down the slide and continue their exploration. Scenario B: They try the path again, and this time hope it led back to the pink tower and home. If he had his choice, Ricardo wanted to return home. Should he try the path again? Scenario C: They try the path again, and wander forever in closed loops until their supplies ran out and they died. Scenario D: They try the path again, and come back to the green tower. Nothing lost except time. But then again, Ricardo considered time to be the universe's ultimate non-renewable resource. How valuable would the future show that lost time to be? Was the possibility of Scenario B worth the risk of Scenarios C or D? Hell no! And yet, Ricardo was still reluctant to commit to the descent. Was there something he was overlooking? Hell yes! He turned and stared in the direction of the pink tower. Why not just walk through the foam? It looked yucky, but it felt like nothing. Ricardo shivered as he considered the option. They would be walking blind, unable to see their footfalls. What would that be like, walking in shaving cream up to his waist? And what if the floor sloped down, and led deeper into the foam? Would it go over their necks? Jessica with her short height was already on the borderline. Could they breathe this stuff? It would make sense to test now while they had the chance. Otherwise, if they didn't know how to transverse the maze, what would be their motivation for coming back up here? Sliding down now without testing would be an admission that they would never return to their home hexagon. Ricardo smiled. They would do some testing and keep their options open. But first, it was time to elevate Jenaro over Hernando again. The last thing Ricardo wanted was the two men to be friendly with each other and perhaps conspire against him. Almost by random choice, he had been picking on Hernando this morning. It was now time to give Jenaro's ego a little boost. Ricardo turned to him. "Jenaro?" The man nervously turned to him. "Yeah?" "I want your opinion on something. Do you think we should take the slide or try the path again for home?" "Uh..." Jenaro took a quick look at the path in back of them and shivered. "Well, I would think the slide might be safer, and after all, we did come out here to explore." "True enough," Ricardo replied with a smile. "True enough." Jenaro cracked a small smile and puffed up his chest a bit. "But I think I'd test a bit first." "Test how?" "Oh, something easy. Slide a backpack down the slide, just to see the slide in action." He saw Ricardo frown and added hastily. "Maybe not a whole backpack of course. Maybe something small that won't break." Ricardo's frown had nothing to do with disapproving what Jenaro had suggested. He was annoyed with not thinking of such a simple test himself. Ricardo turned and barked an order to Hernando. "You heard him. Take off your backpack, find something heavy and release it down the slide." Hernando tied to hide a quick sullen frown that Ricardo was delighted to see. Hernando rooted around for a moment and pulled out a flashlight and looked at Ricardo. Ricardo nodded his approval and then ordered Jessica to time the motion. Hernando placed the flashlight at the lip of the slide and let go. They all inwardly groaned at the result of the experiment. The surface seemed to offer the flashlight no friction at all, and it picked up a frightening amount of speed in its seven-meter vertical drop and twenty-four meter horizontal slide. Although they had no way to quantify the number, they all saw the flashlight fire off the slide horizontally at grass level. Its actual terminal speed was in excess of forty kph. It acted like a stone skipping across a lake. The flashlight bounced and tumbled and spun for many meters before finally coming to rest. "Holy shit!" hissed Jenaro. Hernando felt like saying something too but he bit his tongue. He was sure any comment he made would be used by Ricardo to pick on him again. "Three point five seconds," whispered Jessica with a trembling voice. "Really close to three and a half seconds. My God..." "It's not that bad," Ricardo insisted. "Hernando is carrying a hundred meters of rope. We'll just lower it and crawl down slowly." But his mind screamed at him as he said this. There was absolutely no place to tie down their rope at the top of the tower. The sea-green walls were as frictionless as the slide, and the beveled tops of the walls looked razor sharp. The last person to leave would have to slide freefall. Damn! Could he trust that last person to follow him? Or did Ricardo have to ride the slide himself, just to be sure the group stayed together? He hated both ideas, hated the thought of risking personal injury and hated the thought of trusting someone. His mind returned to the possibility of walking back home through the foam. This would probably be their last chance. Ricardo didn't give a fuck about saving Diego's life. His only concern was the risk of travelling off the path. Was it safe? It was time to bark some new orders. "Hernando! Face the foam and kneel down on all fours. Get your nose right up against it." Hernando cringed at the command, but Ricardo could kill him with his cane if he disobeyed and probably would. So with a whimper he semi complied, kneeling on all fours but keeping his head about half a meter from the foam. Ricardo shook his head in disgust and genuine fury. Originally he was just going to order Hernando to stick his nose in and take a sniff. But his half hearted attempt to follow orders called for some swift discipline. Ricardo swung his legs over Hernando and positioned himself above and to the rear of the kneeling man's butt. In one smooth motion, Ricardo dropped his body, slamming his knees into Hernando's ass and driving the man's head forward and into the foam. Meanwhile Ricardo's hands had come up under Hernando's diaphragm and he jerked his thumbs up hard into Hernando's soft midsection, driving the air from the man's chest in an explosive burst. Hernando's reaction was automatic. His head invisible past his neck, Hernando breathed in a great lungful of the foam as he tried to catch his breath. Knowing that Hernando had taken in a full breath, Ricardo released him and screamed, "Never disobey me again! Never! Do you hear me?! Now stand up!" The man did, panting and turning to Ricardo with a wounded look on his face. Ricardo calmed himself and asked, "Did it taste like anything?" Hernando shook his head, still panting heavily. "I didn't taste anything. Fucking hell Ricardo! That hurt!" Ricardo shrugged. "You deserved it Hernando. Complain again and you'll deserve some more. Now what about vision? Could you see through the foam?" "No!" Hernando was still gasping for breath. "Pale green light everywhere, I couldn't see shit!" He took in several more full breaths and then with a frightened look on his face cried out, "I'm not getting any air!" Ricardo shrugged. "You'll get over it. I'm thinking we won't go down the slide. We're going to walk back to the pink tower through the foam. We'll lay kilometers of rope if we have to, bring it up from the mall. I don't want to..." He paused and stared at Hernando. The man was drawing in one great lungful of air after another, yet his skin was turning a dusky bluish color. "Hey compadre," Jenaro said nervously. "You okay?" "I can't breath!" Hernando screamed. Jenaro blinked in puzzlement. "What?" Hernando's eyes glazed over with panic and rage, and he turned his fury on Ricardo. "I've got this fucking shit in my lungs! You fucking moron! You've killed me!" Ricardo reacted without hesitation or mercy. As Hernando threw a roundhouse punch at Ricardo's head, Ricardo grabbed the wrist and twisted and broke it, spinning the arm up. The pain in this wrist and shoulder drove Hernando off his feet, and Ricardo threw the man headfirst into the foam. The result was totally unexpected. Hernando's body disappeared completely, and the group heard a fading scream as if Hernando had fallen off a cliff. The three remaining people stood on the narrow path in shocked silence. After a moment Ricardo picked up his cane and tentatively probed the area where Hernando had fallen. He was shocked to find his cane could detect no floor under the foam. The path they were standing on ended at the exact contour of the mounds of foam. The implication hit Ricardo like a sledgehammer. They had no idea of the true depth of the foam, and from the fade of Hernando's scream, the depth might be enormous, a hundred meters, maybe more. All these hours, they were walking on a thin ridgeline only two and a half meters wide. The gentle rolls of foam had provided the appearance that the foam was only a meter deep and that the floor was everywhere, but it was all just an illusion. Ricardo took a moment to think. Why hadn't he probed the floor under the foam before? He could have easily when they first entered the maze at the pink tower. It seemed so obvious now, and it would have been such a simple test to make, but it just never occurred to him. Fucking hell! It was too late to worry about that now! And besides, it was time to get back to exploring. He told his two remaining subordinates of his decision. A frightened Jenaro nodded and started taking the rope out of Hernando's backpack. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 11:17 AM Fifty minutes before system reset, Holly came into the Hilton conference room with a worried look on her face. Absolutely everyone else on the surface in their society was here except Toshi. Holly and Toshi had taken the monitoring night shift earlier, and normally would be turning in soon. But the excitement of the pending reset made sleep impossible, and they volunteered to join everybody at the Hilton and also join the rotation of checking the census counter on the nearby elevator. Toshi had checked five minutes ago and everything was fine. Holly did not have the same experience. "The census counter dropped by one man," she announced. "The current reading is 8:77." Mark got up immediately. "I'll check it out." Holly and Toshi decided to tagged along. After a brisk walk to the elevator and a few seconds to type in the code, they arrived at the Red Mall library. Mark quickly headed for a console. He typed for a moment and then opened a channel back to the Hilton. "Citizen Tag ID 49 is no longer in the system. It was one of Ricardo's men, or maybe Ricardo himself." There was an audible sigh of relief over the network. Charles had been on Pelican Island with a small team earlier this morning. They had reported that their group was all set for the upcoming system reset. The team had signed off more than an hour ago, more than enough time for them to be safely back on the central island, but it was still a great relief to hear Mark's confirmation that they did not lose a member of their society. Tom spoke up over the bridge from the entrance rooms of Wobanakik. "ID Tag 49? Then it has to be either Ricardo or Hernando. Jessica, Alfonso, and Jenaro were in the first of the two full elevator trips to Black Mall, so their ID Tags must be between 19 and 36." Mark nodded at his console. "I'm showing ID Tags 24, 26, and 27 are still active. That's them. The two remaining ID Tags for Ricardo's group are 50 and 53." "Right. I'm ID Tag 54. Charles is #51. We were both on the second trip to Black Mall. Diego was directly in front of me as we entered the elevator. He's ID Tag 53. Charles remembers Hernando and Ricardo being directly in front of him as we entered the elevator. Tags 49 and 50, that's Ricardo and Hernando for sure. But they were walking side by side. We don't know which is which." Amber spoke up. "It would change everything if Ricardo is dead. But I'm betting he's still alive. Only one person has died, and it's Ricardo who is the natural born killer. He is also extremely careful about his own personal safety. It's much more likely that he ordered Hernando to do something that got Hernando killed." She paused for a moment and then added, "Fatima, this adds to my case that we should probe the barrier at Black Mall. It's been three days since they built it. I'm guessing Ricardo is exploring the surface right now, and Hernando is with him and has just died. The Black Mall barrier must be very lightly defended, I'm guessing by one man." Fatima nodded. "We'll discuss this more at the one o'clock meeting." "But I'm almost certain Ricardo is out exploring the surface now. If we delay now, we might be giving him the time to get back to his home complex." Fatima shook her head. "Absolutely not. I'm not going to risk engaging with Ricardo's forces just when we're doing a system reset on our communications network." She turned to Akiko. "You warned us we might lose everything, right? All the Leophones, the library consoles, the network links at the elevators, everything, right?" Akiko nodded slightly. "Lynn and I have talked about this quite a bit. The risk is there. Lynn will do her best, but the risk is there." Fatima turned back to a disappointed Amber and asked gently, "If it is one person guarding their barrier, any guess who?" Amber shrugged. "Well, maybe a hunch." "Amber, you seem to know how Ricardo's mind works better than anyone else. What's your hunch?" Amber sighed. "My hunch is Alfonso. I wish it were Diego but my hunch is Alfonso. My second guess would be Diego. I'd be very surprised if it were Jessica or Jenaro. Hernando has died and the servos are not tearing down the barrier. We know one thing for certain. Hernando was not a lone guard at the barrier." Fatima nodded and sighed. After a moment she asked, "Mark, Toshi, Holly, are you three going to stay at the library?" After a moment Toshi answered, "No. We'd like to rejoin you, coming back now." A minute later the three reentered the conference room. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 11:45 AM The transfer down the slide was going smoothly. Jessica was the first to skinny down the rope, and she acted with childlike delight in being able to do something important for her master. Ricardo was so impressed with her devotion that he decided to forgive Jessica for her earlier mistake of speaking out of turn. Just a simple verbal reminder later, that's all he needed to do. Their four backpacks went next, two at a time. Lowering them was very easy, and Jessica would simply untie the knots at the bottom and then Jenaro would haul the rope back up for the next trip. But once their gear was down, Ricardo had a decision to make. Who would go next? The answer was obvious. The last person risked serious injury riding the slide without a supporting rope, so that person definitely had to be Jenaro. But how could Ricardo be sure Jenaro would follow him? Did Jenaro have another option? Would he set off for home? Only Ricardo had the key to unlock Diego from the dead man's switch. Ricardo suspected Diego would insist Jenaro return with Ricardo, or at least with the key. And Jenaro would have to get lucky with the foam maze, very lucky in fact. Ricardo suspected the maze just would not work in the return direction. But what else could Jenaro do? He could just refuse to come down. Perhaps he would decide to wait it out at the top of the slide for a day or two and hope that Ricardo would abandon him. Then Jenaro could slide down by himself and explore by himself. Ricardo would have Jessica and all their gear, but Jenaro would still be a loose cannon, and that was unacceptable. Hell, fucking Jenaro might even let go of the rope the instant Ricardo was committed to his descent, hoping Ricardo would break his neck in the tumble. Then Jenaro would come down, and if he survived, he could play Adam and Eve with child Jessica. Fucking hell! Jenaro would just love that! All the guns were down in the backpacks now, but Ricardo still had his cane, and he was supremely confident he could take Jenaro barehanded anyway. Ricardo tapped his cane on the floor and said in a commanding voice, "Jenaro! Take your clothes off, all of them. Get down to buck naked." "What?! Hey, I don't mean any disrespect man, but it's fucking freezing out here!" Ricardo shook his head. "No it's not. It feels about 5C now, but it doesn't matter anyway. Strip Jenaro, buck naked. Send everything down the slide. You can pick it up after your slide." Jenaro cringed but after a final glance at the cane started to comply. He sat down and started to untie his boots. "Hell Ricardo, how about I keep my boots? I'll be better able to support your weight on the rope if I keep my boots." "I'm not going to argue with you Jenaro. One more word about this and I'm going to flip you into the foam." The scariest part of what Ricardo said was his tone of voice. It was completely conversational, almost bored, the same tone of voice a man might use to announce he was going to eat bran flakes for breakfast. Jenaro realized that Ricardo was deadly serious and a moment away from killing him, and he always would be. Jenaro's boots and articles of clothes started to go down the slide. The boots shot off the slide as if launched by catapults, but the clothes were quite gentle by comparison, slowed not by ramp friction but air resistance. As Jessica ran to collect his shoes, a naked Jenaro braced himself with the rope, and before he could think about his options for mutiny, Ricardo went over the lip of the tower. Ricardo had a very athletic body which weighted about 70 kg, and with the angle at the top of the slide, Jenaro needed to support half of his weight. Ricardo shimmied down the rope rapidly in order to minimize the window in time that Jenaro could put Ricardo at risk. In just a few seconds Ricardo was several meters down the slide and he started to relax. He was out of the danger zone. Ricardo let go of the rope a few meters from the end of the slide, and Jenaro let go of the rope a second later. He then hung himself off the edge of the top platform, trying to stretch his body and lower his center of gravity as much as possible before letting go with his fingers. Fortunately the ramp seemed to be made of "other stuff", the strange class of alien material that was both unbreakable and seemed to possess a zero heat transfer coefficient. The ramp felt comfortably warm against the front of his body, especially when compared to the very cool breeze that was blowing against his back and butt. Jenaro paused for one last moment before committing himself to the slide. If he didn't slide down, was there any chance at all of surviving? The best he could possibly hope for would be for the maze to let him through and to get back to Diego in two hours, and Diego would have every incentive in the universe not to let Jenaro in. There was no choice. Ricardo had him neatly bagged. With a soft whimper, Jenaro uncurled his fingers. He turned on the ramp as he began to slide, sitting up and spreading his arms to maximize his air resistance. His terminal speed was still frighteningly high, and Jenaro curled his arms around his head just as he shot off the ramp. He seemed to bounce forever, but the ground was soft and spongy despite the coldness of the day. He came to rest with nothing worse than the wind knocked out of him. Lying flat on his back and breathing heavily, he opened his eyes and saw Jessica standing above him. She had carried his clothes and boots to him, and seemed to be staring in curiosity at his nakedness. Their brief moment felt very strange to Jenaro. He had known Jessica for about half a year now, and in their former life, he had a very low opinion of her, a cute face and body maybe, but an incredibly stuck-up conceited bitch. But over the last month she had transformed into an entirely new person. It was almost with childlike innocence that Jessica finally took her eyes off his limp penis and held out his clothes for him to take. Jenaro took them with a nod and dressed quickly, eager to shield Jessica from his nakedness. He paused for a moment as he dressed. Had the death of his friend Hernando changed him? Why should he care if Jessica saw him naked? Time: April 1, 2019 noontime It was noontime on the clocks everywhere and also solar noon on the surface at the Great Hexagon, the sun at its maximum altitude for the day and its azimuth at due south. Down at Wobanakik it was still twenty-seven minutes before linear solar noon when the long artificial sun would be at the top of the arch of the cylindrical sky. Carla was with Tajana and Suvarna in her spacious front bedroom with front-row seats overlooking Wobanakik. Their plan was to be inside when the system reset occurred. Carla glanced at her watch just as Tom joined them in the room. "12:01," she announced. "Reset in twelve minutes. You made popcorn?!" Tom smiled and nodded and offered Carla the large steel bowl. "It's a secret technique I learned from Madison. When the going gets tough, make popcorn!" Carla reached out and munched a few kernels. "Does it work?" "Maddy swears by it, and she has a perfect track record so far." Carla nodded thoughtfully as she ate the snack. Meanwhile Tom sat down between Suvarna and Tajana, and the two women gave him very friendly smiles. Tom turned to Carla and gave her a shy grin. Their eyes locked for an instant. "Ah, it's great to be loved," Tom thought as the two women cuddled close. But Carla brushed off his attempt at banter. "You know Tom, I'm still thinking about Madison and her perfect track record. The Society has led a charmed life. You and I have both been in groups that have suffered fatalities, lots of fatalities, but the Society has led a charmed life. I've learned their history. Everyone who has ever joined this group is still alive." "Yes, it's quite an achievement." "That's not my point. Fatima, Mark, Jada, all the formal and informal leaders of our society, they never had to face the loss of people under their command. For all its opulence, we're living in an extremely dangerous environment. Close to half of all the people who came here are now dead. And yet we have this group of thirty-six people that seem to be leading a charmed life." Tom thought back to her in genuine curiosity, "And you're point is?" "My point is that charms don't work in real life." Carla paused for a moment and then added, "And isn't Suvarna getting a little too friendly with her hand on your thigh? She's almost groping your crotch." Tom thought back. "Agreed." He broke his link with Carla and returned to normal time, patting the back of Suvarna's hand while briefly linking with her. Suvarva took his request gracefully and removed her hand. Carla sighed. Carla remembered her first few days with Tom here at the entrance rooms. They were alone together and Tom was very interested with having a romantic relationship with her. But this went against the core of Carla's military training. They were on a mission. Developing friendship was fine and appropriate. Becoming romantically attached was not. The principle had been drilled into Carla's thought processes. She did not become a marine to find a husband. Missions were most definitely not extended dates. Tom thought about her feelings and asked if her training might be obsolete given their unique circumstances. They wound up discussing the issue for an entire evening, spending many subjective hours in each other's minds and then finally coming to a compromise. Their ability to link made the work easy. There was no place to hide their true feelings within the linked thoughts, and Carla openly confirmed her emotional and sexual interest in Tom. Tom replied in kind, and also affirmed Carla's right to follow her training as she saw fit. So as long as they were co-leaders at the entrance rooms, they would refrain from physically expressing sexual interest in each other. Suvarna and Tajana had no such perspective. Tom was more than mildly amused in the first days of their arrival when it became obvious that a major reason the two women had volunteered to be at the entrance rooms was to explore developing romantic attachments with him. Tom couldn't exactly fault their logic. Their full Society currently had three guys and thirty-three women. And he had to admit to both himself and Carla that he rather enjoyed being chased by attractive women, and he found both Suvarna and Tajana to be bright, amiable, and very pretty. Carla wound up shrugging her mental shoulders over the issue and told Tom in a link that he was of course free to follow his own morals, and that she wouldn't judge him and regardless of what he decided, Carla was still interested in pursuing their own relationship when their circumstances were different. She was somewhat surprised and very gratified that Tom finally decided on something very close to her own training, accepting a minor amount of flirting with the two Hindu women but stopping well short of anything Carla would consider inappropriate between a commander and his subordinates. Carla sighed and reached for another handful of the popcorn. Maybe Maddy was on to something. The popcorn seemed extra tasty and somehow was making Carla feel optimistic. She settled back and watched the pleasant day and waited for the reset to begin. ------- Chapter 70 Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:11 PM Ricardo's high-power binoculars had revealed two entrance doors on the northern face of the great line of buildings to the south. They certainly weren't very common. The two he could see were spaced two kilometers apart. The architecture brought home the alien nature of the design. What a massive fire-code violation to space exits in a great continuous building two kilometers apart. Of course, perhaps it was a different story on the southern side, but somehow Ricardo doubted it. Well, regardless, they would reach the nearer door in just a few minutes. Ricardo had had a horrible thought when he first sighted the doors twenty minutes ago. He took a long time surveying the doors as Jenaro was recovering from his trip down the slide and getting dressed. Ricardo's thought was that the entrance doors looked horribly like the doors leading into the southern vertex where Diego was chained. Those doors could only be opened from the inside. After Jenaro finished dressing, Ricardo called for a ten-minute break to think things over. His team responded well to the down time, taking the opportunity to drink and grab a few bites from their food supply. Ricardo was impressed with how completely he had transformed Jessica. She was very modest in her toileting, walking off a distance and then shielding herself with her parka as she squatted. When she got back to the group, Ricardo decided it was time to move on to the critical test of the doors. The nearer door was less than a kilometer away. Ricardo glanced at his watch as they resumed their journey. It was five minutes after noontime, and they were hiking up a slight incline through open fields of damp sea-green grass. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:12:03 PM "One minute to reset," Carla called out. Yesterday she had wondered why Tom had ordered that everyone be inside now, but then he linked with her and shared his memories of some private conversations he had while linking with Lynn. Lynn had been truly nervous about what she was trying to do. Her impressions of the control systems here at the Great Hexagon were that they were so difficult to understand partially because they were so interconnected. Incredible optimization, she had thought. It reminded her of biological optimization, cardio systems and skeletal systems and immune systems and lymph systems and neural systems all coming together to make one body. True, there were specific organs for specific functions, but there was also fantastic interdependence at the cellular level, integration to a degree that human engineers had never dared approach. But Lynn thought the builders of their current home had no such inhibitions. Power systems, communications systems, elevator transport systems, environmental systems, servo maintenance systems, security systems, structural systems, Lynn thought all the control systems were as tightly woven together as the threads in her blouse. And here Carla was now at the entrance rooms, waiting for Lynn to cut the cloth. Carla found it difficult to remain calm as the final seconds of the countdown disappeared. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:13:03 PM "And execute!" Lynn cried out as she typed the final keystroke for system reset. There were a dozen people around her in the library in the northwest segment of their home hexagon on the central island. The roof above them was set at full transparency, and a beautiful sunny day was providing more than ample light for the room. An instant after she typed the keystroke, the monitor in front of Lynn suddenly lost power, presenting her with a dark screen. For several seconds nobody said anything. There was a lot of linking as random pairs of women asking each other their opinion of what was going on. It was Mandy who first noticed the other change in the room. She was linked to Charles at the time when the realization hit her. She abruptly broke her link and called out to everybody, "My God! The room! The courtyard! Look at the shadows!" It had been twenty seconds since system reset, and in that time the linear sun had drifted to its 4 PM position. Afternoon shadows were rapidly sweeping the library floor and the courtyard at the core of the hexagon. As everyone stared in amazement, the sun continued its rapid descent. Madison tried to time it but when she looked at her digital watch, all she saw was a dead display. So she looked up and tried to make a rough estimate by counting seconds in her mind. "One sweet potato, two sweet potato, three sweet potato,..." She clicked off the seconds in her mind as she watched the visible drift of the sun. "Maybe an hour every five seconds," she concluded after she watched the sun drift from 5 PM to 6 PM, "a day every two minutes. Imagine that!" Sunset occurred about ten seconds after Madison stopped counting, and after a couple of seconds of twilight, the room was plunged into darkness. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:13:43 PM Tom, Carla, Suvarna, and Tajana had their noses pushed up against the bedroom window. They were all staring at the sky in amazement. About one second before sunset, an image of a crescent moon appeared in the sky directly overhead and then shot like a bullet north along the long axis of the sky. Desperate to make some sanity of the scene before them, Tajana tried to estimate the moon's apparent speed, and came up with a velocity of perhaps one kilometer per second. For a moment she had a truly horrible thought that time itself might have speeded up in Wobanakik, but as she watched the sway of the branches in some trees a short distance below, she thought the motion looked normal. Meanwhile Suvarna called out in the darkness, "I think room air conditioning is out. I can't feel any flow by the vents." "How about the door?" Tom called back. It was now twenty-five seconds past sunset, and the moon looked as if it were already past the central island, far too distant to provide much light at all at their location. Their eyes had not yet completely adjusted to the darkness, and Tom heard Tajana feeling her way to the door. "The door's open. Want me to check the door to the outside?" "Hold up Tajana. Let's all go together." Tom tried to get a light both from the flashlight he was carrying and from the Leophone he had traded with Madison. They were both dead. He really hated being cut off in the dark like this, but before he could voice his frustrations, a rapid increase of red light appeared along the eastern edge of the sky, followed by the bursting light of linear sunrise. The length of Wobanakik was again bathed in sunshine, but the sun line was maintaining the same breakneck pace as before. Tom asked everybody to accompany him to the main entrance door while they could still see. Time: April 1, 2019 12:15:03 PM Two minutes after system reset, Mark discovered that his Leophone could provide a bit of light if he popped it out of its power cradle. Over the last minute, Fatima had restored a semblance of order to their meeting room, and people were just beginning to realize how cut off they were here at the terminal Hilton at Green Mall. If the power stayed out, could they possibly find their way to the Barnes & Nobel that was Green Mall's exit to the surface? The damn bookstore was almost seventy spiral kilometers away and they'd be groping their way in pitch blackness. And even assuming the doors and the mushroom locks still worked after the power outage, how could they spin the right combination on the lock if they couldn't see what they were doing? "Yo Ashley!" Mark called out. "Yo Mark!" she replied from across the room. "Is that you with the light?" "Yep. Try your Leophone." "I already have. It's dead." "Try popping it out of the power cradle." "Okay ... Yes! Thanks Mark." The two phones provided a tiny amount of light for conference room, but after two minutes of utter darkness, it was enough for people to make out the shapes of their companions. Fatima called out, "Mark, how come your two Leophones are working but the rest are not?" As of this morning, their society had fifteen of the phones, including the working and non-working ones down at Wobanakik, and there were a total of eleven in the conference room. Mark called back. "The same reason Ashley and I need power cradles to keep our phones charged. We have two of the original Leophones. I think Jada has the third, Maddy's old phone. Don't you see? Our old phones have Earth batteries." "Ah, right," replied Fatima. She paused for a second. "You couldn't call Maddy's phone, could you?" "No. The walkie-talkie ability is very short range. I could probably call Ashley's phone, but I don't want to drain our batteries." "Right. Mark, Ashley, please shut off your phones now. We won't require light to discuss what to do next." A few seconds later in absolute blackness, Fatima asked for opinions for how to proceed. Time: April 1, 2019 12:15:35 PM, reset plus 00:02:32 After two minutes of whimpering in the darkness, Alfonso finally realized the chains around his ankles were no longer locked. With trembling hands, he felt the cuffs open when he poked them. This morning had been the day of his abandonment, and he was so depressed he had been considering suicide when the lights went out. As he had been for many nights in a row now, Alfonso was chained and lying on a mattress directly under the overhead door at the mall entrance to Jacob's Bar and Grill. He was lying on his back with his feet pointed in the direction of the barrier his former compadres had constructed. His left foot was attached to a chain running across the mall corridor and secured inside a store on the opposite side of the spiral. His right foot was similarly secured to a grill in the kitchen area inside Jacob's, near the walk-in freezer and the exit to the surface. Alfonso had been instructed to defend the barrier with his life, and he thought he had no other option. The chains were carefully set so that the door would sever one of his legs if lowered. And Alfonso had no illusions about receiving mercy from his enemies, not after what he and his girlfriend Jessica had done with the former slaves. The previous mornings were bad enough, waking up exhausted and stiff from being forced to lie on his back for eight hours. But over the past hour Alfonso had had several muscles spasms in his back, and the pain was so bad he almost put his pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger. And it wasn't just the pain. Alfonso figured he had nothing to live for, and to kill himself and then let the servos tear down the barrier would be the one statement of defiance he could make against that monster Ricardo. The scene played over and over again in his mind, Jessica being double raped before his eyes. Alfonso couldn't even call out to her that he was sorry. Ricardo had shoved a rag down his throat. It was soaked with some kind of awful fluid and it had blistered the back of his throat and vocal cords, a case of instant super laryngitis. And then those bastard compadres held him while the other bastard Diego kicked him in the groin. As he vomited, Alfonso silently swore he would never forget. And he had a special place in hell reserved for Ricardo for stealing his girlfriend. The barrier in the corridor next to him was rigged with vials of the acid liquid, ready to explode at eye level if the barrier were breached. It was a trap similar to what Alfonso had helped set up when Ricardo was trying to bait their enemy to enter through the elevators. Both the lounge and the library had been booby trapped with homemade explosives and acid baths, from simple materials Ricardo had procured from pharmacy and hardware stores. But nothing had come of it. Their enemy had never tested their defenses. And now his chains were off! The strange cuffs had a fiercely strong magnetic type of lock, but suddenly when the lights went out, the cuffs surprisingly lost power too. Alfonso was giddy with delight, and he took his loaded gun and in the pitch blackness started to crawl along the mall corridor away from the awful barrier. For the first time in days, his heart was filled with hope, and it was the hope of vengeance. Alfonso's enemy was now everybody in the world except Jessica. Nothing was certain. He might fail. But if he did, he was determined to go down with his gun firing. Time: April 1, 2019 12:16:00 PM, reset plus 00:02:57 Ricardo was the first to reach the door in the great façade of the building, and he inwardly breathed a huge sigh of relief. The sliding transparent door was partially open, and with only a moderate amount of effort he pushed it completely aside. He and his two subordinates paused for just a second at the portal and then entered. It appeared to be some sort of lobby, a large open area with the floor the color and smoothness of marble and the walls of burnished metal decorated with geometrical designs. It was really quite intricate, designs within designs, with perhaps a hexagonal motif interacting with complex non-repeating patterns. Overhead the ceiling was a pure opal color that they had seen before in the mall and at their home complex, but here the opal was very dull and not emitting any light. In fact, the only light for the lobby appeared to be from the large windows that ran the length of the room on the northern side. Jenaro looked as if he wanted to speak, and Ricardo told both Jenaro and Jessica to speak freely if they had something to say. Jessica nodded and went to a nearby wall to check something that was bothering her. Jenaro waved his arm in a sweeping gesture. "First time I've ever seen a room seem this dead. I mean since we left Earth." Jessica nodded from a few meters away. "And the air temperature. This doesn't make sense." Ricardo looked at her. "What do you mean?" Jessica had her hand over a grate. "The air vents here, there's no breeze, none at all. Jenaro's right. The room seems dead. But it's warm in here. But how could it be if the door was open to the outside air? Don't you feel the draft now? The room is starting to cool. But why isn't the room already cool?" Ricardo nodded and replied, "Excellent point," and he saw Jessica smile happily at the praise. Ricardo walked over to what looked like a security station, and sure enough there was a keyboard and monitor there, but the screen was blank and typing on the keyboard produced no response. Meanwhile Jenaro opened an interior door and revealed a long and very dark corridor, lit only by the light from the lobby. Well, that corridor appeared to be the only interior path to take from the lobby, and Ricardo was in no mood to head outside yet. "Time to break out the flashlights," he announced. It was to his utter dismay a few moments later that they discovered all their flashlights were dead. What the hell was going on? Ricardo had personally inspected several of them earlier this morning. The flashlights had been working fine. He frowned and took a long moment to think. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:17:00 PM, reset plus 00:03:57 Diego was napping in his prison area at the southern vertex. The warm sunlight coming in through the windows had made him very drowsy. He had spent most of the morning watching Ricardo's expedition hike to the pink tower and then wander back and forth across the gentle moguls on top of the wall. So many times! It was a great puzzle to Diego why they needed to go back and forth so often. The pale green hills looked so gentle. Why not just hike across them? It was a strange wall that led up to the rolling hills. Its color was sea-green, almost an exact match to the color of the grasslands, and Diego marveled how the wall didn't even seem to exist unless he focused on the lighter shade of small hills on top and then worked his eyes down. Was the color an attempt to conceal the wall? There was so much about the builders of this place that was a complete mystery to him. What were their intentions? After much pondering Diego had closed his eyes to rest them from the hours of staring through the binoculars, and over the last half hour he had fallen into an uneasy sleep. There had been several faint clicks a few minutes ago as the couplings in his wrist and ankle cuffs lost their grip. But in his dreamy torpor Diego did not notice. The flat surfaces of his locks remained in contact with each other, ready to re-engage if their unbreakable pseudo-magnetism returned. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:18:08 PM, reset plus 00:05:05 "Notice something interesting?" Jada called out in the dark night. She was standing about ten meters east of the eastern face of their home hexagon at Wobanakik, and about half of the island's population was out with her. The other half were still with Lynn by the dead console in the library. Jada and her crowd had just witnessed the third pass of the fake moon passing directly over them as it made its ballistic journey from the southern to northern ends of Wobanakik. "I sure do," said Sandra. "Every since we got here, the phases of the moon have been random, one night to the next. The three phases we've seen now, they look just right for the changes you would see in a normal lunar cycle." Sachi laughed. "You call this normal?!" Sandra grinned. "You know what I mean. What do you think Jada? Do you want to wait here for another cycle?" As she spoke, the moon completed its journey to the north pole of the world, and almost simultaneously the eastern side of the sky glowed a bright red just before the linear sun began another breakneck race across the dome of the sky. Jada blinked for a moment, trying to adjust her eyes to the return of daylight. "I can't think of what else to do. If anybody gets a more productive idea, let me know." No one said anything, and they spent the next half minute silently watching the sun crawl to its high noon position with visible speed. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:20:00 PM, reset plus 00:06:57 Madison had her hand on Lynn's shoulder as Lynn sat by the console, and both of their heads were looking up and gazing at the images of stars above. "Here it comes again," Madison said in a calm conversational tone of voice. But the calm was not real. Her mind was racing with thoughts of what else they should be doing. In a universe were a full day lasted two minutes, how precious were the seconds they were wasting? "Yes, look!" responded Lynn. "Waxing gibbous, a little fuller than before. You were right Maddy. The moon seems to have its cycle back." "How long Lynn?" whispered Madison. "That this keeps up? I have absolutely no idea. But it's not immediately life threatening, is it?" "Well ... Yeah, I guess not. It'll be a strange life though, if this is what the future is like. Perhaps we will sleep downstairs in the stores to get away from the cyclic flashes of light. But how will the animals in the forest sleep? This is going to kill them if it keeps up forever." The next dawn arrived twenty-five seconds after the overhead passage of the midnight moon. A minute later in late afternoon Margaret walked back into the library. "I just checked the bathroom," she announced. "There's no water pressure anywhere. The toilets aren't even flushing. I'll check the kitchen next ... Hah, maybe tomorrow! Anybody want to bet what I'll find?" "No bet Margaret," Madison replied. "I guess we could drink river water. I've got a sneaking suspicion though that all our food storage is no longer skipping its trip through time. Food might become an issue if this keeps up forever." Margaret nodded. "We could take trips to our old campsite at the north end, go back to farming the food there. Be a bit of a pain though, hiking through this ... what should I call it? The climate?" It the darkness of the new night, Madison sighed. "Good a word as any." Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:22:00 PM, reset plus 00:08:57 Ricardo took one look at the pitch blackness through the next door and gave up. Already he was getting light through a relay, Jessica holding open the door to the lobby, and Jenaro holding open a door in the corridor which allowed Ricardo to get to the door he was now holding open. This was totally ridiculous! This world so far had been such a reliable place for light too. Perhaps not great lighting everywhere, but there's was always some light if you wanted it. This though, this was a show stopper. Ricardo turned around and led Jenaro back to the lobby. They had so few options. Should Ricardo just abandon this lobby and try the next door two kilometers away? Something in the back of his mind was warning him that getting into the building might not be so easy at the next door. They were inside now. How precious was this opportunity? But how could he explore without light? Ricardo considered going into the corridors blind and just feeling his way for a while, and then he totally rejected the idea. What about the lobby walls? There were strange intricate patterns carved into the burnished metal. Could they be hiding a switch, maybe something that would turn the lights on? That would change everything. Ricardo decided it would be reasonable to search the wall for a while. He walked over to it and began trying to press and twist the many small shapes protruding from the wall. There were numerous things to try, even in the small area immediately in front of him. This would take a while. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:24:00 PM, reset plus 00:10:57 Mark and Hannah came back into the Hilton conference room. "That was fast," commented Fatima. "Did you make it all the way?" Mark sat down and shut off his phone, plunging the room into pitch darkness again. "Yep. We were very efficient. And I've learned that Hannah has the eyes of a cat." He heard his companion sitting next to him give a laughing snort, and then he continued. "I've placed the sword by the entrance door. It's interesting. The mushroom lock is still in place, and the door is still fully descended. But it feels like heavy soft plastic. I'm betting the sword could slice through it now." Fatima nodded in the darkness. "But you haven't tried it yet?" "No, not yet. I didn't want to commit us to destroying the door, not until we're ready to leave." Mark sighed and thought how fortunate it was that he had followed through on what seemed at the time a rather odd idea. There was a martial arts store adjacent to the terminal store of Red Mall, and there were several dozen museum quality swords there. As he became proficient with the weapon, Mark had taken the time to place a backup sword at each of the terminal stores and sky-bridge locations. "Mark?" It was Fatima's voice through the darkness. "Level with me. Do you really think this is possible?" "Well, I don't see why not, as long as the darkness is the only thing we have to face. It's about sixty-eight spiral kilometers to Barnes and Nobel. We'll walk single-file, hand along the inside spiral wall. We'll count the doors as we go and use the Leophones when we need to find water. It's a big hike, no denying that. But we're all healthy. Making four kilometers per hour should be no problem once we get used to walking in the darkness." "Maybe we could sing songs as we hike," suggested Lucia. "I know a lot of camp songs." "Sure," said Mark as he grinned, "a good idea. Through an amazing display of total recall, I once memorized all one hundred verses of ninety-nine bottles of beer on a wall. This'll be my chance to prove it." Fatima ignored Mark's attempt at humor and did the math. "So, seventeen hours of hiking?" Mark replied. "That's what I'm thinking, nice and easy, take a full day, maybe get home to Green Mall tomorrow late afternoon or evening. Of course, if everything is without power on the surface, we're still going to be in trouble." "And what about Wobanakik?" Fatima asked quietly. There was a long pause. "I know," Mark finally said. "My heart is grieving too. I don't think the stairs would be doable in pitch darkness. Without power, we couldn't get through the one-way elevator anyway." For a long moment no one replied. ------- Chapter 71 Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:25:00 PM, reset plus 00:11:57 "I knew it!" cried Tom. He was standing with Carla, Suvarna, and Tajana in the far back entrance room. They were by the elevator, and its four-meter sliding door was open about ten centimeters. Tom stuck in his fingers and with a moderate amount of effort pushed the door aside. All of this was possible because Carla had been playing with Madison's old Leophone. She had popped it out of the power cradle and discovered the phone came to life, not in a network sense but at least the phone display was lit. The four of them used the tiny light to work their way back to the elevator, stopping at the kitchen to pick up four bottles of water. "Do you really think we can hike up all these stairs in the dark?" asked Suvarna. They had now passed through the elevator's other door and were now staying in the twenty-five meter corridor. The first flight of stairs was all but invisible in the darkness. "I don't see why not," replied Tom. "Will your Leophone last that long?" "Oh, I can't imagine it would. We'll have to do this in the dark. But there's only one path. We can't get lost." "We could fall," whispered Suvarna. Tom nodded. "Yes. We'll have to be very careful and not get complacent." He shut off the phone and plunged them into pitch darkness. "Let's test it with one flight." Calling out words of encouragement to each other, the four held hands and slowly shuffled towards the stairs. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:25:30 PM, reset plus 00:12:27 Diego turned uncomfortably in his nap. Something felt vaguely wrong. The air inside the hexagonal walkways always had a slight refreshing breeze, but now it felt very still. Diego blinked his eyes awake and looked around. Was something going on? He reached for his binoculars and gasped as he felt his wrist cuff flop loosely open. Within seconds he freed himself from his other cuffs, crying and shaking at his good fortune. This changed everything! Diego took the time to examine the vertex door leading to the outside. Unfortunately it was as unlocked as his cuffs. Diego could not prevent Ricardo from getting back inside the complex. And Ricardo had all the guns. No, wait a minute. It would have made sense for Ricardo to leave Alfonso a gun to guard the mall. Should Diego go down and talk to him? Hell! If Diego's cuffs were no longer working, perhaps Alfonso was free too. And Diego remembered the look of betrayal in Alfonso's eyes when Diego had kicked him in the groin. It couldn't be helped of course. It was either Alfonso's scrotum or Diego's life. But did Alfonso understand that? Was he the type of guy to carry a grudge? Diego wasn't sure, but he felt he owed it to the guy to give him the benefit of the doubt. So he turned and trotted across the sand park to the central stairwell and the mall, trying to come up with some words of apology in his mind. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:26:04 PM, reset plus 00:13:01 The almost full moon was directly overhead, its ballistic path to the north now almost familiar. Jada spoke out in a conversational tone. "Just a hair shy of full. The next pass will do it for sure." She felt Sandra's hand on her shoulder. "How about we go back inside with the others?" Jada looked at her friend and noticed the others had already left. Jada nodded. "You're right. We have to start talking about the future." The two women headed back to the library. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:26:13 PM, reset plus 00:13:10 Alfonso was on his feet now, walking briskly when he could feel the wall on his left and slowing down a bit as he crossed the occasional four-meter openings of the store entrances. He had been up on his feet for close to ten minutes now, and was overestimating his progress a little by thinking he had already traveled a full kilometer. He knew there were only five kilometers between Jacob's and the end of the mall at the Mex Grocer's. How far should he go? "Another kilometer," he thought. "Try to get about half way down..." He had a full clip of fifteen rounds in his pistol. One thing for sure, anybody pursuing him was going to be in for a nasty surprise. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:26:20 PM, reset plus 00:13:17 "Pity there are no handrails," commented Carla in the blackness. She was second in line, lightly holding Tom's belt just below the small of his back. Tom gave her an affirming grunt in reply. He had just climbed thirty-one stairs, ten percent of the first flight. At their current rate, this was going to take a hell of a long time, perhaps more time than they had water for. And even if they got to the surface, then what? There was no way to get into the White Mall home complex unless somebody let them in. Tom thought they would camp out outside the lounge door and pray that someone would eventually open it. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:26:28 PM, reset plus 00:13:25 "You want some help Ricardo?" Ricardo paused to look at Jenaro. Could he trust him to do a quality job and search a section of the wall? "Just wait by the packs and get ready to move out. I'm starting to think this is a waste of time." Jenaro nodded and went to stand by the door. There was a stiff breeze blowing outside and he could smell the distinctive odor of the sea grass. It reminded him vaguely of a freshly cut lawn. "Wow," he thought. "That brings back memories." Meanwhile Ricardo had returned to his wall. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:26:38 PM, reset plus 00:13:35 Diego had just walked across a hundred meters of sand and was now entering the large circular stairwell at the geometric center of his home complex. It was a twenty-four meter descent to the level of the first floor of Jacob's Bar and Grill, and a four-meter ascent to the second floor of home. Diego was shocked to see that the stairwell had lost its power. All of the recessed lighting was off. But there was still adequate sunlight from the transparent dome above, and he had an alarming vision of Alfonso chained in the pitch darkness of a mall without power. Diego turned to the stairs heading down and began to go down as fast as he safely could. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:26:48 PM, reset plus 00:13:45 "So Mark, where's the sword?" asked Fatima. She was feeling the soft plastic door and silently agreeing with Mark that he could slice it without a problem. Their group had spent the last couple of minutes talking from their conference room to the mall entrance to the Hilton. "Over on the left." Mark took a few steps and picked up the weapon. "Are there any water bottles around here? Now's the time to get them." "Oh, I think I can find a few," offered Holly. Mark heard her move behind a counter and a moment later heard something heavy fall over. "I'm okay!" Holly called out. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:27:00 PM, reset plus 00:13:58 Lynn turned her head and saw Jada and Sandra coming back into the library. Everybody was back again. Lynn sighed and wished she could suggest something constructive. But what? She glanced up through the transparent ceiling. The linear sun appeared to be directly overhead. They had now gone through seven full days of fast time. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:27:04 PM, reset plus 00:14:01 And click! The opal ceiling of the lobby began to glow with internal light and the door by Jenaro's side began to slide closed. This was just the opportunity he was praying for. In one smooth motion, he slid outside before the door fully closed, curling in a U-shape as he just managed to exit the lobby carrying both his and Hernando's backpacks. And then the door clicked shut. Jenaro peered back inside and saw Ricardo staring at him in astonishment. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:27:09 PM, reset plus 00:14:06 The stairwell lights had been on for five seconds now, and Tom's eyes were finally getting used to the light. "Let me check the elevator!" Suvarna called out from the end of the line. She turned around and started heading back down the stairs. "Don't go through the elevator!" Tom shouted out after her. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:27:14 PM, reset plus 00:14:11 The library room at the central island was filled with cheers. After ten seconds of the linear sun remaining rock-stable in its overhead position, people were beginning to hope that the reset insanity was over. And the power was back on. What an overwhelming relief. "I'll check the kitchen!" Sachi called as she ran laughing from of the room. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:27:19 PM, reset plus 00:14:16 Diego slowed up as he approached the end of the stairs. He could see the pseudo-magnetic cuffs that Ricardo had used to lock the entrance into Jacob's, and he had a sickening feeling that he was a few seconds too late to remove them. Sure enough, a moment later he confirmed that the locks were active. Damn! He had been so close! But how could he have known? Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:27:24 PM, reset plus 00:14:21 Twenty seconds after reset, Mark sheathed his sword as Emily removed the mushroom lock and then retracted the door. "On second thought," said Fatima, "Emily, please close and lock the door again." Emily turned to her leader and guessed her thinking without linking. "You're going to abandon the Hilton?" "For a while I think, yes. Everybody, I want us all to live at the Red Mall complex, at least for a few days. We'll transfer Hilton monitor control to the library consoles. Let's go! I want us out of here now!" As Mark snapped his Leophone into its power cradle for recharge, the phone began to ring. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 12:28 PM Jenaro was having a great time playing dumb and happy for Ricardo's benefit. He was telling Ricardo he was sorry about passing through the closed transparent door, mouthing the words because the door was not passing sound. Ricardo looked absolutely livid, and just on the odd chance that the door would unexpectedly open, Jenaro was refraining from flipping his former boss the finger. That would remove all doubt concerning his true feelings towards the man. Ricardo's backpack was crammed with four pistols and a considerable weight of ammo, their entire supply except for the single clip left with Alfonso. But it was Jenaro and Hernando who were originally carrying the bulk of the expedition's food. Ricardo realized to his horror that he and Jessica still had their water but little to eat. If Ricardo could fire a bullet through the door and into Jenaro's heart, he would do so without compunction. Confident now that the door would remain closed, Jenaro motioned that he was going to walk to the door two kilometers to the west and then he took off, ignoring the frantic waves of Ricardo demanding that he remain where he was. After Jenaro walked out of sight, Ricardo turned and saw Jessica staring at him curiously. What should he do? A moment of checking revealed that the lights were back on in the corridor behind the lobby. At least he and Jessica had something to explore, and lo, even the flashlights were working again. With a curt hand gesture, Ricardo ordered Jessica to put her pack on. Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 1:27 PM "What a difference an hour can make," Fatima thought to herself as she sat at a library console at White Mall. Just one hour ago life appeared to be such a struggle, even to survive, and now they were back to their usual aggressiveness in pursuing multiple goals. But underneath the surface of their new optimism was the memory of what had just happened. They were utterly dependent on the technology of the entities that had built the Great Hexagon. The noontime blackout had hammered that point home. On the plus side, they now they had fifteen working Leophones. Fifteen! And Akiko had bravely stayed at the telecom labs at the Hilton for most of the last hour to ensure that number sixteen would be ready by tomorrow noontime. One short hour ago, Fatima was of the firm opinion that her first priority was to get everybody together safely on the surface. A series of phone calls changed everything. First Jada had called directly from the central island. The reset had indeed unlocked their phones, though unfortunately their library consoles still had no high-level access to the interface. The inhabitants of Wobanakik briefly described the incredible time compression they had experienced, seven days in fourteen minutes. And then Carla had called from the bottom of the stairwell, on the other side of the elevator from Wobanakik. They were out! The elevator appeared to be back into its original mode of operation, and Fatima told the group that they were perfectly correct in not reentering Wobanakik. She ordered them to return to the surface immediately. By the time of scheduled 1:30 PM meeting, Tom had promised they would have completed five flights of the twenty-five flight ascent. The upcoming conference would be one of the most distributed meetings Fatima ever held. Everyone in their society was participating. Jada plus her group of twelve would be calling in from the central island. Emily and three others were in a hold position at the top of great stairwell to Wobanakik, at the southern tip of White Mall's diamond array. They were ready to start hiking supplies down to Tom and his group of three when the meeting ended. Aggie also had three people with her at Green Mall. Fatima had five others with her at White Mall. They were monitoring the mall sensor network from here, and they would also be needed when the time came to go upstairs to the lounge and open the door and let the returning parties back in. Finally Mark had six people with him at the Red Mall home complex. At 1:30 PM sharp the meeting started. Fatima went first with a description of what the monitors were showing at Black Mall. The servos were chopping up the last of the chicken-wire barrier. There had been several small explosions during the deconstruction, including several that splashed a cloudy liquid onto the mattress that Alfonso used to lie on. The liquid made the mattress smoke and blacken, and the scene was a grim reminder of the ruthlessness of their opposition. If Alfonso had been chained to the mattress when the explosions went off, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he would have suffered horrible burns. And his own group had set him up for this. But Alfonso was nowhere to be seen. There was a brief discussion about his current location. Their sensor network now had a view inside Jacob's again and Alfonso did not appear to be in there, and least not on the lower floor. The discussion concluded there was a small chance Alfonso returned to the surface, but it was more likely he had fled down the spiral. The question of how the society would respond to this development was tabled by Fatima until tomorrow's meeting. She then asked Tom to report. "Well, we're on track for returning to the surface. We completed our fifth flight of stairs about five minutes ago. I should also report Carla has her pistol with her. She remembered to bring it, her spare clip too. I left my pistol in my bedroom. Emily, I take it you're at the top of the stairs now?" "Hi Tom, and congratulations for getting out of Wobanakik. And you are correct. My team is sitting around the circle of the top step. Looks like a nice day. The killer ivy outside looks very happy." "Uh, yeah. Fatima, that's about all I have to say. And Emily, you really don't have to come down for us. Maybe I wish we had a little more water but it's nothing dangerous." "Oh, don't say that Tom. Everyone with me is eager to meet the new people. Carla, Suvarna, Tajana, welcome! Have you figured out which one of you will try out for White Mall janitor?" "We're still discussing that Emily," answered Carla. "I think we'll have a decision by the time we reach the surface." It was a great stroke of good fortune. Their original hope had been that the reset would allow for employee training in the library of the central island. That had not happened, but now they had three people with White Mall citizen IDs on the other side of the Wobanakik elevator. Jada and Lynn next described what they had managed to analyze over the past hour. They still could not interact directly with the main interface, but they were able now to pull up the scheduled cycle for Wobanakik's year. "Our original estimate ... I should say Madison's original model was correct. Wobanakik runs on a 252-day cycle. And the system has moved forward seven days and is now at the summer solstice position. There's a very interesting three-year cycle between Wobanakik and the surface, a recurring coupling of our solstice and equinox positions. To show you what I mean, am sending you a table of data through the library system. We decided to start Wobanakik's calendar at the winter solstice, just as we do on the surface. Hold on..." A few seconds later, the following information appeared on the Fatima's console. Summer solstice, Year 1 Wobanakik Era : Spring equinox, April 1, 2019 Fall equinox, Year 1 W.E. : Mid summer, August 8, 2019 Winter solstice, Year 2 W.E. : Winter solstice, January 1, 2020 Spring equinox, Year 2 W.E. : Mid spring, May 8, 2020 Summer solstice, Year 2 W.E. : Fall equinox, October 1, 2020 Fall equinox, Year 2 W.E. : Mid winter, February 8, 2021 Winter solstice, Year 3 W.E. : Summer solstice, July 1, 2021 Spring equinox, Year 3 W.E. : Mid autumn, November 8, 2021 Summer solstice, Year 3 W.E. : Spring equinox, April 1, 2022 "See how this works?" asked Lynn. "Two Wobanakik years equals three years on the surface. Our solstice positions here are locked to alternating solstice and equinox positions on the surface, and every two Wobanakik years our equinox positions are locked to hitting all four mid-season positions on the surface." Jada spoke up. "Lynn found something else too. The moon has recovered its periodicity. There will be no more random phases one night to the next. It's on a pure 28-day cycle now, nine cycles per 252-day year." Sitting in the Red Mall library, Mark made a comment back to his wife. "That was an interesting word to use, recover. Are you suggesting the lunar phases had periodicity sometime in the past and then lost it?" "Yes," answered Lynn. "That's the one really frightening part about this. I don't have access to much, but I did manage to open a log charting the lunar phases. They've been random for just over three hundred Wobanakik years. I've calculated the exact date. In old Earth time, the moon lost its rhythm on July 13, 1809." There was a long pause of silence on the bridge. Finally Ann who was sitting with Aggie in the Green Mall library spoke up. "Well, what's so frightening about that? It proves Wobanakik has existed for at least a few hundred years. Didn't we already know that? We've got the genome for Dinofelis down there, an animal that went extinct on Earth one and a half million years ago. The Great Hexagon could be immensely old." "It's not the age Ann," Lynn replied from the central island. "Don't you see? The technology here is so far beyond our comprehension that we've been thinking of the builders as all powerful beings, entities who are godlike in their knowledge and perfection. But they're not. There was a system failure down here in Wobanakik. The file that I opened was an error log." ------- Chapter 72 Time: Saturday, April 2, 2019 5:20 PM It had been a very quiet day for Diego. Yesterday he had been busy de-arming all the booby traps Ricardo had laid in their home complex, with a heavy concentration near the elevators in the lounge and library. So many! Diego removed the booby traps but kept the elevator doors open with some furniture what were acting as wedges. And Ricardo had even laid two traps in Diego's old bedroom. The bastard! Diego had almost missed the second wire. But today was different. He spent a little time in the morning doing an inventory of his food supplies and searching for a weapon. The best he could find was an extra Bowie knife that Ricardo had forgotten about, not great but better than nothing. And then there seemed nothing else to do. Diego ate an early lunch and then spent some idle time watching a boring movie in the entertainment room on the first floor. He brought a few beers with him, but the alcohol seemed as boring as the movie. Diego was alone, truly alone, far more isolated than he had ever been in his life. And the smell of stale beer was getting to him. He had to admit, they lived like pigs when they were running that pussy-on-the-hoof shit. It seemed like so long ago. What a total waste. So the question now was, what next? There was surprisingly little food left in the complex. The issue wasn't super critical. With the stockpiles of food still at his old lockup location at the southern vertex, Diego would be fine for several months. But Uno had been much more interested in stocking up on his favorite whiskeys than keeping the larder filled with wholesome food. There was so much within a few stores of Jacob's, Uno never bothered to keep a buffer in the pantry. Diego shrugged his shoulders as he took a small sip of stale beer. Food wasn't the issue. The issue was, what to do? Diego had no hope of getting any forgiveness from his former rape victims. He had committed enough crimes to be locked away for life if he were on Earth, and why would the women see things differently here? They'd either kill him, or even worse, pity him and lock him away in a room for the rest of his life. Diego grimaced at the thought, his memory playing his crimes over and over. How many did he rape? Diego liked variety. It was his secret fantasy since puberty to mount one beautiful woman after another, and incredibly the strange trip through the elevator provided him the opportunity. Maybe he didn't beat the slaves, at least he wasn't senselessly cruel, but the nightly feel of a new woman's vagina around his cock, the variety of legs and breasts and how the women tasted, Diego was in sex heaven. He probably rutted on at least ... Hell. He couldn't even bear to think of the number now. His favorite technique was to have the women lying on her stomach and he would be kneeling between her legs, holding an ankle in each hand. Diego loved shoving into a captive woman, riding with the thrill of sexual power. Sometimes when he was about to release, he would lie on the woman's back and bite her neck as he made his final thrusts. Unloading into a female from that position was a pure aphrodisiac. It felt as if his orgasm would go on forever. But now looking back, he struggled to remember the point. And did he really not care that some of the women were crying? Diego felt damned, plainly and simply damned, but there was nothing he could do about it. So what should he be doing? Just wait in this foul-smelling house day after day, month after month until the food ran out? Not fucking likely. That would be a pathetic way to finish a life that he had once been proud of. So what to do? He had a plan and was all prepared for it, as much food and water as he could comfortably carry, the binoculars Ricardo for some strange reason had left him, the Bowie knife, a change of underwear ... Early tomorrow morning at the break of dawn, assuming he had the courage, Diego would walk out of the lounge and follow the perimeter of the diamond complex. He would retrace the path on which so many compadres had lost their lives. What would he find? Diego had no idea. But at least he didn't think he would meet Ricardo. That was one particular encounter Diego never wanted to have. Time: Saturday, April 2, 2019 6:01 PM One and a half kilometers below, the good citizens of Wobanakik still had another two hours of daylight left, but here on the surface Amber was enjoying the last few minutes of deep orange sunlight and shadows. It had been a beautiful day, getting up to 9C earlier and it felt almost that warm now. Amber was sitting quietly on a park bench in the pine tree courtyard at the home complex of Green Mall. Two hours ago she had returned with Aggie, Heather and Ann from a ten-hour excursion to search for the lost members of Green Mall. They had found absolutely nothing, and the implications were driving Aggie crazy. Ann came out the door in the central stairwell and walked over to Amber. "Dinner's almost ready. Aggie made something that smells really interesting." Amber gave Ann a small smile. "Ah, Aggie's famous Hungarian cuisine. How is she feeling now?" "Better I think. Perhaps the cooking is therapeutic." "Ah..." Amber patted her flat stomach. "More Apfelstrudel for dessert I bet. If this keeps up, I'm going to start gaining weight." Ann shook her head. "With all the exercise we're getting? I doubt it." She paused for a moment and then joined Amber on the bench. "So, what's the thinking?" "Want to link?" "Sure." Amber hesitated. "Sorry. I wasn't being serious. But I'll try to answer your question." She fidgeted for a moment. "Aggie was fit to be tied. Our latest expedition, we seem to have proven that the lost people from Green Mall never existed." "Yeah. I'm sure Aggie is going to have a lot to say about that at tonight's meeting. But Amber, that's not what's bothering you, is it?" "No." Amber sighed. "You really know me, don't you? I guess I should be flattered." She stretched and took a deep breath. "I got a call from Fatima about an hour ago, right after we got back." "Uh huh." "I've convinced so many people that we should be active in Black Mall that Fatima is finally going to agree. And Fatima says I'm the one who championed the idea and I'm the one who knows the mind of our enemy the best. So she's going to put me in charge. Me!" "Wow! You've made team leader. Congratulations! This will be quite a step up in base pay." Amber chuckled. "Yeah, right." She shivered as a cold gust of wind blew in from the north. "Brrrr! We probably should be heading inside. Look at those clouds moving in. We might be in for some rough weather tonight." They rose together, and as the stood Ann gently petted Amber's shoulder and felt her friend trembling, and somehow she knew it wasn't from the air temperature. "Are you worried about failing?" she whispered. After a moment of silence, Amber turned and offered her friend eye contact. A second later she whispered in a thought, "I'm worried about getting people killed." Time: Saturday, April 2, 2019 7:30 PM Bingo! Jenaro had been forced to spend the previous night sleeping out under the stars, which was marginally okay with him. But the weather outside tonight would be awful. He was moments away from getting soaked with a freezing rain when at long last he found an unlocked door. Jenaro hurried inside and was so eager to get out of the numbing wind that he let the door close behind him. Then he remembered that might be a really bad idea. Cursing his own stupidity, he tried the door again and breathed a huge sigh of relief when it opened easily. Unaware that the door would lock from the inside a minute after being closed, Jenaro let the door shut again without wedging it open. He then sat down and rooted around in his backpack for something to eat. He thought the flashlight he had with him was wonderful. It never seemed to run out of power. Suddenly he remembered something, Ricardo's frustration in the strange lobby when main power seemed to be out. Jenaro stared at his flashlight thoughtfully. What the hell? Time: Saturday, April 2, 2019 9:15 PM To hear the wind, Fatima would have to go outside, and she had no intention of doing that. She snuggled with her blanket instead and enjoyed the show through her bedroom windows, enjoying the power of the rain lashing against the windowpanes. There were even occasional flashes of lightning. Fatima knew she should try to get some sleep but her mind was still racing. They had so many projects going on, so many decisions to make. And then after tonight's meeting she had another date with Mark. How strange this was! He was a married man, one of his wives was already pregnant, and yet Fatima shivered like a schoolgirl when they kissed goodnight. Had she truly accepted polygamy in her heart? And his wives! Frida and Toshi had both hugged her very affectionately after the meeting and before her date began. Fatima was beginning to feel that she didn't want to wait for the year and her term as leader to end before she committed to Mark. Would anybody mind? It was something she needed to think about. It was such a busy meeting, but at least they had completed their reorganization, and that was a major piece of work. So many projects were going on simultaneously, both on the surface and below. Wobanakik was starting its summer, and the reports from below were describing a lush sub-tropical climate with a high today of 25C after an overnight low of 15C. There was also an interesting observation made on the Missisquoi, as Jada had sent a new team to occupy the entrance rooms. The central channel had become more focused, increasing its flow rate to 8 kph along the entire length from the central island to the lake by the entrance rooms, and also continuing into the other half of the river. Jada had probed the river almost to its northern end today. Her conclusion was that the new river dynamics were not a problem. They made getting to the central island a little more challenging but the landings were still doable. It also made travelling north along the river very easy without hindering the return trips south. The waters outside of the channel were still very gentle, perhaps flowing north at 1 kph. There were also unexplained and vaguely unsettling changes in the water temperatures. The gradient between channel and non-channel water had shifted markedly in the day after reset, finally stabilizing at 4C in the channel and 24C along the shore. For safety reasons with the kayaks, Jada felt very fortunate that they had a good selection of wetsuits in the mini-mall beneath her home. Jada had split her group of thirteen into two halves. Remaining at the central island with her were Thara, Oona, Abit, Lynn, Mandy, and Charles. Madison and Sandra were co-leaders at the entrance rooms, and with them were Amy, Margaret, Sachi, and Parni. Lynn had made a startling offer to Fatima during tonight's meeting. In two year's time, Lynn thought there would be an opportunity to force another reset in the telecom network from her library station, and she suggested that if their group was still trapped in Wobanakik then, Lynn would be willing to sacrifice herself and perform the reset from the library while everyone else was by the elevator in the entrance rooms. For a while Fatima was at a complete loss of words for how to respond. Jada spoke instead and said it seemed inconceivable to her that any of their group would accept such a sacrifice. But Fatima wasn't so sure. Attitudes and a desire for life outside of Wobanakik could grow and change dramatically over the next 504 days. Fatima ended the discussion by thanking Lynn for her selflessness and added that she prayed the issue of leaving Wobanakik would be resolved long before they would need to consider such a gift. Fatima and twelve other members of the Society comprised the home team, and their mission had expanded earlier this morning when Mark announced that employment opportunities for Medical Technicians had opened up. Lucia who was already an RN was a natural choice for Red Mall, Paige volunteered and was accepted by the interface as Black Mall's representative, and Suvarna and Tajana were accepted as White Mall candidates for Janitor and Med-Tech. Mark was also continuing his studies. In addition to the people studying for employment, the home team had the responsibilities of monitoring the sensor network, exploring the interface at the surplus library locations, being a support group for the away teams and finally acting as a reserve force in case of emergencies. In addition to Fatima and the student employees, the members of the home team were Hannah, Emily, Holly, Frida, Toshi, Akiko, and Kiyoko. The next largest team had eight members was now headed by Amber, and it was dedicated to resolving the open issues with Black Mall. The team included Husna, Ashley, Brandi, Whitney, Cassidy, the five women who had proven to be the most proficient with the crossbows. Kiyoko as Black Mall janitor would also join the team when the possibility of surface exploration existed. Also on the team were Tom and Carla who were armed with pistols. Carla had put aside her own desires for employment training in order to provide armed support for Amber's team. Their tentative schedule was to spend tomorrow planning their first operation on Monday. They were still discussing their options when Fatima said goodnight to them after the meeting. And then finally there was Aggie's team which included Alison, Heather, and Ann. Aggie and her team were in a somewhat bewildered state this evening. Over the past month, they had completed a very extensive map of the area south of the Green Mall home complex, and they had found something that didn't make any sense. They had identified six hub locations within their target area that any wandering group would have had to visit. Each hub had sleeping and bathing facilities and ample supplies of food. It seemed inconceivable to Aggie that her Party would leave the food supplies at all these locations untouched. By the time the women from Green Mall would have reached them, they must have realized something incredible had happened, and the hub areas were just too attractive as home bases to be passed over. Yet none of the food larders had ever been touched. It was a deep mystery. The women appeared to have vanished. Aggie concluded her report by saying there was one area they still hadn't fully investigated, the extreme corner to the southeast of the Green Mall complex. The area was where the two great interior barrier walls met at an acute angle. These were the walls that separated the six mall surface regions from one another. In the extreme corner, Red Mall territory would be to their south, and Yellow Mall area to their north and east. Aggie's plan was to search this small region tomorrow but she wasn't very optimistic. Fatima had only met Carla yesterday, but she was very impressed with the woman's practical experience in field operations. Should Fatima have put her in charge of the Black Mall team? It was a very difficult decision, but Amber was also a person who acted very coolly under pressure and she seemed to have an uncanny ability to anticipate how Ricardo would think. Did they ever link by accident and share thoughts without realizing it? Fatima had once privately asked Amber that question. Amber had shuddered and admitted it might have happened their first night on the planet. Her own boyfriend Neto had abandoned her after a brief lovemaking. He was in search of a fresh female to copulate with. A short time later Muchacho Ricardo came over and petted her, reaching in and stroking Amber inside her unbuttoned blouse, and he was soon panting in his interest. It was the only time Amber thought she had ever seen him in true sexual arousal. And they had stared at each other's eyes that night, something Ricardo was normally loath to do. "Know your enemy!" That was Carla's response when Frida had talked to her about the formation of the Black Mall team. Carla figured that in a critical situation, Amber would be the best person to be making the decisions, and she agreed with Fatima's instinct to let Amber lead. And Amber appreciated Carla's priceless military experience and asked her to be second in command. Fatima's sleepy mind finally decided she had made the right choice. She drifted off to sleep, and was soon a little girl again, a welcome retreat from her adult burdens. It was her sixth birthday. Young Fatima was laughing and clapping her hands in delight as she rode atop her uncle's giant camel as her mother's brother led it across the Kuwaiti desert. The next day. Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 5:40 AM Amber's team assembled before sunrise. That was the plan from their meeting the previous night. There was no reason to wait. They would begin the final exploration and lockdown of Black Mall this morning. They were a formidable force, eight people with six Leophones, six bicycles and four side cars for extra capacity. They were armed with five crossbows and two pistols. After a light breakfast, they set off from the Black Mall sky bridge at a leisurely pace. They stopped halfway to their destination and practiced for an hour advancing on foot, a simple cross and cover pattern that would defend them against sudden attack. Carla thought their greatest danger was somebody letting loose a cross bolt by accident, but the team kept the safeties on and the crossbows pointed in the air. They mounted their bikes again and continued their journey, completing their 32 km trip approximately three hours after leaving the sky bridge. They stopped about a hundred meters before the last locked store on the outside arc. The dangerous part of their mission was about to begin. Their goal for today was to extend the locked area of the Mall to Jacob's Bar and Grill, installing the advanced sensors in the store on the outside arc opposite Jacob's, and also testing the restaurant's kitchen entrance to the surface. The reason for their boldness was their ability to "look around the corner" with Looking Glass. Since the demolition of the chicken-wire barrier, their sensors had revealed absolutely no motion on either side of the mall on their side of Jacob's or a full five hundred meters beyond it. It was Amber's judgment that even Ricardo couldn't resist taking a peek with a mirror or something if he was hiding in one of the stores. Their opponents at Black Mall had no idea of the range of their sensor network, nor its ability to detect small motions. Still, Carla was taking no chances. They advanced on foot for the last hundred meters and then started locking the stores, using the crossing pattern of advancing and covering and locking, advancing and covering and locking. The work proceeded almost in silence, their phones open to receive any warning from Holly and Toshi who were on monitor duty at the Hilton and adding close support. At last they were at Jacob's, their objective for the day. As Husna assisted Ashley in installing the new node of their sensor net, Amber, Carla, and Cassidy slowly checked out the first floor of Jacob's. Within a few minutes, Carla was satisfied it was deserted. A minute later they confirmed their expectation that the door in the back of the kitchen freezer was locked from the surface side. Outside the freezer, Cassidy offered to link with Amber and she accepted. "Sure does bring back memories, huh?" Cassidy thought as she looked around the kitchen with her peripheral vision. "I remember calling Tom Toro at this exact spot." Amber smiled at the trick Cassidy was demonstrating, taking glimpses of the kitchen while still maintaining the link. And then Amber's thoughts turned somber. She thought in reply. "Somewhat. This place is pristine now. The servos didn't miss a speck of dust. Except for the lack of food in the storage bins, it's as if nothing ever happened." Amber sighed in her thoughts. "It's a sad epitaph to the good people who died here." Cassidy replied with a mental construct of a nod. "Do you think we should check out the second floor?" Amber blinked and almost lost the link. "I don't see why. Let me ask Carla her opinion." Amber shifted her link and a moment later Carla thought back. "Ah, mission creep. Your instincts are correct Amber. There's no benefit for taking the slight risk. The sensors will watch all the stairs. Looking Glass will tell us instantly the moment there's an indication that a locked store is occupied." Amber agreed and added, "Then we're finished for the day. This was almost too easy." Carla laughed in her thoughts. "It's an old saying but it's true. Be careful what you wish for!" A few minutes later the group carefully backed up to their bike location, for practice repeating the cross and cover motions in their retreat. Soon they were by their bikes and ready to return home. With her team around her, Amber talked with Holly and Toshi and confirmed again that the new sensor node was working. Their network could now observe both sides of the mall five hundred meters beyond Jacob's, and by boosting with Looking Glass to the far outside sensor at a store at spiral mark 70938 meters, they could extent their coverage an additional kilometer. In addition, the entrance door to Jacob's was now locked and under their control. Significant milestones had been achieved. Carla's laughing warning returned to Amber's mind. It had been tempting to press on a bit and lock a few more stores. They had brought extra locks with them if the need for that arose, and her team would do so if she gave the orders. It would be so easy. There was an unlocked store just twenty meters from Jacob's. But their original plan was the correct one to follow. It was time to let the sensor network and Looking Glass do some observation work. If they revealed nothing, Amber's team would repeat this process tomorrow and extend the sensor network another kilometer. If they detected a presence, they would probably just observe for a day and decide on a course of action based on what and whom they were observing. That was the correct plan, and there was no need to rush it. After one last look towards Jacob's, the group turned and started biking for home. ------- Chapter 73 Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 10:25 AM Aggie's away team had left the Green Mall complex at 9 AM, and now after a seven kilometer walk along an optimal route, they were about four kilometers east and two kilometers south of home and less than a hundred meters from the three-way junction that separated Red Mall, Green Mall, and Yellow Mall territories. Aggie's team had spent the last few minutes listening to Amber report on her successful but uneventful mission at Black Mall, and now Amber's team was biking home. Emily and Mark were still online with Aggie from the Red Mall library, ready to offer advice if needed. Alison looked at the building before them with a very skeptical eye. "This? We hiked all the way here to investigate this one building?" Aggie shrugged. "I know it doesn't look like much." It was a triangular building, rather small, at least by the standards they had become accustomed to. The building was one story in height with its longest side perhaps fifty meters. It was wedged tight against the high perimeter walls that separated the building from Red and Yellow Mall territories. Aggie pulled out her laser rangefinder and measured the length of the side facing them at thirty-five meters, which she dutifully reported to Mark and Emily. She also reported there was a transparent door leading to what looked like a small lobby. There were also a few lobby windows, and Aggie voiced the conjecture that they were probably the only windows for the building. Windows on the building's two other sides would look directly into the sand and cobblestone and ivy buffer area of the perimeter barrier, and that was very rare. They had only discovered one example of that so far, at the southern tip of White Mall's diamond complex. Heather spoke up. "I don't understand. Why did you leave this one small building unexplored?" Aggie grinned. "It's not as if we didn't try. The last time my team was here, we were already passed our usual time limit. The sun was setting and our safety buffer was cut to the bone. Fatima ordered us home." "I made the right decision." It was Fatima's voice on the phone. "Oh, hi Fatima," Aggie replied. "Yes, I agree. Are you with Mark and Emily?" "No, I'm at the Hilton. But I thought I'd listen in." "Sure, no problem. Too bad I can't send you some video of what things look like here." There was streaming video capabilities built into the Leophones, but so far nobody had gotten it to work. "I should tell you," replied Fatima. "In addition to activating the new phones, Akiko is working with Lynn on that right now." "Ah. Cool." Aggie strapped the open phone to her shoulder harness and walked up to the lobby door with the rest of her team, reporting minor details as they went. Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 10:26 AM It had been two days now since Ricardo had left the Black Mall home complex, and almost two days that he had been alone with Jessica. It had been a strange experience for him. Back at the home complex, he had been alone with her, but there he had much more control in how they interacted. But back then Ricardo carefully allocated interaction and isolation time. It all depended on the progress Jessica was making transforming herself into the person Ricardo wanted her to be. Here... Here the circumstances were not nearly as favorable or controllable. Ricardo had not left Jessica alone in two days. He didn't dare. Even if she obeyed his order to stay put, there was the danger of Ricardo walking a path that he would later discover to be irreversible. And Jessica herself, it was so strange. Late last night and early this morning, there had been several brief moments when Jessica's behavior was extremely bizarre. It never lasted more than a second or two. They would be walking normally and then Jessica would suddenly freeze, sometimes shaking, once crying out in panic, a deep haunting wail as if someone were tearing her apart. And then she would recover and be unaware that the moment of panic had even occurred. Ricardo formed a theory of what was going on. Originally he had hoped to transform Jessica into a completely new person, but it was his suspicion now that he had failed. He had not changed Jessica's personality. He had fractured it. Jessica's fall from power was a catastrophe for her. Her assumptions of superiority and ability to control her future cracked the day Ricardo killed Uno, and then shattered completely as she was raped in front of her boyfriend. She had been perfectly positioned for the fall. Ricardo had skillfully cranked up the pressure on her, causing her to live in constant fear that her sexual exploits with Alfonso would cause his death and her transformation into Ricardo's hoof pussy. On the day of her rape, the emotional distress split Jessica's personality. The old Jessica was not destroyed, only suppressed. Ricardo had created a path for her to escape her fear by giving Ricardo absolute and childlike obedience. Jessica's mind had accepted the offer by constructing a new personality as an overlay to her adult self image, smothering her adult years by building a new identify from the memories of her childhood. Ricardo discovered a key piece of supporting evidence for this very early this morning. Part of Ricardo's training for Jessica in the past week was to disrupt her sleep rhythm, and he had kept this up over the last two days. The schedule he was using on her was roughly twenty hours awake followed by a four-hour sleep period, with occasional one-hour naps when Jessica became too disoriented. Early this morning, at about 3 AM when it was time to wake her from a nap, he had pinched her nose closed to wake her and then asked her as soon as her eyes blinked open how old she was. In absolute honesty, the bewildered Jessica had replied nine. Nine years old! Ricardo had driven Jessica to a time before her puberty. No wonder she had accepted the pigtails and kid clothing so readily. It was exactly the identity to which Jessica was trying to escape. And unknown to Ricardo, nine years old was a time in her youth when Jessica was actually a very sweet kid with rosy cheeks, a love for running, and with a great curiosity about the world. She would shrug off the occasional teasing about being the shortest girl in her class and instead pride herself in the care of her dog and her younger sister. It was the last year of peace and normalcy in her life. The following year her mother discovered that Jessica's father was having an affair, and things rapidly got very ugly. Four years of misery followed, culminating with Jessica's divorced mother becoming an alcoholic and losing the family home. And now it was nearly 10:30 AM, and in a half hour Ricardo would wake Jessica from another of her one-hour naps. Ricardo had picked a schedule that would give Jessica's body enough physical rest but deprive her mind of dreaming sleep. He thought the disorientation would make it easier to mold her personality, and he had succeeded beyond his expectations. Ricardo's own dreams were strange. They frightened him. In his troubled dreams, he kept confusing Jessica with Amber, and he couldn't figure out why. He had known both women since September. Neto's girlfriend Amber he thought was rather interesting. Alfonso's girlfriend Jessica he thought should be used as a piss mop. What quality did the two women have in common that Ricardo was confusing them in his dreams? The mergence made no sense, and the lack of an explanation was disturbing. Ricardo took a hard look at Jessica's face as she slept. Her face was very relaxed, the innocence of a child at sleep. Yes, his theory of a split personality was correct, he was sure of it. And as he stared at her closely, Ricardo noticed a flutter in her eyes behind her closed lids. And first the flutter was subtle and fleeting, but then it returned, stronger and more enduring. Jessica's dreamed-deprived mind was striving for REM sleep in the short hour of her nap. Ricardo did not want that. So he positioned his face directly above hers, mouth above mouth and their noses almost touching. And the he pinched her nostrils shut. In the dream it was late summer, at the end of August. School would be starting in another week. Unknown to Jessica, she was visiting the Bromley Mountain Thrill Zone for the last time in her life. She was speeding down The Big Splash, an amusement ride billed as Vermont's longest water slide. Jessica was sitting behind and holding her sister Trudy who seemed to be screaming and laughing at the same time. And then unexpectedly, Trudy started to scream in genuine horror as their yellow raft hit a horribly tight and dangerous curve. The raft sailed up the side of the giant green slide and then jumped the track. Jessica and her hysterical sister were impossibly high, sailing in the air far above a parking lot. They were suspended in the air for a moment, and then they began to fall to their deaths. Jessica opened her mouth to scream with her sister but she couldn't draw a breath. She gasped for air but nothing came. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe! Why?! She deserved one last shout against the injustice of her death, but she couldn't breathe! Jessica's eyes opened in shock while her dream-deprived mind was still clinging to the nightmare. She was suspended above the parking lot, still falling to her death, but the enormous face of Ricardo was superimposed on her dream. In a dreamlike hallucination, his eyes seem to bore into her soul, and to her horror and seemingly against her will her own eyes and mind drilled back into his. Time itself seemed to stop. Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 10:29 AM So it had come to this. Diego was standing in the hexagonal corridor at the southern vertex of his home complex, the very spot where he had been imprisoned just two days ago. But now there were two important differences. The first was that the servos had returned the area to a pristine state. No trace of his supplies or the dead-man switch that had chained him at the vertex location remained. The second difference was that the door leading inward to the sand park and home was closed and locked. Again, it was no surprise. Except for the interior doors within their home, Diego's group had known for months about the gremlin servos and how they would not tolerate unattended doors being wedged open. Diego had eaten a hearty breakfast and then showered and left the home complex shortly before dawn, carrying two backpacks loaded with as many supplies as he could manage. He left the vestibule door propped open with the reasoning there was no reason not to, but he was under no illusion of the wedge surviving once the door was out of sight. Numerous tests in the past had demonstrated the diligence and promptness of the servo's response to such attempts. Diego walked around the perimeter track without incident for 2.4 kilometers, until he came to the southern vertex of the northernmost hexagon. He would occasionally glance out the clear windows as he walked. He thought it was remarkable how well the wall with the moguls on top was camouflaged by the grass. At the closest approach at the most eastern hexagon, Diego guessed the wall was a mere 800 meters away, and yet in was almost invisible. If he didn't know of its presence through the binoculars, Diego thought he wouldn't recognize its presence at all. At the far vertex he saw the double spiral staircase described first by his group's early explorers and lastly by Amber and Whitney. But the door in the opposite spiral, it seemed open now. Diego felt an immense sense of relief. He was in grave danger of being trapped in a barren set of corridors. But it appeared his gamble might have paid off. Diego descended the stairs and considered the terrain. It seemed simple enough, and regardless his only other option was to die of thirst once the eight liters of water he was carrying ran out. So after tracing the path before him with his eyes for a moment, Diego began to walk across the colored cobblestones, first yellow, then red, and finally black for the central crossing of the ivy. Diego moved slowly and silently across the sharp black stones. His thick hiking boots made the journey possible, but he definitely did not was to lose his balance on the uneven rocks and then cut his hands on the sharp edges by falling. About halfway across the two-hundred meter distance, something wedged in the black cobblestones caught his eye. He stared closely and gulped. Could it be?! It was a pistol, a Bersa, wedged between two rough cobblestones, almost invisible. Diego had been unbelievably fortunate to notice it. Intent in his examination, he did not notice the slight quiver of the ivy as he clicked the magazine in and out. Two shots fired, thirteen remaining. Not bad at all. Diego surveyed the area for another clip. He did spot several spent shell casings but no additional ammo. Still, this was an incredible find, thirteen rounds. Ricardo would have no reason to suspect Diego was armed. If they met in the future, Diego would probably have a decent opportunity to open fire before Ricardo realized the danger. Diego examined the gun closely and noticed the faint N stamped into the black finish. Neto. Diego had Neto's gun. Diego took a deep breath and silently wondered, "What the hell happened to you man? Some sort of fire fight?" Well, it had been a long time ago. The hall with the lush ivy was vacant now. There were no answers here. Diego picked up his backpacks and continued his journey and after walking the high walkway along the side of the hall, he confirmed that he did indeed have access to the diamond complex interior. He spent the next several hours wandering the hallways on the first floor. After an extensive amount of exploring, he counted ten interior doors he could enter. Should he? If so, which one? All ten of the doors had symbols in front of them, and two had a symbol he saw upstairs right before the entrance to the ivy room. It looked like a broken Y lying on its side. Maybe he should choose one of those. But there was no guarantee the door would let him out once he entered. The only thing he knew for certain was that these interior areas did not appear to lead to the outside. If he was going to die, Diego wanted to be outside, in the light of day or at least under the stars. Dying alone in an alien room seemed a pathetic way to go. He would be like a hamster dying in a forgotten cage. So Diego passed on the option of entering an interior door and walked until he found a door leading out. He opened it and paused. He was almost back home. He was exiting to the narrow hexagonal walkway around his home, and a few meters away was a door that led to a small vestibule and then to the first floor library. From this side, he knew that the door to the vestibule would not open. But there was nothing left for him behind. Diego let his exit door close, not even bothering to wedge it open. What would be the point? Instead he began the short journey to his home's southern vertex. And there he was now, his watch reading 10:30 AM and yet another irreversible decision to make. But there was really no choice, and after patting the pistol hidden in his jacket pocket, he walked out and began heading for the pink tower about a kilometer to the south. Somehow he knew it might come to this, but at least now he was armed. A few seconds after leaving he heard the unbreakable door click shut behind him. Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 10:31 AM Ricardo lay gasping for breath. He thought his body was about to have a violent vomiting convulsion, but incredibly instead he suffered a quick succession of hiccups, impossibly close together, one right after another. Ricardo had never heard of such a condition, and in his torment he vaguely wondered if he had been hit with some sort of airborne drug. Some sort of nerve gas? What the hell had happened?! Jessica had escaped! She had run off just a moment ago. Ricardo knew he had to pursue her immediately if he had any chance to catch her in this crazy polygonal matrix, but for the moment he was physically incapable of standing. He made another wobbly attempt and then collapsed hiccupping back down to the floor. He would have to rest and let his body recover. There was no choice. But what the hell had happened? Ricardo searched his memory, trying to arrange in linear order what seemed like a random series of gut-wrenching nightmares. What had happened first? Jessica normally slept with her mouth closed. So when Ricardo pinched her nostrils shut, he had expected her to awake as she had so many times before in her training. She had learned that being submissive would earn her permission to breathe. But now... Ricardo had been transported to a monstrous amusement center, nightmarish in the steepness of the slopes. They were at least a hundred meters above a lot of parked cars, and Ricardo was insanely sitting face to face with Jessica in some sort of rubber raft. Truly insane! And there was a vague form of another person between them, another girl Ricardo thought, a young child dressed in a girl's red swimsuit, but the child faded to nothingness as the dream progressed. And then Jessica was in his mind, learning all his secrets. Or rather, there were two versions of Jessica, an adult Jessica and a child half her age. And to Ricardo's horror he found it was impossible to defend his mind against the two of them. He'd hammer the adult image and it would become dry and inert, and meanwhile the child Jessica would tear into his mind, into his memories, driven by a terrible anger at how Ricardo had abused her future self. The child's rage was overpowering, and Ricardo retreated into the core kernel of his self image, allowing the child to rampage through his memories and desires. The mental pain was unbearable. Unknown to Ricardo, for the first time in more than a decade, he was feeling the raw emotion of shame. He struck back with hate, ordering the child to die, ordering her to kill herself. And he shocked the child with such vileness that he began to succeed. She tried to save herself, tried to flee the twisted pathways of his memories, and Ricardo began to play a deadly game of entrapment with her, thinking of her as a cockroach he would stomp on before she could flee. The adult Jessica came to the child's rescue. She shielded the child image from his deadly mental foot and pushed Ricardo back into the dream, forcing him back onto the yellow raft above the parking lot. And they started to fall. The fear of death and desire for self preservation disoriented Ricardo and he lost his chance to crush the child image. And in the last part of the insane dream, just before impact, he sensed the adult and child images of Jessica strengthening each other, fusing with other and sharing all the secrets they had pulled from Ricardo's mind. Ricardo was howling with rage, and then his dream body slammed onto the top of a car. That was it. The nightmarish shock broke the link between their two minds. Jessica stumbled from the room they were in, gasping and crying, and Ricardo had been too weak to follow. But he was not too weak now. The hiccups were gone. He sat up and gently poked his diaphragm. It was a bit tender from the convulsions but no real harm done. And that stupid bitch had left him both backpacks. The fool! She could have killed him as he lay helpless. Ricardo swore she would never get such a chance again. He got up without dizziness and stretched. His path was clear. Jessica must die. The bitch had somehow pried into his mind. Ricardo was horrified to think she understood how his mind worked. That was absolutely intolerable. There was no question what he had to do now, and she did not deserve a quick death either. A thin smile crossed Ricardo's lips. It had been years since he had allowed himself the pure unconstrained pleasure of torture. It would be very satisfying to indulge again. He looked at his watch, and then looked again. Impossible! His mental war with Jessica had lasted for ... Well, it was so surreal, it was difficult to estimate, but this?! His watch was saying only a few minutes had elapsed since he had pinched her nose. Impossible! Had Jessica somehow reset his watch while he had been helpless? But that would be absurd. Why not just kill him with a gun from the backpack? Ricardo stared at his watch again and finally gave up. The puzzle had no answer. He grimaced and turned in a circle, considering his seven choices. He and Jessica had been exploring one level below ground level for almost a day now. They had found several water supplies on the ground floor, bathrooms in fact, but nothing to eat, and Ricardo's food supply now consisted of two small snack-size packs of almonds. Ricardo looked inside the open backpack. The bitch! She had stolen his almonds! Both packs! Fortunately the backpack with the guns was more firmly secured and still closed. Ricardo hefted its weight and gave a sigh of relief. Not that he had any intention of shooting Jessica. That would be too quick. He would kill her with his hands. Ricardo was at one of the hub locations in the underground maze. It was an oddly shaped room, an underground gazebo, an octagon with four-meter sides and a four-meter ceiling. There were doors at the center of seven of the faces, and typically the hub doors opened onto long curving corridors typically forty to eighty meters in length and ending at another hub. Over the last twenty-four hours, Ricardo had seen hubs that were triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. Hexagon hubs seemed to be the most common. Pentagons were very rare. They had only seen one, and it provided the entrance to this level. And each hub would a variable number of doors, but never more than one door per wall. Often a corridor would lead to a hub with a single door, a dead end. And as for the corridors, sometimes they were bare but more often there were side doors. Most were locked. Some were not and revealed small closet areas. Without expecting much Ricardo took a quick peek through all seven doors, just in case Jessica had been stupid enough to drop something and show which direction she had taken. No such luck. Ricardo sighed. His search might take a while, but he was hopeful he would eventually catch her, and he indulged himself for a moment anticipating what that would be like. Then he picked up his gear, his cane and two backpacks, and unaware that he had given himself an erection. Which door to take to pursue the bitch? It would make sense for Jessica to take the door they had arrived from earlier. All the other doors ran the risk of trapping Jessica by leading to a dead end hub. But their original entrance door was on the opposite wall from where the backpacks had been. The key question was, how rational was Jessica when she fled from him? After a moment of hesitation, Ricardo picked the door closest to the backpacks. Maybe he'd get lucky. He would try all the doors in the corridor and hope that Jessica was bagged in one of the many dead end hubs. ------- Chapter 74 The underground museum maze. The green path is the route Ricardo and Jessica took to reach their octagonal rest stop. The red path is the direction Jessica took when she fled from Ricardo. ------- Chapter 75 Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 10:35 AM "Lucky, lucky, lucky..." Jessica was unaware she was quietly whispering to herself as she worked. Jessica was frantic, guessing she didn't have enough time for what she was attempting to do, but determined nevertheless to give it a try. The faint sound of her own voice went unnoticed as she worked furiously to repack the museum contents of her closet. A museum, that was what she and Ricardo were in. She wondered if Ricardo realized it yet. Probably not. His objectives were ones of power and control, not to seek seemingly useless knowledge. But Jessica had recognized the nature of this strange and amazing maze yesterday. And with her childlike eagerness to please her father figure, she would gladly have shared her discovery with Ricardo. But he had ordered her not to speak. Lucky, lucky, lucky. The tipoff had been the seemingly infinite variety in the clothing closets, starting back at the cluster of hexagons near their entrance pentagon. So many dimensions! The clothes of all humanity, arranged by era, culture, gender, and age in patterns that seemed just beyond her grasp. And the interconnecting rooms between the hallways of closets seemed to be markers for period transitions. The current terminal hallway and the one before contained children's clothes, this corridor for girls and the previous one connecting to the octagon for boys. Jessica wasn't sure of the time period, but it certainly wasn't modern. She suspected pre-Columbian American. What a museum! If her life were not in danger, it would be fascinating to examine the clothes, the different fabrics and styles and uses. There were sleep clothes, work clothes, and clothes that were obviously used for special ceremonies. The closet she was in now contained girls' jackets, Jessica guessed for five-year olds or perhaps older if the people were small. The jackets were made from animal skins. Most were plain, a few were exquisitely decorated. But for now the history being represented here was not her concern. Jessica was overstuffing the top shelves in the closet in order to clear out one of the larger drawers on the bottom level by the floor. The drawer was surprisingly deep, and Jessica's one hope was that she would be able to fit inside. She had moment of pure panic and despair a few minutes ago. Her escape corridor had led to a triangular room with only one other door, and then in horror she found the following corridor led to a second and terminating triangle. She was trapped and had no illusions about being able to backtrack. By now, Ricardo had surely recovered from their strange interaction. What the hell had happened? He had been in her mind! She was sure of it. And she had been trapped in his. It was a cesspool of hate and paranoia, and its filth had shattered all her illusions. And Ricardo knew! He knew his lies had been exposed. In his rage, he had screamed at her with his mind. He considered the little-girl self image of Jessica to be a witch, and he would not suffer the witch to live. Jessica witnessed the creation of her own death sentence in his mind. Ricardo was on the verge of executing the sentence when adult Jessica and child Jessica discovered how to unite their mental defenses. So close! And so much to think about, so much Jessica still did not understand. But there was no time for that now. If Ricardo opened any of the top cabinets in this closet, he would see the disorder and know immediately that Jessica was nearby. But would he take the time to look? Jessica whimpered as she neared the completion of her work. If only! If only she had not gambled and picked an unknown branch of the maze! She could have headed back the way they had come, gone back and branched off after six to ten nodes, no, ten to twenty. How could she be so stupid?! Deep within her mind, a child's voice answered, pleading with her not to berate herself. Ricardo had been lying near their original door to the octagon room. Jessica would have had to stop over him, and in a flashback the young child within her reminded the adult of the fear of a hand whipping out and grabbing her ankle as she attempted to pass. Ricardo's hands were incredibly strong. Jessica thought he would break her ankle if he got the chance. He would know exactly how to squeeze and shear the bone. Should she have tried to kill him? The question didn't seem to have an easy answer. He had been helpless at the end of their mind merging, his body convulsing with dry heaves. Both the child and adult parts of Jessica's mind balked at murdering someone so helpless, even in an act of self defense. There was so much mental integration work to do, and no time to do it. Jessica felt eighteen, two years before her actual age of twenty. And it was that persona that was running the show right now. The time felt like late summer in 2016. It was the month before she first met Allen, a man who eventually would transform into Alfonso. There was a third voice within her mind, very quiet but not completely silent. The third voice represented the fractured persona of who Jessica had become while Alfonso's girlfriend, and unlike the two primary voices, Jessica #3 had no compunction about killing Ricardo. It was something Jessica's mind would have to deal with, provided of course she survived the next few minutes. There was a general agreement among them that the three personas would merge. Even the child recognized that it was strength of Jessica #3's mind that had saved them from Ricardo's order to kill herself. The bad was needed and would have to be accepted and absorbed back into the good. What would the finished product look like? The child wasn't sure. The fixation of the two adults on sexuality was so foreign to her thoughts. But it was her great hope that the good would prevail. There! The repacking was complete, and probably not a second too soon. Jessica climbed into the drawer and tried to arrange her body so that she could close herself in. It wasn't easy. Knees to chest, shoulders hunched in, it was only the surprising depth of the bottom layer of drawers that was making this remotely possible. But the child Jessica approved of that. The remoteness would keep their escape route off of Ricardo's radar scope. There would be very little air inside the drawer. The closet itself was well ventilated, air ducts at the ceiling blowing down to intake vents at floor level. But inside the drawer, how quickly would the air run out? It would be a dangerous hideout. If she passed out from CO2 buildup, she would die. She would have to test and learn the limits of her hideaway, conserve the air as much as possible and then open the drawer and get a fresh supply of air at periodic intervals. What would the confinement times be like? Perhaps five minutes with the drawer closed, hopefully longer, and then a five to ten second opening to clear and recharge. With luck, Ricardo would not be in the closet during the short exchange. The odds seemed decent, and regardless, they were all she had. Jessica took several deep breaths in the clean fresh air of the closet and slid herself in by pushing against the surface above her. The drawer sealed with a faint snap and hiss. Forty seconds later, the door to the closet opened. One hour later. Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 11:39 AM Aggie stretched her arms, her mind already working on how she would present her proposal during her noontime report. Aggie glanced at her team. Heather smiled back. "I've talked this over with Ann and Allison. We think we know what you're going to do. We're quite willing to come along." Aggie shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense." "Aggie, think. If it's too dangerous for more than one person, why isn't it too dangerous for one person?" "Yeah, I'm expecting Fatima to ask me that same question. I'm working on the answer now." A few minutes later she decided to report in early. There was a long pause when Aggie finished her proposal. Finally Fatima replied, "I'm trying not to reject this out of hand. But my God Aggie, you'll be jumping off a cliff." "No I'm not. We have overwhelming evidence that the passage is safe." "No we don't. Survivable maybe, not safe." Aggie took a deep breath. "Well, okay, I'll give you that. But look at what we know. Over half the food bins we've checked here show clear signs of depletion. And the exterior door has one of those damn locks with the one-minute delay. They were here Fatima, I know they were, and they were trapped." Fatima sighed. "All right. For the moment, I'll concede the point." "And do you also agree they left through the basement trapdoor?" "Yes. I trust your exploration of the building was thorough." "Fatima, we know this trip is survivable. All seventeen women are still active on Mark's roster. How else can we search for them without going through?" "Aggie, we've had bad experiences with these one-way portals. Look how many people we have trapped down in Wobanakik. And it would be four more except for some quick thinking by Tom and Carla." "Fatima, you're making my point for me. The people of White Mall are much better off now because we took the risk and explored. The same thing will be true here. It's time for us to be bold." There was another long pause, and then Fatima asked, "Where are your other team members now?" Aggie pumped her fist in triumph before answering. "The four of us are outside the building now. My team has a clean path home. They could be there a little after 1 PM. They don't need me." "Aggie, please escort your team home. A decision like this requires discussion and planning. Any supplies you think you would take on your trip, please depot them in the building." Aggie gulped. "You got it. We'll on our way." Five minutes later with lightened loads, the four women started marching for home. "Cheer up Aggie," Ann commented after they had walked a few hundred meters. "If Fatima were going to reject your plan, she would have done so already." Aggie was shivering inside her warm outdoor clothing, even though the noontime sun had pushed the temperature to 11C. "I know," she replied. "I know." One week later. Time: Sunday April 10, 2019 4:50 AM Five people were standing quietly together outside the trapdoor on the second floor of Esau's Bar and Grill, half of Amber's team plus Kiyoko. Her other four members were in the kitchen of Jacob's Bar and Grill, and they had verified yesterday afternoon that the door to surface there was now unlocked. Today was the day they would attempt to take control of the Black Mall home complex, and they would be going in simultaneously as two groups, each armed with a pistol and several crossbows. The opportunity for the seizure had opened yesterday. When her team was not busy probing the Black Mall spiral, Amber would have two members stationed at Esau's testing the trapdoor with a penny at random times. Until yesterday, the penny would always remain at Esau's, indicating the Black Mall lounge elevator was not accessible. And then yesterday at 10:52 AM, the penny disappeared. In addition to probing the trapdoor, Amber's team had been making steady progress extending their sensor network. At their evening meeting on April 3rd, they decided to wait two full days between each node extension, allowing ample time to observe any presence of Black Mall personnel in the next area to be locked down. On April 5th, 7th, and 9th, they installed new sensor nodes at one-kilometer increments beyond Black Mall's home complex, at spiral marks 70938, 71891, and 72857. The last node at 72857 enabled them through Looking Glass to activate sensors up to spiral mark 73836. With their April 9th node in place, their view along the outside edge was only two hundred meters short of the terminal store at spiral mark 75078. Less than an hour after the node was activated, the observation team at the Hilton saw a presence near the 74000 meter mark. Toshi and Holly both identified him as Alfonso, and after poking his head out and staring along the spiral for a moment, he casually walked across the corridor from one store to the other. The locked stores up to spiral mark 72857 were not visible from his location, and it was Amber's assumption that Alfonso had no knowledge of her team's work. Their current plan was to observe for another day and attempt contact tomorrow morning on the 11th. Several days ago, Fatima had decided to delay Aggie's exploration of the Green Mall trapdoor until the issues with Black Mall were resolved. The current plan was for Aggie and Brandi to attempt the trip on Tuesday. Part of the reason for choosing Brandi was that she had become very proficient with the crossbow. She was their best archer. Since mid March, Akiko had been generating a steady flow of one new Leophone per day, and they were now common enough so that every member of Amber's team had their own personal phone. All members of Aggie's team and all the citizens of Wobanakik also had their own phones now. In the days between installing the sensor nodes, Amber's team had transported new phones down to Wobanakik as part of their work to resupply the people at the entrance rooms. And now the time was approaching 4:56 AM. Amber wanted to arrive at two minutes before dawn, with her group entering through the lounge and Carla's group entering through Jacob's. As the moment finally came, Amber gave the go code to Carla and then let the closet door at Esau's close. Time: Sunday April 10, 2019 5:20 AM Ricardo woke in his closet and just stared at the ceiling for a while. He had slept soundly and physically felt well rested. But mentally he struggled to shake off the feeling that the child witch had somehow defeated him. He had such high expectations a week ago of having the witch trapped. He expected to find her within a day or two simply by wandering the maze. But he had not appreciated the extent of the storage area. It was vast, and his estimate now was that the entrance pentagon led to upwards of a hundred kilometers of twisting corridors. Unknown to Ricardo, his guess was not far from the true number of 75,078 meters, the length of each of the six spirals in the Great Mall. Ricardo had now spent an entire week searching for his vanished prey. He was starting to wonder why. She must be dead. She must be. She had no water when she fled from him, just as he had no food. But Ricardo didn't mind the discipline of fasting for a week. He had diligently searched for Jessica, often searching non-stop for twenty hours before collapsing for an eight-hour sleep, for a total of six sleep periods during the week. He had cycled a day out of existence. And yet still he couldn't find her. She must be dead. A week had passed and she had no water. When they first descended into the pentagon eight days ago, Ricardo had noticed that the ceiling portal had eyebolts underneath that allowed him to seal the door. The bathrooms with the water were only on the level above, he knew that now. During his week of searching, Ricardo had constructed a complete map of maze. Over a thousand corridors, over ten thousand closets. He knew that there was no food or water on this level. So Jessica must be dead. But his inner voice kept nagging him, where the hell was her body? She must have crawled into a closet drawer and died, that was Ricardo's guess. Maybe the drawers don't open from the inside and she suffocated the first day of her escape. And if his logic for her death was sound, it would be insane to continue the search. Ten thousand closets, a hundred thousand drawers to inspect, what would be the point? With a final shrug of his shoulders, Ricardo climbed the ladder and left the maze museum. Time: Sunday April 10, 2019 5:55 AM Jada and her six teammates were gathered around a library console on the central island listening to the reports from the exploration team at Black Mall. After two days of heavy rain, the sun was shining again and adding ample illumination to the room, perhaps even a bit too much. Jada got up from her chair and stretched and then walked over to a nearby control. A gentle touch increased the ceiling's opacity to a more pleasant level. The diffuse shadows from the morning sun could barely be seen. Sunrise at Wobanakik had occurred an hour ago, today almost the exact time as on the planet's surface. And Wobanakik would still enjoy almost an extra hour of daylight this evening. But that would soon change. The underground world was moving past its summer solstice, while on the surface their society would experience a midnight sun in less than five weeks. The rate of change still seemed breathtaking. Over the last hour Amber's team had verified that Black Mall was vacant. The complex was in a pristine state. It had been immaculately cleaned, the living quarters, the recreational parks, the hexagonal walkways at the perimeter, everything. The servos had even removed the locks Ricardo had installed on the entrance to Jacob's Bar and Grill. The only evidence of the former occupants was the severe depletion of food supplies. The kitchen and pantry were almost empty of food, Amber estimated enough for one person for maybe a couple of months. Seizing control of Black Mall was a major accomplishment. Kiyoko had already activated the elevators in the lounge and library and assigned them new codes. When Amber's team left tomorrow to make contact with Alfonso, they would leave from here and not have to bike from the distant sky-bridge. And there were also the priceless assets of the Black Mall diamond complex... "Frida, where are you now?" Jada asked over the bridge. "Almost one kilometer from Black Mall," her sister-wife replied. "We're on our tenth segment." She and her husband Mark were walking around the eastern side of the diamond complex perimeter. Jada grinned. "And you Mark, I'm surprised Fatima let you out of your cage." There was a faint snort from Fatima on the bridge. "Yeah," replied Mark. "I told her I needed the exercise. Seriously, there's no risk. If the census counter changes, I can race back and be at a library in ten minutes, even from the ivy hall." Jada nodded and bit her lip. "Frida, please be careful." "I will. And as long as I don't make a noise, I don't think there's any danger." "You have one of the mushroom locks from Black Mall, right?" "Of course. And I'm even carrying a second Leophone as a backup. Jada, stop worrying!" Jada was still nervous. "I wish ... Oh, I don't know. I wish you weren't doing this. I especially wish you weren't doing this solo." Jada was referring to Frida's plan to part company with Mark at the entrance to the ivy hall. She would continue her journey across the ivy alone. "Jada, our plan makes perfect sense. There is absolutely no reason to have more than one person at a time on the ivy walkway, and once I'm across, why risk anyone else?" Frida's mission after traversing the ivy was to walk back through the interior of the diamond complex on the first level and then open the door at the southern end. There she would meet Hannah, Emily and Holly coming out of the Black Mall library. These three women would be the first volunteers to undergo the link boost at the bee park. Jada directed her next question to her dearest friend. "How are you feeling Emily?" "About the mind boost? I'm very excited about it. We all are." Emily paused for a moment. "How about you Jada? It seems as if you've been away for such a long time." "Yeah. I miss you too." Jada paused to take a deep breath. "Life is very easy here. With only seven people and two library consoles, we don't even need our quota system anymore. During the day if it's good weather, we practice archery and kayaking. Otherwise we work out in the gym. The food is excellent, just like on the surface. During the evenings after the conference meetings we play board games or maybe all get together for a movie in the lounge. Wobanakik is a unique place. It feels as if were in jail and on vacation at the same time. The forest and the river are so beautiful." Hannah spoke up. "A bunch of us were kicking around a crazy idea last night. In five hundred days, when the opportunity to open Wobanakik comes up again, what if you had an ultra-light plane or helicopter at the central island? Could you execute the reset and fly back to the entrance rooms before the fourteen minutes were up?" Lynn who was sitting by Jada's side spoke up. "Wow, what an idea! But where would we get such a thing?" "Yeah, we'd have to find one I guess. But the Great Hexagon seems to have everything humanity ever thought of creating." Lynn laughed. "Even nuclear weapons?!" "Oh, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, it was just a thought." "Actually Hannah, if it actually comes down to a two-year stay here, we all have an informal agreement now to draw lots. I can teach someone how to run the reset." Emily spoke up. "Gee Lynn, hopefully you'll all be free long before then." "Yeah. There's plenty of time to work on it. Who knows? Perhaps when Suvarna earns her janitorial degree she'll be able to activate the elevator at the bottom of the stairwell. Maybe it'll be as easy as that." Jada got back to her earlier concern. "Emily, are you really not worried about the mind boost?" "No, I really feel okay, mostly just hungry." "Huh?" Jada felt confused. "Do you mean physically hungry?" "Sure. Oh! You might not know. I think we might have had this discussion while you were out of contact. Hannah and Holly and I are all fasting. We haven't eaten anything since breakfast yesterday, before we knew that Black Mall was accessible." The point hit Jada immediately. "Ah, because Mark and Frida and Toshi had not eaten anything for a while before they entered the bee park?" "That's right. We're going to try to follow their routine as closely as possible. We're not taking any food supplies. We'll be eating only the park's raw vegetables and honey, just as they did." "Yeah. Makes sense ... Well, good luck." Jada wished she could give Emily a big hug but that of course was impossible. Instead she reached over and held hands with Lynn and waited for Mark and Frida to report they reached the ivy hall. ------- Chapter 76 The next day. Time: Monday, April 11, 2019 5:35 AM The windows of the Black Mall lounge showed a cold, gray, and very wet morning, with occasional gusts of wind whipping the pines and spruces in the adjacent park. Amber's team was scheduled to depart Jacob's at 6 AM and currently her team members were scattered about the home complex. Brandi and Whitney were sitting on one of the couches in the lounge. Whitney ran her hand across the luxuriant leather surface. "You know, this is a little odd." Brandi had been resting on the other end of the couch, digesting the large breakfast of steak and eggs they had all eaten down in Jacob's earlier. She opened her eyes and smiled at her teammate. "What do you mean?" "Don't you remember? A few days after we came here, Gilberto was hacking away at this couch with a knife." "Yes, I remember. What a scene! It was the day Britney..." "Yes, the day Ricardo killed her. Anyway, take a look at this couch. There's not even a scratch. And the blood stains are gone too. The servos must have replaced the couch." Brandi shook her head and patted the wooden armrest. "I recognize the swirl pattern here. I think it's the exact same couch." Whitney frowned. "But how do you make knife gouges totally disappear?" "No idea, but I think that's what happened." Brandi pointed with her finger to a spot across the room. "See that empty space there? Remember the chair that Alfredo destroyed and then threw out? It hasn't been replaced. I think the rule is still in effect. Once a place is under servo maintenance rules, they will clean and repair but will not replace." "Ah. Yeah, okay." Whitney idly inspected the couch for a moment and then changed topics. "Are you nervous Brandi, about being the one to talk to Alfonso first?" Brandi shrugged her shoulders. "He didn't have many friends. Somebody has to do it. And we were never enemies." She stretched her arms. "Maybe Charles would be a better choice, but he's down in Wobanakik" "What about Tom?" Brandi shook her head. "That's what Tom tried to talk me into, but I've seen those two together. Alfonso used to boss Tom around, a bit cruel about it too. I think he might feel uncomfortable surrendering to Tom now." She sighed. "Relax Whitney. I'll be okay." Brandi then looked at her friend and smiled. "And how about you? How have you been doing lately?" Whitney raised her eyebrows a bit. "What do you mean?" "Well..." Brandi suddenly looked at a loss for words. "Well ... Oh, I don't know." Whitney stared at the woman across the couch. "Brandi, what the hell are you talking about?" "Well, the past few weeks, you've been pretty quiet. Whitney, are you okay, social wise?" There was a long pause. "Social wise? You mean me being the only African American here?" Brandi nodded. "Yeah, kind of I guess ... Yeah." Whitney thought for a moment and decided to give an honest answer. "Just a little tense maybe, but I'm getting used to it. And I've locked eyes with a lot of people. People have been open. I've never seen any racism. The culture here is a little different, but hell, we're all making adjustments." The women shared a brief moment of eye contact. Whitney saw kindness and acceptance in Britney's mind, and also something else, something so unexpected she blinked her eyes and broke the lock as she realized what it was. Brandi was asking Whitney to forgive her, and Whitney didn't understand why. It was a deeply buried emotional need, so low level that Whitney thought Brandi didn't even recognize the nature of the yearning, not at a conscious level. And for a moment Whitney felt very confused. Forgive her for what? Absolutely nothing came to mind. And then it hit her. For a time, Brandi had allowed herself to assume the role of slave driver. The guilt was still eating her. But why come to her? Whitney was never hoof pussy, especially in the early times before Charles' expedition. Whitney shivered with the recognition of what was going on. Was it racism for Brandi to come to her for absolution, was it cultural stereotyping? Or was it just a troubled friend whose mind had made a historical association? Whitney realized she could adopt either perspective. She reached over and gave Brandi an affectionate hug. Brandi hugged back fiercely, confused for a moment why she was shivering. A moment later both women left for downstairs. Time: Monday, April 11, 2019 7 AM Amber's team had worked very quietly in the last hour, continuing their mission of Black Mall lockdown. There was only a small risk that someone in addition to Alfonso was trapped in the mall, and if so they were keeping very well hidden. But there was no need to take that risk and leave the doors open as they passed. Someone could shoot them in the back. So they worked methodically to close everything, and about an hour after leaving Jacob's, Amber's team had their latest sensor node installed at spiral mark 73836, with a Looking Glass connection to spiral mark 74828. Except for small areas around the hub, the entire mall was now visible on their network. Alfonso's location had been tracked for the last two days, and currently he was known to be in a candy store along the inside edge at spiral mark 74083, a quarter kilometer from their current position. As far as anyone knew, Alfonso still did not know he had company close by. Amber and her team had a brief discussion with the Hilton complex before proceeding with the next phase of their mission. A short time later the team stopped ten meters short of Dylan's Candy Store. They had walked their bikes and continued to close and lock the stores as they passed, and now they were at the threshold of Alfonso's hideaway. Unfortunately Looking Glass was not showing his exact location, but from their previous sensor logs, they knew he was in the store somewhere. Perhaps he was hiding behind a counter or on the second floor somewhere. Brandi walked the remaining distance alone, her crossbow loaded but with the bolt pointed at the ground. "Alfonso!" she called out from the doorway. "Hello! It's me, Brandi! I'm here with a bunch of people. We want to talk to you. Alfonso?" There was no response. "See anything?" Brandi whispered into her Leophone connection. Akiko whispered back over the net. "No. But remember my sensors are where you are. I'm seeing what you're seeing, an empty store." There was a short pause. "Is that a shadow moving?" From behind a nearby counter Alfonso stood up, his arms by his sides. Brandi didn't like the look of him. Even from five meters away, his eyes looked wild and glassy, and she suspected he was suffering from a lack of sleep. And perhaps also from eating too much candy. Alfonso always did have quite a sweet tooth. "Hi Alfonso," Brandi said as calmly as she could. She tried to say something light and pleasant. "Anything good to munch on around here?" She then tried making eye contact with him to show that her offer of friendship was sincere. Brandi's jaw twitched and her body started to recoil. She had touched the mind of a madman. His thoughts were filled with hatred and rage. "Eat this!" he screamed as he raised his right hand from under the counter. It held a gun, and Alfonso began firing without mercy. Brandi started to fall backwards from multiple bullets hitting her squarely in the chest. The world seemed to be dimming. The crying voice of Akiko was fading from her ear. And the bullet wounds surprisingly didn't feel too bad, just a bunch of sharp punches to her chest. Suddenly she felt so tired. It would be so easy to sleep. But her fading thoughts were not for her own comfort but for the safety of her friends. They must not have to deal with this danger. As she fell backwards, Brandi put every bit of determination she had into staying alert, and as her crossbow came up she aimed and fired, aiming for Alfonso's chest but realizing her shot would be high. And then before she hit the floor everything in the universe disappeared in one final flash of pain. There was pandemonium in the corridor around her. Brandi's teammates had locked the doors by their sides so that they could not be ambushed, but now they had no place to duck for cover. Cursing her stupidity, Carla ran forward to the entrance of the candy store, only stopping when she finally understood what Akiko was screaming over Carla's Leophone. "Alfonso is dead! Alfonso is dead! Brandi's bolt hit the center of his face! Alfonso is dead!" A sobbing gasp. "Brandi!!" Akiko wailed. Carla quickly moved in behind the counter to confirm Akiko's observation. Brandi's shot had caught Alfonso on the left side of his nose, and one glance told Carla the powerful hunting bolt had penetrated to the back of his skull. Carla dismissed Alfonso as a threat and she started to probe the rest of the candy store. Her time for grieving would come later. The rest of the team gathered around Brandi desperate to help her but in their hearts they knew it was hopeless. Alfonso had proven to be horribly accurate with his pistol. Brandi had three shots clustered in the center of her chest near her heart, and a final deadly wound in her forehead. Tom held her body and thought she must have fired her bolt almost simultaneously with Alfonso's last shot. He began to weep. A part of Amber's team rushed Brandi's body back to the Black Mall complex as quickly as possible, but it was a futile gesture. Even the magic autodoc could do nothing. They buried her in the park at Black Mall later that afternoon, under a clear sunny sky and beneath the pines and spruces that made her grave seem so much like Earth. As for Alfonso's disposal, they let the servos handle it. ------- Chapter 77 Time: Monday, April 11, 2019 6:48 PM It was an hour after sunset in the bee park, and Mark was cuddling with Emily, Hannah, and Holly on the one giant bed in their small home by the pond. The pond was frozen now and smooth as glass. Yesterday afternoon Mark had led an unplanned expedition to the bee park to drop off winter coats, and his team had four pairs of ice skates as a surprise. They had tried it this morning at sunrise for about a half hour. It was fun. And then they had come in and listened in horror as Brandi was killed. The skates were forgotten now. When Toshi and Frida and Mark were here at the bee park for their first stay, from January 17th to February 1st, Mark had kept a careful record of the sunrises and sunsets. Their times were moving so slowly he had thought the park might be on a full Earth-year solar schedule. On their arrival, the sun was up from 5:44 AM to 6:15 PM, and when they departed fifteen days later, the range had moved slightly to 5:52 AM to 6:09 PM. Mark had guessed they had arrived in late summer and were approaching the fall equinox. How wrong he had been. From the observations now, Emily estimated that Mark's original party had arrived at the bee park the day before local summer solstice, and their fifteen days here was most of the summer. The park was on an incredibly fast 84-day yearly cycle, three weeks per season, and it was now midwinter, Today the sun rose at 6:11 AM and set at 5:48 PM. Against Mark's gentle advice to take a vacation from computations, Emily had brought her laptop with her. Her estimate now was that the bee park was simulating the same latitude as their surface position, 44.5 degrees, but with a planetary tilt of a mere four degrees. There would only be slight variations in the daily cycle of sunlight throughout the year. The concept of slight variation did not apply to temperature. The park was in its deep midwinter slumber and the overnight low was -9C. When the three women had arrived with Frida yesterday, their first thought was to get back home, but Frida convinced them to follow her to the small house by the pond, and there they found a warm dwelling with its kitchen cabinets packed with the locally grown fruits and vegetables. The cabinets had been empty when Mark, Toshi and Frida had first visited here, but now they were full. The new arrivals guessed the servos had harvested the produce. And the bee hives were accessible too, full of sleepy bees that didn't seem to mind when Frida removed one of their many frames full of their sweet honey. So the women decided to proceed with their plan. They would attempt the mind boost in the local midwinter. And now Emily was curled up in Mark's arms, and Holly had just exchanged positions with Hannah. Hannah was petting Mark's back and Holly was at the bottom of the massive bed caressing his feet. Mark was being petted by three beautiful women who were all expecting to become quite horny as the evening wore on. Mark shook his head and laughed at the thought at what a fantasy this would have been in his former life. And he remembered the big grin Tom had flashed him yesterday when Emily first made her request that Mark join them for their experience with the new drug. Emily leaned close and kissed his cheek before resuming petting his chest and shoulders. They were light tender strokes, very affectionate. They had portable lamps with them but they were off. Their plan was to follow the natural rhythm of the park as closely as possible, and the fake quarter moon and starlight was sparkling off the snow. They provided ample light for their needs. Emily leaned over and kissed him again. Mark kissed back on her cheek. "How are you feeling?" Emily gave a long sleepy sigh back. "It actually feels kind of nice, a little like being drunk but much more peaceful. Deeply peaceful ... I'm so glad you're here." Mark nodded, his hand moving to caress Emily's ear and the side of her head. He repeated a previous description. "It never gets too disorienting. The boost is much less ... stressful ... compared to what happened before Christmas." Emily giggled. "Not with sexuality though. I'm lying here next to you and my mind is spinning around with a whirlpool of thoughts of what I want to do with you." "Me too!" growled Hannah from behind his back. Her hand drifted lower and she pinched his buttock very firmly. "Oops! That wasn't too hard, was it?" Mark grinned and chuckled. "No. I'm still in the middle of an ideal male fantasy." He felt Emily stiffen in his arms and he asked, "Hey, you okay?" "Me? Yeah. It wasn't you. I thought of Brandi again." The bedroom was silent for a moment, until Holly added, "How could we have been so stupid?" Hannah's words seem to speak for all of them as she continued. "I mean, we all thought we were doing the right thing. We wanted to give Alfonso a chance to redeem himself. We wanted to offer a token of trust. Brandi was our token. We all thought it would be okay. Her offer was very gentle. There was no reason to shoot. Who could have thought the man would go berserk?" A single tear was rolling down Emily's cheek. "We all should have thought," she mumbled. Mark kissed her tear away. Holly stirred at the bottom of Mark's legs and reached over to also pet Emily's feet. "Agreed. Hindsight is a wonderful thing for showing you how stupid you can be." Hannah sighed. "Life's hard lessons. I just wish ... It just doesn't seem fair Brandi..." "Well of course not," grumbled Holly. The room became very quiet, and for a while the three women were content to keep petting Mark. Eventually it was time in their informal schedule to rotate again, but Emily was showing no desire to move from the prime position of being held in Mark's arms. Instead, she wiggled her breasts at him, and when he missed the hint she renewed it more directly by taking his hand and holding it firmly against her chest. Mark could feel her heart beating. He could also feel her nipple against his palm, large and in an advanced state of arousal. "Marry me?" Emily mumbled as she turned to rub her body against Mark's. "Me too," called Hannah from behind his back. Her hand slipped into Mark's pajamas and she started to caress his ass, probing and searching for the scrotum between his thighs. Holly giggled at his feet. "I don't think I'm ready for marriage, but if you want to have sex with me..." Mark gulped. "People, remember our agreement!" He shivered as Hannah's hand found and cupped his scrotum. Meanwhile Holly began licking the instep of his foot. It was a dry, catlike tongue, and the sensation was super erotic. Emily laughed as she continued to gyrate the length of her body against his. "And exactly what was our agreement?" "That I wouldn't take advantage of you, of any of you!" Emily gave a sleepy giggle. "And you're not. Hannah and I are asking you to marry us. How is that taking advantage of us?" "Uh..." Holly began to move at Mark's feet, coming up his legs. She growled sexily. "And my urge to ride you is becoming irresistible." Her hand traveled up the inside of his thigh, brushing against Hannah's arm before grasping his erect penis. "Mark," she asked in a little girl voice. "I wouldn't be raping you if I sat on this, would I?" "People, wait a minute!" Mark sputtered. "That's fair," Emily announced with a giggle. "Mark, you have your one minute. Now, why are we waiting?" Mark had never seen Emily so playfully happy. Her joy was contagious, and he almost caved in. But he loved her too much. "Emily," "Yes?" She stopped him from continuing with a finger on his lips. "My love," "Our love," said Hannah dreamily behind him. "Our love," Emily continued. "Yes, agreed. Hannah and I have talked this over with Jada and Toshi and Frida. Don't' you remember all the laughing smiles your wives were sharing with us before we left? Mark was stunned. What had his wives done? "Well, I guess I do. And they were shielding something from me in our links. I didn't press." "No, of course not. You're much too polite for that. That's part of the reason Hannah and I love you so much." "Emily," said Holly with a bit of a whine. "I don't want to wait much longer." "Patience Holly. This won't take long. Especially for you. You'll be outside the link." Before Mark could puzzle out what Emily was talking about, she moved and held his head closely to her throat and the top of her breastbone. "Dearest Mark, I'm being totally serious. Hannah is too. Will you marry me?" "Yes Mark," Hannah added. "Will you marry me?" "Emily, Hannah, I can't accept your proposals when you're drugged!" Emily shook her head fiercely. "This isn't the drug! I'm feeling extremely horny, but the love and hope of having you as my husband is allowing me to suppress all that. I want my wedding night with you to come later." "Yes, me too," laughed Hannah. "I'll want privacy on our wedding night!" Holly was also laughing as she crawled between his legs. She started frigging his stiff cock. A shocked Mark felt her wet tongue and lips slurp his velvety glans. Holly purred. "I on the other hand have no such ability to suppress. You will let me ride, won't you Mark?" Emily pushed Mark flat on his back. With Holly exploring his groin with her mouth and nose, Hannah and Emily pushed their heads together against Mark's head and formed a tight triangle. The three-way link formed almost immediately. "Yes! I knew we had enough light!" the core of Hannah's mind thought triumphantly into the triple matrix of consciousness. "Wow," thought Emily's core. "I can feel Holly's lips on my ... our ... my penis. So this is what it's like to be a male." Her core was full of love and laughter and playfulness. "Nice!" "It's as if my mind is blossoming," thought Hannah. "I feel like a blooming flower. I love this. The intimacy! Oh Mark, all my shyness is gone!" Mark's core was still struggling to comprehend the perspective of the majority of the linked mind. "But ... But ... Are you suggesting it's okay for me to make love with Holly because we're NOT getting married?!" "Yes!' "Yes!" came two giggling thoughts in return. "You know, that's so absurd it almost makes sense." A playful afterthought from Emily's core. "You can be so clever Mark! Another reason why I love you so much." "Sweet husband-to-be," thought Hannah. "Love is patient. That's what I was always taught in Sunday School, and now I see the truth of it. I want to be patient and kind with you. I want to share everything I have and everything that I am with you, my mind, my body, my life. The sex is a big part too, but I want to wait. The anticipation will be part of my pleasure." "Mark, those are my feelings too," added Emily's core. "You can see all this, can't you? Yes, I know you can. Our feedback is getting better by the moment." Mark's core answered with a deep sigh. He was surrounded by love, and the subjective acceleration of time within their link was enormous. In contrast, Holly's presence at his groin felt frozen in time. Emily opened her thoughts. "Holly talked with us before we came here. We all talked, with your wives too, and we linked, everyone except Jada of course." "Do you see Holly's perspective?" asked Hannah. "This transition has been especially hard on her. None of us have had to undergo as many changes as she did. The enslavement, the brutality of rape, the struggle to accept her child. And even after her rescue, she had to watch her society move to polygamy, something she was completely derisive of before she came here." Hannah gave a mental gasp as she continued her thought. "Listen to me think! I was completely derisive of polygamy too! I used to equate it with disgusting men wanting to have sex with groups of underage girls, coerce even their daughters! Holly did too. But at least I didn't have to handle being impregnated by rape!" "But..." Mark's core was still struggling to grasp the central concept. "Holly ... is drugged now..." "Search your memories Mark," replied Emily. "Or even better, let me search them for you. I know what I want to find, and Toshi taught me where to look." Mark agreed, lowering all his internal defenses. The world transformed, and he was sharing with Emily and Hannah the time of his first sex with Toshi, the privacy of the play and eroticism shared without embarrassment. Toshi had guided Mark into thinking he was a female, and Toshi was butt fucking him with her finger and stroking him and the sex felt so incredible and..." "Do you see Mark?" Emily's mind whispered. "It's not the drug. The honey releases our core desires but it doesn't create them. Holly..." "Holly wants to marry me?" Mark asked Emily in a thought. "Yeah, kind of. But she wants to date you first. Don't you see?" "Holly is one of the shiest persons I've ever met," thought Hannah. "She's even shier than I am, and THAT is saying something." From Emily, "Mark, she's pregnant and she's part of a large group of women who are competing for just a few guys. Don't you see what's going on here? Yes, the drug is a factor. It's helping her leap over her shyness." Hannah nodded. "It'll be much easier for Holly to ask you to date her if you have sex with her now. I must confess. Toshi helped me understand this." Mark was still confused. "But Toshi and I had sex only after we committed to being parents." Emily expressed the construct of a nod. "Yes, I know. But Toshi was already fiercely in love with her child to be, scared witless by her nightmares perhaps, but awake she was determined to find a solution." "And Toshi is an accomplished actress," came the thought from Hannah's core. "Yes, exactly," agreed Emily. "It was perfect training for her. Toshi is very skilled with examining and expressing her emotions. Holly doesn't have that experience Mark, and besides, her love for her child is more ... tenuous. Oh, it's there now thank God, but to have a dating relationship with you, to not be embarrassed about imposing on you ... You see the point, don't you Mark?" Mark sighed within the linked mind. "Females! Your minds are so strange!" "Absolutely!" thought Hannah in a mental grin. "Strange and mysterious! How else could we attract males? Doesn't the joy of exploring our minds add to the joy of exploring our bodies?" "Uh..." "It's true Mark," added Emily in affirmation of Hannah's insight... "Otherwise, why don't you guys just get your rocks off by fucking inflatable dolls?" "Emily!" "Opps! Did I think that?! I guess I've been exploring your high school memories. Wow! I've heard rumors about how coarsely boys could talk in their locker rooms, but..." Mark projected a mental grin. "Yeah, I don't why we're so cruel. It's not as if we're trying to dehumanize in real life..." "Oh no?" asked Hannah with a teasing laugh. "I can see the memories too. And I can feel you blushing Mark. Can you feel me blushing also? You boys were talking about us as sex objects, treating us as base pads as you attempt to score at home plate!" "Well..." Mark finally confessed. "Yes, we did. Oh, this is so embarrassing. Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine women critiquing me over what I was saying. I didn't mean any of it. It was just boy talk. Just idle boosts, idle words..." "Words are powerful," Emily pointed out. "Words can change perspective, and perspective is everything." "Nolo contendere," Mark admitted. "I was a gorilla beating my chest. But it wasn't all horrible." "No, that's true," Emily admitted back. "As a girl, I guess I would be proud ... a little anyway, that a boy was boosting how he had circled the bases before capturing me. A little proud and very annoyed!" "Uh ... Can we change the subject?" "I think that's a very good idea," projected Hannah. "All right," conceded Emily. "Mark, do you see why it's okay for you to have sex with Holly? This would not be a one-night stand with her, quite the opposite in fact." "Would I be committing to her?" "Ah, that is the question, isn't it? You don't need me for this. Search your heart Mark. You already know the answer. And if you want, I'll also offer you a memory. Will you share it with me?" It was a strange experience. Emily did not yet have the power and certainly not the skill to do what she was attempting. Mark joined more firmly with her mind and guided her with the manifestation. Mark was sitting in a lounge, the lounge at Green Mall, and a crowd of women were there, Toshi and Frida and Hannah were there with Emily, and Jada was on the phone. Mark's mind appeared to be sitting behind Emily's eyes. He was seeing and hearing her experiences. And other women were there too, Aggie and Ashley and Fatima. And he was inside Emily's body. She was offering him everything she was, her very being. Mark took a moment to explore. Oh, the wonder of it. He spent a moment skipping out of Emily's memory and exploring his/her new body. "Examine all you want," whispered Emily's voice in his mind. She purred. "It feels so intimate and sexy to share my body with you! But when you're finished, we'll continue." "Oh. Sorry." "I don't mind. I like how interested you are in me. But anyway, just pull back and be an observer for a while. This is something we all agreed you should see." A moment later in Emily's memory Holly walked into the lounge. Mark was amazed as he listened to the conversation. At the end of the women's meeting, there were many hugs all around before they broke up. Mark turned his mind to the current presence of Emily and Hannah and asked, "You screen people who want to date me?" "Not exactly," said Emily. "We accept people who want to date you. Don't you see Mark? We women have all been deeply indoctrinated by our culture. We are absolutely not supposed to pursue men who are already taken. Holly would feel very awkward about ... well, hitting on you without getting our permission first." "She never told me," he whispered in a thought. "Yes I know, and I've just explained why." "We've never turned anyone away," added Hannah. "A few other women have asked us. We'd like to keep their confidence and not tell you who. It should be up to them to make the first move." But she couldn't stop herself. An image of Whitney formed in Hannah's mind. Mark was helpless to conceal the knowledge Hannah had revealed. Within the triple link, there was no place to hide his conscious thoughts. "Shit!" wailed Hannah. "Hannah," replied Mark. "This is absolutely not your fault. You are drugged, I am not. I'm being a cretin forming a triple link with you and Emily when your defenses are so weak." Emily ignored his concern. "Will you accept Holly now?" The answer seemed to spring forth from the core of his soul. "Yes." Before he could think more, their link dissolved. Holly's hands were moving across his thighs and scrotal sac again, and Emily and Hannah were bailing out of the bed. "We'll be in our sleeping bags in the living room," Emily called out verbally. Her words were slightly slurred and brought back a memory to Mark. After the mind boost, sharing thoughts became so easy and desirable, for a while it was sometimes difficult to go back to the effort needed to verbalize. He reached down and petted Holly's head as she suckled his penis. Emily and Hannah left the room. "I take it you're okay with this then?" asked Holly between slurps. Mark smiled and shivered in his pleasure. "Yes. Thank you Holly. Thank you for choosing me." "Oh, I should be thanking you. I'm drugged, but this isn't the drug. You understand that, don't you?" "Uh huh. Emily and Hannah shared their memories of your meeting." "Yikes! Really?! Well, I guess that's okay. They said that they would." She came up to Mark's face and smiled at him. "Ever hear the saying that there's no hornier woman than a pregnant woman?" Mark grinned. "Yes. Toshi taught me." "Ah yes, Toshi. Toshi has been my teacher too. I owe your wife so much. And as for now, I'm what Toshi would call a hot ticket. Mark, I want to be your ticket to ride!" And with that Holly hugged him and showered his face with feather-light kisses. Such eagerness. Mark realized the honey was helping her release it, but from what he shared with Emily and Hannah, he also knew that the eagerness had been there for many weeks. Holly had just been too shy to let it out, shy and worried about acting unseemly. But not tonight. Tonight she wanted to play and frolic, and tomorrow ... Well, the future would always be a frontier, but one thing was clear. Mark would not have sex with her now if he had any reservation about wanting her for his wife. Every woman at the meeting was absolutely convinced of that, Holly included. Holly cried out as she felt Mark's hands return caresses on her body, tears springing from her eyes. She felt reborn. ------- Chapter 78 One week later Time: Monday, May 4, 2019 8 PM Ricardo was on the second floor of the southern face of the great complex of buildings, watching the last seconds of the day as the sun set behind a western bank of buildings. He was on the opposite face from the one he had entered seventeen days ago. And it was now almost sixteen days since he last had any food. Ricardo didn't have a scale to weigh himself, but since leaving the Black Mall home complex, he estimated he had lost ten kilos of body weight, and his guess was accurate. It was a horribly fast rate of decline, but it couldn't be helped. He needed to explore full time, and exploration took energy, stored energy, fat-cell energy. Fortunately he had allowed his weight to creep up a few kilos while playing house with Jessica. Those extra kilos were pure gold, but by now the gold had been spent. On the plus side, Ricardo still had plenty of vitamin tablets and all the water he wanted. His body was still in good shape and if he could only get some damn food, he'd be fine. But he also couldn't kid himself. His body had had an easy ride so far digesting fat cells, but that energy source was almost depleted. Soon his body would begin digesting muscular tissue in a desperate attempt to prolong his life. Ricardo needed food, and soon. He had spent the last week searching the building complex above the crazy polygon maze. Ricardo had never heard of buildings constructed on this magnitude. He estimated four square kilometers, and that was only the portion where he had safe access. The place was insane, its functions impossible to decipher. As a single explorer, Ricardo was gravely handicapped. One careless trip through a one-way door and he might find himself trapped in a dead-end room cut off from his water supplies. Every new door had to be wedged open, and even then he was on a short leash. If he got out of eyesight of the wedge, the servos would remove it. The restriction had made the job of exploration maddening and his progress painfully slow. But less than an hour ago he had completed a major phase of his exploration, and he was proud of that though bitterly disappointed in the outcome. There were no easy exits to the outside from the known portions of the building. It seemed inevitable he would have to start taking the insane risk of walking through one-day doors. He had no choice. Unless ... Ricardo sat down on the floor by the windows and pulled out his notebooks on the polygon maze below. He had been staring at the numbers for the last few nights. There were 1296 corridors connecting the entrance pentagon to 157 triangles, 157 squares, 3 x 157 = 471 hexagons, and 157 octagons. And guessing an average corridor length of sixty meters, his new estimate for the total length of the corridors was seventy-eight kilometers. With each corridor connecting to two faces of the polygons, the numbers showed that half the polygonal faces had doorways and half did not. Ricardo's mind screamed at him in exasperation. "Who the fuck cares?! So it's half! Who the fuck cares?!" What could he possibly do with such knowledge? And yet, Ricardo was tortured by a recurring nightmare. He was with Diego, and the former compadre still had his wrists and ankles shackled, but in the dream the man also moved about easily as he talked. And Ricardo could never quite see how Diego managed that trick. "157," Diego said smiling in the dream. "Don't you see boss? The number is 157. That's 157, get it? Get it boss? That means we have to..." And Diego would calmly keep on talking, but the words were mumbled, impossible to understand. At the end of the dream, Ricardo would wake up with a howl of frustration. Ricardo bitterly resented now his decision to chain Diego to the dead-man's switch. The man had the extremely rare gift of insight. It was a horrible waste to leave him in a position where the only decision Diego had to make was whether to survive. And yet Ricardo had done just that. He chose to explore with a child witch and two men he once considered morons, Hernando and Jenaro, and look where it got him. Ricardo shivered at the memory of his awful battle and defeat. There was a child witch living in the body of adult Jessica. At least on this point Ricardo was not cursing his stupidity. He could not be blamed for not foreseeing this horror. He had dressed Jessica in children's clothes in order to weaken her and make her more submissive. Who could have foreseen he would actually be strengthening the child witch that lived inside her mind? Ricardo shivered again at a nagging thought. Why was it impossible to find her body? She must be dead. Each new day brought new confirmation. Ricardo could not lock the pentagon from topside, but he did crisscross the opening with several curving strands of stiff wire and carefully noted the details of how the wires overlapped. It would be impossible for anyone pushing up from below to put the wires back together in precisely the same way. Jessica was dead, she must be, and thus the child witch was dead too. So why hadn't he found the body after a full week of searching? She must have crawled into a closet to die, perhaps even into a drawer. Her body represented forty to fifty kilos of meat. Should Ricardo resume his search for it? He had no qualms about cannibalism. The problem was the damn closets. There were almost always six on each side of the corridors. Each closet would have a generous two-meter by two-meter inside space and the inside walls would have three rows of drawers. Each row would have two drawers on the left, two on the right, and two drawers opposite the door, for a total of eighteen drawers per closet. And each drawer would open only if the closet door and all the other drawers in the closet were closed. Ricardo couldn't imagine giving a closet a full inspection in less than three minutes. There were close to sixteen thousand closets. At twenty per hour, that would be eight hundred hours of search time. And he would have to add the time to travel to all the closets. The situation reminded Ricardo of an old mathematical puzzle called the Traveling Salesman Problem, except here his problem was not the optimal path to visit all the polygons. He needed an optimal path to walk all the corridors between the polygons. Shit! This was ridiculous! He couldn't eat her decaying body anyway. So why was he wasting his time? But the problem kept nagging him. Why wouldn't his mind let go? He gave up the struggle and went through the numbers one more time. He had been highly efficient in the eight days it had taken to chart the maze. Assume he needed half the time to walk each corridor at least once. He had the time for that. But the closet searches, 1296 x 12 closets at three minutes a closet, plus time to sleep of course. It would take two months to search all the drawers in all the closets of the maze, and Ricardo would be starving to death in one month. That's it, no more thoughts. Ricardo had already picked the most promising door to leave this part of the building complex. He would head towards the west, the direction he had last seen Jenaro take. Ricardo would commit himself to the plan at sunrise tomorrow. His mind temporarily at peace, he headed off to a shower before sleep. An hour later, a few kilometers north inside Black Mall's diamond complex. Time: Monday, May 4, 2019 9 PM It was three hours after local sunset in the bee park, and Suvarna's first night here. She was on Boost Team-3, and together with Carla and Tom were the new junior boosters. With the departure of Emily's Team-1, Aggie, Ann and Cassidy of Team-2 were now the senior boosters and would be here until their graduation day on May 8th when Team-4 consisting of Fatima, Husna and Kiyoko would arrive. A week ago Emily inventoried the stored food at the bee park kitchen and determined there were enough supplies to feed fifteen people for eight days, which was their target length of stay in the bee park. The slots for the mind boost quickly filled up with volunteers, and the teams were overlapping their stays in their eagerness for the advancement. Suvarna sighed as she gazed out the window. The temperature outside was -2C and a light snow was falling. Somehow there was just enough light to see it even though the sky had looked very black before the flakes started to fall. Suvarna felt deeply relaxed and excited, both at the same time. It was a little disconcerting. Emily had warned her she might feel like this after first tasting the honey this evening, and it had come to pass. But the main boost and sexual arousal would not hit until tomorrow night. Suvarna smiled in the darkness. She felt horny now! And Tom's hand was lightly stroking her hip and it felt delightful. She and Carla had Tom sandwiched between them, and they were all drifting in and out of sleep after a very busy day. Suvarna thought she was probably the most awake of the three, and in kindness to Tom she didn't turn and try to arouse him. Besides, she had already promised Carla the right to be the first with Tom. Tom stirred and yawned, his hand drifting to stroke her outer thigh. Suvarna pushed her butt back into his groin to signal her approval. There was a sleepy kiss on the back of her head, and then more gentle caresses. Suvarna blinked at the thought of what she was doing. This would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, especially with another woman in the bed. And she wasn't committing herself to marriage, not exactly. But the bonding was there, with her and Carla too. Perhaps they wouldn't call it marriage, at least not for a while, but the three knew they would be facing the future together for a long time to come. So many changes since leaving Wobanakik! Suvarna was now an official employee of Kappa Alpha. Exactly what Kappa Alpha was, well, that was still a question. But Suvarna had already made a small contribution. She had noticed an obscure emergency protocol near the end of her training and had mentioned it to Kiyoko. It allowed Kiyoko the ability to open the first-floor door to the diamond complex from the lounge side. Frida's original trip through the ivy hall had been unnecessary. But the discovery was small compensation for a big disappointment. Two days ago the moment she graduated, Suvarna jumped to White Mall and activated and reset the lounge elevator there. Then she joined a re-supply team to the entrance rooms of Wobanakik where she attempted to activate the elevator at the bottom of the stairwell. Her effort was unsuccessful. Over the network, she could here the disappointment in the voices on the other side. So close! The people were literally just a few meters away. But there was no way to get them out, not yet anyway. The issue would remain their society's top priority. On other fronts, the medical training of Lucia, Tajana and Paige was proceeding well. Their training program was more extensive than Suvarna's, and was expected to last another week. The three women were tentatively scheduled to become Team-5 and enter the bee park on May 12th. After that, people would have to wait for the new growing season to kick in. It had been an interesting dinner tonight, small portions of carrots, broccoli, alfalfa and cucumbers, with a dessert of apples and sunflowers garnished with the mysterious golden honey. But what Suvarna remembered most was the conversation. Aggie would be leaving through the Green Mall trap door a day or two after leaving the bee park, and Cassidy had volunteered to join her. Aggie had convinced Fatima that continuing the exploration was the correct course to take. It was a decision Suvarna privately had her doubts about, but she still admired the women's courage and determination. Suvarna finally started feeling sleepy, and it felt so nice to cuddle with Tom, warm and dry under the covers and protected from the dancing snow outside. Suvarna dimly heard the senior boosters talking quietly in the living room, Aggie and Cassidy she thought. Well, those two had a lot to talk about, and besides, their soft conversation was soothing, a reminder of the welcome presence of humanity. Suvarna sighed as she thought of Earth. So crowded! She was a U.S. citizen, her parents were too. But they took a trip to India in 2015, the year India's population hit 1.2 billion. Suvarna remembered the trip well, flying into Mumbai on the west coast to visit her mother's family, and then the trip north to Jaipur a week later. Walking in the streets, at the train stations, so many people! And now she would never have such an experience again. Tom felt Suvarna shivering in his arms. He stirred sleepily and stroked the side of her hip and thigh. "You okay?" he whispered. "Me? Yeah. Just thinking about life." "Ah. Old or new?" Suvarna chuckled. "Both I guess. I was thinking about the changes. And Carla, Carla as a sister-wife! This is going to take a lot of getting used to!" Tom nodded and kissed the back of her neck, burrowing into the thick black hair until his lips found the soft skin beneath. "I love you." Suvarna yawned and wiggled her rump in appreciation back into him. "Without love, none of this would be possible." "Hmm?" "Go to sleep my love." A moment later Suvarna felt Tom return to slow deep breathing. She sighed and relaxed. There were dangers ahead and they were boundless, but for now her mind was at peace. Suvarna closed her eyes and thought of nothing at all. Meanwhile, at the central island. Jada was calling it a night, leaving the library for bed, but she thought she might stop by the kitchen first for a small glass of warm milk with a dash of vanilla and sugar. As she was passing the lounge, she noticed Charles there. He was alone reading a book. So a few minutes later she joined him after stopping in her bedroom to drop off her shoes. She was sipping her hot cup and sitting barefoot a few meters away in another lounge chair. Charles gave her a friendly nod. "Anything exciting happening on the surface?" They had of course all attended the 8 PM meeting of the Society, but the conference call had been very short. Afterwards Jada and the two Abenaki women stuck around to chat while the others drifted off. Jada nodded. "Madison made a suggestion to her brother about his expedition to the pink tower yesterday. If we really wanted a sample of the foam, Maddy suggested Mark take an empty bottle and just screw the lid on while the jar was submerged." Charles paused for a moment. "Yeah, that might work. Is Mark going to try it?" "Actually the foam is so bizarre he'd rather just leave it alone. But it seems clear the rest of the Black Mall team must have walked the path through the foam. There's no place else in the fields to hide." Jada sighed. "And the Black Mall people never came back. I'm surprised they abandoned the home complex." Charles frowned. "That bothers me a lot. Ricardo ... He wouldn't have done it, not willingly anyway." "You think he was overthrown?" A shrug of the shoulders. "Possible I guess, but I don't think that's it. More people would be dead. I think something happened we don't understand." "Ah ... Yeah that's my gut feeling too." Jada took a second to stretch out and take another sip of her milk. "On a lighter note, Abit and Oona where having a name discussion with Madison. The three of them would like to name this island Manhattan." Charles sputtered. "This little rock?!" "Well, relative to the size of Wobanakik..." Charles reconsidered. "That's true. You know, I kind of like it. I always did want to try living in Manhattan, for a while at least." Jada grinned. "Well, here's your chance. I'm going to put it up to a vote tomorrow. I'm pretty sure everybody is going to agree." She stared at her friend for a moment. "Charles, it's nice to see you smile again." Charles blinked and stared at her for a moment, and then closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. "I know I've been out-of-it this last week. Brandi ... She was my friend and girlfriend and sister all rolled into one." Jada put her drink down and silently got up and walked behind Charles' chair. Her hand gently stroked his head. He sighed at the caress, recognizing it as pure friendship. "I keep kicking myself for not raising an objection." "Absolutely nobody is blaming you." "That's true. I'm blaming me, and I feel like a nobody." "Hey..." "I know. I'm getting over it. The guilt is disappearing. But the sadness..." Jada kissed the top of his head and went back to her chair, commenting as she did, "Your laughter today, it was very nice to hear." Charles smiled at the memory, his eyes still closed. "Abit and Oona, they are such bundles of energy. I still haven't figured out exactly what they were proposing." "Oh haven't you?" Jada smiled too. Earlier this afternoon, the seven of them had been playing a pickup game of football outside in the park. Jada and Lynn as goalie had been on Charles' team, playing against Abit, Oona and Mandy as goalie. Thara was acting as the sole referee. Jada had pulled Lynn out of position and then kicked a perfect pass to Charles. Abit and Oona were near him but were out of position to do anything legal that would stop Charles from scoring a goal. So they tackled him, and then did something so blatantly unsportsmanlike (as well as unladylike), that Thara blushed and turned the other way and pretended she didn't see anything. And now Charles was sitting in his chair, thinking of Jada's last question and reminiscing about being ambushed by two very attractive and athletic women. "Yeah," he admitted, "I guess maybe I have. It feels like such an honor Jada. This is so completely different than the shit we were running at Black Mall. I look back and it seems inconceivable I was raping Mandy." He paused and whispered, "How could I do such a thing?" Jada sighed. "I see you with Mandy now. She's not holding any grudges." Jada added a playful smile. "Just the opposite in fact." "I know. We've done a lot of talking. And I know Mandy been doing a lot of talking with Oona and Abit. Probably the four of us should get together and talk about where all this is heading." A moment of silence followed. Jada took the time to finish her milk and then she changed topics. "Akiko called me earlier today." "Hmm?" "Akiko wanted my opinion on something she wants to propose. She thought of this weeks ago, but she didn't want to say anything before Suvarna had a crack at getting us out of here." "Akiko wants to try something dangerous?" "Not exactly. Akiko is a truly humble person, in the good sense of the word. She didn't want to volunteer to be a hero before there was a real need for it." Charles smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like Akiko all right, a very gentle soul. So what does she want to do?" "Two years from now, Wobanakik years I mean, Akiko wants to volunteer to do the system reset. All of us here now could be at the entrance rooms and leave." There was a long pause. "Wow," Charles whispered. "I guess that ... what a sacrifice. Has she mentioned this to anybody else?" Jada nodded. "To Ann. If it's successful, Ann will join Akiko for company. The two women will stay here for two years and then expect to be relieved by two new volunteers." Charles sat for a while considering the gift. "Jada, we have got to find a better way out of here." "Yep! That was my reaction too. Our vacation time is over! We need to be exploring and probing the perimeter, and not just the highlands, the deep forest too. I didn't want to run the risk before Suvarna had a shot with the elevator, but that's not an issue now." Jada was pleased and not too surprised to see Charles looking positively happy. "You're exactly right Jada. And besides, we'd go crazy sitting around watching movies for the next two years!" "Agreed. And we might get some extra help for our search. My husband offered to try to find weather balloons for us. He also has an idea of how to get helium from that engineering building in the Blue Mall area." "Wow! You want us to become balloonists?!" Jada laughed. "That would be something! But I was just thinking about sending some high-resolution cameras aloft, especially in the winter when the trees drop their leaves. If there's another building or structure down here, I want to find it." Charles nodded. "It'll be nice to have a mission again." "Yes. I hate being idle too. We'll kick around some ideas at the morning meeting." Jada got up and after a friendly knuckle-bump with Charles, she headed off to bed. ------- Chapter 79 Ten days later. Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 2:03 AM Aggie's eyes blinked open and her mind started to race. Today was the day! She looked at the clock and sighed. It was so early. Last night she was hoping to get a bit more sleep. But her bedroom now was at Blue Mall and it faced the northeast. Already the hint of a pink sunrise was on the horizon. Dawn was only a half hour away. But there was still plenty of time for more sleep. She wasn't scheduled to have breakfast with Cassidy for another five hours. And their trip through the Green Mall trapdoor was even later in the morning. They were scheduled to depart at 10 AM. All the different time periods, and everything was moving so fast. It was fun! Aggie thought the novelty might never wear off. On the surface they were at the end of week four in a six-week spring, at the Bee Park it was the end of week one of a three-week spring, and down at Wobanakik, Jada and her team were at the end of week four of a nine-week summer. The diversity was intriguing. "Where was I one year ago in Bee Park time?" Aggie thought idly. "That would have been ... December? Is that right? Yeah, I guess it is. No wait. January had thirty one days in it. Wow, what an incredibly huge number of days for a month to have." Aggie frowned slightly as she redid the calculation in her head. "Eighty-four days ago would have been January 3rd. What was I doing then? Biking with Maddy's Marauders I guess, that's what, locking down the spirals. Those were good times..." She sighed. "No it wasn't. We were still grieving then over the loss of the Earth. But at least back then, we were still innocent. We didn't know yet that humanity's brutality had followed us to this planet." Aggie turned and stretched out, giving herself one last opportunity to get back to sleep. May had been a productive month. Aggie had returned from the Bee Park six days ago after a successful boost, and the plants there now were growing and flowering at incredible rates. At this rate, there would soon be food and honey for more candidates, perhaps even before Team-5 finished their boost in another six days. Aggie thought that was very desirable. The mental abilities were so vast it frightened her a bit. She now had the power to trap an unboosted mind into any dream she desired. Aggie didn't want to have that kind of power over her friends. It was uncomfortable to think of their society divided into haves and have-nots. And Aggie had noticed subtle changes in how the remaining people were with her, hints of shyness and a reluctance to link. Aggie didn't like it. The only solution was for everybody to boost. If only there was some way to cover the Wobanakik folks too. Should the surface people try to transport the honey and veggies down to them? But what was the risk of boosting outside the Bee Park? May had been a quiet month, a time of renewal and advancement. The census counter had remaining at 007:076 since the deaths of Brandi and Alfonso, stable as a bus, and Lucia, Tajana, and Paige had successfully completed their medical technician training a few days before becoming Team-5 at the Bee Park. Perhaps May would be their first month without a loss of human life. And everyone had his or her own Leophone now. They were even starting to build an inventory of spares. And Mark had a very ambitious project going for how to use the extra phones. Almost everybody was involved, and they were using technology from many sources. The idea started in early May when Mark and Toshi were visiting the Hot Toys and Hobby Shop at the 25.1 kilometer mark of Black Mall. In the aviation section, they found some extremely lightweight model airplanes powered by the magical batteries. Mark was looking for something that would fly a package consisting of a Leophone coupled to a high resolution video camera. Unfortunately the planes he found generated a lot of thrust but could not provide enough lift to carry the package. In a stroke of insight, Toshi commented that the airplanes were the functional opposite of the giant balloons in the nearby Weather Shoppe. The balloons could provide lift but no horizontal thrust. Why not try to combine the two technologies? Toshi's simple idea was the birth of a new project. In the following week, almost everyone became involved in the design and construction of their first airborne probe. A needed breakthrough came when Whitney acting on a hunch asked Mark to return with her to the strange hemispherical engineering building in the Blue Mall area. Whitney remembered a storage room there filled with what looked like five-liter plastic jugs with some very fancy looking nozzles. Their trip confirmed Whitney's memory had been correct, and they also found that cylindrical jugs would snap and lock into another nozzle extruding from the wall. By depressing the nozzle level they could increase the weight of the jug greatly, from 300 to 800 grams. Further testing revealed the jug had been filled with a half kilo of helium. And not just ordinary helium. Experiments back home showed the meter-radius weather balloons had over four kilograms of net lift when filled with the strange gas, provided the gas from the jug was allowed to warm up. It was coming out of the nozzle super cold, even though the jug was neutral to the touch in terms of temperature. Mark guessed the gas must be the light isotope helium-3 to create so much lift, and Suvarna from the Bee Park made the startling guess that the jug held not pressurized helium but liquid helium. Squeezing the valve lever opened a tiny pathway for heat to reach the liquid which would vaporize the He3 instantly. Careful observation confirmed that micro crystals of frozen air could be seen coming out of the nozzle with the gas. The design of the probe had become quite complicated. At the core of controlling the probe was a Leophone used both for operational control and to transmit video back home. The weather balloon was on top of course, mounted to a carriage that held the jug of helium and a tiny but powerful spark heater that would let a controller add hot helium to the balloon. There was also a control to bleed helium out of the balloon when it was time to descend. Underneath the helium jug and also attached to the carriage was the model airplane, and then finally at the bottom was a video camera that could be swiveled to point in any direction horizontal or lower. Total weight of the entire assembly (not including the weight of the balloon) was just under three kilograms. Would it all work? The construction team was very optimistic and hoped to have a test flight before the summer solstice. The probes would be a huge benefit. It would allow them to explore faster and more safely and more completely. Through the Leophone, they could even have a two-way conversation with anyone they found. Aggie sighed. Almost all the stars had disappeared from the eastern sky. But it was too early to get up. It would be disrespectful to Cassidy to be sleepy when they traveled through the trap door ... Aggie's mind returned to their penny experiments over the last few days. A penny placed in the elevator would disappear, and then the trap door would not transport for one minute. The behavior was consistent with automated servos cleaning the carriage on the other end. Aggie and Cassidy had tried writing notes and asking the people on the other side to block their elevator door for a few minutes, but the delay always remained a stable one minute on their end. And they had even sent a Leophone, one of the new ones that could handle the feed from a video camera. The video signal died immediately when the trapdoor closed. The audio line remained open but nothing could be heard. The conclusion seemed inescapable. There were no people immediately present at the other end. Whitney made a dark comment. There were no cooperative people present at the other end. But it still made sense to go. The evidence was clear. Seventeen women had passed through here, and they were all still alive. The Society needed to trust and assume they wanted to be found. So Aggie would follow with another open Leophone, and then Cassidy as soon as Aggie reported in. Aggie turned away from the window and concentrated on slow deep breathing and pushing all analytic thoughts from her mind. She thought of her latest date with Mark. For a man multiply married, the guy could be so shy when it came to kissing goodnight! But would he still be Mark if he weren't so bashful around girls? Aggie smiled at the gentle memory and a short while later drifted into a light sleep. Time: Thursday May 14, 2019 2:36 AM The bright orange sunlight hit Douglas Meyers full in the face and he woke up refreshed and relaxed from his ten-hour sleep. The rest period was typical for him now. The nightmares of the previous weeks had at last been subdued. Douglas stood up and stretched and then went to relieve himself in the grass adjacent to his overhang shelter. It was a strange grass. It turned a very pale green when he pissed on it, almost an off white, but he knew from experience it would recover in a few hours. Douglas had even thought about trying to eat it, his first day after leaving the home complex above Jacob's. But he broke a few blades and then sniffed the oily extract oozing from the breaks. His mind screamed poison at the pungent odor, and in the weeks following he never second-guessed his decision to take the grass permanently off the menu. Ah, those first days. He had not even returned to calling himself Douglas then. He remembered crossing through the strange elevated maze with two backpacks which were then so full of food, and he remembered sensing the hidden drop under the foam with a walking stick. It wasn't too much of a bother. The pathway had a clear width of two and half meters. Walking its centerline was not a problem, and after a number of kilometers of winding paths he came to the opposite tower. The slide at the end was a challenge, but Diego like Chico was on the varsity wrestling team and in very good shape. He survived the slide with nothing worse than a stiff shoulder. Diego spent the next several hours inspecting a great line of buildings from the outside. There were few doors, especially on the eastern side of the great southern line. He tried the doors as he passed. The doors on the eastern side would not open, while the doors on the western side would. But Diego remembered his experience with the old home complex. The perimeter doors would open from the inside only. Would the doors here open only from the outside? As one person, there was no way to test. Diego had no desire to be trapped in a building. If he were going to die, it would be under the sun or stars. So he stayed out of the buildings, even though a biting-cold northern wind made the idea of entry enticing. Late in the afternoon, about an hour before sunset and much to his astonishment, Diego saw a man waving frantically to him from the second floor of a building near the western end of the line. It was Jenaro, and he was obviously trapped. Jenaro alone? What had happened to Jessica, Hernando and Ricardo? Jenaro pantomimed his answers. Hernando was dead, murdered by Ricardo, and as far as Jenaro knew, Jessica was still with Ricardo. But Jenaro had managed to separate himself from them? Diego sensed that Jenaro was telling the truth. He was so eager to be rescued, he wasn't stopping to think up a lie. And then Jenaro asked in sign language how Diego had freed himself from the dead-man switch. Diego shrugged and signaled it would be too difficult to explain without words, and he asked with his hands how he could get to Jenaro's position. Jenaro nodded happily and the two men spent the next ten minutes exchanging hand and arm signals as Jenaro went through the motions of what Diego would have to do to reach him. Go through the entrance door about three hundred meters to the east, then circle to the stairway, travel the second-floor corridor three hundred meters back to the west, and open the door that was trapping Jenaro. Jenaro was pleading for him to do it. As an incentive, Jenaro opened the backpacks he had with him and showed Diego they were full of food. Jenaro had almost all the food of Ricardo's team, and he motioned with his arms that he and Diego could share it. Diego nodded and walked back east to the entrance door. He had already probed it, and the door slid open again without a problem as Diego pushed the command bar. But he still paused before going through. Did he really want Jenaro's company? The man was a hardcase and would be furious if Diego tried to hide his possession of Neto's gun. And knowing Jenaro, the man would insist on packing it, at least part of the time. Did Diego want that? No! And the sharing of food was not an issue. Jenaro might have slightly more food than Diego, but he was a much bigger eater. If Jenaro were truly trapped, and Diego had no reason to doubt it, chances were Jenaro would be digging into Diego's supplies rather than vice versa. And finally... Jenaro was trapped! What was the danger here? Was there only one door that was trapping Jenaro? What about this entrance door, or the other doors Diego would have to pass through to get to his former compadre? Diego could try to wedge them open of course, but that trick certainly wouldn't work back at the home hexagon. Would the servos allow it here? Why the hell should Diego expect that? In his heart, he knew what he had to do. Diego let the door close from the outside. He then walked back and signaled to Jenaro that he was going to stay outside and search for help. The man's reaction was about what Diego had expected. Jenaro looked horrified, and then the horror turned to fear, and then the fear to hatred. No sound was penetrating the clear wall separating them, but Diego could see the man screaming at him. Diego shrugged his shoulders and tried to wave Jenaro a pleasant goodbye. Hr felt his decision was sound. Where was the value in both of them being trapped in this building? With a group of people to guard the wedged doors, Jenaro could be rescued easily. Diego's job was to find that group of people, at least that's what he told himself as he walked away from the screaming man. And even then the conscience of Douglas Meyers was beginning to reemerge. It had been a faint voice for the last year and absent completely these last few months. Was Diego really searching for people to rescue Jenaro, or was he just taking the easy way out? At the time, Diego's mind had swatted down any feelings of guilt about leaving. His decision was practical and sound. If someone were trapped in quicksand, just jumping in and getting stuck too made no sense. Especially if the stuck someone were Jenaro, a person who would gladly stand on your corpse to keep his head above the quicksand a few minutes longer. So over the next several weeks, Diego searched for people in the great buildings around him. He stayed outside, never once venturing into a closed building but gratefully bedding down at night under the many sheltered overhangs that protected him from the spring rains. And he would occasionally find outdoor fountains as he traveled, the shallow ponds filled with clear sparkling water. Dying of thirst was not a concern. Food though was another matter. It was surprising, he had to admit. After the abundance of food at the home hexagon and the great mall below, he had assumed food would also be plentiful about the surface, and he had packed weeks of rations never really thinking he'd need them. On that point he had been grossly mistaken. The open surface areas outside the buildings were devoid of anything he could eat. In the end, would he risk going inside rather than face the certainty of starving to death? At the beginning of the journey, Diego would have given an immediate yes. But a transformation had occurred in the solitary weeks. Diego began to feel whole again, purified and cleansed of his many sins. The persona of Douglas emerged after its long sleep, first to discuss with Diego and then to dominate. Diego saw nothing of value in the empty wanderings and disappeared without a struggle. And Douglas by contrast saw everything. His body and mind had regained its soul, its nobility. He was not excusing his past behavior, far from it, and he would try to make amends if he ever got the chance, but for now he had to play the hand he was holding. Douglas might die out here, in fact he probably would die out here, but he would die gracefully as a free human beneath the stars, not as a prisoner trapped and discarded in some unknown room that would serve as his death cell. Douglas had thought the issue carefully, and his heart was at peace with his decision. And his death was not imminent. Douglas was stretching his food, dropping to half rations almost immediately after his encounter with Jenaro and even more severely in the last several days. He still had food for another two week, perhaps even more if he limited himself to one small meal per day. He wasn't maintaining his weight on such a diet, but he thought he be okay for at least another couple of weeks. After that though, after the food ran out, he had no illusions of what would come next. He just wouldn't have the energy to explore. And there was so much still to see! In the last few days, Douglas had finally charted the extent of his bounded area. It was huge. He estimated 300 square kilometers, in a rough diamond shape with the flat facets pointing north and a sharper spike to the south. It was a great area surrounded by a imposing perimeter wall and a moat of the strange ivy. Douglas wanted no part of challenging the ivy or the wall, and as one person he could never explore all the niches of the surface in time. But he would do the best he could, and success would be fabulous and failure would be met with dignity. Douglas studied his handmade charts for a moment and wrote the date Thursday, March 28, 2019 in the margin next to the area he would search today. He took a moment to admire the speed of the seasons. The day without sun had occurred in mid January. Just a few days after Stan the man Santos and his team were killed at Rabbies Dram. Douglas shook his head at the memory. From what they knew now about the census counter, they might have been the largest party of the six, and perhaps the one with the best ability to get quickly organized. All of the frat brothers knew each other. While the other parties were still struggling to get to know each other, Beta Sigma Rho could have displayed true leadership. Instead they spent all their time getting drunk and force fucking the women who were trapped with them. Diego sighed. It was water over the dam now. Perhaps someday he'd get the chance to ask someone for forgiveness, but for now ... He stared briefly at his backpacks. The food would be very welcome and he knew breakfast was the one meal he should not skip. But he decided to wait a bit anyway. Instead he drank his fill from his canteen, and then headed off to a nearby fountain to refill, a short detour before today's exploration. Six hours later. Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 8:51 AM Ricardo was sitting by his console in the underground monitoring room, and his mouth was beginning to salivate. At last! Jenaro looked as if he was at last stopping his insane wanderings, and of all places, he had chosen to bed down in the kitchen area near the far west end of the great building. Perfect! The room had cooking facilities, freezers, knives for butchering, everything that Ricardo would need. Jenaro was bedding down in the one place that would make it all possible. Ricardo no longer had the strength to drag a corpse anywhere. He was so weak, he could barely walk himself. Ricardo had found this observation room a week ago, after several days of wandering more endless corridors and stairwells. At first the controls were difficult to understand, but once mastered revealed incredible power and versatility. It wasn't input from fixed camera locations. Rather there was a 180-degree array of monitors circling the front half of his head, and Ricardo could use a joystick to position a virtual observer at any point he wished. The power was astounding and more than a bit frightening. In his first days of exploration with the device, Ricardo positioned the probe to observe himself. He saw the back of his head in real time and the view of his monitors on his monitors. Ricardo used the joystick to zoom in to eye level and just two meters in back of himself, and then he slowly turned around to see what the probe looked like. He couldn't stop himself. He began to wet his pants as he realized there was nothing there. After considerable effort, he convinced himself he was not going insane. And over the next several days he experimented with the probe and learned to limits of it use. Playing with it was addictive. Ricardo felt like a god at the controls, and he was bitterly disappointed he had no people to spy upon. But it was still a marvelous tool for reconnaissance. He spent days meticulously tracing all the corridors and closets of the underground clothes storage facility. He was looking for Jessica, both to confirm her death and also perhaps he had a faint hope he would have a use for her body. And the probe was allowing him to search for her, to examine the polygonal rooms and the corridors and the closets far faster than he could ever do on foot, even if he were healthy. What might have taken many weeks, Ricardo did in a few days. The probe was wondrous, but it did have its limits... Oh, the irony of it! It would not let him see inside the drawers! Ricardo admitted that seemed reasonable. There was no light inside the enclosures, and the probe did not seem to have the ability to illuminate its target area. But why would the console blink what looked suspiciously like an error message whenever Ricardo attempted to penetrate a drawer? Most of the symbols were completely unfamiliar, but there was also a pale pink notice in a black background that read "time = 0." Time equals zero? What the hell could that mean? There seemed to be no way to puzzle it out without more clues, and that was all he would ever get. Exasperated, Ricardo parked the issue and continued his search outside the drawer areas. And he found nothing. Jessica had either crawled into a drawer to die, or the servos had disposed of her remains. Ricardo had to admit the second scenario was more likely. Why was he so fixated on her? He had this awful nagging doubt that he was still overlooking something, but what? Once again he had to force his mind to abandon lingering doubts and move on to more immediate concerns. What was in the rest of the building, and was there a way out? The invisible probe could not be moved outside the building, but inside Ricardo continued his exploration with godlike powers of observation. And late yesterday it had paid off. After days of virtual wandering through art corridors so vast they would dwarf the Louvre, Ricardo gave a hoarse gasp as Jenaro calmly wandered across the monitors' field of view. Jenaro! He was here! And like himself, Ricardo was guessing the former compadre was trapped. Given his situation, Ricardo's goal seemed obvious. The only major point of consideration was whether to try to pump Jenaro for information first. But what could he possibly know that Ricardo didn't? Ricardo guessed his prey must have wandered into the building complex through another door shortly after he ran off with all the food. All the food ... All the food! And then he found he was trapped. End of story, end of Jenaro. Ricardo didn't need to speak with him, and in Ricardo's weakened condition, why take the risk? He just hoped he'd have the strength for the initial work with the knives. After the first few meals, things would be a lot easier. And Jenaro was being so considerate! He was bedding down in the one room where Ricardo needed him to be. Ricardo giggled as he left the command chair and shuffled over to the backpacks where he kept the guns. So heavy! The guns felt so heavy now! The simple pistol felt as heavy as a big bag of salt. Ricardo was horrified. There was no time to waste! From his time with the monitors, Ricardo knew exactly the path he needed to take, and he walked through several doors unconcerned about the possibility of return passage. The mortal threat before him overrode all such concerns. In less than an hour of slow shuffling, he was outside the kitchen door. There he paused briefly for one last exam. He had a full clip with the first round chambered and the safety off. Gun in hand, Ricardo slowly and silently pushed the door open. Perfect! The idiot Jenaro was snoring away. This was almost too easy. Ricardo slipped into the room and walked up to Jenaro until he stood just five meters away. At this range Ricardo could put a bullet through a hole the size of a quarter. Where to aim? Ricardo decided on the head, no use screwing around and besides, he didn't want to damage the other parts of Jenaro's body with gunfire. Ricardo looked around the kitchen for a moment, and he allowed himself a wide grin. The setup was just as his magical monitors had shown him, large stainless steel sinks and counters. There were even curled edges to the counters that would guide the waste fluids of the butchering into the sink. This setup was perfect! And the side wall had a superb collection of hanging carving knives. The cleaver in particular would be very handy for separating the joints of the bones. Ricardo's eyes then caught sight of Jenaro's open backpacks, and for a moment a fiery stream of pure hatred pulsed through his veins. The motherfucker! The pisser! He had eaten up all the food, all of it! No wonder he looked so fat! For a moment Ricardo wondered if his first shot should be in the groin, shoot off a nut as punishment for Jenaro's damning lack of obedience. Ricardo almost lowered the pistol from his intended head shot, but then he reconsidered. Jenaro's nut sac would provide a far more delicious revenge if left undamaged. Yes, that's where he would start. Ricardo had once sampled Rocky Mountain oysters, and he found the taste intriguing. He had also enjoyed eating deer testicles and had wondered what the sperm factories of other animals would taste like. His chance to find out had finally arrived. It was a pity Jenaro would be dead when this happened. Ricardo felt a bit cheated that he had to be giving up the pleasure of torturing the sleeping man. Pain and humiliation were such tried and true methods for administering justice. But they were not the only way, and in his weakened condition, Ricardo just couldn't take the risk. And perhaps Ricardo could even get Jenaro to cooperate and help with the work Ricardo had to do before his first meal. After all, cooperation can be a beautiful thing sometimes, and be even more valuable than pain. Ricardo sighed deeply as he gave up the pleasure of torture, and as he hoped the sound roused Jenaro. The man blinked his eyes open, and his first sight was that of the pistol, its barrel centered on the bridge of his nose. "Time to be disciplined compadre," Ricardo whispered in a flat voice. "Jesus! Oh Jesus! I surrender," Jenaro whispered back, his eyes searching for Ricardo's so that he could plead for his life. "Please Ricardo, I surrender!" "Surrender accepted," Ricardo replied calmly. "Now obey me." Jenaro began to shake with uncontrollable relief. "I'll do absolutely anything you want." "Stand up," the man with the gun commanded. "Sure, Ricardo sure, anything you say." Jenaro complied immediately, stealing shy glances at his master as he did. The man looked so thin! "Strip naked Jenaro. I have to be sure you're not packing anything." "Sure, absolutely!" Jenaro fumbled as he tore off his clothes. He was mad with worry and super eager to please the man before him. He also tried not to reveal his shock. His master looked so incredibly thin, everything except his head! Ricardo's head looked huge now in comparison to the rest of his body. His clothes were falling off him. "Now lie down on the counter there." Ricardo gestured with his hand. For a second he felt a bit dizzy, and he did not trust himself to gesture with the gun and show Jenaro how weak he was. The gun might wobble. Fear returned to Jenaro's face. "Uh..." "Lie down on the counter Jenaro. Do it now. Face down, feet together, hands behind your back. I'm going to tie you while I search your gear. Later you can have some clothes back." Jenaro gasped, a second wave of relief washing over him. "Oh. Yeah, sure man, okay. Thanks Ricardo. I really mean it." He heaved his fat body on the stainless steel counter with a bit of difficulty and then asked meekly, "This okay?" He then shivered. "Brrr! This is cold!" "Shut up!" "I'm sorry." "Wrists together! Ankles together!" Ricardo shouted, though he had no intention of binding Jenaro. The man quivered and obeyed. He even closed his eyes and kept his head pointing straight down in submission, the cold steel pressing into his nose and forehead. "I'm so sorry Ricardo." "I told you to shut up! And keep absolutely still." A moment of silence followed. Jenaro felt the barrel of the pistol nestle into the back of his neck, just where the base of his skull met the top vertebra of his spinal column. He trembled and couldn't hold himself. His bladder valve released and he began to urinate uncontrollably, the piss running down between his legs and draining into the large sink just beyond his feet. Jenaro could feel the liquid hitting his toes. Ricardo nodded in approval at the direction of the fluid flow. This was going to be so easy. In his former life, Ricardo had often hunted deer, and he was well versed in how to gut and bleed a kill. He probed the compadre's naked body with a finger of his free hand. "Jenaro, you're a fat pig." He pinched the naked man's ass cheeks, and then his hand forced its way between the man's shivering thighs and cupped the scrotum. Jenaro felt Ricardo hefting his testes, as if judging their weight. "Yes," Ricardo thought silently as he twisted the floppy sac back and forth. "This will be my first cut. It's the right amount of food for a stomach unused to digesting." So easy, one quick slice through the tender skin and connecting cords with a sharp carving knife, that's all it would take. Ricardo would have something in the frying pan in minutes. And the cut would help bleed his kill. Some work would have to be done immediately. The kill had to be bled before the blood coagulated. And afterwards Ricardo would be busy with a frying pan. He'd pan fry the scrotal skin too, nothing would be wasted. Ricardo thought the fat content of the testes would be very high. Jenaro's hefty two nuts would provide all the grease needed. Nice beefy orbs, so big and tender hanging between Jenaro's legs, so deliciously plump and fat. One quick slice, right here, starting just below the anus and cutting down. Ricardo would make his first cut from the rear, the body would already be positioned for it, maybe slice off the penis too once the scrotum was detached. But he would save the real butchering work for later. First things first. Ricardo needed to get some strength back. Stiff fingers returned to probe deeply into the scrotum, measuring the line and angle with a thumbnail where the carving knife would separate the sac from the muscular abdominal area above. Then his fingers ran along the connecting cords, back and forth, probing the succulent cord meat, it would be so nice and chewy. Ricardo paused to make one last gauge of the testes. The left orb felt just a bit plumper. Ricardo grinned as he decided to remember that when the oysters were all fried up and steaming and ready on his plate. It always pays to know what you're eating. And oh, the smell would be so nice! Jenaro didn't mind what Ricardo was doing. In fact, he welcomed it. He took it as a sign Ricardo was trying to humiliate him. The barrel of the pistol digging into the back and top of his neck, that was still terrifying of course, but damn it, Ricardo was trying to humiliate him! Didn't that prove Ricardo still needed him?! Of course it did! And it made perfect sense. Jenaro would be much more useful alive than dead. Surely Ricardo realized that. Surely! "Fat," Ricardo whispered as he squeezed the plump left testis between his thumb and forefinger. His hand became a vise and his mouth was drooling in anticipation. Jenaro grimaced at the pressure and then replied. "I know, I know I'm fat." He continued to whisper meekly, totally misunderstanding. "I ate up all the food. I'm so sorry. I was hungry and there was nothing else to do." He kept his eyes closed and bit his lip. He lay there freezing on the cold steel of the counter, wrists as yet unbound but still together at the small of his back. He could feel his master's fingers probing the nuts again inside his scrotum. Jenaro tried his best to be as meek and obedient as he could, and he hoped that his master would soon tie him. That would be more proof that Jenaro would be okay. He shivered as he lay. With heightened senses, Jenaro could smell his piss from the sink and feel the cold steel draining the heat from his chest and fat stomach and groin and the fronts of his plump thighs. And then a very strange thought occurred. Ricardo's last word, the word fat was not said in distain. The tone of his master's voice was anticipation. Before Jenaro could advance that thought further, there was no thought at all. Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 9:53 AM Aggie was standing with Cassidy and a few other people who had accompanied them to the building with the trapdoor at the edge of the Green Mall area. They had already reconfirmed the trapdoor was operational with a note announcing Aggie's imminent arrival, and Aggie had used her janitorial authority to lead everyone back outside so that the remaining away-team could walk home. The plan now was for Aggie and Cassidy to reenter the building. "Aggie," came Fatima's voice over the Leophone. "Stand by." "Huh?" Aggie looked at her watch and then said, "Fatima, I was about to enter the building. Do you mean I should stay outside?" "Yes. Stand by." Aggie's group exchanged puzzled glances, and then Fatima's voice continued. "The census counter has just dropped by one." "What?!" "A man. The counter is reading 6:76. Mark is checking. Stand by." A moment later there was the familiar male sound of Mark. "Citizen ID 27, from Black Mall." Charles spoke up from Manhattan. "Alfonso was ID 26. So this must be Jenaro." Mark voiced his agreement. "The remaining two male IDs from Black Mall are 50 and 53. From what you've said earlier, 53 is Diego and 50 is either Ricardo or Hernando." "People are still dying," Tom said on the bridge. He was sitting with Fatima at the Hilton. "So I'm betting Ricardo is still alive." Aggie spoke up. "Fatima, this shouldn't change my mission." There was a pause on the line, and then a response. "I agree. Proceed Aggie." A few minutes later Aggie was in position with Cassidy by her side and the others still safely out of the building. Aggie tried to stay calm in the final minute before her departure. Fatima's voice came over the Leophone, much gentler than usual. "Aggie, last chance to reconsider. There's no shame in aborting if you think this is too risky." Aggie sighed. "I must admit, I'm more nervous about this than I hoped I would be. But our logic is sound. We have to do this Fatima." She took another deep breath. "Thirty seconds. I'm walking into the trapdoor now. Final network check." "We're reading you loud and clear Aggie," came Akiko's voice on the bridge. "Strong signals from both primary and backup phones, audio and video." Aggie took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm letting the trapdoor close." As the door slid silently shut, Aggie made brief eye contact with Cassidy and she called out a final exclamation before her jump, completely unrehearsed and straight from the heart. "I love you all!" There were a few seconds of silence on the bridge, and then Akiko's worried voice returned. "We've just lost all signals from Aggie, everything, audio too, primary and backup!" ------- Chapter 80 Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 10:01 AM Carla was a latecomer to Aggie's five-woman team, having just returned from boosting at the Bee Park two days ago. But in her short time with the group, she had stressed the value of contingency planning. The group had already designed their response to losing contact with Aggie. Leaving Frida and Hannah on the outside of a wedged entrance door, Carla quickly reentered the building and joined Cassidy by the trapdoor. Cassidy had already taken off the harness holding her Leophone and video camera. She had also extracted a small red envelope from her backpack. Cassidy looked up at Carla as she approached and then back at the envelope in her hand. "I really wasn't expecting we'd be using this." Carla nodded. "None of us were. Are you all set?" Cassidy nodded and then said, "Akiko, I'm assuming you can see on our videos that Carla and I are together. We are ready for Plan-C testing. How do you read us?" "All of your signals are excellent, audio and video. Please proceed with the test." While Carla as a backup kept the trapdoor firmly open, Cassidy acknowledged and placed her harness and the note to Aggie inside the trapdoor. Then both women stepped aside. From Carla's video, the members of the society from many locations saw the trapdoor close. A few seconds later Akiko spoke up. "This is strange. I'm getting the same results as our original Leophone test. The video signal is gone, but the audio signal is still strong." "What can you hear?" asked Jada from Manhattan. "It's the same as before, nothing at all. I've got the input going into a waveform analyzer. There's absolute silence on the other end." "What's the gain set at?" asked Jada. "I have it cranked to maximum," replied Akiko. "We would pick up normal human breathing in a moderately sized room." An idea occurred to Mark who was sitting at a console in the Red Mall library. He had come there to research the drop of the census counter. "Akiko, can you send a chirp to the original Leophone we sent? And Fatima, I'm returning to the Hilton now." Akiko saw the point immediately. "Yes! Thank you Mark, great idea. One moment..." A few seconds later. "We have the signal! I'm hearing the chirp loud and clear on Cassidy's phone. I estimate the two phones are approximately ... maybe four meters from each other, less if there's something in between." Paige's voice came over the network from the Bee Park. "So why can't the phones hear Aggie?" Emily was sitting by Akiko's side at the Hilton and she answered the question. "My gosh Mark, your multipoint hypothesis, maybe you were right." Two nights ago the group had devoted an entire evening's discussion to the issue of the Green Mall trap door. A primary concern had been the silence measured on the Leophone probe. Why were the missing members of Party #2 not monitoring the entrance to wherever they were? A common guess was that the spot was inhospitable, that the missing group couldn't maintain a presence there. But Mark also advanced the opinion that they couldn't assume that the trapdoor without people would transport to the same location as when there was someone inside the carriage. There was precedence for such behavior. The semi-functioning elevator at the entrance to Wobanakik would allow the flow of goods out but not people. Mark's conjecture was the deciding reason that further unmanned test plans were abandoned. They just might not be relevant to the location of the missing party. Fatima was sitting at the Hilton conference center feeling miserable. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up and saw Mark. They made eye contact. "There's nothing more to do now," he thought gently. "And you should be back at the Bee Park. May I walk with you?" Fatima replied with the thought construct of a deep sigh, unaware her body was also reflexively performed the motion. "I feel I should stay ... Oh, you're right. I shouldn't be second guessing." Fatima broke her link with Mark and spoke into the bridge. "Plan-C options are in effect. Carla, please guide the away-team home. That means you too Cassidy. I know how..." Fatima paused with a lump in her throat. Cassidy replied. "It's difficult for all of us Fatima, but I promise, I will stay on mission plan." "Acknowledged. Thank you. Kiyoko..." "I'm still here at the Black Mall library. I'm ready to return whenever you are." "Right. Mark and I will be there in just a moment. Fatima out." She got up and, holding hands with Mark, walked out of the Hilton conference room and to the nearby elevator. The two emerged into the Black Mall library a moment later. Kiyoko gave them both a brief hug and then all three of them walked through the vestibule to the first-floor perimeter walkway. After a few seconds of Kiyoko issuing an override command, the three were inside the diamond complex and getting back to the Bee Park. They walked back to the Bee Park in silence. It wasn't far, one kilometer and a bit in hundred-meter increments as the traveled the hexagonal segments. They went through the one-way door at the entrance top to the Bee Park without concern. They had Kiyoko with them now, and besides, there were two Black Mall mushroom locks permanently stationed at the Park for when other people wanted to leave, the result of leaving open two small bookstores near the 36 km mark of Black Mall. Everything else in the great mall was still under lock and monitor. The three of them started to chat a bit as they descended the 1296 steps to the Park. It was a delightful day in the simulated environment. A spring shower was ending, and the air was rich with the smells of the damp earth and of life. The trees and fields of wild vegetable gardens were almost ready to burst forth, and the flower displays promised to be spectacular. As a girl in Kuwait, Fatima loved the rare occasions when she could walk through rain, and she never lost the joy of it. So she and Mark and Kiyoko took their time and were thoroughly wet by the time they reached the small house by the pond. The rain was just stopping as they arrived, and they met the other four boosters who were about to take off for a picnic lunch. And remarkably, the picnic baskets were only packed for five. Kiyoko dashed into the one bedroom for a quick change of clothes while Husna apologized to Fatima with a grinning smile and explained that Fatima would just have to wait her turn until tomorrow for her share of a picnic. While all this was happening Mark managed a few words with Lucia on the other side of the room. "I hope everything worked out okay last night." Mark was referring to Boost Team-5. They had arrived at the Bee Park two days ago on the 12th, and last night was their time for the primary transformation. Lucia nodded and then blushed at the memories. "Everything went well. It was a little more ... energetic than I was expecting." Lucia batted her eyes playfully. "But the senior team did a great job of shepherding us through the process." Kiyoko then came out of the bedroom in a new outfit, and she and Husna and the three med-techs of junior Boost Team-5 gave cheerful goodbyes and headed off to a hill in another area of the Park. Fatima exchanged a couple of glances and raised eyebrows with Mark and then they both changed into bathrobes and put their wet clothes into the device that would clean and dry them. Then Fatima flopped down supine on the one great bed, unconcerned that her bathrobe was riding up well above her knees. Mark joined her, sitting at the bottom edge of the bed. After a moment he reached across and gently held her foot. Fatima wiggled her toes in appreciation, and then she gave a playful laugh. "A picnic lunch only large enough for five! Oh boy, that was subtle!" Mark grinned. "A match made in ... Bee Park. And look, they even put on clean sheets for us." Another grin. "I had a parting link with Tajana. She promised they won't be back for several hours." Fatima nodded and fluffed up a fresh pillow and placed it behind her neck. She relaxed for a moment, enjoying Mark rubbing her instep, and then commented. "I really don't need to be here." "Sure you do." "Sure I don't. I can feel my mind Mark. It's fully boosted. I've been here six days now. That's sufficient. The extra two days are" "Insurance! Don't change the recipe! You didn't eat anything at the Hilton, did you?" "No, I wouldn't do that." Fatima sighed and closed her eyes. "I want to link with you and play with you in a dream, and I want to lie here and let you pet my feet for real. This is a very vacation-like decision." "The dreams are real too," Mark whispered. He leaned down and kissed her foot. "Yes, you've told me that before, and now I can appreciate what you mean. Such power Mark! The abilities, they're so beautiful! They're breathtaking!" She looked at Mark. They shared the briefest of a link, mere milliseconds in objective time. Then Fatima laughed and wrapped the edge of the nearby bed comforter around her head, letting only her face show as she clutched the comforter tightly under her chin. "You really think I look sexy with a headscarf?!" "Wow, did I let that slip?!" Mark blushed slightly and looked down at Fatima's foot in his hand, and then his eyes traveled to her fine ankle, the very strong calf muscles, cute knees, and then many delightful centimeters of bare feminine thigh before the bathrobe cut off his view of how Fatima's thigh would meld into her hip. Mark paused and sighed, thinking how neither of them was wearing anything under the loose cotton robes. He turned to lie in the opposite direction of Fatima, head to toe for both of them. Mark kissed her foot again, and then brushed his lips across her ankles. His lips wandered to the skin of her calves, gently gliding against the surface softness and occasionally pushing down to admire and kiss the firm muscles beneath. A soft giggle. "Oh, that would be so ticklish if I weren't in the right frame of mind!" "Oh yeah?" Mark asked playfully. "And exactly what frame of mind are we talking about here?" "I'll let you know in a bit!" And then a timid whisper. "Mark?" Mark was pre-occupied admiring her bare leg, sniffing her, even tasting her with his tongue. But he finally paused at her worried whisper sank in. "Hmm? Sorry. What?" "Perhaps I should be the one to apologize. I was thinking about what I just did. Your memory of me looking sexy in a headscarf, you didn't let it slip. I pulled it from you. I didn't ask permission or anything. I just went into your mind without permission and took it." "Fatima..." "It happened so fast Mark!" "Fatima, it's okay! Toshi and Frida and I were doing that to each other constantly the first few weeks after we boosted." "Really? Constantly?" Mark tried to give a more honest answer. "Well, a number of times. I remember several. I'll share the memories if you like. I have their permission." "I know. We women have talked too. Your wives have pledged complete openness to the rest of us who want to date you. We made the same pledge in return." Mark nodded. "I sort of know this." More kisses on Fatima's ankle, more toe wiggles in return. "I've never pried, but I am curious. No constraints at all?" Attracted by the wiggling, Mark began to sniff between her toes. Fatima shivered at the sensation of Mark's nose burrowing into the undersides of her toes, and then she nodded. "One great and single constraint. We will never pry to be nosey. We do it because we need to understand. We're attempting a new social contract, a group intimacy at a level that goes far beyond what was ever attempted with polygamy on Earth. For this to work, we sister-wives have got to understand each other's emotions. But..." "Hmm?" "I'm still worried. My earlier question, did you or your wives also do this to other people? Enter a mind without permission I mean. I know you forgive me now. But what about people who haven't boosted? I don't want to violate them." Mark shook his head. "Outside of that momentous episode when Toshi took Holly, no, not that I know of. Fatima, you have the right principles in place. Don't worry. You won't violate a mind because such behavior is repugnant to you. Without the desire, your mind instinctively won't want to do it and therefore you won't do it." "Uh ... Huh? But didn't I just do it to you?" "Uh ... Well, to tell the truth..." Fatima grinned as she realized Mark was struggling. "Almost always a good idea. Go on." "Yeah. Well..." Mark squirmed for another moment. "Sexual desire can be a very powerful motivator..." Fatima was quiet for a while and then sighed. "Ah yes, I understand you. You're saying sexual desire can bend your morality." Mark took a deep breath too. "Or break it. Look what happened at Black Mall. Before she left for Wobanakik, Jada and I linked and thought about this quite a bit. The original booster drug we all got before Christmas, it has done things to us we're only beginning to understand. Jada and I think we are much more social creatures now." "Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?" Mark nodded. "It can be. I think everybody feels it, a heightened desire to bond. For our group it's been great. We want to be more considerate, more respectful. But it can also work the other way. There's a heightened ability ... a desire to bond, but you can also bond through fear and domination. You get the wrong mix of people together in the wrong setting..." Fatima finished the thought. " ... and the society self-organizes in the other extreme. Yes! We're either very good or truly horrible. There's no middle ground anymore, is there?" "That's exactly how Jada and I look at it. How can you be both loving and sadistically cruel at the same time? The original booster drug pushes us to be one or the other. It has all but eliminated the middle ground for social bonding. But we're not robots. It's still our choice. We still have free will." Fatima smiled and relaxed, stretching and opening her legs for her lover. "I and choose to love, and sexual love and slavery are both very possessive. I remember now. When I entered you without permission, I thought I was just being playful. But there was more. I had a desire, a desire to possess you." Mark nodded, his lips kissing Fatima's ankle, his hand caressing her calf and then gliding up to stroke the soft inside of her thigh just above the knee. Fatima opened her legs further and Mark accepted the invitation, his hand traveling under her robe to caress the softness of her inner thighs. The top of his hand was lightly brushing against the coarse hairs of her pubic fur, and Fatima's breathing became pronounced and her hips started to rock back and forth, trying to entice Mark's hand to press against her sex. With a big gulp of air, Fatima turned on her side and reached for her lover's legs. Mark felt her hand stroking him, playful and affectionate at first, but then traveling up under his robe the way he had with her, along the insides of his thighs until the back of her hand was brushing against his scrotum. Fatima's breathing was becoming very ragged, and she gave a tremendous shiver. Fatima tried to slow herself down. Her hand moved again, gently tapping the side of her lover's hip. She was asking him to lie on his stomach. Mark turned and did so, and was rewarded by a soft hand caressing his lower rump where it merged with the backs of his thighs. Mark wiggled in appreciation, and a finger briefly slid in between his ass cheeks to caress his anus. He swooned with the pleasure, and then Fatima began kissing his legs as her hand returned to more general strokes on his thighs and butt. "I love you so much," Fatima whispered between kisses. "I love you so very much. And I understand you now. My desire to possess you has no boundary." Mark sighed deeply. "Such beautiful forces. I love you too." He paused for a moment and turned his face to her. "I had a date with Aggie last night." "Yes, I know." More gentle strokes and his ass and thighs. "What do you want to tell me?" "We were kissing goodnight," Mark confessed. "Aggie was aroused. I was too. Aggie is very open about such things." "Yes, I know. I see it sometimes in how she flirts with you in public. I'm not trying to criticize, but boy, if you're ever caught having sex out in the open, I bet it'll be with Aggie." Mark chuckled. "No bet! Well, anyway, she was in my arms, and suddenly..." Mark took a deep breath. "The moment transformed. Suddenly I wanted her so badly. All the desires seemed to fuse, desires to couple with her and to care for her and to possess her. And..." "And?" "And Aggie finished her boost less than a week ago! I could still take advantage of her if we got carried away with sexual passion! She thinks I'm just being shy, and maybe that's part of it, but I also so much don't want to pull things from her before she decides to offer them." "Ah..." said Fatima as her only reply. They spent a long leisurely time petting each other in silence, occasionally giving each other back rubs but mostly caresses. Their hands wandered around each other's bodies, going almost everywhere but avoiding direct contact with the genital areas. Fatima gave a deep sigh. "Your body is so beautiful Mark." Mark gave a snort in reply. "I remember the first night I met you." "Yes. I was thinking of that too. And that was the memory I targeted in your mind." "I remember waking up that morning and thinking what pretty chestnut hair you have. And also with a headscarf, how pretty you were, either way ... Fatima?" "Hmm?" "The moment Earth was destroyed, we were all huddled together in a ball..." "Yes. I'll never forget." "I grabbed someone's foot. It was your foot, wasn't it?" "Yes, my foot." Fatima turned and began kissing Mark's foot, similar to the way he had been kissing hers. "My love ... Mark?" "Yeah?" "I know Hannah and Emily want to have a marriage ceremony with you soon." Mark paused. "That's almost true. A part of them wants to wait until Jada is free from Wobanakik. Jada keeps telling them not to wait for her. They're still talking about it." "Ah ... Yes ... Anyway..." Fatima took a deep breath. "Mark, can I join them?" Mark's sleepy eyes popped open. He turned and lay face to face with Fatima, trying to sense if she wanted to link. But Fatima wanted to remain in normal time, so Mark avoided direct eye contact. "I feel so happy," Mark whispered, "so incredibly fortunate." Fatima giggled. "Wow, that was easy! I never thought I'd propose to a man. I don't know what I would have done if you said no." Mark grinned. "Thrown me out of this bed I guess." "Oh, I'm still going to do that, but maybe not quite yet. It's okay with you, isn't it? I'd like to wait for a night after our wedding before I give you my virginity." Mark answered by embracing her. They shared a long, intimate kiss. With the room filled with the coolness and smells of the early spring, they caressed each other's bodies until they both drifted off into a light sleep. An hour later. Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 1:03 PM A hand was caressing Fatima's head. Fatima opened her eyes and saw her dear friend Husna smiling at her, her eyes sparkling with amusement. Fatima blinked. Before falling completely sleep, Mark had opened her bathrobe and exposed her breasts. He now had a warm hand cupped around her tit, and a fat brown nipple was poking out from the circle Mark's hand was making with its thumb and forefinger. Fatima linked with Husna. "It's not quite how it looks! We did not have sex, and we're engaged now!" "Congratulations! I wasn't judging you Fatima. The others are in the next room. We have good news! Hilton network control is starting to pick up a synchronization wave from Aggie's Leophone. It's trying to lock back into our network." Fatima's eyes went wide and she broke the mental link. She turned to her lover and began to shake him. "Hey Mark!" Five minutes later. It was such a fine day that after Mark and Fatima got dressed, their entire group of seven gathered in a circle on a huge picnic blanket just outside the house. In the center of the circle was Paige's Leophone on speakerphone. Akiko and Emily were giving them an update from the Hilton. "And it's trying again now." said Akiko. "This is very encouraging. Reset attempts are now occurring every thirty seconds." "Will it succeed?" asked Fatima. There was a pause. "Not this time," Akiko replied. "But soon I hope. It's an adaptive process. It learns a little each time it fails. Hey Lynn! Want to know something? I'm guessing the phone is having problems linking because of the modifications you did at system reset." "Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Thank God I didn't go further." Lynn was commenting from Wobanakik. She was sitting in the room her teammates would jokingly call the Manhattan Public Library, and under Akiko's guidance, Emily had duplicated several diagnostic feeds to Lynn's console Fatima asked, "Will one of you please explain what you're talking about?" "Lynn?" Akiko asked. "Yeah, okay. Hi Fatima. During our April 1st reset, I had the opportunity to shift the handshaking protocols on our network. The shift gives us extra protection, a warning buffer if another node tries to listen in on our communications. At the time, I didn't want the library consoles at Black Mall to be able to eavesdrop on us." "Oh yes, I remember the discussions now. You had my approval to make the change. But you're saying these changes have now locked out Aggie's phone?" Lynn sounded both contrite and exasperated in her reply. "It really shouldn't have. Her phone ID is already registered on our net. But somehow I think that's what happened ... Wait a minute!" Lynn sat back in her chair and thought for a moment. Then she added, "You know folks, this is a little strange. I don't think Aggie's Leophone has the ability to do the kind of probing we're seeing here." There was a pause, and then Akiko spoke up. "That's a good point Lynn. It's not the Leophone directly. It must be from a new subnet above the Leophone. That is strange." "What are you people talking about?" asked Fatima. Lynn replied. "So far all our Leophones have been on the same subnet, anywhere on the surface, in the malls, here in Wobanakik, where you are in the Bee Park, all the Leophones are on one subnet. The elevator and library consoles are our second subnet. But Aggie's phone now, I think it's linked to a third subnet, and her subnet is now trying to synch with our subnets." Fatima thought for a moment. "Can you put our subnets back the way they were?" "Uh..." Lynn thought for a moment and then replied sheepishly, "Not until another system reset. We would have to wait another 477 days." "Shit!" "But it's not that bad Fatima," Akiko said as she broke into the conversation. "The new subnet is now quite active with ours. They're probing each other. Aggie's subnet already has the right keys from her phone. It just has to insert the keys into our net in the proper way. Expect the two nets to synch in ... well, maybe ten minutes." The actual time was closer to seven. The triumphant voice of Aggie burst out of the network. "Yes! I'm registering a link! Can someone confirm?!" There was a brief round of cheers and expressions of affection, and then everyone settled back to listen to Aggie report. ------- Chapter 81 Top view of the top room of the hexagonal pyramid, showing the enclosed 3-m x 4-m carriage footprint. ------- Chapter 82 Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 12:54 PM "First off," Aggie reported, "I'm physically okay. I have all my gear and my two Leophones were the only things I had problems with." There was a short pause. "Akiko, is this right? My second phone is saying it's still not active?" "It's a network issue," came Akiko's reply from the Hilton. "It should self-correct soon." "Oh. Okay. Let me go on. I haven't met anybody yet. I'm in a building. I think it's a huge hexagonal pyramid. It boggles the imagination. Emily, Kiyoko, Suvarna, do you remember an elevator training lesson describing a broken-ring carriage-zone? That's what I think I'm in now." Akiko was absolutely astonished when Emily sitting by her side started to guffaw loudly. "That monstrosity?!" Emily yelled between laughs. "I thought that lesson was a joke!" Suvarna spoke up. "I don't remember that lesson at all." Emily's laughter was contagious. Suvarna paused and added in a deadpan voice, "It must have passed by while I was taking one of my afternoon naps." Kiyoko was sitting across from Fatima on the picnic blanket, and she saw a look of utter incredulity on her leader's face at how this conversation was progressing. Kiyoko decided to speak. "For those of you who don't realize it, Suvarna's last comment was a joke. I helped her study. Suvarna was an extremely diligent student. Regarding the missing lesson, Emily and I have compared some notes on our employment trainings. They were not identical. I have no memory of a broken-ring carriage-zone lesson either." "Aggie," Emily asked, "what's the color code for the transfer rooms? Tan and purple? And what's the prime number?" "Light tan floors and a creamy light purple carriage, just as the lesson described. And there are two tumblers in each carriage. The left dial has twenty-four positions and the right dial twenty-eight. See what I mean Emily? The tumblers are correct for it too." Emily worked and got her laughter under control. "Yeah, it all fits. So the total number of carriages is 24 x 28 + 1 equals... 673. Yep, that's a prime number. Aggie, I really do apologize for laughing. I'm truly sorry you're stuck in this insanity. You have the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack search to do before getting out of there." Aggie sigh was heavy enough for all to hear. "Yeah, it'll take a while. Thank God the rings are prime! It won't be too bad. Wish me luck." Fatima took a second to compose herself before speaking. She was feeling completely bewildered. "Aggie, before I ask you what the heck you two are talking about, are you in a safe location?" "Apologies Fatima. I will explain myself. And yeah, I'm safe enough I guess. I'm sitting in a lounge room on the twelfth level in one of the perimeter rooms. I'll explain what that means in a moment. The exterior walls of perimeter rooms have transparent walls and ceilings. I don't see any controls to change that. Outside there's a blowing snowstorm and it's a dark night." At the Manhattan Public Library, Abit turned around and looked at the butter yellow linear sunlight brightly illuminating their core hexagonal atrium. "That's interesting," she said over the bridge. "This is Abit speaking. Both of the artificial environments we've found so far have their daily cycle synchronized with the surface. Aggie, we're just past midday here at Wobanakik." "Yes I know, and it's the black night of a snowstorm in my environment. If I am still in synch with the surface time zone, perhaps my enclosure is simulating a polar latitude where there's still midnight sun. Mark, is there a spot on the planet that has 24-hour darkness now?" Mark answered as he sat by Fatima's side. "Sure. Except for the equinox days, that's always the case. Emily, do you have access to my geo-solar graphics package?" "I'm curious too ... pulling it up now. For today, everything below 52 degrees southern latitude is beyond the reach of the sun. But Aggie, we're making too many assumptions here. Let's wait twenty-four hours before deciding you're in a simulation without sunlight." "Yeah, okay. Let me get back to describing what this building is like. I entered at the top floor which I'm calling floor one, and I count up as I move down. You'll see why in a minute. The entire top floor was one square hexagonal room." Kiyoko asked hesitantly, "Uh, a square hexagonal room?" Aggie chuckled. "Yeah, that probably didn't make much sense, did it? The room has a hexagonal footprint but the walls are squares, four meters by four meters. Each room in this great building is a hexagon with four-meter sides and a four-meter high ceiling, that's what I'm guessing anyway. Each room is a fair amount of space, a generous size for a bedroom and I've found several. They're a bit larger than the bedrooms at the home complex. The six walls make the rooms interesting to be in." She chuckled again. "I really have to back up. The trapdoor has the standard three-meter by four-meter carriage of an elevator. When I got here, the carriage opened a three-meter side and I walked into the room opposite one of the six walls. The ceiling and all the walls were transparent. The elevator was in the geometric center of the room. The carriage was completely bare when I exited, and the room I entered was also bare. There was nothing but the elevator carriage in it. I noticed a small numeric display in the arch of the elevator door. It read 1:1. I reopened the carriage and that's when I saw the tumblers. Thank God! Without the tumblers, the room would have been my mausoleum, at least until the servos came out. I now think of the room as sort of an observation bubble." "And it's at the top of the pyramid you mentioned?" Emily asked. "Exactly. There are air vents on the floor and the usual servo access ports but no physical way for me to leave except through the carriage. I looked through all the windows. Below my hexagon on the next floor down were seven additional hexagons. They looked the same size as my room. One was directly below me, that one I assumed, and six hexagons forming a collar around the hexagon below me. Those were the six hexagons I could see by looking out the windows. You get the idea?" "Could you see more of the pyramid too?" asked Oona. "Hi Oona. No, I didn't have the visual angle for it. I'd have to be standing at the edge of a perimeter room on Floor-2 to see the collar rooms of Floor-3." Besides the excitement in Aggie's voice, Fatima thought she also heard considerable nervousness, and Fatima decided she had pressed Aggie a little too fiercely with her earlier language. She commented out loud, "You're giving us an excellent description Aggie." "Thanks! I'll do my best to keep this conversation serious Fatima, even though it does have an amusing aspect to it. This setup is so ... so ridiculous!" Aggie took a deep breath and continued. "At the top entrance room, I looked down through the transparent ceilings of the six hexagons. One of the rooms was a transfer room. I could see the carriage quite clearly. The other five rooms made a nice living area, a bedroom, a kitchen, a bath, a gym, and a lounge room. There were no doors visible. I strongly suspect all six collar rooms connect to the room they surround." "Fatima," Emily added, "In a carriage-zone, you can only move from one zone to another through a carriage. The zones are defined to be otherwise isolated from each other." She paused and asked quietly, "How many floors Aggie?" "I got very lucky and actually saw the answer on my 20th jump. From my previous jumps I decided that the first number on the elevator arch represents the floor number, and the second number is the zone number of the carriage. All my observations indicate that the zones are simply numbered from the top of the pyramid on down. And on my 20th jump, the code on the elevator arch read 36:647. I could see I was adjacent to a perimeter room. So I hiked over and could not see another collar further down, and that fits with the high carriage number. Thirty-six floors total Emily! Do you see the size of this place?" "Yeah, I think so," her friend replied. "I'm doing the numbers now." There was a very short pause. "On average, you'll have about seventy rooms per zone." "What?" asked Fatima in a whisper. She was struggling to keep her exasperation out of her voice. "Aggie, do you want me to explain for a bit?" asked Emily. "Sure. Thanks. Maybe we can both explain." "Great idea. Everybody, a carriage-zone is exactly what it sounds like, and in Aggie's case it's build around the prime number 673. Imagine 673 elevators where for each elevator, you can enter a code to jump to each of the remaining 672 elevators. That's what Aggie's two tumblers are allowing her to do, 24 x 28 = 672 permutations." "Let me describe this building," said Aggie. "I'm in a hexagonal pyramid of 36 floors. Each floor has its number of rooms equal to the number of rooms in the floor above it plus an additional collar of hexagons surrounding it. The formula is that the number of rooms on floor n + 1 equals the number of rooms on floor n plus a new collar of six n, and the top floor, floor 1, has one room. Get it? Floor 2 has 1 plus a collar of 6 equals 7 rooms, floor 3 has 7 plus a collar of 6 x 2 = 19 rooms, floor 4 has 19 plus a collar of 6 x 3 = 37 rooms, and so on." "There's also an interesting cubic relationship to the total number of rooms," added Emily. "The first two floors have a total of 8 rooms, the first three floors a total of 27, the first four floors a total of 64, and 36 floors means the entire pyramid has a total of 36 x 36 x 36 rooms. Wow!" "I know what that number is," commented Madison from the underground entrance rooms. "It's six to the sixth, 46,656. That's the number of meters in the length of Wobanakik, as near as our lasers can measure it. The builders of this place sure did like to play with the number six." "Aggie," asked Fatima, "This is all very interesting, but how do you get out?" "Well, the lesson described there would be one trapdoor entrance and one broken-ring exit. In one and only one elevator, one of the transport codes will take me out of the carriage-zone." "Out to where?" asked Fatima. "To tell you the truth, the lesson didn't say. But I'm pretty sure it would take me out of this pyramid." "I'm trying to understand this," said Fatima. She paused for a moment and then shuddered. "My gosh Emily! How could you be so callous?! How could you possibly laugh at Aggie's fate?! One combination of code and elevator, 672 times 673 possibilities! It will take her a lifetime to escape!" Emily felt mortified. "No, it's not that bad. What do you think Aggie? Three weeks as an expectation time for finding your way out?" "Wow, you think that fast? I was guessing six weeks for an average time, twelve if I'm unlucky, and today if I hit the jackpot." "Ah," replied Emily. "I think you're forgetting a nice factor of two that works in your favor." "Really? Great. Emily, before you tell me, do you want to explain the broken-ring system to everyone?" "Gladly. Everyone, remember the tumblers Aggie described, 24 x 28 positions? That's 672 possible codes. But a tumbler code does not specify a fixed destination. It's the combination of the origination carriage ID with the tumbler code that determines the destination carriage. I'll give you an example. Pick tumbler code 300. From any originating elevator, keep that tumbler code constant and jump 672 times. In your journey you will reach all the other 672 destination elevators, just as all tumbler codes from the same origination elevator will reach all 672 destinations." A light dawned in Madison's mind. "And if you jump the same tumbler code 673 times, you get back to where you started?" "Very good Maddy. And that's the beauty of the system and why it's not a lifetime of work for Aggie to escape. It's also critical that the total number of carriages is a prime number. Imagine a circular ring of n elevators, where n is a prime number, and you can travel the ring clockwise in jumps of one node, two nodes, etc., all the way up to n - 1 nodes per jump. Because n is a prime number, the jumps never collide. You'll never have two elevators using the same code to get to the same destination. That's true because the tumbler code represents the step size of your jump along the ring." "I'll give you an example. Imagine six codes and a set of elevators numbered one to seven. Code 1 gives you the ring 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1, code 2 gives 1-3-5-7-2-4-6-1, and code 3 gives 1-4-7-3-6-2-5-1. Code 4 means four jumps up which in modulo 7 is the same as three jumps backwards. Code 4 is code 3 in the opposite direction. Jumping code 4 means going from 1 to 5 to 2 to 6 and so on. Code 5 is code 2 in the opposite direction, and code 6 is the opposite of code 1, counting back by 1. Because seven is a prime number, the six rings never collide." "But how do you get out?" asked Madison. "Because there's an exception," said Aggie. "One of the rings is broken. Using Emily's example, imagine the broken ring is code 2. Instead of 1-3-5-7-2-4-6-1, the actual jump pattern is 1-3-5-7-2-4-0 and 6-1, where zero is the exit carriage outside the zone. Code 2 in elevator 4 jumps me out." "And you don't know to where?" asked Fatima. "No," replied Aggie. "But here's the good part about all this. The missing people from Party #4 would not know how or why to search for the broken-ring. I'm almost certain they are still in this pyramid, and I'm very hopeful they're maintaining a presence in the transfer room of their zone. All I have to do is stick with a fixed tumbler code and start jumping. I should find them in less than an hour." Fatima blinked. "That fast?!" "Yeah, I think so, unless I'm very unlucky and leave here because I picked the tumbler code for the broken ring. There's a very small chance of that happening, one in 672, and even if I do, I have a 50% chance of finding them before I jump the broken link in the ring." Aggie paused to take a deep breath and then continued. "The elevator door travels at one meter per second, three seconds to open, three seconds to close. I can push the close button as the door starts to open and grab the door if I change my mind. Otherwise I'll jump every six seconds. At ten jumps a minutes, I'm estimating 68 minutes for 673 jumps. I'm assuming I can exhaustively test eight tumbler codes per day. If I'm doing this solo, I estimate twelve weeks to test everything, six weeks with average luck to find the broken ring." "Aggie," said Emily. "I mentioned earlier a nice factor of two. Remember how in my example you picked the broken ring to be 1-3-5-7-2-4-0 and 6-1? That means carriage 6 can only be reached by five codes, and not from carriage 4. All the other carriages can be reached by six codes." "Uh, yeah, that right." "Aggie! You know where carriage 6 is! It's the entrance carriage at the top of your pyramid! Don't you remember the lesson? On the broken ring, the entrance into the zone and the exit out of the zone are a matched pair of carriages." "Yes, I remember now! I just never realized the implications. The entrance conduit fills the other half of the broken link. The broken ring will not jump to the entrance carriage. So if I'm testing a tumbler code and I arrive at the top floor, I know my tumbler code is not the broken ring." Emily nodded. "That's right. So on average, you'll be testing 50% of each tumbler code before you arrive at the top floor and realize you're on an unbroken ring. What you should do then is make one more jump with the old code and then pick a new ring code to test." Aggie smiled as she sat in her lounge chair. "Right, make one more jump, because otherwise if I pick a new tumbler code from the top carriage, I'm guaranteed to make 673 jumps to either to return to the top carriage or exit the system on my last jump. I lose my nice factor of two if I start my search from the top carriage. So, 34 minutes of searching per ring, maybe 16 rings per day, yeah, in three weeks, I can search 336 of the 673 rings. Yeah ... Fatima, this really isn't so bad. If all eighteen people here were searching in the right way, it would only take us a couple of days. We could divide the tumbler codes into segments." Emily added a suggestion. "Maybe give everybody a unique position on the first tumbler to start things off." She then switched topics. "Aggie, I should tell you the results of our Plan-C testing." "Yeah. I was wondering why I didn't see Cassidy's red letter." Emily then went on to explain the results of their testing with Cassidy's Leophone. "Interesting," commented Aggie when Emily was finished. "I wonder if my exit link will take me to where the missing phones are. There'd be a certain elegance to the topology if it did." Cassidy spoke up. "Aggie, I'm very prepared and willing to hike back to the trapdoor and join you. I can help you search too. Just tell me how to find you after I get to the top of the pyramid." "Uh, I appreciate that Cassie, but why don't you hold up a bit? The only way to send goods through to here is for a person to come with them. I might decide I need something. You can bring it with you later." Fatima felt torn. Aggie's point was excellent, but still... "Aggie, are you really comfortable about exploring the pyramid alone?" "I am Fatima. And I can see my second Leophone has just activated. I'm going to start my search now. I'll keep both lines open. Hopefully I'll find Party #4 within the hour. If I make a full loop and find nothing, maybe Cassidy could join me then." Fatima agreed, and with numerous people cheering her on, Aggie got up and headed for the carriage numbered 12:28. ------- Chapter 83 Status check: Current position (and original Party affiliation) of the human species (six men and seventy-six women). Manhattan, Wobanakik: Jada(1), Thara(2), Oona(2), Abit(2), Lynn(5), Mandy(5), Charles(5) (All unboosted) Entrance Rooms, Wobanakik: Madison(1), Sandra(2), Amy(2), Margaret(2), Sachi(2), Parni(2) (All unboosted) Bee Park, an environmental enclosure inside the Black Mall diamond complex: Three members of senior Boost Team 4, arrived at Bee Park May 8, 2019: Fatima(1), Husna(1), Kiyoko(5). Three members of junior Boost Team 5 and certified medical technicians, arrived at Bee Park May 12, 2019: Lucia(1), Tajana(2), and Paige(5). Graduate of original Boost Team Zero: Mark(1), first arrived at Bee Park January 17, 2019. At the White Mall home library, in charge of supplying the Wobanakik entrance rooms, the three graduates of Boost Team 3: Suvarna(2), Carla(2), Tom(5) At the Green Mall home library, having returned from their mission to the Green Mall trapdoor: Two graduates of Boost Team 2: Ann(5), Cassidy(5). Graduate of Boost Team 1: Hannah(1). Also present: Graduate of Boost Team Zero: Frida(5) Wandering the hexagonal pyramid: The assumed 17 lost members of Party #4, plus Graduate of Boost Team 2: Aggie(4). The seven lost members of Party #6 (Yellow Mall): location(s) unknown The seventeen lost members of Party #3: (Blue Mall): location(s) unknown. The combined lost parties of Blue and Yellow Malls consist of one man and twenty-three women. The three additional members of Party #5, currently in the Black Mall surface area: Jessica, Ricardo, Diego. At the Black Mall home library, on duty as backup for the Boost Teams: Boost Team Zero graduate Toshi(5), Boost Team 1 graduate Holly(5) At the Hilton Conference Center, the terminal store of the Green Mall spiral: Boost Team 1 graduate Emily(1), and the remaining six (unboosted) members of Society: Ashley(1), Akiko(1), Alison(5), Heather(5), Whitney(5), Amber(5) Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 1:18 PM Everyone in the Society was on the network and listening to Aggie's progress. They were waiting for her to report she was back in her zone's transfer room on floor 12. At the Bee Park, Fatima suddenly felt Mark stiffen beside her. "You okay?" she asked quietly. "Holy, holy shit!" Mark whispered in reply. Fatima turned and looked at him. He was grinning broadly and he stood up. "Fatima!" he announced. "I need to get to a computer! I need a computer right now!" Fatima nodded and said playfully. "Well, go get one tiger!" She decided not to bother to ask for an explanation. Mark seemed so desperately eager to go. "We'll be here for you Mark," Holly confirmed over the bridge. It would be no problem for Mark to get back to the Black Mall library. There was a mushroom lock at the top of the towering stairwell that would allow him to exit the Bee Park enclosure, and later the door out of the diamond complex was exit-only which was the direction he was going. The only assistance he would need would be for Toshi or Holly to open the vestibule door and let him into Black Mall's home complex. Mark would ask for help with his Leophone for that. He stayed on the phone as he ran across the park. "Aggie, you haven't started jumping yet, have you?" "No, I took a small detour. I was passing by a kitchen. It's very encouraging. It's full of food but there are also small amounts missing." Less than a minute later Mark was out of the Bee Park simulation and dashing across the short series of entrance rooms on his way to the staircase. Meanwhile Aggie completed her walk to the transfer room. She opened the elevator door and entered the carriage. Her search for the lost members of Party #4 was about to begin. "Hi Mark. I'm just about to start. I'm staring at the tumblers now." "The jump codes, the 672 possibilities, are they digital?" he huffed back. "Sort of. They're discrete, but it's not a digital display. The tumblers are analog-style dials, what you would find on the face of an old safe. The left dial uses the letters A through X, and the right dial uses the numbers 1 through 28. Both dials have a bright chrome finish with sharp engraved black lettering, and there's a raised knob in the middle for turning the tumbler. They feel very-well machined, typical Kappa Alpha technology. They spin silently, but there's a definite tactile click when I change codes. I can feel it." By this time Mark was starting his race up the 1296 stairs to the surface. "Great," he replied to Aggie's description. Aggie could sense something was up. "You've got an idea?" "Yeah. This is so cool!" "Any particular tumbler pattern you want me to try?" "Uh ... No, pick anything," Mark said in a gasp as he ran up the stairs two at a time. Then he slowed down a bit, deciding he had to pace himself. "It's not the tumbler pattern. It's the order of the zones that's important. Emily! Aggie! Aggie, can you call out the carriage numbers as the doors open? And Emily, can you record them? The floor numbers too if you want Aggie, but it's the carriage numbers that are critical." "Sure Mark. I can do that," replied Aggie. "Sounds like a very good idea," added Emily. "It's an absolutely brilliant idea," Mark countered joyously. He laughed as he ran. "Oh, this is going to be so neat!" "You got it," said Aggie. "I've set the tumblers to A-1, pressing the close button now from carriage 28, floor 12." A few seconds later she added, "I'm on the bottom floor again, floor 36. The carriage number is 635. I'm facing a blank wall, poking my head out. Hello?" she called out in a loud voice. A few seconds of silence went by. "I didn't get any answer. Mark? I don't see a doorway on my three sides of the transfer room. Do you think I should walk around, maybe shout through a doorway?" "One second..." He slowed down his run so he could talk more easily. "No. Actually I'd like to suggest we postpone the search for Party #4. Aggie, will you just keep jumping the A-1 code? I mean all the way back to carriage 28. Just keep calling out the carriage numbers. The order will be fabulously useful." "Yeah? Okay, sure. This will take me sixty-eight minutes if I speed jump and do nothing else. I'll stop of course if I see people." "Of course. This is great Aggie, thanks. I'll be in the Black Mall library long before you finish the full ring. Emily, pipe me the data as it comes in, okay?" "It'll be waiting for you," she replied. "Thanks!" "Here I go then," added Aggie. "I'm pressing the jump button now ... New carriage is 208, floor 25 ... New carriage is 245, floor 26 ... New carriage is 98, floor 19 ... New carriage is 536, floor 34 ... Carriage 347, floor 29..." Every six seconds, Aggie was calling out a new report. "Carriage 600, floor 35..." Seventy minutes later. Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 2:31 PM Aggie was counting off the few remaining jumps on her unbroken ring. "Carriage 407, floor 31." The last hour had been very discouraging. "Carriage 507, floor 33." No trace of the missing members of Party #4 had been found. "Carriage 346, floor 29." And the views out of the elevator in all the different transfer rooms had revealed very little. "Carriage 239, floor 26". On the top half of the floors, transfer rooms were always in perimeter rooms. "Carriage 150, floor 22." The views always faced outward, showing the dark snowstorm. "Carriage 348, floor 29." And Aggie at this very moment in carriage 348 was exactly one hundred jumps from the entrance room at the top of the pyramid. "Carriage 340, still floor 29." She knew tumbler code A-1 was not the exit code. "Carriage 228, floor 25." And as for the transfer rooms below floor 18, they were almost always showing her the blank wall of an interior transfer room. "Carriage 218, floor 25." Aggie would have had to walk around to the opposite side of the room to see the exit. "Carriage 418, floor 31." "One more jump to go," said Emily in a gentle voice. "Tranquility base here," Aggie replied, trying to crack a weak joke. "The eagle has landed at carriage 28, floor 12. Happy Mark?" "Yes, happy Mark?" added Emily from the Hilton. "I've sent you all the data." He replied in a very friendly tone of voice from the Black Mall library. "Extremely happy. Emily, I'm sending you some computer code in return, and Aggie, you have just given me the key that unlocks the pyramid." "I'm very glad to hear it," she replied. "I'm also glad one of us is happy. I'm feeling a bit discouraged." "Ah, sweet Aggie, I think I can cheer you up. Ready for a few more jumps?" "Sure. Want me to pick a new tumbler code?" "Yes please. It doesn't matter much which one. Just pick a progression that will be easy for you to follow." "You got it. Tumblers are now set to A-2." "An excellent choice. You may fire when ready." "Right," Aggie commented dryly. A few seconds passed. "I'm now at carriage zone 154, floor 22." A moment passed. "Want me to jump again?" "Not right now. Just hold your position for a moment ... Aggie, Emily, I've laid out the complete path of the journey on tumbler code A-1 on a circular ring. I'm calling that the base ring, with its origin node at carriage 1. Code A-1 makes unit jumps along the base ring, node to adjacent node, that's the way I'm defining the base ring. Your previous carriage Aggie, number 28, was 105 jumps from the origin node on the base ring." "Okay," replied Aggie. "I'm following this." "Now, here's the really good part!" said Mark laughing. Your current carriage zone of 154 is at position 608 on the base ring. You did that in one jump, moving from position 105 on the base ring to position 608 on the base ring. Therefore tumbler code A-2 had a jump size on the base ring of plus 503." There was stone silence on the bridge for a moment, and then Emily called out loudly from the Hilton. "My God, my God! I feel like such an idiot!" Mark continued. "The next jump of 503 steps will put you at position 438 on the base ring, which corresponds to physical carriage 287. Try it Aggie." A few seconds later, "It's just as you said. I'm at carriage 287, floor 27." Emily interjected. "Mark, I want you to know I bear you no ill will for showing that I belong in mathematical kindergarten." Aggie spoke up from her carriage. "Emily, if this is putting you back in kindergarten, where is it leaving me? I still don't get it." "People around me, beware!" said Mark laughing. "I'm going to be insufferably pleased with myself for at least the next few hours!" He then got serious. "Aggie, I know your entire path on tumbler code A-2. You're actually not that far from testing whether A-2 is the code for the broken ring. If you jump that code 57 times from your current position, you'll be at position 170 on the base ring which is physical carriage number 615 on the 35th floor. The next A-2 jump will be crucial, because 170 + 503 is 673 which means you will be jumping to the origin of the base ring. Get it? You'll either be at the top of the pyramid or out of it." "Oh my gosh! Yes, now I get it. Emily, mathematical nursery school for me! Mark, you can get me to position 170 on the base ring a lot faster than 57 jumps, can't you?" "Yep!" A few seconds of silence passed by. "Uh, Aggie, maybe not. Our known jump sizes on the base ring are 1 and 503, and we're not at a good spot to get to base ring position 170 quickly. Four jumps forward with 503 is the same as seven unit jumps backwards. Without lots of jumps, I'm locked into four regions of the base ring, and none of them is near the region below 170. But the important thing is we know that the A-2 jump size is 503, and we can test A-2 later when we can get to base ring position 170 easily. What we need now are more options for our jump size. So pick and jump another code." "Okay! Tumblers set for A-3. Jumping now ... I'm at carriage 137, floor 21." A few seconds passed and then Mark said, "Which is position 572 on the base ring, and you moved from ring position 438, so the base ring jump size for A-3 is 134 ... Hey, really?!" Aggie replied with a laugh. "Mark, would I lie about a thing like this?" "No, I mean this is great! Aggie, jump code A-3 two more times. That will get you to physical carriage 547, floor 34." A moment later Aggie replied. "Done. I'm here." "Aggie, you're also at base ring position 167. Set jump code to A-1 and" "And jump three times! I get it!" A half a minute passed before Aggie added, "Resetting tumblers now to A-2 and jumping again ... And it worked! I'm at the top of the pyramid! So code A-2 is not the broken ring! Hey Mark, this is great! So big guy, what's next?" "Uh..." Emily spoke up from the Hilton. "Mark, if I may be allowed to knock you off your high horse just a little, the right way to proceed is to postpone testing for broken rings until we can proceed more efficiently. We should concentrate on learning the jump sizes for the tumbler codes, all of them." Aggie answered first. "Yes, I see it. It's obvious. I'll click the code and jump, click the code and jump. I'll tell you the physical carriage number, and you guys can convert it to movement on the base ring. I can probably do this almost as fast as pure speed jumping with the same code." "I see it too," added Mark. "Great thinking Emily. Everybody, Aggie is going to find the complete mapping of tumbler jump codes to step size on the base ring. Then we can rapidly test the rings. Imagine two jump codes alpha and beta whose sum of jump sizes on the base ring add to 673. From the top of the pyramid, you jump with code alpha and then with code beta. You're either back at the top of the pyramid or out on the broken link. If you're back at the top, you then jump first with code beta and then with alpha. You will have tested two codes with four jumps. What do you think Aggie? Thirty seconds?" "Yeah, good guess." "And there are a total of 336 pairs of codes. And once we have the jump code mapping, we start eliminating them at two pairs a minute, so figure three hours, and with another seventy minutes to get the jump map..." Mark looked at the time. "Aggie, we can get you out of there by 7 PM tonight, even if the broken ring is on the very last remaining tumbler code." "I'm set to jump," replied Aggie from the top of the pyramid. "Just one question Mark. I take it you're not too surprised that I haven't seen anybody?" "No, not too surprised." "I was. Why do you think the people aren't here?" "Oh, I think you've found them Aggie. And if we were doing this back in December, I bet you would already be talking to them. But we've been on this planet for almost fourteen weeks. The people from your Party probably have been in the pyramid for almost as long. Fourteen weeks Aggie! I wouldn't be surprised if they gave up watching the boring doors a long time ago." "Uh ... Yeah, good point. I didn't think of that. So what's my mission? If I'm testing for broken rings so efficiently, I'll be out of here before I find them." "Aggie, that's exactly what I'm hoping for," answered Mark. "Huh?!" "Think it through Aggie. Let's figure out how to rescue these folks before we try to do it. For all we know, the broken ring might lead to a spot where..." Mark suddenly felt very uncomfortable. "Well, to where it's not a good spot to be. I know I'm being very blunt, but I think you need to be a pathfinder Aggie. Concentrate on finding your way back home. Then we can return to the pyramid in confidence and in group force and offer Party #4 a clear solution to their imprisonment." There was a short pause. "I agree entirely," Aggie finally replied. "Setting tumbler code to A-4 and jumping from the physical carriage 1, base ring position zero ... I'm at carriage 300 now. The floor is 28, but you already know that. I won't report the floor numbers anymore." "I have the data too," said Emily, "and Mark sent me his reverse lookup code. Aggie, your position on the base ring is 387. I'm logging A-4 jump size as 387." "Clicking to A-5 and jumping..." said Aggie. "Carriage 312." Akiko and Alison linked for a moment, and then Akiko said, "Emily, Mark, why don't you guys take a break? You deserve it. Alison and I see how to run the lookup code. We understand this very well. We will log the jump sizes and check each other's work." Alison spoke up. "Base ring position is now 348. Logging A-5 jump size as 634." "Clicking to A-6," replied Aggie. "Carriage 641." "Ring position is 43," replied Akiko. "A-6 jump size is 368." "Clicking to A-7," continued Aggie. She settled into working with Akiko and Alison and soon the three women became a very competent and diligent team. Aggie was on her way home. A few minutes later Mark and Emily shared an affectionate hug at the Hilton, and then they got on another line and started chatting with Fatima back at the Bee Park. Fatima spoke up. "Mark, mind if I pick your brain for a while?" Emily added. "Yeah, me too Mark." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I want to know how your mind works too." "Go ahead Fatima," Mark said as he squeezed Emily's waist. "The original problem, 672 by 673 possibilities, it's been reduced to an almost trivial search. How did you see how to do this?" "Well, Emily's example of seven elevators was the key. Remember she had a base ring of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1? That was her code 1." "Yes, I remember." "And code 3 was 1-4-7-3-6-2-5-1. I got to thinking, what if this series was the base ring, the true code 1. Then code 2, making two unit jumps on this base ring would yield 1-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. But that code was the old code 6. Do you see what's going on? Knowing the order of any complete jump code gives you a tremendous amount of information." He returned another kiss from Emily and then continued. "How many ways can you order seven elevators on a clockwise ring? The first placement is arbitrary. It just sets the origin. Then there are six possibilities of what comes next, then five possibilities of what comes next, and so on, and the answer is six factorial, 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2." "But any ring sequence and the associated rings of the larger-size jump codes, two to n minus one, form complete ring sets in the mathematical space. Each ring in the set of six has the same topology as the five others. Any of the six rings can act as the base ring for the other five. So knowing one complete path divides the six factorial option space by five factorial. There are only six rings left." Mark shared another kiss with Emily. "And that's what happened in Aggie's carriage zone puzzle. This is a great example of how a little thinking can save you a huge amount of brute-force searching. The original number of possibilities for the ordering a ring of 673 elevators was huge, 762 factorial, but the complete path on one tumbler code reduced the original possibilities by 761 factorial, leaving a single set of 762 rings. There are two base rings in this set where the entrance and exit nodes will indeed be adjacent, a clockwise and counter-clockwise pair. But it doesn't matter. All these rings are topologically equivalent. My breakthrough came when ... well, when I realized this." Fatima nodded. "Got it. Thank you for a tour of your mind." She paused and then changed topics. "Where do you think this pyramid is?" "I've been worrying about that too," whispered Emily. "Four meters by 36 floors, we'd see it on the skyline if it were anywhere on the surface around here. Plus there's the fact of the dark night and the snowstorm. What do you think Mark?" "Well, the pyramid's footprint would be a little too large for an enclosure at Black Mall's diamond complex, unless maybe one enclosure goes much further down and then widens at the base. Remember the diamond complex is not over Wobanakik. There's physical room for it." "Or the pyramid could be contained in White Mall's diamond complex," countered Emily. "We've never found a way inside. It seems to be one big structure, more than enough room." She felt Mark shudder in her arms. "Oh Aggie," Mark whispered. "Come home safe! I tried to keep the worry out of my voice when I was talking with her, but I really want her back home. Given what we know about jump technology, she might even be on a different planet now." ------- Chapter 84 One hour later. Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 3:49 PM Tom and Carla were riding stair buggies around the second floor perimeter of the White Mall diamond complex, finishing their scheduled afternoon mission of supplying the Wobanakik entrance rooms. They had their five-speed buggies set to the middle gear, three meters per second, and the journey from the top of the pit of the great stairwell to the White Mall lounge would take fifteen minutes. Behind their buggies four more unmanned buggies were obediently following them. After their April escape from Wobanakik, Tom and Carla looked for multiple ways to be useful in their new society, and one of the things they did was to spend their evening hours together at the Hilton, using the mall remote monitoring system and diligently probing the many stores for hidden treasure. The last day in April, four days before they would leave for their eight-day stay at the Bee Park, they make a great discovery. Their target was Speedo's Stair Assist, a small 10-meter-long store situated near the 22 km spiral mark on Yellow Brick Road. The quickest way to reach it was from the Yellow Mall sky bridge, and after a bit of puzzle time at the store, they realized they had found something fabulous, six programmable carts that could climb stairs. The carts were a marvel and used a technology neither Tom nor Carla thought came from Earth. A dense array of almost a million tiny rods formed the bottom of each cart, and the rods would flow up and down and conform to the contour of the terrain underneath. What powered the horizontal motion was unclear. With a maximum capacity of 150 kg and maximum cruise speed of 5 m/s, the buggies were ideal for supplying the Wobanakik entrance rooms. In their middle gear, they would climb or descend the great stairwell to Wobanakik in less than nineteen minutes. Riders were still needed of course. The buggies could not manage the passage through the bottom elevator, but with just a little help the set of six allowed two people to deliver 600 kg of cargo to the entrance rooms in about ninety minutes round trip as measured from the White Mall lounge, and that included over twenty minutes to unload once the buggies were on the other side of the entrance elevator. Sandra and her folks below were still singing praises about Tom and Carla whenever they were on the network. The buggy rides were interesting, super smooth with linear travel but with sharp accelerations in the curves. It took a little getting used to, riding the buggies at their top speed, and unless they were in a hurry, Tom and Carla limited their velocity to 3 m/s. They had popped out of the great stairwell five minutes ago, and after a quick climb to the second level began the final leg of their journey, orbiting the perimeter of the White Mall diamond complex. "Ten minutes Suvarna," Tom called out into his Leophone. "We're right on schedule." He, Carla and Suvarna were on a private line. "Hi Tom," Suvarna replied. "I'm in the kitchen starting dinner. Be nice to have you back. Transfer go okay?" "Yep. Everything's fine. Our four empty chicks are tagging right behind us." "Tom!" Carla called out behind him. "Did you just call me a duck?" "I'll get back to cooking," laughed Suvarna. "See you in a bit." She would be opening the vestibule door for them when they arrived. Tom stared at the outside scenery for a moment. The past two months of spring had been lovely weather, with warm days now but the short nights were still delightfully cool. Tom thought it was a fabulously nice climate. The only unknown now was how hot the summers would get. The summer solstice was fifteen days away, and at their latitude the sun would not set on that day. Tom called out to Carla behind him, "You've had a busy day today. Want a massage tonight?" "A back rub would be nice, yeah. Thanks." Carla paused for a second. "It really wasn't a hard day physically, just a stressful one. The walk to Green Mall's trapdoor was a stroll in the spring sunshine, and riding these carts is like being on an amusement ride. I just wish I could have talked Fatima into letting me go with Aggie. It's not fair for Aggie to be facing this danger alone." "Yeah, I know. I understand Fatima's point, but yeah..." Tom took a deep breath. "On the call today, once we have a clear understanding of how to get back, Fatima seemed receptive to Mark's idea of returning to the pyramid in force." "God, I hope so." "I'd like to go with you Carla." "Really? Thanks Tom, much appreciated. I can't think of anybody I'd rather have by my side." Carla leaned back in her buggy and sighed, hanging on just a bit as her cart made a sharp sixty-degree turn to travel the next 100-meter hexagonal segment. After the turn, Tom punched his phone to mute and then switched lines to listen to Aggie's progress. Her voice came through loud and clear every six seconds. "V-17, 254, wall ... V-18, 197, door ... V-19, 174, wall..." Aggie's routine had evolved to optimum efficiency over the last hour, supported now by everyone at the Hilton. Whitney and Amber were logging Aggie's report and verifying each other's work. Akiko, Emily, and Alison were running the reverse lookups on the base ring and computing the tumbler jump sizes. They were currently running about fifty jumps behind Aggie, but the lookup delay didn't matter, just the quality of their work. And finally, Heather and Ashley were looking at the data of what Aggie was seeing as the elevator opened. No wonder she hadn't found anybody yet. The group's model for the transfer rooms was that all 91 carriage rooms on the 18th floor and above were in perimeter rooms with the carriages facing the transparent walls. For the 19th floor and below, the other 582 carriages were always NOT in a perimeter room, and five times out of six the carriage would face a blank wall. Carriage orientation seemed random within the rooms and all the transfer rooms that Aggie had investigated had one exit. Five times out of six, that exit was a closed door, and the typical Kappa Alpha door was absolutely soundproof. Even in the rare times Aggie's door opened to an arch, she thought she had a small chance of being heard. Kappa Alpha environments had a strong tendency to deaden sounds from other rooms. Aggie found all this information encouraging. Her missing Party was here! She knew it. They were just going to be hard to find, that's all. Aggie was optimistic. Aggie was psyched. Aggie also had to go the bathroom. "V-23, 169, wall ... V-24, 146, wall..." After each jump she was calling out the new tumbler code, the physical carriage of where the new jump had carried her, and what she saw through the open portal. "V-25, 60, transparent perimeter wall." She had trained herself to always click the new code before pushing the close button on the elevator. "V-26, 133, wall." Aggie had learned that lesson the first hour she was here. "V-27, 565, wall." Pushing the elevator close button locked the tumbler code. "V-28, 5, transparent wall and stop." There were a few seconds of silence on the bridge. "And stop?" asked Amber. "You see something?" "Just the usual darkness and swirling snowflakes," Aggie replied with a yawn. "Wow. I feel a bit tired. I also need to find a restroom." "That's a great idea," Akiko said. "Take your time Aggie. It'll give us a chance to catch up with the jump-size computations." Another yawn from Aggie. "Yeah. Thanks Akiko." Emily spoke a gentle warning. "Aggie, you're on the last floor with one zone and carriage. Floor six has two zones. Floor 5 should have 61 rooms. That's enough to get lost in, especially if you lose your orientation." "Yeah, that's for the warning. But I really need to find a bathroom. I'll try to keep my motion linear." But that proved to be difficult. The openings in the honeycomb of rooms did not align. Every room she visited had doors on three of the six walls, but the doors were never opposite each other. After sixteen rooms (not counting the transfer room), Aggie considered just relieving herself on the floor and letting the servos handle her mess, but then the seventeenth hexagon turned out to be a bathroom. Aggie had to laugh at what she saw inside. In some sense, the room didn't have an inside. It was an extremely open bathroom even by the typical Kappa Alpha lack of concern for privacy. It was a very functional bathroom to be sure, a few toilets and sinks and a shower area designed for two people. But it was also a perimeter room, and on a corner of the collar ring. The room had with three exterior walls and a transparent ceiling. And the modesty walls of the toilets were insanely short. They formed a short skirt that shielded her hips as she sat on the toilet and little else. Aggie could easily have an eye-to-eye conversation with a person in the next stall if it were occupied. And people in the perimeter rooms above on Floor 4 would have a great view of her anywhere in the bathroom. Aggie turned around and gazed at the rooms above. They were dark, which was typical of perimeter rooms but not interior rooms. On the perimeter, low level lighting would activate only when she was about to enter the room. It was adequate to see everything but noticeably dimmer than the bathrooms at the home complexes. There was compensation though for the low lighting. It made the snowstorm very easy to see. Aggie didn't bother to close the short door on her stall. She just plunked her two backpacks down outside and breathed a big sigh of relief as she drained her bladder. She sat for a while, her pants at her ankles, and just watched the snowstorm for a while. The night wind was very brisk and the swirling snow soothing to watch. Aggie felt herself relaxing and decided to do a bowel movement too. Perhaps the Kappa Alpha builders weren't so insane after all with their glass bathroom. It felt kind of nice, emptying her bowels in a clean, quiet, and dimly lit bathroom, warm and dry and surrounded by blowing snow. Aggie felt her mind was at peace when she finally stood up and cleaned her bottom. She shook her two canteens and decided she would refill both of them before leaving the room. She was then a bit startled when Emily's voice came from her Leophone. "We're all caught up now Aggie, and we also followed your lead and did our restroom breaks. We're ready top resume when you are. If you're curious, the jump size for V-28 was 434." "Ah." Aggie sighed as she switched mental gears and prepared to get back to work. Pants up and zipped, all that was left was to get some water from the sink and she would be ready to go. "How long have I been on break?" she asked. "About ten minutes. There's no rush. You want to rest for a while?" "No, I'm okay. The night scene outside is lovely. It's making me a bit sleepy. I think I'll sleep very well tonight." "Yeah, I can imagine," Emily replied. "Find your bathroom okay?" "Yes. It's on the perimeter, very open. I didn't like it at first, but I do now." Aggie laughed. "I'm being serious! Taking a crap on a warm toilet in the middle of a snowstorm is kind of nice!" Emily laughed back. "I'll take your word for it." After a short pause she added, "Was it tricky to find the bathroom?" "No, just a bit long, seventeen rooms from the carriage I think." "You think? You didn't count?" "Well, I always chose the door on my left when I had a room with more than two doors in it. Now I'll just walk back and choose the doors on my right." After filling her canteens, Aggie returned directly to the transfer room, not bothering to explore the silent zone of rooms. That work would come later. A few minutes later she said, "Okay, I'm back at the carriage. Hey Mark! You still around?" A few seconds of silence followed, and then, "Oh, I'm here. I had myself on mute." "Mark, since I started jumping the different tumbler codes, this is the third time I've hit carriage 5. There were other numbers I'm hitting a lot too. I'm sure of it. Is that what you would expect?" "That sounds completely reasonable. For how we're doing the jumps now, we're not going to hit every zone. I would guess we'll miss, I don't know, a third to a half of them maybe, miss less than a half I think. And that means we'll hit other carriages multiple times. I'll pull up the complete distribution for you after the X-28 jump. Hey Aggie?" "Yeah?" "I just remembered something. The Leophones are programmable. Once you finish with X-28, I can download the base ring and the complete tumbler jump vector into your phones. It's a trivial amount of data and it'll just take a moment to translate the programs to run on the phone. Then you can run the jump program locally if you need to. Just type in the origination and destination carriage numbers, and the phone will display the appropriate tumbler code." "Wow, that's great! Thanks Mark." "Yeah, just as a backup. It'll be good insurance. If you want to test a ring, whatever carriage you're in, just set the destination to the top of the pyramid and if you get there, your tumbler code is not the broken ring." "Yeah, I get it. And it's time to get back to work. Tumblers clicked to W-1 and closing from zone 5 ... New physical carriage is 248 and I see a wall ... W-2, 172, door ... W-3, 615, wall..." Aggie could feel the eagerness rising in her as she worked. "W-4, 467, wall..." The W and the X series were the final two sets of codes. "W-5, 193, wall..." Would she really be home by 7 o'clock tonight? "W-6, 506, wall..." Arriving to a sun-filled late-spring evening would feel so strange after spending so much time in a dark night's snowstorm. "W-7, 259, door..." Aggie remembered an old saying as she jumped. "W-8, 599, wall..." Home is where the heart is. "W-9, 151, wall..." Home was where she was loved. "W-10, 530, wall." Home! "W-11, 113, wall..." Aggie realized she wanted to go back. "W-12, 484, wall..." And she was working to do just that. Five minutes later. "Clicking to X-28, and ... a door. Ta-da! Want to guess where I am Emily? I'll give you a hint if you want." Aggie heard her friend laughing. "I'll take a wild guess," giggled Emily, "and say you're at the bottom of the barrel at carriage 673." "My gosh, that was incredible! That's exactly right!" Emily was laughing loudly. "I have a confession. We were keeping up with you on the reverse lookups. The only remaining possibility for the last jump size was 179, and your last jump was from base ring position 529, so you had to be at ring position 35 which is physical carriage 673." "Oh ... You know it feels kind of spooky, that I started at carriage 1 and ended at 673. Why was that Mark?" "A complete fluke," he replied. "Remember you started your journey clicking A-3. Your trip didn't include A-1 and A-2, and regardless, finishing in the last physical zone is a complete fluke. Aggie?" "Yeah?" "The jump program will be in your phone in just a few seconds. While we're waiting, I also pulled up the density distribution we talked about. You hit 242 zones once, 132 zones twice, 32 zones three times, twelve zones four times, and four zones five times. And that means there were 251 zones you didn't hit at all. Did you notice that you never returned to zone one?" "I sure did. A-1 and A-2 are still the only two tumbler codes we have eliminated." Aggie smiled. "But all that's about to change. So what do I jump now?" "You tell me. Run Leophone program J0." "Okay!" A few seconds passed by. "Hey, this is easy! I just typed 673 and 1 into the from and to fields, and it's telling me the ring position pair is 35 and 0, that I need a jump size of 638, and to set the tumblers at K-28 ... And voila! I'm back at the top of the pyramid! Scratch K-28 from the list! Hey Mark?" "Yeah Aggie?" "What's the tumbler code that goes with A-1? A-1 is the minimum jump size, maybe the maximum jump size gets me out." "Uh, all the rings are equivalent. This is going to be a fluke if it works. Jump A-1 and return on T-16." Fifteen seconds passed by. "Nuts. Scratch T-16. I'm jumping on A-2 now." "You'll need a return size of 170. That's E-12." " ... And I'm back at the top. Scratch E-12." "Uh, Aggie?" asked Mark. "Yeah?" "It will be slightly easier to keep track of this if we work the pairs by jump sizes and not by tumbler codes. I've translated a second program for your Leophone. It's called J1 and it gives a table of 336 tumbler pairs. Your phone will get updates in real time as we eliminate the pairs. This way if we're cut off, you can finish the job yourself. You can update the table locally too if you have to. Download complete. Would you run J1 and test it?" "Okay ... Nice colors Mark, this is very helpful. I see you sorted the table by the jump size of the first code of each pair, and that the first row has both A-1 and T-16 colored green." "Yep. Green means unbroken, yellow is unknown, and red will be used for the broken ring when we find it. Aggie, do you see that M-6 and L-22 are the next row on the list?" "Uh huh, jump sizes of 2 and 671." "That's what I'd like to test next. We'll just work our way down the list." "And the colors will update in real time? Cool. Thanks again. One second, I'm curious ... I just went to the bottom of the table, N-8 and B-5 with jump sizes of 336 and 337. And that refers to movement on the base ring." "Absolutely. And the physical carriage numbers will be ... everything. If we jump the complete table, you will have tested every carriage below the top of the pyramid. Aggie, we'll call out the tumbler pairs to you. All you have to do is click and push." "Click and push, yeah. Let's get started," said Aggie. She glanced at the time on her Leophone. It was 4:31 PM. "I'll just read you a pair of codes, out and returning. I'll wait for you to say done when you're back at the top of the pyramid. Don't be bashful about asking for repeats of the codes. This is going to be a bit boring." "You're very sweet. I'm ready Mark." "M-6, L-22." More than thirty seconds passed by before Aggie said, "Done." It was a bit longer than Mark would have hoped for, but he thought perhaps he underestimated the time it would take Aggie to spin the tumblers. "L-22, M-6," he said. "Huh?" said Aggie. "I just did that." "Hmm? You jumped the pair twice? That fast?" "Yep, fast fingers Aggie, that's me, frontwards and backwards, four jumps total. I start spinning the tumblers as soon as the door starts to open. This is definitely the way to do it because I don't have to change the tumblers before my third jump. I went out on L-22, back on M-6, then out again on M-6 and finally back on L-22. Two more rings eliminated from contention, right?" "Yep. You are good Aggie. I'll read each pair just once and wait for your word. O-21, J-15." " ... Done." "D-28, F-17." " ... Done. Hey wait!" "You're out already?!" Mark exclaimed. "No, it's not that. Emily?" "Yo!" "What will I be able to do with the tumblers after I jump the broken link?" There was a pregnant pause. "Yeah, that's an interesting question. I'm going to guess the tumblers will remain locked. Be sure to take everything with you as you leave the carriage. I suspect the carriage will close and not let you back in." "Okay. Please proceed Mark." "M-3, R-3." " ... Done." "R-8, D-19." " ... Done." "F-5, G-21." Aggie steeled herself to concentrate, focusing her mind on the repetitive task and determined to enter every tumbler code correctly. "Done." "V-21, E-24." As she worked, Aggie took a second to flash her eyes at the colored list that was updating on her Leophone. "Done." "S-4, E-25." 336 pairs! Mark was right. This was going to get a bit boring. "Done." "J-4, K-25." Unless she got lucky... "Done." "R-26, U-12." ... or clever. "Done. Say Mark?" "Yeah?" "Why don't you resort the remaining list by the tumbler letter of the first code? It'll save me an extra spin at the start." "Wow, I should have thought of that. Great idea. One second ... The done pairs will still be on top. You'll see the new list on your J1 table ... Hey Aggie, while I'm doing this, jump K-21 and then R-20. We already know K-21 is unbroken." Right. I remember ... Done. R-20 is also unbroken." "Okay, the list is resorted. I also did a secondary sort on the right tumbler for the first pair. It'll cut down on the distance you have to spin the second dial. Go with A-3, H-23." " ... Done." "A-13, G-25." " ... Done." "A-14, S-22." "Ah, this is easy. I see what you mean. Thanks Mark ... Done." "A-17, V-19." " ... Done." "A-18, B-20." And the methodical work continued. ------- Chapter 85 The display on Aggie's Leophone at the end of Chapter 84, showing the top of the jump-pair list. Jump size refers to number of nodes on the base ring. Total length of list is 336 pairs. ------- Chapter 86 Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 5:14 PM Aggie was totally focused, Aggie was on her game, Aggie was in THE ZONE. Ashley was currently working as her teammate and calling out the codes, and Aggie was speed jumping through the ring-pair list. She was averaging under 30 seconds per pair, and there were many pairs that she double jumped in 24 seconds, the theoretical minimum. When the pair of codes shared the same first-tumbler or second-tumbler setting, Aggie could consistently eliminate the pair with minimum time. "G-6." 0 to 3 seconds: Door opening in zone 1 (the top of the pyramid). Ashley would have already called out the x for the new (x, y) pair of tumbler settings, and usually getting to the new x involved a small increment on the second tumbler. Aggie would set and push the close button before the door fully opened, saying the word "go" as she pushed. "Go." 3 to 6 seconds: With the door closing and the tumblers locked at x, Ashley would speak the y code of the current (x, y) pair after hearing Aggie say go. "R-9." 6 to 9 seconds: With the door opening at destination x, Aggie would spin the two freed tumblers to code y and push the close button. 9 to 12 seconds: With the door closing, Aggie would take a breath and rest. 12 to 15 seconds: With the door opening back at zone 1, Aggie would push the close button and jump the y code a second time, saying the word go again. "Go.' 15 to 18 seconds: With the door closing, Aggie would take another breath as Ashley repeated the x code. "G-6." 18 to 21 seconds: With the door opening at destination y, Aggie would reset the tumblers to code x and say go as she pushed the close button. "Go." 21 to 24 seconds: With the door closing, tumblers locked and the carriage about to jump to zone 1, Ashley would speak the x code of the next (x, y) pair. "G-7." " ... Go." "S-19." " ... Go." "G-7." " ... Go." "And stop," said Ashley. Aggie blinked. "And stop?" "Well, I guess you can set the tumblers to G-10 if you want, but don't jump. Fatima asked that you take a mini-break after a hundred pairs, and the way she said it, it sounded like an order." "She said that? I..." Aggie took a deep breath and sighed. "I think that's probably a good idea. My throat's a little dry." Aggie stretched her arms and twisted her hips back and forth before taking a big swallow out of her canteen. Then she looked at the time on her Leophone and amused herself by bringing up the display of the J1 table. "Wow, you're right, a hundred pairs. Look at all the green rows. Progress is being made." "I'll say. You did the last five pairs in two minutes flat. Aren't your fingers getting tired?" Aggie took another swallow. "A little stiff maybe. I'll be okay." "Hungry? Maybe you should eat something." Aggie thought about the suggestion for a moment and then rejected it. "I didn't have much of a lunch, just a snack bar, but I just don't feel hungry." She turned and stared out the door of the carriage and through the transparent walls at the top of the pyramid. "It just feels like the dead of night. It feels like I should be asleep." Ashley countered, "Ten weeks ago all of us were eating our dinners at night." "Yeah, I know. But I still don't feel hungry now. I think the snow has stopped by the way, it's a little hard to tell. The carriage is lit and it's still dark outside." "Want to walk around the carriage, stretch your legs?" Aggie took a third big swallow on her canteen and then returned it to her backpack, doing some deep knee bends for a while but deciding not to leave the carriage. She finally replied to Ashley. "I want to get back to jumping. I have this vague feeling about a closing window of opportunity." "What do you mean?" "I can't explain it Ashley. It's just a hunch. I have the ability to get out of here now and the hairs on the back of my neck are up. My window to leave is open now, but what if it closes? Maybe it's just the silence here, I don't know." Aggie took a final stretch, standing on tip-toes and trying to reach as high with her fingertips as she could. Then she waved her arms back and forth several times and asked, "All set to continue?" "Wow, that was a really short break. Your sure?" Aggie turned back to face the tumblers and answered by saying, "Pressing G-10." Time: Thursday May 14, 2019 6 PM "And stop." "Huh? Again?" "You've completed two hundred pairs Aggie." Ashley waited for a response. The line remained silent. "You can click right tumbler for O-14 if you want." Ashley leaned back in her chair at the Hilton and sighed. Aggie was one determined speed demon with this job. Her last pair had been particularly easy, O-11, O-3, but it almost didn't matter anymore. Aggie was nailing everything and had searched the last hundred pairs in less than forty-two minutes. There was still no response on the line, and it wasn't like Aggie to pout. "Hey Aggie, you okay?" Still no response. Ashley felt a spasm of worry and she waved her arms to the other people in the room that there might be a problem. And then a hoarse voice came from the network. "My God, it's dawn now." And then an incredulous whisper, "Where am I?!" Twenty minutes later... "Try it again Aggie," Akiko said from her console at the Hilton. "I'm getting green board for video now!" replied Aggie in an exciting tone of voice and she stared at a diagnostic menu on her Leophone. Connected to her phone was a somewhat bulky video camera with a large telephoto lens. Aggie had originally objected to carrying it, but now she was very glad she was overruled. "Are you receiving me?" "Yes!" replied Akiko. "The high bandwidth channel is working. Resolution is excellent." "Marvelous! I'll take a walking tour around the perimeter of the carriage. You'll get a panoramic view." Aggie slowed walked the four-meter lengths of each side of her hexagonal room. The views outside were nothing less than spectacular. Her great pyramid was situated at the saddle point of a stunning mountain landscape. To the east and west, great snow-covered mountains rose more than three thousand meters above her head. To the north of the eastern range, a great and familiar orange-looking sun was cresting the horizon. And further north as well as south, the ground sloped down and down and down. It seemed to go on forever, and Aggie thought she could see several distinct ecosystems. It was the northern slope that definitely had the more gentle incline, and Aggie guessed the snow fields ran for five kilometers before changing into high meadows. Much further down the meadows transformed into forest, and Aggie could see sparkling orange sunlight reflecting from the rivers formed by the massive snow fields of the high mountains. The forests extended as far as the eye could see, all the way to the northern horizon. And to the south, the direction the storm had blown in from last night, the view was profoundly distinct. It was a land of shadows, shielded from the northern sun by the great mountains. The southern slopes were steeper yet the snowfields were far more extensive. Even the vegetation of the great southern forests looked different, more purplish perhaps, though it was difficult to be sure. The northern forests were approaching their summer and bursting with colors and blue flowing rivers. By comparison, the southern forests seemed to be bedding down for a winter's sleep. "It's Africa, isn't it?" whispered Aggie as she walked. She was referring to the largest continent on their planet, a great equatorial continent that completely circumnavigated the globe. "I'm either here for real or this is one hell of a simulation!" "It's hard to imagine a simulation with this kind of detail," commented Lynn from Manhattan. Akiko was duplicating the video feed on her library console. "It's not a simulation," Mark commented from the Red Mall library. "I've just found the hexagon in the satellite image database." "So fast?" asked Fatima from the Hilton. "You just started a few minutes ago." "I knew exactly where look. Aggie, as close as I can measure and that's within a few meters, the top of your pyramid lies directly on this planet's equator. You're also exactly 180-degrees opposite longitude from Hex Hall." Aggie started to laugh nervously. "I knew it!" She forced herself to calm down. "How high am I?" "One second and I'll let you know," Mark replied. "I can pick that up in the radar files ... Okay, we are. The base of your pyramid is very close to 5000 meters exactly, so add about another four meters times thirty-six for where you are now." "Wow," whispered Aggie. "Is it breathable outside?" "Oh yeah. It would be a bit of a shock if you're not used to it though. Sea level pressure here is almost exactly Earth's value, and the air here is slightly richer in oxygen, a few tenths of a percent..." Mark typed rapidly for a moment. "The two peaks to your east and west are both above 8,000 meters. That would be a severe environment for breathing. Believe it or not Aggie, your pyramid is one of the lowest spots on the equator. It's rare for the ridgeline to dip down that low." "Mark," interjected Fatima, "I thought you searched this planet for large buildings." "I did! And I failed to find this. What can I say? I coded my search parameters to look for images with long linear walls. This pyramid, it looks like a big pile of kid building blocks on the imagery. There are no straight lines longer than four meters. My computer code didn't recognize what it was looking at." Fatima sighed. "This is huge. We thought the world would come later. We thought we had years to stay within our walls before venturing forth. But with a jump-site to another continent ... And perhaps jump-sites to the other continents as well..." "I wouldn't be surprised," Emily replied slowly. "Mark, I'll work with you later. We'll develop more sophisticated algorithms. Back in Vermont, I just finished a course called Discrete Visual Analysis. We spent most of the semester on image processing and recognition." "Aggie, stop," Alison called out. "Back up a bit. There! Zoom in. What is that?" She was referring to something several kilometers away on the southern slope. "It looks like a hexagonal building," commented Heather. Suddenly recognition hit her. "It's a ski lodge! My God, look at the slopes! They look natural, and some of them would be for expert skiers only, but do you see how many paths circle around and lead to the building." "Oh, I don't know," said Heather. "I've skied a lot, but that central path, it would be like skiing down an elevator shaft!" She paused and then added, "But for an Olympic athlete, yeah maybe, just maybe humanly possible. I'd never have the guts though." "I wouldn't mind trying the northern slopes six months from now," commented Aggie. "Kilometers of long bunny slopes, just my speed." She started to laugh. "And no chair lifts! No rope tows! What do you want to bet that building is a jump transfer station?! Mark! Could this entire pyramid be one gigantic ski lodge?" He was silent for a moment and then commented. "I see several more small buildings, and not just down slope. To the east and west, small buildings at 500-meter elevation intervals, up to 7000 meters. That I think would be dangerously thin air." Aggie spoke up. "But my ears didn't pop when I got here. Why?" Mark countered with his own question. "Do they pop when you jump from the ground floor to the top?" "No. Should they?" "Well, an instantaneous change in pressure of a 140 meters, yeah, I would think you'd feel something. My guess is each floor is individually pressurized, and since your ears didn't pop when you got there..." Aggie's eyes blinked open. "I'm as sea-level pressure now?" "Yeah, I would guess. Be careful about how you leave the building. I would think there'd be some sort of airlock." Another voice came over the bridge. "Aggie, this is Carla from White Mall." "Hi Carla." "Hi. Aggie, Tom and Suvarna and I were just sitting down to dinner. We were listening to you testing the jump pairs with Ashley." "Yeah, okay." "Could I make a suggestion about how you're doing this?" "Will it slow me down?" "No. It won't change your speed. I'd like to suggest you use the earphone for listening to Ashley give you the new codes." "I could do that. But why?" "Because you're obviously not paying attention to what happening outside when the elevator door opens." "Oh, you mean the dawn? Yeah. I'm really embarrassed about that. I was so totally focused on what I was doing. And the carriage at zone one opens to due south, I know that know. The sky was still in deep shadows. Hey Mark?" "Yeah?" "Why can't I see the oceans? I can see so far, but it's all forests and rivers." "The northern ocean is about 350 kilometers north of you, the southern ocean is closer to 400. Both oceans are below the horizon from where you are." Mark paused for a moment. "But not by much, especially to the north. Climb those tall peaks next to you and I think you might see it." "Really? Wow." "Aggie," continued Carla, "my point was that at every stop you're making, Ashley is calling out the tumbler code to jump to the top of the pyramid. Someone from Party #4 might hear that code and try to follow you after you've left." "But that would be good, wouldn't it?" Carla took a deep breath. "You think so? Think it through. If unknown people are up at the top with the carriage open, you won't be able to jump and test for the broken ring. You'd be trapped in the pyramid for as long as the people keep you blocked. And if they're hostile, they can let the door close there and lay it wait and jump you when you arrive. You're using carriage-one on every single jump, either as an origination or destination. Aggie, Ashley, you two should not be broadcasting the tumbler code for the top carriage with every jump you make!" At the Hilton, Fatima nodded approvingly. "Carla, that's an excellent point. Aggie, remember our mission now is to get you home, not to make contact with Party #4." "Yes, I know, and I agree." Aggie let out a big sigh. "I wonder if that's why I didn't see anybody in the few archways I looked through. I was jumping in the dead of night." "You're not jumping in the dead of night now," Carla reminded her. "It's past 6:30. Not to rush you, but perhaps before people are sitting down with their breakfast cereal..." "Yeah, okay," said Aggie. "Ashley, I'll use the earphone on my second Leophone. This first one, I'll leave the video on. Can I use a hand signal to cue you for the next code?" "Sure." "And if I do get jumped, you'll be able to see it in real time." Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 7:25 PM "Just to let you know, that was pair 322, fourteen to go. Click to X-1." a tiny voice said in Aggie's ear. The tiny voice of Ashley sounded worried, and not because she had just lost a bet. Had everyone miscalculated? Emily had been looking ill the last few minutes and had gone rushing off the Red Mall library to join Mark and review her lesson on broken rings... Mark tried to give Aggie some encouragement. "Flukes like this happen all the time Aggie. I remember you looked at the bottom of J1 when I sent you the table. If we had started with the X-series, you would have been home long ago, but then we never would have known where the pyramid was." "So you're still really expecting this to work?" asked Aggie, her hands clicking the tumblers from W-28 to X-1, a single click with each tumbler in the counterclockwise direction. Mark could hear the worry in Aggie's voice and he was determined to cheer her up. "Absolutely. It happens all the time. Ever play backgammon?" "Sure. I love backgammon." "So do I. Ever have your opponent nailed in a roll-off where only double-sixes will save him, and then lo and behold..." "Boxcars! Sure, it happens all the time." "Well, the odds of boxcars is 1 in 36. With your 336 pairs, your boxcar roll is to find the broken ring somewhere the last nine pairs. It happens all the time Aggie. I think you're almost home." Mark looked down and frowned. His own hand was trembling. Had he managed to keep his doubts out of his voice? Yes, and his words seemed to have the desired effect. "Okay!" answered Aggie cheerfully. "Thanks Mark, and keep my dinner warm!" Aggie pushed the close button. As the door closed, she reminded herself that she should keep silent when she was not on the top floor. On the 36th floor in carriage zone 669, Cordelia suddenly froze. She was in the kitchen, near the archway to the transfer room with a breakfast plate of eggs and bacon in her hand. Suddenly she saw the telltale change of light reflected off the wall opposite the carriage entrance. Were they under attack?! Again?! She put the plate on a counter and then pulled a kitchen knife from her belt. With a quick hand signal, she told Sarah they had visitors. Sarah's eyes went wide and she ran for backup, returning with Sydney and Katelyn a minute later. With knives drawn, the four women split into two pairs, Sarah and Katelyn standing just inside the entrance archway while their leader Cordelia and Sydney began to circle counterclockwise around the carriage. One yell and Sarah and Katelyn would run in the clockwise direction and fall upon the invaders from the rear. It was an extremely tense minute, and then Katelyn heard Sydney give a soft click with her tongue. Katelyn gave a loud sigh of relief and she lowered her knife. "No one," she called out. Cordelia and Sydney walked around the carriage and into view. "You sure about this?" Sydney asked Cordelia. Cordelia answered by rolling her eyes. She then gave a deep frown. "Shit! What the hell is Laura thinking of?" "Maybe it wasn't Laura," Sarah countered. The other three women turned to look at her. "I mean, maybe Kelly's group..." Cordelia blew a load of air through the cheeks. "God, another three-way war? Mark my words. Someone is going to get killed this time." Her three subordinates stood quietly and waited for orders. Cordelia didn't know what to tell them. Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 7:30 PM "X-5 and D-5," Ashley told Aggie through the ear jack. This one was going to be easy. Aggie jumped from the top floor on code X-5 and as the door opened she easily spun the left dial from X to D and pushed the close button in her three-second window. The door started to close, and Aggie got ready to jump the D-5 for a second time as soon as it did, already rehearsing the future four-click clockwise spin from D back to X in her mind. She wasn't even bothering to watch the door. She pushed the jump command again on pure internal timing, and was startled to find the button frozen. Aggie turned to her right and noticed that the 3-meter elevator door had remained closed. She also noticed that the 4-meter wall opposite the tumblers was sliding open. ------- Chapter 87 Time: Thursday, May 14, 2019 7:31 PM Aggie frowned as the elevator wall behind her slid aside. Her carriage was opening into a very small and unlit space, even smaller than the carriage. There was at least one piece of good news though. Her audio and visual links were still active. After discussing her plan with her group, Aggie gathered her gear and left the carriage, leaving one backpack to block the door from closing. A moment's inspection revealed an apparent dead end. The outside of the carriage was a bare equilateral triangle with four-meter sides and the same height. There was nothing inside the chamber except their lost Leophones in two of the triangular corners. Aggie scooped them up and dropped them in her pockets. She then looked around and shook her head in dismay at the tiny area. There were no lights, not even any air vents. Aggie moved her hands across the smooth burnished metal of the two walls opposite her carriage. What to do? "No buttons anywhere?" asked Suvarna from White Mall. She was staring intently at the video images Aggie was sending. "No. This place is absolutely blank." "You sure about no air vents?" "Yeah, I'm sure. There's one in the carriage. But out here there's nothing at all. If I let the carriage door close, I'll have just this triangle room of air to breathe. Hell ... Ashley, what was the last pyramid room I was in?" "You mean the physical carriage zone?" "Yes." "I'm looking it up on the now. You jumped X-5 to get there. That's a jump size of 262 from the origin of the base ring and ... carriage 395 on the 31st floor." "Everybody," Aggie said quietly, "If you're ever in the pyramid, do not jump D-5 from carriage 395. It'll bring you ... here ... Emily, what do I do?" "I think you'll have to let the carriage door close." "Really? This triangle would be a horrible place to ... to be trapped." Aggie had stopped herself from saying, "to die." "It's your only option for changing your state." "But my carriage is my only source of air." Back at the Hilton, Emily squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. "I know," she whispered. Before she could change her mind, Aggie pulled her backpack and unwedged the door. After a few seconds, she was surrounded in inky blackness and silence. "Boy, this is pretty gruesome," she thought, but she felt too embarrassed to voice her despair to her friends. Instead she ran her hand along the wall of her closed carriage for a moment, and as her hand left that side of the triangular room and advanced to the next, Aggie felt the wall start to move. Immediately light and a faint breeze filled her space. The second wall had opened to reveal a new 3-meter by 4-meter area, the same size as the carriage she just left, but this new area was completely bare of any controls. It had just the simple air vents and lights of a closet. Or a trapdoor... "Aggie," Emily said over the network. "I advise you jump it now. I don't know if the door will open again if you let it close. Jump now. I'm worried the system won't give you multiple chances." "What about the third wall?" "Yeah, I know it's a mystery. Perhaps it opens too. Aggie, I don't want to spend the time to try to research this. My gut feeling is to grab this opportunity while we can. Don't reject the open path. Jump the trapdoor." And then a quiet plea. "Please?" "Oh, I agree with you Emily. I was just taking a last look around." After moving all her gear into the new area, Aggie sighed and let the four-meter door slide closed. And immediately a three-meter side of her carriage started to slide open. Aggie slowly stepped out into the light with her gear. And then she started to giggle. "It looks just like the second floor of a mall store! I'm heading downstairs!" A moment later Akiko spoke up. "I'm picking you up on the mall monitors! You're in Green Mall! Aggie, welcome home! You're very close to the hub, spiral mark 438 meters, the 360 degree position. You're on the outside arc, a restaurant called Ruthie's Kitchen." Ann was next to Akiko at the Hilton. She pulled back in her chair happy but with a puzzled look. "Aggie, we searched Ruthie's months ago. We searched all the stores at the 360 degree marks." Ann was referring to the time shortly after the discovery of the trapdoors leading to the lounge rooms of Black and White Malls. Both trapdoors were located at the 360 degree mark of their respective spirals. Aggie blinked as she realized Ann's point. "You're right. Let me check that closet again." She jogged up the stairs and a moment later said, "Wow. My trapdoor, it's full of food items again. I just jumped through here a moment ago and it was completely bare. And the closet opens from the four-meter side now. I exited from the three-meter side." "Well, isn't that what you expected?" asked Kiyoko. "That rotation to a perpendicular wall on the trapdoor exit is standard behavior. You have to remember it's not the same carriage Aggie." Kiyoko finished by adding, "It's a pity our training didn't cover trapdoors more thoroughly." "Wow," said Aggie. "Your lessons covered trapdoors? My lessons didn't mention them at all." "Really?" replied Kiyoko. "Wow. We janitors really need to compare our trainings more carefully. The trapdoors in the White and Black spirals are entrance trapdoors. You can expect them to be empty. But the closet in Ruthie's is a destination trapdoor. That kind can easily have storage materials when not in use." "Aggie," said Fatima, "we have a whole bunch of people here at the Hilton that would love to come by and pick you up in a sidecar." "Ah, that's sweet but don't bother. I'm less than 900 meters from jumping home. I'll be with you in a few minutes." Aggie let herself out of Ruthie's, and after relocking the restaurant walked rapidly to Hex Hall. When she got there Aggie had a minor decision to make. Immediately on her left in the hexagonal hall was the entrance to the Black Mall spiral. She could also walk to her right, pass over Blue Mall and enter the White Mall spiral. After a second's hesitation, Aggie moved to her right. There was nothing wrong with Esau's Bar and Grill. It was a nice place and a favorite of Mark and Toshi. The couple would sometimes joke it was the restaurant of their one date before they became attached. But Aggie felt like visiting the store of the White Mall trapdoor. The food there were just too interesting to pass up. The name of the store was Trumpets & Crumpets, and it held a huge variety of the famous English yeast breads, as well as a wide assortment of related condiments, maple syrup, honey, cheese spreads, and all sorts of jams and jellies. It was Ann who first guessed that the store was using the word trumpets for the condiments. Aggie was at the store. It took a few seconds to unlock and relock the entrance. She paused for a second to open a drawer and grab a bag of her favorite rye-flour crumpets, and then she ran quickly to a familiar closet, a backpack in each arm and a joyous smile on her face. Aggie was home with her family a moment later. The next day. Time: Friday, June 1, 2019 6:17 AM Jada was paddling her kayak along the northern of the Missisquoi an hour after sunrise, heading towards an area of the northwestern shore that her group had visited two days ago. The mission then had been relatively short, walking the perimeter of their search grid and informing the large predators that they would soon be returning. Over the past week, Jada had learned to listens to the loud chatter of the birds and small tree animals when they returned to their landing sites. The loud noise was an indication that the cats got the message and were cooperating. "Ah, peaceful co-existence," Jada thought as she paddled. "You can't beat it." And what was their peace treaty with Dinofelis? The basis was to talk to the cats in a language they could understand. When Jada's team wanted to search an area, they would first claim it a day or two before by walking the boundary of the area and urinating on as many rocks and tree trucks as they could. For the next few days, the area would be remarkably free of the big cats. They were very smart animals, Jada thought. A few encounters with an unknown species, in this case human, and suddenly the entire Dinofelis population was agreeable to staying out of the humans' way. Jada knew she couldn't push it. If her group stomped into unclaimed territory and acted too aggressively, the big cats would be very annoyed. And if her group did something stupid, Jada was under no illusion that the cats wouldn't grab an opportunity for a quick meal. After all, the cats were quick-strike assassination hunters. That was their nature. But if you treated them with respect and talked to them in a language they could understand and gave them time to move out of your way, that's what they would do. Smart animals. Their target area today was twenty kilometers downstream from Manhattan. It was thrilling and chilly to paddle with the current. The central channel was in a very consistent state now, 4C and flowing at 8 kph from one end of Wobanakik to the other. In the single hour since sunrise, Jada's team had completed most of their journey. It would take almost three hours to return, but to Jada that was the most enjoyable part of the day, paddling fifty meters off shore, the river water swimmable at that location and with refreshingly cool breezes from the central channel area. And just a short distance away at the shore and beyond, there were views of an Earth that had not existed for the last two million years. Jada found the exercise and the experience profoundly peaceful. So far Jada's efforts and Sandra's efforts from the entrance rooms had revealed nothing, not one clue on how to leave Wobanakik. But Jada knew there was an exit key somewhere. She just knew it. An escape path would fit the design paradigm of the builders, which was to challenge human creativity, imagination, and ability to cooperate. That's what Jada and Emily concluded a long time ago, over many evenings of chatting with each other with their Leophones. Take the rings of the pyramid. A prime number of n carriages allowed the elegant solution of an n - 1 ring system, but it did not require it. The actual jump pattern could have been a nightmare, many tens of thousands of small rings, nasty little loops that would have taken months to search. It was a pure gift for the builders to provide a simple solution, a mathematical key that unlocked the pyramid, and in order to accept the gift you had to do your homework first. So much like a child's computer game! How was this possible? Such a unique convergence of physical ability with childlike playfulness, and overshadowing everything a callous disregard for life if the humans made the wrong move. Was this all a test? Sometimes the answer seemed yes, other times Jada felt her society was still completely missing the point. They were approaching their target area. Jada held her paddle in the water and used it as a rudder to guide her boat out of the channel. Time: Friday, June 1, 2019 2 PM The carriage door opened at the top of the pyramid, and Aggie, Tom, Carla and Cassidy emerged. The stars were out in force, and the group took a moment to admire the view in the clear night sky as the door slid silently closed. Aggie then turned and reopened the door. The carriage now had the tumblers needed for jumping. Today's mission was not to contact Party #4. That would come tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, depending on how you considered the time zones. This mission was the result of yesterday evening's long work of the Society's four janitors researching their lesson plans on the topic of three-way transfer junctions. A quick test revealed that the pyramid subnet remembered how to link with their home system. After reporting their progress, the four members of the away-team reentered the carriage. With Aggie at her side, Cassidy set the tumblers to X-5. Tom and Carla stood closer to the door, in relaxed poses and with friendly smiles on their faces. They were also both discreetly armed. In back of them Cassidy punched the close button. Three seconds later the door started to open. As expected, the carriage arch carried the numbers 31:395. This was the one room in the entire pyramid where they could not return directly to the top of the pyramid. As the door finished opening, Carla and Tom got out and walked the perimeter of the transfer room, orbiting the carriage. There was a door on the wall 120 degrees clockwise from the wall facing the carriage exit, otherwise the transfer room was devoid of features. It only took a moment for Carla and Tom to circle the room. Aggie left the carriage and joined them and then turned around and said, "See you soon." Cassidy had already clicked the left tumbler to D. She nodded and pushed the close button. Three seconds later her carriage door started to open into the small triangular transfer junction. She exited the carriage and stood in front of the slanting wall on her right as the door behind her closed. The room was plunged into blackness and total silence. Cassidy reached out her hand and touched the wall before her and breathed a huge sigh of relief as the wall started to move. It was only a few seconds later that she was reporting from Ruthie's Kitchen. "Everything worked perfectly! And I'm blocking the trapdoor from closing ... You were right Kiyoko. With the three-meter side open, the four-meter side stays closed. I'm removing the wedge now ... And now the four-meter side opens. It's filled with food." After all these months, Cassidy shook her head at how amazing this still seemed. She had hiked over an hour with her team from the Green Mall home complex. They had reached the building in the corner of the Green Mall surface area less than ten minutes ago. A quick walk through the trapdoor there took them half a planet away, and now Cassidy was back home again, or at least safe in the familiar mall. She hoped her friends would join her shortly. Aggie gave Tom and Carla a quick hug each and then jumped next, reentering the junction room. Wedging her door open, Tom and Carla tried to follow her. A moment later Tom's voice spoke out on her Leophone. "Wow. You janitors were right Aggie. Carla and I are at the top of the pyramid again. When the exit link is blocked, the ring becomes unbroken. We're jumping X-5 again ... Back at carriage 395 now." Aggie acknowledged from the junction room and removed her wedge from the door. After it slid closed, she brushed her hand against the slanting wall on her left and felt it move. She was still in utter darkness though, so she reached to her harness and clicked on a light. "Wow," she said. "It's a standard elevator setup, full keyboard and everything. It's deactivated though. Pity." Not expecting it to work but thinking there was no harm in trying, Aggie gave the verbal command for the elevator to activate. She then gasped as the system came to life. "My gosh, it worked! Emily, I'm going to initialize the elevator with a new transfer code." A moment later Aggie read out a twenty-character code. "Time for a test run, jumping to you now." After a brief reunion where Aggie stood in the doorway at the Hilton and waved at the mission control team, she returned to the Hilton elevator and jumped back to the transfer junction. Aggie entered the triangular room and let the door close behind her. She then tried and failed to reopen the door by touching it. She then gave a verbal command override and smiled as the door obeyed her and opened. Better and better. Carla and Tom joined her next. Carla jumped to join Cassidy at Ruthie's Kitchen, and then Tom tried and failed to follow her. Aggie then verbally commanded the trapdoor to open. A moment later all four members were finishing their mission with a quick stroll to Esau's Bar & Grill. Aggie was immensely pleased with the test results. In addition to securing a clear exit from the pyramid, she had also provided the Society a fast path to the hub area of the spiral mall. She also suspected that her next mission to the pyramid would not be nearly this easy. The four walked quietly as they returned. Aggie decided to test her newly boosted abilities with memory recall. The details were unbelievable. You could put yourself back into a past reality. She had been practicing the previous week, glancing at a page in a book and then reading it with her eyes closed, reading the words directly from her visual memory. There was one small oddity in yesterday's trip. She couldn't quite remember what, and the time since had been so busy, Aggie never had time to explore her thought. But she had a little time now. As her group crossed Hex Hall and took the Black Mall turn, Aggie allowed her walking to go on full automatic and her mind returned to her jumps. Near the end, she thought. Yes. Ashley had just lost her bet. Aggie had reached the X series, her last possible group of codes to test. In her mind Aggie was back on the top floor. She watched her hands click to X-1 and jump, and yes! The next carriage room! Aggie saw a blank wall, nothing unusual there. But the smell! In the few seconds she was there, Aggie got a whiff of freshly cooked bacon. ------- Chapter 88 Floor layout of the seventy-two hexagons of carriage zone 119 on the 20'th floor of the equatorial pyramid. Shown is the location of the transfer room (T) and the color codes show the room connectivity within the zone. You can move between any two adjacent hexagons if they are the same color. Otherwise, movement between hexagons is possible only at the locations indicated by arrows. ------- Chapter 89 Time: Sunday, June 3, 2019 1:55 AM With sunrise ten minutes away, the predawn twilight was providing very adequate light for Aggie's expedition. As the last of the nighttime stars became invisible, she suggested they all turn off their walking lights. Aggie was walking briskly, both from the coolness of the short night and with her eagerness to finally meet up with her lost party. She felt sure her team would be welcomed as the saviors of her lost group and that would be very gratifying. Suvarna and Ann had joined the expedition, increasing its size to six, and today was the big day. Aggie breathed in deeply. Progress! And with such lovely weather. The overnight lows were still dipping below 15C and the afternoons peaking at about 25C. It was still a mystery how hot the summer would actually get, but for now it was beautiful springtime. So many flowers! Even the sand pathways were covered with strange flowering dune grasses. The world was alive and bursting with goodness and new life. And it was also springtime in the Bee Park. Both environments, there and here on the surface, would share their summer solstices in another twelve days. And the fruit orchards and vegetable gardens of the Bee Park were growing food at such accelerated rates, yesterday Fatima authorized Team-6 to replace the graduating Team-4 (herself, Kiyoko and Husna) at the Bee Park. Heather, Whitney, and Amber were the newest candidates for the eight-day enhancement, and the plan was for the remaining three surface members of their society (Ashley, Akiko, and Alison) to join them on June 6th when Team-5 completed their stay. The explorations were going well down Wobanakik, both with the group at Manhattan and at the entrance rooms. No hint of an exit had been found yet, but the people there were genuinely optimistic and even seemed content with their purpose of searching the great wilderness. Madison commented yesterday evening that the place really grew on her after a while. And Mark and his group of developers were making steady progress with their balloon observatory project. They might deliver their first working model to Wobanakik in as little as one week. Supporting the Wobanakik search parties was considered the most immediate need. As more platforms were constructed, perhaps the Society would also try to survey the Black Mall surface area from the air. Diego, Jessica, and either Ricardo or Hernando were still alive, and so far the satellite flybys had revealed no clue to their whereabouts. Whether the Society should search for them more actively was a frequent topic for the evening conferences. The common assumption was that if it did happen, searching for the lost members of Party #5 would not begin until late July or early August. It sounded like a long time to Aggie, until she reminded herself that late July was three weeks away. Aggie's party reached the wedged-shaped building a few minutes after dawn. They entered without concern, even though the entrance would lock from the inside one minute after closing. Aggie was with them and she had the power to override the lock. And besides, none of them would be exiting the building through the entrance door. The group of six entered the closet area of the trapdoor and a moment later were standing at the top of the equatorial pyramid. They momentarily left the carriage to allow it to reset and provide access to tumblers. Aggie set the controls to X-1 and the said to her teammates. "Remember the return code for X-1 is F-25." After receiving nods from everyone, Aggie punched the familiar close button with her finger. Six seconds later her team walked out into the transfer room of zone 669 on the 36th floor. Aggie called loudly, announcing her group's friendly intentions. And then they all waited and listened for a reply. Nothing. So it was time to start the search. Time: 3:07 AM The complete search took almost an hour, far longer than Aggie would have guessed. Including the transfer room, they now knew that zone 669 consisted of seventy-one hexagons, a complex weave of spiraling hexagons that required great diligence to search completely. At first Aggie had high hopes of finding at least some of her lost party here. There was a archway exit from the transfer room, at an offset of sixty degrees from the wall opposite the carriage entrance. And the adjacent room was a kitchen, a perfect match to Aggie's memory of the tasty smell of bacon. But after an hour of searching, the inescapable conclusion was that they were the zone's only occupants. Aggie's group had stayed together as a group of six during their search, and Aggie was busily weighing the benefits and risks of dividing into two or three teams when they came to a zone. They were now back in the kitchen adjacent to the transfer room discussing their next move. "There's every indication in the world that people were here," said Aggie, "and recently too. There's considerable drawdown of the food supplies in the kitchen and in several of the nearby pantries. And those four bedrooms in particular! We know a system reset by the servos will leave everything perfectly ordered. This entire zone has the feel of somebody's home, a whole group of somebodies. Recently too, if not now. I'm sure of it!" "Should we wait around until they get back?" asked Suvarna. "Yikes," answered Ann. "That might be an awful waste of time. What if they don't come back for weeks. Why not just leave them our note and move on?" Carla piped up. "Aggie, I've been thinking about the fact that there were probably people here two days ago and they're not here now. Do you think they might have been scared off?" Aggie turned to Carla with a puzzled frown. "What do you mean?" "Is it possible they saw you two days ago?" "Huh? Well, I didn't do anything to frighten them. I know that." "But could they have seen you, heard you, somehow know of your visit?" "Hmmm..." Aggie paused for a moment to consider. "I don't think so. The carriage entrance is not visible from the kitchen archway, and I don't think I made any sound at all, nothing a human ear would pick up. And the carriage doors are absolutely silent." "What about smell?" asked Ann. "You knew of them through smell." Aggie frowned. "Oh hell, I don't know. I did take a shower that morning, but heck, I admit, I did come here after hours of nervous jumping." She wrinkled her nose. "I suppose it's possible they smelled me. I wouldn't think it likely though." She turned to Tom. "Can you smell me now?" Tom gave her a big grin. "I'm the wrong person to ask." A puzzled stare. "Why's that?" "I kind of like the way you smell." Aggie's eyes went wide, and then she realized Tom was teasing her. "Ah, men," she said in reply, shaking her head. "Such one-track minds..." Tom continued his smile. "Seriously though, I think Ann is right. It's time to leave our handout and move on." Aggie polled everybody for their opinion. The vote was unanimous. They would move on. After leaving their handout in a prominent place on the kitchen counter, they returned to the transfer room and entered the carriage. Aggie clicked to A-1 on a whim, the unit jump size on the base ring. All zones were equally likely, she thought, the particular tumbler pattern didn't really matter. They would just keep jumping A-1 until they found somebody. Aggie pushed close and the search continue. Their carriage opened at base ring location 53, zone 519 on the 33rd floor. Eight days later. Time: Monday, June 11, 2019 6:00 PM GHT (Great Hexagon Time). After bedding down for the night on the 29th floor, Aggie's team rose an hour before local sunrise and began their new day. By 6 PM GHT time, they were ready to head out to their next set of hexagons, location 229 on the base ring, zone 405 on the 31st floor. They had learned much and found no one after a full week of searching. All base ring positions between nodes 52 and 228 had been searched, and the probing had been both complete and carefully done. Tom and especially Carla convinced Aggie to search assuming that the lost members of Party #4 might be hostile to their intrusion, so their search patterns incorporated numerous safety features. All six members of the search party would be in the same zone at all times. All six would keep an active Leophone connection to Hilton control. As they became experienced in searching the zones, they did allow themselves to branch out into smaller groups, sometimes even solo excursions into nearby rooms. But they were never more than a room or two away from other members of the team. In the past week, they had honed their search skills and could thoroughly investigate a zone in less than thirty minutes, even the most complex of them. Their model of the number of zones per floor was that each floor had the minimum number of zones possible such that the average number of rooms per zone stayed below 72, and then within each floor, the rooms were allocated as evenly as possible. Thus the 53 zones of the bottom (36th) floor all had 71 or 72 hexagons, the 42, 45, 48 and 51 zones of the 32nd to 35th floors had 70 to 71 hexagons each, and so on. They hadn't proven the design principle yet, but all the zones searched so far conformed to it. And it was somewhat frustrating how complex a zone of 71 hexagons could be. Often the passages connecting rows of rooms were quite convoluted. The branching often seemed intentionally designed to drive you crazy. Aggie's team also noticed that the rooms were often but not always color coordinated, and that adjacent rooms with the same color code would always connect to each other. The 36th floor was indeed the bottom floor, and it was special in another way too. It was the only floor with airlocks and exits to the outside. All the zones on the 36th floor with perimeter rooms allowed outside access, and return access too, and most of those had adjacent rooms packed with ski equipment and outdoor excursion gear, supporting the concept of the pyramid as a ski resort. As their search skills evolved, Aggie's team had increased their search rate to thirty-plus zones per day. They were now beginning their eighth day searching base ring location 229. Twenty-four minutes later, they regrouped in the local transfer room and logged that the zone was vacant. The next jump of A-1 took them to base ring location 230, zone 119 on the 20th floor. The elevator door opened opposite a wall and following their standard protocol, Aggie loudly announced their presence before her group exited the carriage. They walked counterclockwise through an arch and entered a living area. The color code of the room was a pale green, and their were two additional doors on their left. They searched the two new adjacent rooms. They were both pale green and connected to each other. One of the rooms also led to a room with a dark blue color code, while the other room led in a different direction to a continuation of the pale green pattern. Aggie decided to split her forces. Carla and Cassidy would take the branch leading to the dark blue color code, while she and the others would continue with the pale green code. A moment later her group came to another branch. Tom and Ann took a fork to a pale blue path while Suvarna and Aggie continued the pale green trail. The paths continued to bifurcate. Tom and Ann reported that the pale blue code continued in one direction and change to a yellow code in the other. He and Ann were splitting up and going solo. After eleven pale green hexagons from the transfer room, Aggie's path also split, the pale green path continuing and a yellow path branching off. Suvarna took yellow, Aggie continued alone of green. How was all this safe? Each of the six explorers was in constant contact with the Hilton, describing the orientation of each move they made from room to room. The base team at Hilton control was building a visual map of the zone as the explorers reported in. They could direct the searchers to any location on a moment's notice as soon as something interesting was sighted. Three rooms after walking the pale-green code, Aggie reported path took a turn sixty degrees to the right, and that the color code changed to a pale purple in the following room. Walking to the center of the small hexagon, Aggie reported her progress to the Hilton and her teammates and then suddenly had a very strange feeling. Something was slamming into her shoulders and the back of her knees from behind. People! Before Aggie could say anything, she felt a knife at her throat. The blade felt serrated, and a voice whispered in her ear, "Silence! One bad move and I'll cut you deep. Understand?" Aggie gave a tiny nod of her head, trying to show she would cooperate. Aggie felt a hand on her breast, groping her for a second before pulling her Leophone from her shoulder harness. Aggie heard the soft beep as the phone was powered off. "Shit Cordelia!" a voice hissed. "Laura's got working phones!" "We have to move now!" the voice at Aggie's ear hissed. "Samantha, hands behind your back! Now!" It took Aggie a second to realize the woman kneeling cruelly on her back had just called her Samantha. Aggie snapped her hands to the small of her back, in between the knees that were causing her so much pain. She felt her wrists being bound, tightly but not in a needlessly cruel manner. Another hand entwined in her hair pulled up, and Aggie lifted her head slightly. It was only a few centimeters above the purple carpet but enough room for a large piece of tape to be laid across her mouth, and then a hood was slipped over her head and tied loosely around her neck. Aggie could still breathe through her nose but was completely blind. "On your feet! Laura wants war? Laura's got war! Move!" The knees left her back, and Aggie shuddered at the release of the heavy pressure on her kidneys. She allowed herself to be jerked upright, and then was hustled quickly away by her unknown assailants. Meanwhile the Leophone bridge was alive with communications. "1 advance 5, 2 hold, 3 advance 3 and meet 4..." Emily was in charge and with Husna and Kiyoko was the team at the Hilton running mission support. They had a large display on the wall in front of them, and they were tracking a graphical representation of the away team's current zone and the location of all its members. They were operating in crisis mode. Right after Aggie paused in her room report, there were some strange muffled sounds and the Aggie's Leophone was powered off from the network. There was no way Aggie would to that willingly, and their assumption was she had run into hostiles, number unknown. Emily's first priority was to block access from Aggie's last position back to the transfer room. They needed to keep this situation contained to one zone where Tom's and Carla's guns would be an overwhelming advantage. The second priority was to reach Aggie's last position and assess the situation. Two tense minutes went by as Emily worked the teams together and forward. Mark was reporting that Aggie's Citizen ID was still active, and they had the unknown enemy's position blocked. The mood was tense but cautiously optimistic. Then Carla who by this time leading the point down the pale purple rooms let out a howl. "Fucking shit! We've been had! Tom! Fall back to the transfer room! Now!" A moment later he replied with a cry, "You were right! We were suckered! There's a forth door in the room outside the transfer station. They used the movie screen to hide it!" Tom rushed into the transfer room and found the elevator closed. Opening it revealed an empty carriage. Carla came charging out of the hidden doorway a moment later. A few seconds later she locked eyes with Tom and they shared their grief and frustration. Aggie had been kidnapped and her abductors had gotten away. The pale purple path of rooms formed an outside arc of the zone and had circled back to the transfer room. Their enemy could be anywhere in the pyramid now and were also free to move about. How would they ever find Aggie? And how long would her abductors allow Aggie to live? ------- Chapter 90 Time: Monday, June 11, 2019 6:58 PM GHT (Great Hexagon Time). Fatima was not a person prone to asking rhetorical questions, but she felt so frustrated she didn't stop herself. "What is going on here?!" she said loudly into the bridge. "With Alfonso we made a mistake. His mind had snapped and we didn't recognize the risk. But this?! Don't these people want to be rescued?!" "For some reason, we're being seen as invaders," answered Carla. Tom was sitting by her side and he added, "This was one slick operation. They picked the perfect zone for it, and they had just the right tactics to defeat us. What I don't understand is how they knew so much about us." Carla turned to him and touched his leg. "Yes, that's a very good point. Fatima?" "Yes?" "Do you see what Tom is saying? If these people were our superiors in numbers, why not just meet us at a transfer room and tell us to get lost? We never announced our size in our handout, and we certainly never advertised we were armed. Yet we're being treated as if we are a superior enemy. Kidnapping is a guerilla tactic." "I guess that makes sense," said Tom, "if they don't know us. It's less risky than a face to face confrontation." "They're acting as if they're angry with us, or afraid of us," commented Suvarna. "Or both." Carla nodded. "Yes, that's what it feels like. And to be afraid of us, that would imply they see us as a superior force, or at least a force that could hurt them." Fatima replied with a question. "Your opinion then, on how we should proceed?" Carla thought for a moment. "I think our current number here is about right. If we add more people and Aggie's abductors somehow know about it, that will seem even more like an invasion. Thank God they took Aggie's Leophone. They took her gear too. There's a backup phone in her backpack. Perhaps they'll try to contact us. That's what I'm hoping." "Carla, as Aggie's second in command, you're in charge now. What are your plans?" "For a little while at least, I don't want to do anything too aggressive. These people have just won a battle with us. Their adrenalin is probably still pretty high. I'd like to spend a little time here and search for clues. What I'm hoping for is that our ... the other party contacts us. Let's listen to what they have to say." "Sounds reasonable. Carla, anything or anyone you think you need, let me know." "Right. I appreciate that." Carla could tell by Fatima's tone that she was agreeable to letting Carla begin searching the current zone for clues. "Carla out." It was a large space, seventy-two rooms. This would take a while. With Tom guarding the transfer room, the four women got to work. Meanwhile, in a different section of the pyramid... Aggie estimated she spent at least two minutes in the elevator carriage with her captors, enough for twenty jumps and perhaps more. Was there some issue with trying to disguise their trail with multiple jumps, or were these people taking the quickest jump route they knew about to their desired destination? It seemed impossible to determine, so Aggie spent her time instead thinking about the motives of the people around her. Were they monsters, or just people doing what they felt they had to do? Aggie took heart in the thought that there had been no needless cruelty. Aggie's nose and jaw hurt where they had hit the carpet, but otherwise she was unharmed. "It could be a lot worse," she reminded herself, thinking of her neck. "That knife was sharp!" After the carriage rides, she was walked through perhaps a dozen rooms and guided down roughly into a high-back chair. Hands encircled her neck and two thumbs lightly pressed against her throat. It was all the warning Aggie needed not to move. While she kept still, her hands were unbound and then rebound to the back of the chair. Aggie winced at how tightly the cords were pulled. She could also feel other hands pushing her legs apart and then lashing her ankles to the chair. Aggie hoped her interrogation would start soon. Having her shoulders pulled back like this would eventually give her a backache, and the tape covering her mouth had a really foul tasting adhesive. Aggie heard her backpack being unzipped, and numerous hands began to pat her down for anything concealed she might be carrying. There was no respect for her modesty, but the hands weren't humiliating either, and when they finally stopped probing her, Aggie decided being frisked wasn't too bad. She was determined to treat her captivity as a simple misunderstanding. A voice directly in front of Aggie pierced the blackness of her hood. "You ready to talk now Samantha, or do you need to sit here for a while first?" Aggie nodded her head vigorously while making humming noises to remind her captors that she was still gagged. The voice in front of her paused for a moment and then said, "Oh, all right. Sydney, remove the tape. Keep the hood on though." Aggie felt the cord around her neck being loosened, and then a hand slipped into the hood and came to the side of her cheek. A moment later as the tape was pulled away, Aggie cried out, "Ouch! That hurt my lips!" "Well you should have thought of that before you came hunting for us!" "I ... My society wasn't hunting. We were searching. We were trying to rescue you. And my name isn't Samantha." A moment of absolute silence passed, and then the hood was pulled swiftly off her head. Aggie blinked from the bright lights around her. "My God, she's right," said a woman holding the piece of tape. Aggie decided to assume that was Sydney. Aggie licked her lips and was grateful she didn't taste any blood. "My name's Aggie and I've got a lot to tell you. How about you just let me talk for a while?" It took more than an hour. Once Aggie got going, she felt overwhelmed with how many critical details there were to her story. But she could only talk so fast, and she didn't know how these people would react if she tried to link with them. So she kept everything verbal and in normal time. It was a sad meeting. In her heart Aggie knew these people deserved to know about the world's fate, and she pulled no punches concerning Earth's last days. After that, most of her speech was received in stony silence. Aggie did learn the names of her captors but very little else. It wasn't until after 8 AM in local morning time (8 PM GHT) that Aggie finished her summary. From the way the group interacted, Aggie deduced that the leader was Cordelia. The woman looked at Aggie thoughtfully and asked, "So you say your group can mind-read too?" "Yes. We call it linking. And it's more than communication for us. I didn't stress it, but do you remember I mentioned boosting the mental ability at a Bee Park?" Aggie then went on to describe her enhanced abilities more fully. For the first time, her captors seemed to be giving her skeptical looks. "You're claiming you have super powers?" asked Cordelia. Her statement had just the hint of the inflection needed to be a question. The rest was pure disbelief. "Hey, this is real," replied Aggie. "It's an enhancement, just like the first drug we all got was an enhancement." "So why don't you try to seize control of our minds?!" "Yeah, right! I'm sure that would have gone over like a ton of bricks!" Aggie took a deep breath. She was still strapped to the chair, and by this time her muscles were getting very stiff. "Besides, dream linking doesn't work that way, and even besides that, it would be illegal for me to try it." Katelyn stared at their prisoner. "Illegal?!" "We have laws. Think it through Katelyn! For five months, we've had boosted people in our society living with unboosted people. We can't have people seizing control other people's minds!" "It never happened?" Another deep breath. "Not with me. In my society, it happened once under some very unusual circumstances. That was before we had laws about this. We have laws now, and besides, the thought is repugnant to me. I don't know. If you were about to slit my throat, maybe I would try it, try to capture your mind in a dream. Maybe in self defense, I don't know ... Invading another person's mind, the concept is really horrible." "So where do we go from here?" asked the leader. Aggie shrugged her shoulders, partially to relieve her cramps and partially as body language. "That depends on where you want to be Cordelia. I have no idea why you're so hostile to us, but I respect your right to privacy. If you want our society to leave you alone, that's what we'll do. Remember my description of the census counter? Six men and seventy-six women, that's the count of the human species. A conflict between us would be insane. We would prefer to merge, but we're not going to try to force it. That would be ridiculous." Aggie looked at her captors and pleaded with her eyes. "I'd love to tell the people I was with that I'm unharmed. They're my family." Cordelia was silent for a moment and then glanced quickly at her team. "We're not quite ready for that." "I'm willing to link with you, if you'll permit me," replied Aggie. "That would prove my sincerity. Within the link, there's no room for lies." Cordelia cocked her head. "You admit you could trap me in a dream, and you're asking me to agree to this?" "Well ... Yeah, I guess I am. I will end the dream whenever you ask. You have my word." On a leap of faith, Cordelia decided to agree. "What do I have to do?" "Just look me in my eyes and be receptive for a link. I'll take it from there. I promise. If you start to pull back, I'll stop immediately." Cordelia nodded and complied, and a short moment later she gave out an incredulous gasp. "Recognize the place?" a voice behind her said. Cordelia turned and saw Aggie standing behind her. Or at least she thought she did. "Can I touch you, or are you a ghost?" "I haven't got the skills yet to deviate from being realistic. I only finished boosting a few weeks ago." Cordelia stared at Aggie without understanding. "I mean if you touch me, it will seem real, to me too. If you do something that really hurts, I might lose control. In that case..." Cordelia interrupted. "I'll die?" Aggie laughed. "No! In that case, we'll both be back at the pyramid." "Oh..." Cordelia did a slow 360 degree rotation. "This looks so incredibly real! My God, I'm here!" "Thank you. I've been doing lots of practicing." "Really? How do you practice for this?" Aggie decided to give a very matter-of-fact explanation. "My days have been pretty busy. I practice dreaming in the evenings, with Mark before I started searching the pyramid. That's the man I think I'll marry someday. And since I've been here, I've been practicing with Tom." Cordelia looked at her curiously. "You prefer to practice with men?" Aggie nodded. "Almost all the women do. Dream sharing is a very intimate experience. When you're starting out, it helps to have a partner aligned with your sexual orientation." Aggie grinned. "In my case, that's a guy." Cordelia shook her head, gazing at the room in wonder. "This is so much to take in." She gave a nervous laugh. "A square room! What a relief! Do you know what it's like to be trapped in hexagonal rooms for..." "Six months?" offered Aggie. "Six? What?" "Haven't you noticed? I guess maybe at the equator, maybe not. All your days are the same." Cordelia looked at Aggie thoughtfully. "We have noticed some things. The sun used to rise and set on one side of the mountains. Now it's the other. The movement is fast and extreme." "Yes. This planet has a huge tilt and a very fast orbital period, 168 days. The summer solstice in the northern hemisphere will occur in just a few days. That will be July 1st on our new calendar. I'll tell you about it sometime." Cordelia nodded and walked over to a window. She stood there silently for a long moment. And then her hand slowly rose and touched the glass. "My God," she whispered. "This looks real! Am I home?! I want to be! I'm back in Burlington! Was it the hexagon that was the dream?!" Cordelia and Aggie were standing in Aggie's dorm room in Redstone Hall. Outside their window was a spring memory of a campus day. Aggie shook her head. "I didn't mean to torture you. Perhaps this was a bad choice." "No, I mean really!!! Could we go and play tennis?! Or go past the soccer field and ice skate?! Could we?! Could we?!" "Cordelia, this is a dream! We can not play tennis here!" Aggie paused and then sighed. "We can dream about playing tennis here. And within the dream, the two might seem identical. But they're not." Aggie walked over to her desk and opened the top drawer. After a second of hesitation she pulled something out, an elegant gold writing instrument. "So many memories," she muttered. "Do you see this pen? My father gave me this when I was a junior in high school. This pen exists only in my memory now, just as my father exists only in my memory. These last few weeks, I've been coming back here. That's how I'm managing to make this place look so realistic, all the details. I've been practicing. I wanted to remember my parents." Aggie looked down at the pen in her hand. Her lips quivered. "This helped." Cordelia slowly walked over to her and took the pen, admiring its beauty and its weight. "This is so much more than memory ... so much more..." she whispered. Aggie sighed. "And less." "Less?" Aggie nodded. "Assuming you decide to boost, you'll understand what I mean. I'm pulling all of this out of visual memory. It's a lot of work to keep the dream going. If I wanted to be creative, use my imagination or my morality to judge something, I'd be much better off just spending my time in contemplation. It's very difficult to make new associations doing this. Running the visual memory takes too much effort." "Would another setting be easier? A blank room?" Aggie laughed. "Yes, but that would be boring. Natural scenes are easier though, and much prettier." Cordelia let out an involuntary cough. She was standing on a mountain ridgeline. "I know this place!" "Ah, the Adirondacks. You've hiked them too." "How do you know that?" "We're sharing memories, remember? I'm cheating a bit here. It's late springtime, but I'm dreaming there are no black flies!" Cordelia could help but laugh at her own memories of the vicious biting insects. "That does it! I'm convinced. The Adirondacks without black flies? That really is a dream!" She admired the scenery for a moment and then asked, "Your society will really share the enhancement boost with us?" "Well of course! This transition period has been a very difficult time for us, having boosted and non-boosted people living side by side." "Why is this hard for you?" "There's a desire to know things. I have a desire to entwine with you. But I'm resisting doing that, just as Mark resisted doing that with me when we used to link. I'm talking about the time before I boosted." "You don't think I would have any control?" "Very little. And once I got started, I might pull things from you. I wouldn't need your permission." Aggie paused. "Do you want this dream to end now?" "You can sense my fear?" "Yes, and I cannot ignore it. This dream should end." "Hold off for a bit. I want to trust you." Cordelia paused and blinked. Did she really want to trust Aggie? How did that happen? Brushing the questions aside, she asked, "I want to be perfectly clear about this. Your society will share the boosting ability with us, even if we don't join you?" "Oh..." Aggie turned to the side and looked at mountain peaks across the valley for a moment. "We never explicitly discussed that, but I would assume so. We don't feel we own the Bee Park. That's as much as I can say. Fatima is our leader now. We have a very simple government. It would be her decision." "Ah yes, Fatima. You mentioned that name before." Cordelia looked troubled. "You also mentioned this Society of yours is creating a new religion?" "That's right." "And Fatima's doing both?" "Everybody is contributing their thoughts to our religion. Fatima is just helping to guide the process. She acts as moderator at our weekly prayer meeting. Her role as secular leader is completely separate." "The setup sounds scary." "It's not scary." "But ... But..." Cordelia half shouted. "Everything is so crazy! Why are you wasting time?" "On our new religion? It's not a waste of time. We do it because of what we are." "And what are you?" Cordelia blinked after her question. She was now standing on a rough surface of black rocks. There was a forest behind her and a gray and frothy ocean in front. Cordelia thought she recognized the scenery. They were somewhere on the coast of northern Maine. It was impossible to tell whether the time was near sunset or sundown, but it felt like one or the other. There was a heavy gray fog covering the forest, with a cold spray in the air from of the waves crashing against the rocks below. The moisture brushed against her lips, and its salty coldness reminded Cordelia of winter. "What are we?" asked Aggie, repeating the question put to her. Aggie took a deep breath before replying. "We are mist! We are waves tossed upon the ocean, and we are more! We are mist, and we are trying to build new definitions for purity and obedience, definitions that will accept our ability to doubt. We are God's mist, and we are God's children, and we are trying to build a new Salema, one that allows us to celebrate what we truly are, celebrate both our childhood playfulness and our adult sexuality." "What?! I don't understand!" Cordelia paused and tried to grasp all that Aggie had told her. She asked, "you want to worship doubt?" Aggie laughed. "What a concept! No, of course not! Are you playing with me Cordelia? I'm talking about our religious tenets being living documents, where we never surrender our responsibility to critique." "A religion of doubt? That's sounds like never-ending contention." "And what's wrong with that? From another perspective, it's the religion of the open mind. And isn't that how we grow and develop our understanding, by contending our different ideas?" Cordelia stared at Aggie in silence, and then she cracked a thin smile. "Wow. I haven't had a conversation this intelligent in a long time. And you really want us to join you?" "Absolutely. Our future ... Our whole species is hanging by a thread." Aggie paused and added with a pleading voice, "we need each other." Cordelia nodded. "I'll have to talk it over with my group. We've fought so hard for our independence, this might take a while. But I'll let you contact your people." Aggie surprised Cordelia by coming over and hugging her. "Thank you," she whispered. Cordelia hugged back and closed her eyes, and then felt the pressure of Aggie's arms disappear. She opened her eyes and stared at the woman tied to a chair in front of her. For the first time, Cordelia noticed how tightly Sarah had tied the bonds, bending Aggie's shoulders backwards from the tension in the cords. Cordelia moved quickly to release them. ------- Chapter 91 Time: Monday, June 11, 2019 9:02 PM GHT (Great Hexagon Time). Fatima was having a hard time talking to the people that had abducted Aggie. The group was asking for so much and as of yet they were offering almost no information about themselves. Fatima didn't even know their number and she was winging the negotiations, placing a great deal of faith on Aggie's short but cheerful comment that she was with good people. Fatima explained her unease to the new group. "I would feel a lot more comfortable making commitments if you weren't keeping Aggie a prisoner." "I'm not a prisoner Fatima," Aggie replied over the bridge. "I will be free to go as soon as this conversation ends." "Regardless of what I agree to?" "Yes, that's my understanding. And remember Cordelia and I shared a dream. We trust each other. Fatima, Cordelia is testing you. She wants to see how much you will trust her in return." "All right..." Fatima took a quick review of her notes before continuing. "Cordelia, my group has discussed your requests. We are agreeable on all points with some minor clarifications. Our last boost team is scheduled to leave the Bee Park in three days. Three of your people are welcome to join them now, and then additional groups of three every four days afterwards. Each group's time in the Park will be eight days. That's the schedule we've been using, and it has proven to be very successful." "Yes, Aggie has already described that to me." Fatima took a sip of water. "In principle we will also leave you in peace if you desire. You say you want to occupy the Green Mall home complex. We need to clarify a few things." "Such as?" "Will you tell me?" asked Fatima. "Except for Aggie, are you in charge of all the original members of Party #4? We know they're all still alive." "All of them? You know that?" "Yes." Fatima did not elaborate on the details. "I'm curious to know how." After a prolong period of silence, Cordelia realized Fatima was not going to reply. She then admitted, "I am not in charge of the whole group." "Can you take us to the others?" "Not easily, and I'm not sure I want to try." "Okay." Fatima paused. "In that case, we would like to continue searching on our own. That will require our continued presence at the pyramid, which means we will need occasional passage through the Green Mall library elevator in order to reach the wedge-shaped building with the trapdoor. Except for this, we will leave you alone if you wish. Our presence at your home will be minimal." "That ... sounds reasonable. And what about the spiral branch that belongs to Green Mall?" In Cordelia's dream with Aggie, Aggie had shared her memories of the spiral mall system. Fatima bit her lip. "We would prefer to share the whole mall with you rather than divide it into sections. There are 27,000 stores. It would seem enough for us all for many lifetimes. But we are also beginning to understand how unique many of the stores are. In fact, I'm talking to you from the Hilton complex. It's the terminal store of the green spiral. It's our communications hub. We won't relinquish it." "All right. In your position, I wouldn't either." "I would also like to establish the principle that any additional Party members we find have as much right the Bee Park as you do, and that other members of Party #4 also have living rights to the Green Mall surface area and buildings." "Ah ... The first part I'm okay with. Regarding the second, my group will have to discuss that." Fatima sighed. "All right. But we need to reach some sort of agreement on this. You see our position, don't you? We absolutely do not want to be taking sides in an unknown dispute." "Yes, I understand that. Your desire for neutrality is reasonable. Perhaps my group will join you. All these issues will then be moot. We're just not ready for that step yet. And you promise to show us how to move back and forth from your position to here?" Fatima answered this and also an earlier request. "Yes, we will show you. And as discussed we will provide your group with Leophones, plus several private channels for your own use. Be advised we will have the means to eavesdrop on you. We give our word we won't do it, but the ability is intrinsic to our network. We can not physically prevent ourselves from having access to your traffic." "Okay. How soon can we get the phones?" "Tell us how many you need, and we'll work out a schedule." Cordelia paused. "Ah, the moment of truth. Okay, I will tell you. There are four of us, Our names are Sarah, Katelyn, Sydney, and me Cordelia. And I think it's time our groups met." "Cordelia," said a voice over the bridge. "This is Carla, in charge of Aggie's group during her absence. I'd be very pleased to meet now. We are still at zone 119 on the 20th floor." The unspoken question could not be ignored. Cordelia took the plunge. "Zone 607 for us, 35th floor." "Thank you," Carla said softly, and the more loudly, "For your reference, the tumbler code for us to reach you is W-16, and the mirror code if you want to come to us is H-13. Where would you like to meet?" Cordelia was dumbfounded. "How do you know that?" Aggie interrupted. "We know all the tumbler codes. I have them memorized." Katelyn looked incredulous. "All of them?!" Aggie grinned. "Yeah." "Any two locations in a single jump?! Wow!" "It's not as hard as you might think, two fairly short tables, a ring position table and a jump-size table. The key is understanding the mathematical structure of the carriage zone." Katelyn fought to contain her skepticism. "I'll take your word for it." "Come to us," called out Cordelia. "On our way," came Carla's reply. Carla, Tom, Suvarna, Cassidy, and Ann walked out of zone-607's transfer room a few minutes later. In a lounge area they met a single woman waiting for them. "Hi, I'm Sydney," she announced with a smile. She also kept a hand near the hilt of a large knife hanging from her belt. Tom paused for a moment to admire her. Sydney had a beautiful and solid athletic frame and looked as if she had spent her entire life climbing mountains. She was just over 170 cm in height and had strawberry blond hair cut to fall just off her shoulders. She was wearing lightweight climbing boots, shorts, and a short-sleeve shirt that was tied halter-style under her breasts. The outfit showed off a flat tummy and impressive calf and arm muscles. Carla couldn't help but notice Tom's reaction and she gave him a playful bump with her shoulder before replying, introducing all the members of her team. They took a short walk through zone 607 and came to a rather interesting conference room. The hexagon was dominated by an impressive hexagonal table that filled the room except for a perimeter walkway. There were twelve executive chairs around the table, two per side, more than enough for their combined party of ten. In a gesture of trust, Aggie stayed sitting between Cordelia and Katelyn, and Sydney sat between Tom and Carla. The two groups looked at each other and offered friendly and somewhat timid smiles. Then Cordelia began describing her group's experiences after leaving Kappa Alpha's Christmas party. Seventeen women left Aggie at the southern vertex of the Green Mall home complex that day. The last of the evening twilight was fading from the sky and at the time the group was completely leaderless. Looking back, Cordelia thought her Party consisted of subgroups of casual friends, two to five women in each. They walked for hours, making slow but steady progress to the south and unavoidably to the east. Aggie knew exactly what they were talking about. After the first critical fork, there were only two points along the journey to the trapdoor building that provided access to the western areas, and both routes were unlit. Cordelia reported they reached the wedge-shaped building shortly after 7 PM that night. Her group was tired, bewildered, and a little damp from a few brief sprinkles of cold rain. A number of people were commenting how bizarre it was that the temperature had risen above freezing. That certainly wasn't the forecast. There was some outdoor lighting, not as much as they would have liked but enough to know they were walking into an acute angle between two great walls. Several women started arguing that they should turn back and return to their old party location. Aggie had promised to wait by the perimeter door and let them back in. The group almost split into two right then, a woman named Kelly arguing for people to join her for the return trip, and another woman named Laura insisting that a mall would never have such a massive dead end. A majority of the women sided with Laura, not wanting to undo the hours of effort it had taken to come this far. And the remaining members did not want to split off from the main group. They capitulated and continued the journey to the southeast. Ten minutes later Laura let out a whoop of joy. They had turned a hexagonal corner and a wedge-shaped building was clearly in sight. It had a lit lobby and an inviting front door and it was just beginning to drizzle again. The group hurried forward and after Laura volunteered and checked that the door would open from the inside, they all took shelter within. They started to do a little exploring, grateful for the comfortable shelter and searching in vain for a working telephone. For some reason, all their cell phones were still unable to find a cell tower. Then after perhaps twenty minutes of searching, a woman named Kaylee realized that the lobby door was the only entrance to the building. Proclaiming loudly that this was both an absurdity and an extreme fire-code violation, Kaylee tried the lobby exit and discovered to her horror that the door would not open. The following hour was a nightmare. Various groups of people tried smashing the door and then all the windows, even the few small ones on the second floor. Incredibly, the glass-looking windows resisted all their efforts to break them, and they were not designed to open. The group was trapped. Exhausted from their efforts, they collapsed in a lounge area near the center of the building on the ground floor. The effects of the mind-altering drug hit them very soon after. Emily interrupted at this point and commented that Cordelia's account was supporting a rather strange attribute suspected of the drug. Cordelia's group was hit with its effect hours after Emily was effected, even though Cordelia's group had taken their drinks in the tunnel and ridden their elevator more than two hours before Emily's ride. The impact of the drug evidently was not a simple matter of timing. Emily's conjecture was that physical activity or emotional distress would delay its onset. This was a major reason for the eight-day stay of their boost teams at the Bee Park. The Society wanted the second enhancement done in the setting of a peaceful retreat. Cordelia grimaced and then explicitly described her own troubled experiences that first night. She became sexually active with four other women. Everything seemed so foggy at the time, but the next morning every act seemed so clear, every caress, every suckle, every orgasm, every tongue slide and finger slide into mouths and vaginas and rectums, both giving and receiving. Cordelia could remember it all in blinding clarity. They all could. Everyone was in a state of absolute shock over their decadence and loss of morality. And then a cry went up throughout the building. Five of their party were missing. Laura, Morgan, Samantha, Ginny and Kaylee were nowhere to be found. It wasn't that large a building. An exhaustive search was completed in ten minutes, and the remaining dozen people were furious that Laura and her friends had left without revealing the secret of how to leave the building. Sarah unashamedly announced that it was Ginny who had her head between Sarah's legs about 6 AM that morning. The group's departure must have happened within the last three hours. Hopeful that Laura and her group would eventually tell the authorities to come and let them out, the remaining women spent the rest of the cloudy day discussing how bizarre their situation was and wondering if they would be prosecuted for trespassing in the unfinished Castle Commonwealth mall. But as afternoon turned to evening, their fear turned to anger. Damn Laura and her friends! Had they not told anybody how the rest of the group was still trapped here?! The next three days were filled with confusion. Their building was wedged between high perimeter walls, both to their south and northeast. The high southern wall blocked all direct views of the sun, but they could see a strange orange tint to the sunlight in the courtyard outside their lobby, and astounding as it seemed, they were losing about fifteen minutes of daylight each day. And then sometime before 3 PM Christmas afternoon, Julie and Hailey disappeared. The remaining ten people were in an uproar, lots of shouting and finger pointing. Kelly finally managed to organize a coherent search, maintaining a central command with Nicole and keeping track of four pairs of search teams. They made a diagram of the building and were carefully recording the location and progress of four two-person search teams. Around 6 PM, Cordelia heard a woman named Caroline screaming as she ran up from the basement level. Her search partner Jordan had entered an empty storage area to press against the walls and probe for a hidden passage. As planned, Caroline let the door close with Jordan inside. Jordan was going to test whether the door could be opened from the inside. After ten seconds of waiting, Caroline decided it could not and she opened the door to let Jordan out. The closet was bare again. Jordan was gone without a trace. All nine remaining women were soon outside the closet area. It was an odd area, almost too large to think of as just a closet. With the large four-meter door fully retracted, several women gingerly examined the interior. The chamber seemed extremely well constructed, the same size and quality as the elevator carriage that had brought them to their original party, but with air vents in the floor and no keyboard. A few pin lights in the ceiling provided an adequate amount of illumination. No one was willing to stay inside while the elevator was tested again. Then a woman named Nicole had the bright idea of testing without people. The idea seemed so ridiculous it almost wasn't tried. A series of test ensued. All objects left in the chamber disappeared once the door was closed, even when the door was closed only for a fraction of a second. The results were frightening. At this point another voice interrupted Cordelia. "This is Alison at the Bee Park with a question for Aggie. Did you find these things in the transfer junction?" "No. My guess is that after enough time, the servo cleaning routines kick in." Cordelia turned and looked at Aggie. "You people obviously know so much more about this environment than we do. But I'd like to add that we too have noticed that areas left untouched for more than a week or so are put back to very pristine conditions. Is this the same thing?" Aggie nodded. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Another example is our handouts. We've been leaving them in the zones and they'll disappear after six days if the zones are not visited again. My team was making speed jumps at the end of our search days, just enough time to pop the doors open, just to reset the servo timers." Cordelia nodded and got back to her story. A week in the corner building passed by, and then another. It was January 7th and the women decided that anything was preferable to a meaningless existence trapped inside a prison. They would go into the closet in two groups. Cordelia, Sarah, Sydney and Katelyn would leave first, and then Kelly, Natalie, Nicole, Caroline and Claire would follow. Cordelia watched the second group as it waited outside the closet. About a second before the door closed, Cordelia and Kelly looked each other in the eyes. Their gazes seemed to lock. For Cordelia, it was a very strange experience. The elevator door suddenly seemed to be closing more slowly, and she had the very uncomfortable thought that Kelly was using her and her friends as guinea pigs. But that couldn't be right. Kelly had promised to follow immediately after them. And then the door edge cut their view of each other's eyes. Both women unexpectedly hiccupped as the door silently finishing closing. Immediately to Cordelia right, the three-meter wall started to slide and open and their closet was bathed in a warm orange light. Cordelia and her friends let out gasps of relief. Katelyn had earlier confided in having a nightmare where the floor would disappear once the door was closed, dropping them into an inky pit. Walking out through a side door was infinitely preferable! But this?! The four women stared at the scenery and started to laugh hysterically. Their last hope of still being in Vermont had just been shattered. Staring in the direction of the sun, Cordelia's group was on the ridgeline of a mountain range of breathtaking proportions. But wait! They had just walked out of a closet in the basement of a building, a building surrounded by flat land and high walls. Staring at the Alpine-like scenery around her, Cordelia felt so disoriented she sat down heavily on the floor and almost cried. And in that small hexagonal room, she and her friends waited for almost an hour. Kelly and her group never showed up. Eventually Sarah pushed a button in their entrance arch and the three-meter door retracted. The carriage looked very similar, but now had two tumblers mounted on the wall opposite the direction they had first entered. The four women went in to explore, and thus began their weeks of exploration in the hexagonal pyramid. Katelyn chimed in on the discussion. "After our first day here, we thought there were 672 jump sites. That was the number of tumbler possibilities, and it also fit the site numbers we were seeing in the archways. And the floors here are so strange, numbered from the top down." Cordelia continued with her story. They met Laura's original group. Julie and Hailey were with Laura too. Laura strongly urged Cordelia and her group to join her, and Cordelia had no objections. But after a week of living in the large group, she learned that Julie and Hailey had originally resisted Laura's urgings. As a result the two women were being treated as slaves. Things got worse. Kelly showed up about at the pyramid about a week after Cordelia, and the two groups began to fight for members. Sydney and Katelyn were so disgusted with Laura's domineering personality that they switched sides and joined Kelly, but then Cordelia heard that they were just as unhappy with conditions there. The final straw for Cordelia with Laura's group came two weeks after Cordelia's arrival at the pyramid. By this time Laura had identified over a dozen zones on the bottom floor that offered access to the outside through crystal clear chambers that appeared to work as airlocks. Laura had Julie physically thrown against her will into the airlock, and the slave was forced to spend several hours outside before being allowed back in. Hailey flipped out over this treatment of her friend. She accused Laura of being a tin pot Hitler doing Nazi experimentations on humans, and Laura responded by restraining Hailey with chains and saying she would have to be punished for her outburst. The situation was too much for Cordelia to put up with. Risking her life, she helped overpower two guards who were armed with knives. With cries for help ringing through the area, Cordelia and her friends barely managed to escape from Laura's camp that night without a major knife fight. In the days that followed, a three-way war broke out between Laura, Kelly, and a collection of people loosely led by Cordelia. Things got so bad that after a week of warfare all three groups realized that they would soon be having fatalities if they stayed on the path they were on. A truce was organized, and it included strict rules about announcing your presence while exploring and avoiding other people's territories. As far as Cordelia knew, her original Christmas party was currently living as four separate groups, Laura's, Kelly's, her own team, and Hailey and Julie were off on their own and hiding from everybody. Three weeks ago Cordelia had left Hailey and Julie a message, asking again that they rejoin her group. She never got a reply. And that was the situation until Aggie showed up exploring the pyramid. Tom asked a quick couple of questions, and it was Sydney who smiled at him and answered. "I'll use weeks because I know what a strange definition you people have for months. It's been about nine weeks since the end of the war. And as for going outside, we all feel the need for it. This pyramid is so strange, such great novelty between the rooms in terms of function, but they're all the same size! It gets to you after a while. I go for hikes at least a few times a week. I've even camped outside overnight. There's gear for it in the storage rooms by the airlock rooms, very high-class mountain gear, stuff you dream about if you're an amateur climber, ski equipment too." "It's nice to get out," Katelyn added. "The nights are brutally cold but during the day it's actually nice when the wind is not blowing. It takes about five minutes to cycle through the airlock each way. It's a sizable pressure drop. At first we used to worry about blowouts, living in a pressurized building like this, but I guess we've gotten used to it." Tom nodded. "We think the pyramid is pressurized to the same value as the elevation of the Great Hexagon, about 300 meters above sea level." Katelyn smiled back at him. "Is it true you're having almost 24 hours a day of sunlight now?" "Yeah. I haven't been back in a week, but ... hey Mark! When is sunset today where you are?" "Hi everybody," he replied. "It's 10:48 PM Great Hexagon Time, and we still have a half hour of daylight left." "Hello Mark," said Cordelia. "All that sunshine, and the sun is directly overhead, correct?" "No, not now, just at solar noon. The sun right now is making a big oval in the sky, rising in the north northeast and swinging just south of directly overhead at solar noon and the setting in the north northwest about eleven hours later. I remember all the darkness near the winter solstice. The change is truly spectacular." "What about the heat though? Aren't you getting fried?" Mark laughed. "No! During the winter we got as cold as a very cold day in Vermont, but so far this spring has been idyllically pleasant. Our highest recorded temperature occurred yesterday, 29C." "Is that all?" "The star here produces a lot less power than Earth's sun. We're also lot closer in, and the net effect is this planet gets about 90% of incident power compared to Earth. But the lack of polar icecaps means this planet reflects less sunlight back into space. With the big tilt and the fast orbit, the net effect is a planet-wide temperature just slightly cooler than Earth and with temperate climates almost everywhere, even at the equator. We believe the rain forests there are sub-tropical, perhaps similar to the laurel forests the northern Mediterranean had millions of years ago. The polar areas here would have extreme seasonal shifts if there were much land there, but it's almost all ocean above sixty degrees latitude, in both hemispheres." "So the oceans never freeze?" "At the poles they come close but they never quite make it. You start getting pancake ice over the polar seas about a week before the spring equinox, but with huge rolling waves. There's just too much action for solid pack ice to form." Mark paused and then added, "Interestingly enough, both geographic poles are over land, moderately sized islands, a few thousand square kilometers each. It would be fascinating to explore there someday. We have images. Both islands seem well vegetated, but I don't think any Earth plants could withstand the temperature shifts." Tom spoke up and changed topics, addressing the new people. "During the last equinox, about five weeks ago, did you notice a power failure shortly after ... uh, midnight local time?" Katelyn blinked. "A power failure? No. And there's always one of us on guard ... Hell, a power failure inside a pressurized building? That sounds dangerous." "Thanks for asking Tom," came Mark's voice on the phone. "I also know the orbiting telescope maintaining power during the reset. It appears the effect was limited to the Great Hexagon." "You have an orbiting telescope?!" exclaimed Sarah. "Wow! I was wondering how you knew so much. Can you tell us about the continent of the Great Hexagon? Can you see it in real time? What's it like?" "It's the largest of four continents in the northern hemisphere," Mark replied. "The other three are fairly close in size, all three a few percent under ten million square kilometers. The continent we're on is over seventeen million square kilometers. All four northern continents, the three in the southern hemisphere too, they all have oval shapes oriented in the east-west direction, with the ones nearest the equator having the greatest elongation. The Great Hexagon itself lies on the long axis of the continent, near the eastern end. From where we are, it's 900 kilometers south, east, and north to the ocean, but to the west the northern ocean is almost 7000 kilometers away." "The northern ocean?" "Yes. Didn't Aggie tell you yet? The eighth continent, the equatorial continent, it's the greatest of them all, over thirty million square kilometers. It completely cuts the world's oceans into northern and southern halves." "Ah, right. Actually Aggie did mention this briefly. I just didn't visualize the implications. The two oceans are completely cut off from each other, aren't they?" "Absolutely. The lowest spot on the equator is about four kilometers above sea level. It seems impossible nature would create such perfection. The planet has been engineered, optimized for us we think, maybe in the biosphere too. We have some apple orchards near the Red Mall home complex that is producing some wonderful fruit. The trees seemed perfectly adapted to a 168-day cycle. Whether this is true for the planet at large, we don't know." Sarah could hear the deep worry in Mark's voice. For a moment his tone puzzled her, and then in a flash of insight she sensed the cause. "And the destruction of the Earth, was that engineered too?" Mark sighed deeply. "Yes, very good Sarah. We have researched and debated this topic so much, and honestly we still don't know. The evidence is puzzling, sometimes even conflicting. We've seen technology light years beyond what we ever dreamed possible. But whether it extends to guiding ... directing a neutron star to enter our solar system ... We just don't know." "What's your best guess?" "Truthfully? I'm a fence sitter. On the one hand, anybody who can put a stopper in time, maybe they can also manipulate the path of a neutron star, maybe even create one, I don't know. The odds of such a thing happening seem so astronomically small ... to have it happen by chance ... And the jump technology, it implies the builders can tear space..." Mark took a really deep breath. "On the other hand, when I think how we've been provided for, the abundance, and especially my time with the interface, I sense a purpose, a genuine desire to express kindness and care. To me the attention to details implies a loving concern. It's so strange Sarah. The evidence points in both directions." And the discussion continued. Twelve hours later, 11 PM local time. Aggie's and Cordelia's groups were spending the night together in zone 673. In another ten hours, Mark and Emily were scheduled to join them and escort Cordelia's group back to the Great Hexagon. Aggie's team would then continue their search. Carla was lying in her bed, already showered and in pajamas and reading a book from the library in the connecting cell. It was difficult to read, her mind was too uneasy, and she paused for a moment to think. Living here, it was like living in a honeycomb. "Is this what it feels like to be a bee?" she thought with a sigh. Carla then tried to amuse herself by visualizing the base ring and jump size tables in her mind. R-20 would bring Mark and Emily here from the top of the pyramid, and then P-6 followed by D-5 would get them to the three-way junction. From there, the working elevator would port the group directly to the Green Mall library and Cordelia's new home. Such a simple journey, but only if you knew the codes. Carla frowned and stretched her neck muscles before another attempt at reading. She really should be asleep now, but that was impossible. And then a motion by her bedroom archway caught her eye. There in the library stood Tom. Carla cocked her head. "Hello stranger! You missed tonight's meeting." Tom nodded and with a slight head gesture asked if he could come in. Carla nodded and a moment later Tom was sitting on the edge of her bed. "Didn't Aggie tell you? I had her permission not to make it." "Ah, that explains it. Aggie was unconcerned, I admit. I just never asked. I take it you were with Sydney?" "Yep. She was giving me pointers on how we might want to organize our search, very useful stuff." "For three hours?" Carla worked hard and succeeded in keeping her voice neutral. Tom sighed. "No. Actually, we spent most of the time on ... well, it's a bit personal." "Yes, I can imagine." Success was not quite perfect with this last response. Tom picked up on emotional undercurrent immediately. "Hey Carla, you upset with me?" "What makes you think that?" Carla stared at him, but not directly at his eyes. They almost never linked. Carla was still a little gun shy of forming their emotional attachment through linking. The speed and power of her new abilities frightened her, and she had asked Tom right after their boost graduation if they could date and let their romantic interest develop at a more normal pace. Tom agreed almost immediately and had commented that was probably a very good idea. "Oh, come on Carla! What's up?" "Well, Katelyn did mention to me that today was the first time she's seen Sydney tie her shirt halter-style." "Really?" Tom gave a sheepish smile. "Well, she does have a very cute front." He took a deep breath and got serious. "But so what?" "So what indeed. Tom, I don't mind you dating other women, and I really like Madison and Lynn. But to go off with a woman you've just met..." Carla gulped and turned her head to the side. "Sorry." Tom reached out and offered to hold hands. Carla seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then she took it. Tom stared at her for a while, wishing she would meet his eyes. "What do you think we did?" "Well, I've seen Sydney displaying her body for you all day, and then you two disappear for most of the evening. I'm assuming she got what she wanted. I'm assuming she got laid." Carla felt Tom's hand tighten against hers. "And I'm sorry if I seem upset. It's not as if I own you..." Tom surprised Carla by responding in a very gentle voice. "Link with me? I know we're trying not to, but just this once, link with me?" "Oh, all right." Carla gazed into his eyes. They had been on the same Boost team and they locked immediately, their two minds fitting together like two hands finding old and familiar gloves. Carla found herself in a dream, a very recent memory. She was standing in a perimeter room. It was a viewing room, a lounge area high up on the pyramid. It was well after sunset and the stars were out and the lights in the room turned down very low. In a comfortable couch Tom and Sydney were sitting pressed up against each other. Tom had his arms around Sydney, but his embrace didn't seem overtly sexual. He had the arm nearest her around her shoulders, and with his other arm he was petting her hair and the side of her head as Sydney pressed herself against his chest. Tom was offering Carla access to his memories, and she could see that until a short while ago Tom and Sydney had been talking quietly with each other for a long time. But Sydney wasn't talking now. Sydney was crying her eyes out. A current version of Tom's mind was talking to Carla as she watched the dream replay in his memory. "We were talking about our families. See the conversation?" The hours were laid out before Carla, both the words and the extensive visual memories Tom and Sydney had shared. Carla had access to everything. She saw that Sydney was the middle child of five children. The woman had an older brother, an older sister, and twin siblings nine years her junior, a boy and a girl who were very much still children. Tom's current consciousness mixed with the playback of the memories. "Carla, you and I, we've adjusted. Until today, Sydney never had the chance." Carla shuddered. Tom's whole memory of his evening with Sydney was open before her, and he had absolutely nothing to hide. He had spent hours consoling the grieving woman. Carla's mind floated through the conversations. Such strong family attachments! Sydney's conversation with Tom was a memorial service for her family, and Carla shivered in her recognition. "I am so ashamed," she whispered in the dream, "ashamed and afraid." "Hey Carla, you and I, nothing has changed." "How could I have been so stupid?!" "Mostly you were just being perceptive. You're right, Sydney has a beautiful and athletic body, and we do like each other." "I can't believe you're not angry with me, but you're not? I guess that's a rhetorical question. I can see that you're not. But I still feel so deeply ashamed ... Can we unlink? My embarrassment is unbearable." The dream ended. Carla kept her eyes averted. "Thank you," she whispered. "A delayed reaction to learning about the neutron star," Tom whispered back. "I didn't think of it either. A strange orange sun with twice the familiar diameter, walking through an underground closet directly to the top of a mountain pyramid, of course these people knew that something unbelievable had occurred, that they were almost certainly not on Earth. Sydney had accepted the fact she might never see her parents and siblings again. But..." "Yes, of course, their deaths..." Carla tried to say more but the words wouldn't come. Her eyes were awash with tears. Tom moved across the bed to hold her. A half hour later... Carla was lying naked on the bed, flat on her stomach, Tom kneeling and straddling her thighs just below her butt. His hands had been gripping and holding her butt cheeks open, and his wet thumbs had been driving her crazy by playing with her anus. Carla whimpered in the heat of her desire, and arched her hips up and down in impatient little wiggles. Tom hands left her cheeks and returned to caressing the inside of her thighs. His weight also lifted, allowing Carla to spread her legs and open herself. She felt the back of his hand caress her, long slow vertical strokes starting at the raised clit and then across the wet labia, very gentle, very loving. They knew each other's minds so well, Carla knew exactly what Tom was asking with the body language. One final question before mounting her, "Are you sure?" Carla tried to whimper an answer. It came out as a growl and her meaning was unmistakable. Hurry up! She felt the glans of his penis sliding against the soft skin of her thighs, bumping her, pushing up against her clit on one thrust, then riding up through the wet lips of her labia a moment later. Tom was rubbing himself against her sex, and Carla could feel the friction diminish as Tom coated himself with her moisture, his penis sliding up into the air as the underside of the shaft pressed against her womanhood. And then he dropped down and mounted her, legs pressing down into her calves and thighs, his abdominal wall resting on her uplifted ass, arms above her arms, their fingers entwining, and the wet velvety nose of his penis was nudging her, bumping her, seeking her. On his fourth thrust he caught the angle just right and his glans was cupped into the vaginal opening. Quick eager thrusts of his hips followed, nailing Carla from the rear. He didn't stop until he was fully sheathed. Carla's vaginal lips were pressed up tightly against his groin. He hissed into her ear, "You are so incredibly tight!" "It's been a while," she hissed back. "Fuck me!" Tom held the position for a while, alternating slow and fast thrusting. He unleashed full down-strokes, and watched the slapping impacts ripple the flesh on Carla's ass. Carla's hand were like claws digging into the sheets and she squirmed and wiggled, gasping as Tom worked the piston between her legs. He began to smell the sweat of her, and the aroma was sexually intoxicating. And then she settled down, still receptive but more passive, a willing vessel waiting for Tom's release. Alongside Tom's urgent need for orgasm came a loving urge for care and tenderness, and he stopped his dominating thrusts. They shared a time of caresses and licks filled with position changes and long kisses where their tongues would play with each other. By the time they coupled again, Carla was on her back, her long legs scissored with Tom's and her head resting on his arm and his other hand petting her breasts. Compared to mounting her from the back, the new arrangement was a much more relaxed and comfortable position for coitus, for both of them. And the ease showed in the new coupling. Tom reentered Carla with one easy rock of his hips. Her vaginal cavity was well dilated from their earlier lovemaking, and Tom felt the exquisite sensation of sliding his cock into a mass of silky smooth moist feathers which then seized his erection in a muscular grip. Carla sighed deeply in her pleasure, licking Tom's lips and nose, playfully nipping at his tongue with her teeth, feeling his warm hand fondle her breasts and aroused nipples, and all the while a very eager and erect penis was sliding in and out of her, full strokes but surprisingly gentle, no jolt at all on the down stroke, just a soft slick sliding motion, in and out, in and out. It was so easy to drift and enjoy, drift and float in the pleasure, and then her uterus seemed to spasm, and a moment later her entire pelvis caught sexual fire. Carla cried out as her orgasm took her. And the penis within her became a living animal, forcing its way in through the vaginal contractions, a full stroke, then another, and then a third that did not withdraw. The pleasure was driving her delirious. The penis was buried inside of her, buried deep, and with a slow rocking motion Tom began to orgasm. Carla could feel each new splash of semen delivered during the peak pressure of each tiny thrust. She bore down and rocked her hips and tried to milk the penis of every drop of semen it had, her body shuddering in the effort. Carla had started her orgasm well before Tom, but they finished almost simultaneously. They lay still for a moment gasping for breath. For a while her emotions made it difficult to speak. Then Carla felt the penis within her beginning to soften. "Wow!" she whispered. "Yeah," answered Tom, his breathing still ragged. "Wow!" Carla did an artful maneuver with her legs, keeping the slippery penis still within her but now resting both her legs on top of Tom's. "Oh, that was smooth. How did you do that?" Carla giggled. "It's actually a combat maneuver. I learned it at Parris Island four years ago." She giggled again. "I don't think my boot instructor had this purpose in mind though. Hmm. That feels so nice ... Do something for me?" "Sure." "Put the palm of your hand on center of my uterus. That's right, right there. Now press down, press down and release." "Like this?" "It's the right spot but push harder. Don' worry, you won't break me ... Ah ... Ah ... That feels perfect. You're fooling my uterus. It thinks I'm still being fucked." Tom continued the rhythmic pulsing and gave a playful laugh. "It feels as if I'm doing CPR on your womb. Carla, you are so incredibly sexy!" Carla hummed as a reply, closing her eyes and unwinding, enjoying her cuddle-time with Tom. She drifted for a while in the aftersex and almost fell asleep, but the sensation of a limp penis popping out of her vagina made her blink her eyes open. At some point during her drifting Tom had eased up and then stopped pumping her uterus. He saw Carla eyes open and kissed her cheek. "It's okay. Go back to sleep." She sighed sleepily. "Sounds like a plan." Her hand reached down and touched the bed sheet under her butt. "Good," she mumbled. "I haven't killed the sheets." "You mean my semen?" More kisses on her cheek, and a soft dry lick on her earlobe. "That would make me the killer." "No, not just semen..." Carla woke up a bit more. "Let me check something." She curled her wrist and slid her middle finger far into her vagina. "Wow." "Hmm?" Carla smiled. "Tom, you incredible stud. Can I show you something?" "Sure." "Slide your finger alongside mine, as deep as you can." "Inside your vagina?" "Uh huh." Tom nodded and gave a smile that was simultaneously playful and sheepish. Soon his finger joined Carla's. Her vagina felt warm, tight, and wet, and he loved the sensations. "Where my fingertip is now," Carla whispered, "feel that pad of tough muscle?" Tom stretched his finger. "It feels very smooth ... hard and slippery, circular. It's your cervix, isn't it?" "That's right. Now feel the tip. Feel the concave dimple at the tip?" "Yep." Carla jerked her body as Tom probed with his finger. "I'm sorry. Did that hurt?" "No, not at all, just ticklish. Tom, you incredible stud! You dilated me! I have never felt my cervix so puffy and dilated. You realize what this means, don't you?" "Uh..." Carla giggled playfully. "It means it's not just my love you've captured. My cervix loves you too!" Tom laughed and tried to speak very solemnly. "I will cherish both loves forever." "There's something else that's interesting too. I feel so squishy inside, deep inside I mean, and now I know why. Your compressions, you were pressing hard enough to tent my uterus. Your semen was pooling around my cervix. Your hand turned my uterus into a suction pump. I can feel it. I feel so squishy inside. Tom, you stud!" Tom in his sleepiness had a really idiotic grin on his face, and then he turned thoughtful. His finger caressed her pubic fur, and then moved slightly higher and to the sides, caressing her above her Fallopian tubes. "Wow. Do you think we might have started ... something?" Carla laughed and turned, catching his head in both hands and then kissing him fiercely. "You use the word something?! Don't you mean someone?! Oh, you men! Don't you think the time to ask that question is BEFORE you inseminate the girl?!" "Uh ... Uh..." Carla playfully butted his chest with her head. "It's okay. I admit it. It's the traditional role of the female to worry about pregnancies. And to put your mind at ease, I'm very regular, and I'm due for my period tomorrow. No, we haven't started anything or anybody tonight." Tom nodded. "Ah, that's good. Children ... What a responsibility, especially in our situation." Carla nodded back. "Yes, I agree. Toshi and Holly, I have nothing but admiration for what they're doing. But I want to make our future more secure before you and I offer that future to a new life." She smiled bashfully. "Uh, I guess I'm assuming you'll want to procreate with me." Her eyes seemed to sparkle with her grin. "Let's see, is that the right way to put it? You can answer by sleeping with me tonight." Tom gave her a beaming smile back. "I feel ... so happy Carla, happy and unworthy. I love you." She nodded. "I know what you mean. Seriously, I feel the same way. I love you!" She leaned back in his arms and stared at the ceiling high above, her hand idly caressing the back of his neck. "I've captured the most wonderful man on the planet!" Tom laughed. "Are you sure I didn't come in second, and the other few guys are tied for first?" "Seriously Tom, I am so happy I've captured you. And I do think of you as a stud. I've never had sex like this, never. I had no idea sex could be intense for a woman, seriously, no idea." She paused and then confided, "It's been six years since I tried it." Tom turned his head and looked at her tenderly. "Six years?" Carla nodded, nestling her head into his arm. "When I was nineteen, things got very ugly in my life, ugly and confused." She closed her eyes and gave a big yawn. "The Marine Corps became my family, a family I could trust. It saved me." Another yawn. "The Corps is interesting. There are a lot of people there that come from good homes, and a lot of people that come from broken homes. I'm one of the latter." A big sigh. "I'd like to show you how I grew up." "It would an honor Carla." "A lot of it's not very pretty. But I'm not ashamed of it, not anymore, not with you. Whenever you're ready, I'd like to start linking with you." Tom caressed her face, light strokes through her hair, caressing her forehead and eyelashes. Carla murmured a few times how nice it felt to be with him, and then she fell asleep. Tom reached over to a bedside control and turned the lights almost off. He then stared at Carla for a long time, thinking of everything, the future, the choices and challenges in store for them, but mostly he was drawn to her beauty. He thought she looked like an angel as she slept, and he slipped into a dream without realizing it. ------- Chapter 92 Three weeks later. Time: Tuesday, August 5, 2019 7:58 PM GHT Mark paused to stretch as he worked at a library console at the Red Mall complex. Outside there was a single hour left for evening sunlight. Tonight would be their first night of the summer season with six full hours of darkness and twilight. How precious the darkness was, and how enjoyable when you had so little of it. But the season was progressing and in Mark's opinion, the balance between night and day was almost back to normal. In three days the northern hemisphere would be at mid-summer, the same day the Bee Park would start its three-week autumn and Wobanakik would start its nine-week autumn. It still felt strange to work with the multiple seasonal timescales. Mark thought the novelty of having different environments and yearly cycles so close at hand might never wear off. And it wasn't just the enclosed environments. The discovery of the pyramid in the equatorial mountains had been a wake-up call for them all. The Society began an intense investigation of the satellite image database. Even the people at Manhattan joined the effort. The Society now had a much more complete understanding of the geography of the world. In addition to the three southern continents, the southern hemisphere had six very large islands, ranging in size from 269,000 to 786,000 square kilometers, with a range of southern latitudes from 29 to 58 degrees. There were no such large islands in the northern hemisphere. Rather, the northern half of the planet contained more than a hundred islands ranging in size from a tiny 10 sq km to over 20,000 sq km. In contrast, the southern hemisphere had very few islands in this range, the largest being the 4,000 sq km circular island precisely centered at the south pole. And on every single continent and island the Society had studied, there was evidence of Builder construction. Their artifacts were everywhere, nothing as large as the Great Hexagon, but many grand buildings similar in size of the equatorial pyramid, often occupying a quarter square kilometer with their footprint. There were hundreds of such pyramid-size complexes on the planet and thousands of much smaller ones, ranging in size from modern office buildings to what appeared to be hexagonal homes for single extended families. Many of the castle-like buildings on the smallest islands seemed like fanciful vacation getaways. Were there other refugees from Earth here on this planet? All the imagery so far studied suggested no. Except for the Great Hexagon, every other complex examined seemed dormant. Only their current location was currently showing illumination. Even the equatorial pyramid was now dark. It shut itself down moments after the last humans left it, leaving the Society with the sober realization that it might be years before all the members of Party #4 were found. Their intense search of the pyramid had proven to be only partially successful. On the GHT morning of June 13th, Cordelia, Katelyn, and Sarah evacuated to Green Mall and became Boost Team 8 at the Bee Park the next day. Sydney volunteered to stay with Aggie's search team, and it took them only a few hours to find Julie and Hailey. The two women were very receptive to the prospect of joining a larger society, and with Sydney became Boost Team 9 on July 4th. Two days after finding Julie and Hailey, Aggie's search team was contacted by three additional women at the pyramid, Caroline, Ginny, and Kaylee. They had a remarkable story to tell. Two groups of four women each had abandoned the pyramid many weeks earlier, Laura's group hiking down to the north and Kelly's group skiing down the southern slopes. Both groups were well provisioned for extended exploration, and neither group had mentioned any timeline for returning. They were gone, off exploring the great expanse of Africa. The census counter and Mark's employment logs were showing all eight women were still alive, Laura, Morgan, Natalie and Samantha in the north and Kelly, Nicole, Jordan and Claire in the south. A search of the satellite images of the highlands revealed nothing, but there had been ample time for both groups to reach the great sub-tropical forests. The best the Society could do is keep studying the images and someday hope to capture clues to the two groups' locations. Meanwhile Caroline, Ginny, and Kaylee joined the Society and eventually became Boost Team 10 starting on Friday, July 8th. On Saturday July 9th, a search team consisting of Emily, Heather and Hannah made the Society's last great find for new survivors. They found four women trapped in a building about five kilometers west of Yellow Brick University, and their names were Margaret, Emma, Alexis, and Farideh. The four women had been trapped since Christmas Eve and they were overjoyed to be rescued. They also related the horrible fate of Party #6. The party had started out as nine couples who were already dating each other. They were the fourth group of eighteen people to ride the elevator from the underground tunnel at Castle Commonwealth, departing just after the two trips made by Beta Sigma Rho to Black Mall. The group arrived at their lounge buffet approximately two hours before sunset, and unlike the other parties, they sensed immediately that something was seriously wrong. The elevator ride had taken far to long to be reasonable, three and a half minutes, and none of them had felt any motion. They were astonished to find themselves above ground, and after a quick discussion agreed to ignore the buffet and explore the building first. It was a confusing couple of hours. The building seemed fully functional. There was even an elevator in the library below the lounge, but the damn keyboard went dead as soon as somebody touched the first key. Nothing they saw had an easy explanation. It seemed inconceivable a frat house would have such an opulent setting, the space and the quality of the workmanship just didn't make sense. For a while the group congregated in the multimedia room on the ground floor, about half the people debating what was going on while the other half briefly watched a sports game on the huge TV. As a group, they all went back upstairs to the lounge shortly after 4 PM, about an hour before the network stations would break the news of the Intruder. What to do? The outside light was fading and none of their cell phones were working. Several people commented how strange that was, saying reception had been decent before they entered the tunnel and now they were above ground again just a short distance away. Could the building be shielding their phones from the cell towers? Who would ever design a building to do that? It seemed more likely some technical problem had occurred at some local cell tower. What to do? The solution seemed obvious, especially after several people admitted they were uneasy whether they actually had Castle Commonwealth's permission to be here. Was their invitation some sort of cruel hoax? The group agreed they should all return to Burlington. But before they left a few people tried the buffet and loudly exclaimed that the food was fabulous. They lingered for a while to eat, and it was well past evening twilight when they finally left through the door adjacent to the lounge elevator. The night sky was densely clouded, and after a bit of confusion about orientation they headed off in a westerly direction. They walked for three hours in a state of constant bewilderment. Castle Commonwealth was supposed to be a mall integrated with residential areas. Nothing they saw resembled either. Their path was a random walk through one great maze. All around them were great buildings which were often windowless. Warehouses? Factories? And there were no signs anywhere. And there were no roads for vehicles! Their path alternated between enclosed walkways to park-like areas between buildings. Who would ever build like this?! The construction seemed complete. Outside the stone paths were tastefully landscaped and the walkways inside always impeccably clean. "How could you get a car in here?!", people kept exclaiming. And the party was also finding it very difficult to keep a straight course. Everything around them seemed to be laid out on a vast hexagonal grid, all the buildings, all the walkways, and with all the seeming factories and warehouses around them, there was never any access for trucks. That was so absurd. Who would ever build like this? They finally took shelter in an inviting looking building shortly after 8 PM. They were tired, frustrated, a bit wet from the strange cold drizzle, and more than anything else profoundly confused. If only their phones would work! But at least their new location was providing some welcome amenities, a kitchen and dining facilities and a large lounge area with an adjacent restroom facility. The building's interior was very strange, multi-level hexagonal rooms joined by spiraling oval staircases. They explored the building for an hour. Unknown to them they had found one of the very few structures within several kilometers that was permanently unlocked, and often couples would wander outside for a few minutes, vaguely scanning the cloudy night sky for a glimpse of familiar stars. At the end of their search, they gathered in the lounge and compared notes. They were in a building with a dozen split levels, most of which were completely underground. It was curious that the builders had excavated so deeply, four-meter ceilings for each of the basement levels. So far underground, what was the point? Land was fairly cheap here. It was certainly plentiful. Why spend the money to build deep down? And all the storage rooms! Vast stores of supplies, but no way to re-provision in bulk. It appeared everything must have been carried in by hand. And the building also seemed to have just one restroom. How bizarre was that? After cracking a few jokes about taking coed living to new levels, they realized they would have to share the facility for real. The women went first. What to do? People were nervous about just staying here overnight. It felt too much like trespassing. But they were tired, and more than tired. Many of the men were being struck by sudden urges to hug and kiss their girlfriends, and they were delighted to find the women extremely receptive to their advances. One women shouted out that the sofa she was on would fold out into a bed. A quick investigation revealed that was true of the other sofas as well. In a short period of time the lounge was transformed into one gigantic bedroom. Farideh related their ordeal in a dead voice. The months of isolation and imprisonment had made the nightmare seem like just that, a bad and unreal dream. She was lying with her boyfriend Madhi, lying in the darkened lounge area in bed with her lover. They were petting each other, stroking each other, arousing each other. Farideh had never gone this far before, would never have dreamed of allowing Madhi to undress her in public, but that's just what she had done. She was naked from the waist down, wearing only an opened shirt and a bra pushed up around her neck to expose her breasts. She was kneeling on top of Madhi, straddling him with her knees, playing a game she and her lover had just invented, a game of catch and suckle. The unspoken rules were that Madhi could not lift his head off the pillow below him, and that if he managed to touch the hard nipples on the jiggling breasts above him, Farideh would have to drop her breasts for a moment and hold still and allow him a good suckle. And all the while a very erect penis was pressing against the soft inside of her thigh. Farideh was in ecstasy, and the only way she wanted this game to end was to have Madhi hug her and then roll her over and mount her from above. "This is so strange," a small corner of her mind commented. "Where are my morals? Gone. Isn't that strange? And the game ... Oh!" Madhi had caught her, flicking the tip of his tongue against her sensitive left nipple. Farideh had not expected him to be able to stick it out that far. She quickly and obediently dropped down to let him nurse, loving the feel of her tit sliding into his mouth, feeling him work the nipple and the milk ducts beneath with his lips and tongue. It felt so nice. It felt like paradise, and Farideh held her lover's head as he suckled and she whispered that she loved him. And the game was so curious. The small voice in the back of her mind kept asking puzzling questions. Where had the game come from? They had invented it of course, Madhi and Farideh, but how? It was so strange. Farideh distinctly remembered discussing and agreeing to the rules, but she also remembered French kissing Madhi at the same time, his soft and electric tongue, the taste of his lips, and his beautiful black eyes, eyes that were staring into hers, eyes so full of love, so full of appreciation. Her lover! She had hoped for this, hoped and longed for it so badly, and now she knew! Madhi loved her, he truly loved her. His eyes had miraculously become a window into his soul, allowing Farideh to see a heart that was full of love for her, love and desire. And Farideh felt like a woman in a way she never felt before. She would do anything to satisfy her lover's desire. It was time for them to mate. Any other action would be unthinkable. She gazed into her lover's eyes and pleaded silently for coitus. Rough hands grabbed Farideh's hips from behind and lifted her butt, and then an explosion of pressure formed on her labia an instant before she felt her body horribly invaded, an uncaring penis brutally tearing her hymen before plunging into her depths. Farideh cried out in anguish from the pain as powerful hands squeezed her breasts from above and then lifted her away from her lover. Within seconds her body was vertical and suspended in the air, her weight supported by two cruel hands with viselike grips on her breasts and a raping pole impaling and tearing her vagina. Farideh screamed, her eyes sharing her horror with her lover for a moment before the man behind her began to shake her. The eye contact broken, Farideh tried to twist her body and uncouple from the penis within her, but her turning only stimulated her rapist. He started thrusting up into her, hard quick pumps that lubricated his cock with Farideh's blood. The woman could feel it trickling down her thigh, and she screamed at the pain and violation. Madhi was on his feet by this time, screaming at the man behind her and trying to hit him. The man laughed uproariously and turned, pumping Farideh without mercy and keeping her positioned between himself and Madhi, using Farideh as a human shield and all the while the penis kept drilling her, plunging her. Farideh continued to scream, her eyes pleading with her lover to do something, anything, and all the while a deep bruising pain was building on her cervix and the back wall of her vagina. Her body was not designed to take this kind of punishment. Madhi rushed in and was repulsed, and then the man behind Farideh charged, forcing Madhi to retreat and then stumble backwards as the low sofa bed caught the backs of his knees. The rapist surged forward, tipping Madhi over and then slamming him with the combined weight of his and Farideh's bodies. The massive explosion of pressure on his chest drove the wind out of Madhi, and before he could recover the man above him and Farideh began punching his head, vicious simultaneous blows to both sides of his head. The concussions drove Madhi senseless and Farideh started to scream, both from her continued rape and the sight of blood flowing from Madhi's ears. It was a nightmare beyond imagination. The man would plunge into her as he rocked the upper part of his body high, and then partially withdraw as he slammed himself down, driving the wind out of Farideh and smashing both his fists into the sides of Madhi's head. The eyes of the unconscious man were wide open and lifeless, and Farideh's mind detached from the horror of watching the murder of her lover. "This isn't real," she told herself, "just a bad dream. None of this is really happening." Her body lost its tension. She became as limp as a doll. And deep within her mind she pitied the sickness of this dream. Her dream rapist was actually using the bludgeoning of Madhi as a means to increase his sexual arousal. Her lover was no threat, not anymore, but he continued to be beaten on both sides of his heads, and with each pair of lethal blows, the penis inside Farideh swelled and thrust, swelled and thrust. She could feel it, feel the organ's eagerness to complete its function with each pair of blows. Madhi's head became unrecognizable, and then the penis seemed to become thinner, something Farideh did not expect, thinner and longer, and then in one great awful thrust the pole buried itself into her and began to spurt. Farideh could feel the hot sliminess coating her insides, and again her mind cried out in pity at the sickness of the dream. The man roared and howled and turned, finally releasing Farideh from her rape. She let her body flop over and witnessed a knife sticking out of the side of her rapist. It looked like the hilt of one of the kitchen knives. A few feet away Farideh's friend Jamilla was screaming at the man and trying to reach the knife. Farideh had the impression Jamilla wanted to pull the knife out so she could stab the man again, but the man caught Jamilla's neck with his hands and he began to squeeze and twist, and then it appeared to Farideh that her rapist broke Jamilla's neck. Farideh's detached mind decided it didn't want to watch any more of this insane dream and she passed out, the blood from her bruised vagina still trickling down her thighs and staining the sheets below her. Farideh had a very troubled night. Several times she almost fully awoke, rising to semi-awareness of the people around her. It seemed she was sleeping with someone. Somehow she knew it was a man, and he had a hand cupping her breast as she lay. Was it Madhi? No, Farideh and he were both too shy, and besides, that would conflict with the insane dream. But why should that matter? It was just a crazy dream. Farideh stirred but did not quite awake. Who was holding her breast? At other times she was trapped in a very repetitive and unpleasant dream. Farideh was in what seemed to be an endless maze, walking in bare feet in cold sand outside long rows of windowless buildings. Such a strange dream. And as she walked she would gradually lose articles of clothing. And she would start to turn and look back over her shoulder, again and again, becoming more and more certain someone was following her. Someone was stalking her, someone or something. At the end of the dream the sand would be ice cold and as slippery as glass. Farideh would fall naked into the freezing sand and begin to cry in frustration and fear. She could not escape the stalker, and she could hear it coming now. It was making a raspy droning sound, and it was so close, perhaps just around the corner. The monster would be upon her in seconds, and then it would feed. Farideh would whimper and the dream would fade, but only to start up again in a short while. Farideh had her clothes again, everything covered except for her bare feet, and she would begin to wander... Farideh felt a dull ache in her pelvis, and the pain finally drove her awake. Her eyes were full of tears. The death of Madhi and Jamilla, that was no dream. Everything was so foggy at the time, but now everything was perfect focus. She could remember each horrible moment with perfect clarity. Madhi! Farideh grimaced and turned and stared at the man sleeping by her side. At least it wasn't her rapist. What was that awful man's name? Jack? Jim? Something like that. Farideh wasn't sure. But the naked man next to her now she remembered. Eugene, she told herself. Yes, that's right, Eugene. Farideh turned away and rolled off the bed and stood up on wobbly feet. The sight and the stickiness under her feet almost made her faint. Farideh was the only one awake in a large room filled with carnage. There was dried blood everywhere, and she was standing in it. And there were corpses everywhere. The deaths could not be denied. The bodies were cold and stiff and many had their throats slit. So many men, and they were all dead! And then Farideh saw Jamilla, and she cried out in dismay. Everything in the dream was true. Jamilla's neck was clearly broken, her body lifeless. It was Saturday morning, December 22nd, and slowly the survivors of the carnage tried to organize into a group. There were eight of them, eight survivors out of nine couples, seven women and one man. As horrible as the murder room was, they couldn't bring themselves to leave it. To abandon the bodies of their lovers would only add to their guilt. Six women were adamant about not leaving the bodies of their murdered boyfriends. Two women and eight men, how did they die? The survivors swapped stories as they tried and failed to call the police. Were they attacked? Was all this self inflicted? Did they do this to themselves? Of the eight dead men, five had their throats cut open. What the hell happened? In the late afternoon they received their second great shock. They discovered what they would soon call The Sight, the ability to look closely at another person's eyes and see what they were thinking. The ability drove them to the brink of insanity. This was impossible! But the reality of The Sight could not be denied. After hours of experimentation and practice, they began to crosscheck each other's stories about the murder scene. What was the glue that held the facts together? The questions soon turned into accusations. Why did only one man survive? Many of the women began to suspect that Eugene had murdered them. The women all remembered the wonton release of sexual desire the previous night, raw carnal appetites for sexual satisfaction, the complete abandonment of morality. Many of the women accused Eugene of murdering their boyfriends. He rigorously denied it but was not believed. Shortly after sunset, a number of women overpowered him and held him down while another would sit on his chest and force him to use The Sight with her. In their earlier experimentation, they had learned that within The Sight, there was no room for lies. And they discovered that Eugene was as confused as they were. Suspicion then fell on Eugene's girlfriend Cindy. She was the only person who had not practiced The Sight, claiming it was a gift of the devil. The other women now attacked her as they had attacked Eugene. Ignoring Cindy's shrieks, they held her down, forced her eyelids open and stared into her eyes. The truth was thus revealed. In a drugged stupor, Cindy had tried to protect her boyfriend Eugene by eliminating all the male competition for the women. The women were stunned, Eugene too. It was a monstrous crime. Cindy was a mass murderer, killing defenseless men as they lay unconscious. And yet, they also remembered their drugged stupor. It caused an insane release from morality. Could they truly condemn Cindy? Fortunately they thought it wouldn't be their decision. Eventually they would all be telling their story to police and courts and juries. Mercifully, it was not for them to pass judgment. Or so they thought. They spent a second night in the building, determined to reach the authorities the following morning. They left before daybreak early Sunday, a bit confused about why the sun was rising so late. And then they finally saw it, a little past eight o'clock, a huge orange ball on the horizon. Was that the sun?! Impossible! They wandered together for most of the day. Around 3 PM they had a minor fight among themselves and wound up splitting into two groups. Cindy and Eugene and two French undergrads Alice and Bridget took a southern path while Farideh's group went in a more westerly direction. Less than an hour later the sun set and Farideh's group took shelter in another building. They stayed the night in a large and very comfortable basement area, spending long times in the shower facilities. Everything was so open. They were glad there were no men with them. They had an uneasy night trying to sleep, and in the early morning of Christmas Eve discovered they could not leave the basement area. Hours of searching became days and then weeks, but their prison wall held firm. And there they stayed until Saturday, July 9th on the new calendar, when they were stunned to see Emily, Heather, and Hannah calmly walk into their underground area. Fortunately Heather never let the door close. And now here was Mark ten days later, taking a break from his work and gazing out the window, admiring the women playing and diving in the Olympic pool across the sand park. So many beautiful women. It was turning out to be a delightful summer. The highs in the afternoons would hover just around 30C and with the lower solar temperature spectrum, there was little need for sunburn protection. After discussing the matter with Tom and Mark, the women had taken up the habit of skinny dipping. So many beautiful women, lightly tanned legs and butts and shapely breasts. Mark sighed. As long as he and Tom didn't ogle their nakedness at close range, the women didn't mind if the men watched them. So pretty... Mark's Leophone rang, bringing him out of his daydream. "Hi Mark!" came a cheerful greeting. Mark recognized the voice. "Hi Margaret. How are things in bee land?" "Just fine, and I'm not Margaret any more. As of today my name is Peggy. This way I won't be confused with the Margaret down in Wobanakik. I'll make an announcement at tonight's meeting." "You sure? You really don't have to give up your name." "Yeah, I'm sure. I used to be Peggy to all my friends in high school before I came to the University, life in the big city." "Oh yeah? Where did you grow up?" "A small town in southern Vermont, Townsend, population of about a thousand. You probably never heard of it." "Well ... vaguely," Mark admitted. "So you were Peggy there, huh?" "Yep. That's what my brother and parents called me too. When I came to Burlington, I found the University was using my official name on all my forms so I thought I'd try it for a while. But I only used it for one term. I don't mind going back to Peggy." She paused for a moment. "So, how has your day gone?" "Oh, it's still going. You must be in deep night though, right?" "Yep. The sun set here a couple of hours ago. We went night swimming in the pond. Alexis and Emma and Farideh are still out there. I came in early ... Show me your sun?" "Uh ... okay." Mark activated the video on his Leophone and scanned the outdoors. Peggy started to laugh. "Shocking! Do you and Tom expect me to swim naked in front of you too?" Mark could hear the playfulness in her voice and it washed away his embarrassment. "Only if you want to," he countered. "Well..." Peggy sighed. "Wow, you got me blushing. Let me change topics." "Please." "We've decided. I'll try out for medical technician. Farideh will study for the janitor position. And Emma and Alexis want to get busy wherever they're needed most." "Tired of the bee vacation already?" "Seriously? It is very relaxing here, but we all feel like being useful." "Sounds great. You'll all be extremely welcome members." "Thanks." A short pause. "Was it true Cordelia actually wanted to stay outside the Society?" She stared at Mark's image as she said this. He nodded back at her. "For a short while, Cordelia and a few others. They had a tough time where they were. I'd guess you could call it a war." Peggy looked at him thoughtfully. "Our seniors on the Boost Teams, Kaylee especially, they told us all about it. And they didn't have our excuse that they were under of the influence of drugs. Yeah, I guess I can understand their reluctance to join up." She took a deep breath. "Speaking of drugs, how are the med techs coming along with the honey analysis?" "It's interesting. Tajana has taken the lead with the research. The analysis has turned up some really strange stuff. The honey in some ways seems more plantlike than something made from bees." "Really?" "The DNA, the amino acids, some of the acids are what you would only find in Earth plants, never in animals. And then there are chromosomes that are almost identical to human chromosomes, surrounded by other stuff so bizarre we haven't a clue what to think of it. The med techs have a theory the honey might have actually changed our DNA." "What?!" "It's just a theory. But it's the next thing Tajana's team is going to study." There was a long pause of silence, and then a whisper. "Wow. The new me. I was almost going to say I don't feel any different, but of course I do. My abilities Mark, the access to memories, my ability to dream, it's fantastic!" "It overwhelmed me too. You do get used to it after a while." "God, I hope so. Will you help me practice? I thought I'd want to practice with a woman, but Emily warned me a week ago I might want a guy and she was right. Mark, I know about your other commitments..." A playful smile. " ... but will you dream with me?" "Sure. It will be an privilege." He replied with complete sincerity. "Good! See you tomorrow!" After short goodbyes they ended the call. Mark sighed and took a moment to watch Frida make a graceful dive, and then he got back to work. He had spent the last several hours staring at a number of executive logs from the orbiting telescope. It was strange. The logs weren't there yesterday, or at least he didn't have access to them before today. And now suddenly they were there. It was difficult to understand what was being displayed. There were several weeks of entries. It looked as if some system were trying to reset itself and failing, very strange, very aperiodic. The system would be fine for eight to twelve hours, and then there'd be a whole series of attempts to do ... Do what? It didn't make any sense. Mark thought about running the diagnostic routines on the orbiter again. They were extensive and should pinpoint any possible problem. But he had just done that two hours ago and the orbiter seemed in perfect health. So what was up with the logs? Mark tried to think logically. There was a problem the diagnostics couldn't see, or there was a problem somewhere else and the results of the failed resets were being stored on the orbiter. But why do that? It was a puzzle. Mark decided he would bring up the issue at tonight's meeting. Maybe he and Emily could come up with something. ------- Chapter 93 Three days later. Time: Friday, August 8, 2019 11:11 AM GHT "This still feels so amazing, to dream within a dream. Our fifth time, and I am still in awe. Do you ever get used to it?" Peggy's mind was drifting in deep REM sleep. In objective time she and Mark had sat down on a sofa at the Yellow Mall lounge about five minutes ago. Toshi, Holly, and Farideh were still using the library downstairs, and had promised to come up before noon if Peggy and Mark had not delinked by then. Otherwise the complex was deserted. In the short span of the objective five minutes, Peggy and Mark had lived more than half a day, mostly wandering around the deserted University campus at Burlington. They would walk holding hands, talking about their lives, what it was like growing up, all sorts of things. Within the intimacy of the link, there really were no boundaries. They jumped the dream to Peggy's home in Townsend for dinner. Peggy laughed at the thought of burning the dream soufflé. They shared Mark's memory of New York after dinner, a performance at the Met. Then a quiet walk along a beach in southern France, and finally back to Peggy's dorm room at Burlington where they laid down together on her dorm bed. In subjective time they had both been up for over sixteen hours, and they locked eyes with the dream and fell asleep. And now their sleeping linked minds were sharing a mutual dream within a dream. They had done this close to a hundred times now in the last two objective days. The novelty would probably never wear off. "I want a body!" the sleeping mind of Peggy said with a laugh. "Human?" Mark's mind playfully retorted. "Are your serious?! Yes, human! And can we go back to my dorm room?" "Sure." A moment later Mark was there standing in the now familiar room. The imagery wasn't sharp, he wasn't expecting it to be, not inside a dream within a dream. His mind was asleep. But the presence of Peggy stood out in crystal clarity. She was wearing a skimpy bikini. No. Mark looked more closely. It was a white bra, very low cut showing lots of cleavage, and a pair of white thong panties. And then his sleepy gaze caught her eyes. Time drifted for an instant, and he was lying down with her. "This is dangerous," he muttered in a sleepy relaxed voice. He smiled in contentment as he petted her hair. "Hmmm?" "Such pretty hair you have Peggy, so soft and silky..." "I'm very happy you like it." Her mind was without sarcasm. "Dreams within dreams, all our inhibitions are off line." "I know Mark. That's why I brought you here. That's why I have the courage. Will you do the honors?" Peggy turned slightly, offering her back to Mark. He accepted the offer and unclasped her bra. A moment later it was gone, though neither could remember removing it. The bra was simply gone. Peggy smiled. "I saw you staring at my tits earlier, wondering how far down the freckles went. See? Just below the nipples, but not much on the undersides." She offered her breasts to Mark, and his fingers began to trace lazy circles on the soft sensitive skin. "So beautiful," he mumbled. Peggy giggled. "That tickles! What are you doing?" "Thinking of an old game. It was called ... connect the dots." Mark sighed and leaned over and kissed her, soft kisses on the freckles and the undersides of her breasts, but never quite touching the nipples. "You are so pretty." Peggy sighed deeply. "That feels so nice." Another sigh, and then a giggle. "Oh, the glory of it. Awake I'd be too shy, but asleep, I'm all sexy desire. I can see your desire too. I can see it so clearly. Do you want to make love with me?" Mark paused in mid kiss. The dream drifted. "I..." "You want to wait? Yes, I guess I can see that. I can see your mind so clearly. How about if I just kiss you for a while. And you'll pet me, won't you, pet me all over?" The dream drifted. "Wow. Will this be like masturbating?" "Hmmm? No. It'll be..." His hand dropped to caress her hips, stroking her stomach, the sides of her hips, fingers probing under her panties. " ... much better than that." They kissed and stroked each other's bodies. Soon Peggy had an erect and throbbing penis in her hands. "I can feel your desire for me. I can feel the heat of it. Is this how a boy masturbates?" Peggy began to jerk the pens up and down... Mark sighed. "Nice ... A little slower and wetter maybe." "Oh. Okay." Peggy began coating his cock with her spit. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" "No, of course not." Peggy sat up and turned, her youthful firm breasts shaking a bit as she jerked Mark to a full erection. "I made it nice and wet. So can I kiss it now?" "Oh please." Mark smiled an idiotic grin. A soft tongue licked his glans. "I can see the others," whispered Peggy. "I can see you and Jada in my mind, Toshi and Frida too, Jada suckling you at the Christmas Party, and you suckling Jada." "Dreams within dreams..." Mark's mind floated in its ecstasy. "Yes, this is..." The dream shifted. "My first night with Jada..." The dream shifted. "All our inhibitions are offline." Another shift, and then the dream seemed to stabilize, as least for a moment. "Will I be like this with everyone?" Peggy mumbled with Mark's penis in her mouth. "Hmmm? No, just with people you trust. And the core of the desire ... the sexual desire I mean ... Hmm that feels nice ... the core has to be there before the dream starts." "Yes..." Peggy bobbed her head to show her understanding, giving Mark delightful sensations as her lips slid lightly up and down his shaft. "I've never done this with a boy before..." "I know. Your high school, it was so cruel." A giggle. "My first time with a boy, and certainly never with a girl!" "I know ... Sweet Peggy..." He sighed. "It feels so nice." The lips lifted to kiss and suckle the tip of his penis, and then Peggy left him for a moment. "A question. How fast are we moving?" Mark thought for a moment. "It definitely over two hundred. It'll be another week before Toshi comes and gets us." "Another week together? I'm glad!" The dream shifted. Peggy was lying on her back, her legs spread and her hand caressing Mark's head as he sniffed and kissed her womanhood. But he was not trying to arouse her, just the opposite in fact. The kisses drifted to her thighs, very tender, very affectionate, offers of love and a subtle request for them to wait." Peggy's mind sighed within the dream. "So, perhaps our morals are not offline ... not completely. Not yours anyway. I had my big meeting with your wives yesterday, and all the others, Aggie, Fatima, a number of others ... Whitney was there too. I didn't know you two were dating." "Uh ... We're not, not yet anyway. Peggy?" "Hmm?" "It's ... okay for us to wait..." "I guess. I have you ... at least to share. That's all I need." The dream shifted. Mark was holding her, petting her head. Peggy kept her dream eyes closed and smiled. "My first boyfriend!" The dream smile faded. "David was nice too. I wish we could have known each other longer." A shocking memory surfaced, impossible to stop, a young man she had known for only a few weeks asking her to come to a Christmas party. The image of him flashing, Peggy waking next to a cold body, David's throat ripped open. "I wish..." "I'm sorry too," whispered Mark. The memories shifted, young Peggy as a very bright primary student in Nashua New Hampshire with dreams of becoming a doctor. And then her family moved to Vermont in the summer of 2014, just as young Peggy was about to enter high school. Her parents were following a dream of their own, owning their own restaurant in a small town. The new setting was a disaster for Peggy, and her parents were too busy with their new business to notice. Peggy thought the students snobbish and she was right. At first they shunned her and then they mocked her. Within the first month of school, someone branded Peggy with the nickname of Nerdy Girl, and the hated label stuck for the next four years. She wasn't particularly graceful or athletic, and she avoided obesity but it was always a struggle. Going to the University was like a dream come true, new people without the old tired biases against her, students and dorm mates who shared her love for studying. Without people teasing her, Margaret started to blossom. And then she caught someone's eye, a student in her 9 AM organic chemistry class. They went to the movies twice, first in a group and then just the two of them. The second time was the evening after her last exam, and David kissed her goodnight. The next morning was a Friday. David called Margaret unexpectedly and said that he heard a frat was having an open Christmas party and he asked her if she wanted to go. Margaret's parents weren't driving to pick her up until the next day, so after a second of thinking that it was a strange time for a frat party, she said sure. They hitched a ride with David's friend Arnold and his girlfriend Alexis. Finding the place wasn't hard. They just followed the car ahead of them. Peggy smiled and kissed Mark's cheek as she remembered getting out of the car at the parking lot. It was shortly before one o'clock. The sky was very cloudy and the lot was already half full. "The memories seem so distant now," she murmured. "Even our captivity, it seems like ages ago." She drifted within the dream. "Subjective time is so strange. How long have I known you?" Mark sighed back. "Subjective time is just as real as the clock. This will be our fifth week dreaming with each other. Some clock might say five hours, but the dreams are real. The trust is real." "Yes, and I love the trust, and I love you." Peggy sighed. "Thank you for asking me to wait. I remember ... I remember someone once said the sign of true trust is falling asleep with someone. Perhaps the sign of infinite trust is falling asleep with someone linked to your mind." Mark was drifting away. Their synchronized REM cycle was winding down. "Yes." He pushed a thought out to her as the dream ended. "That's a really beautiful thought." An hour later. Time: Friday, August 8, 2019 a few minutes past noon With no working elevators in the complex, Mark walked the length of the building and climbed the circular staircase, and then hiked back through the corridor of bedrooms, the bathroom and pantry before finally arriving at the Yellow Mall kitchen. Holly was there putting a few finishing touches on the lunch they would share. She and Mark shared an intimate kiss which evolved into several minutes of affectionate petting, their expressions of love staying just below the level of sexual arousal. Mark's hand was caressing and admiring the bulge in Holly's pregnant womb. Holly leaned over and nipped his ear with her sharp teeth. "So, did you get to have a nice time with Peggy? Another full week?" Mark kissed her earlobe before releasing his hug and nodding. "Yep, over eight days. We were just waking up on our ninth morning when Toshi woke us for real." "Ah, that's good. Peggy had a great meeting with us last night. We're all very happy to have her." Holly turned to put away some lunchmeat. "Peggy and Farideh get their sandwiches okay?" "Yep. Toshi is still down in the library with them. They send their compliments to the chef." Down below Peggy was starting her second two-hour training session of the day, studying to be a medical technician. Farideh was similarly occupied with her janitorial training. In another couple of weeks, she expected to be able to activate the elevators at the Yellow Mall home complex, a contribution to her rescuers that Farideh was very eager to make. "So, what was your week like?" Mark looked up from the potato chip he was about to eat. "It was very sweet. The first part was walking around the University mostly. We saw a couple of shows in New York. I shared some of my memories of Paris and Australia with her." "Ah. And did you also show her your memories of the Grand Canyon? Those are my favorite." "Uh, no, not yet. We did share a lot of childhood memories though." Mark paused. "Our last two days, Peggy was showing me a lot of her high school." Holly picked up the undercurrent in his voice. "Tough times?" Mark sighed. "Worse. If I were Peggy's parents, I'd feel like prosecuting, even though..." "Though what?" "I don't know if anybody actually broke any laws, but what her fellow classmates did to her was sick, brutal, and they never let up." "For example?" "They set Nerdy Girl up with an elaborate fake date, just so they could laugh at her, just so her fake boyfriend could humiliate her." "Nerdy Girl?! Is that what they used to call Peggy?" Holly took a moment to think. "Boy, that wouldn't have been tolerated in my high school. Didn't the teachers put a stop to it?" Mark grimaced. "Maybe if it had happened in primary school, the kids would have been better supervised. But this was high school! The adults were assuming the kids knew better, and Peggy never complained, not to the teachers anyway, and without a complaint I guess the faculty just let it go." He paused and added, "She had a few friends, twins that lived nearby and were a few years her junior. But as for her high school, it was amazing. Peggy's sweetness, the song in her heart, it survived it all. I have so much admiration for her." Holly frowned and nodded back. She and Mark carried their lunches to a pleasant eating area, a table with comfortable chairs overlooking the mini park of spruces and pines. It had rained the previous night, and the trees seemed very happy to be drinking in the warm orange sunlight. Holly gazed at the peaceful scene and took a sip of her iced tea. "So, we're right in the middle of summer now, huh?" Mark glanced at his watch. It was showing the time had just turned to 12:13 PM. "Oh my gosh yes, almost to the second. Want a countdown? Four, three, two, one..." A second later Mark choked on the word zero as he blinked in surprise. The digital display on his watch had just gone blank at the precise midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. ------- Chapter 94 Time: Friday, August 8, 2019 12:13:17 PM GHT Jessica whimpered in the pitch darkness. Just a few seconds ago she had slid herself closed inside the bottom closet drawer, and the instant after the drawer closed it seemed to bump and start to slide out again. Only this time the closet was in absolute darkness and the air completely still. Jessica groped for a moment along the floor until her hand found an air duct. Nothing. Did she cause all this? The closet went dark the instant she closed herself in the drawer. The timing seemed too perfect to be a coincidence. So the closet shuts down when there's no one inside. That makes sense. So what's the big deal? Jessica paused. So why weren't the lights back on now? Ricardo could be opening her door at any moment. Jessica fought down a rising tide of panic and tried to think. "How does the closet sense someone is in the room? What would explain the air and lights being off now? Why can't the closet see me?" The answer came to her in a flash. "Of course! Once the closet is empty and the door is closed, why keep the sensors running? I bet the sensors are turned off until the door opens again. The system isn't expecting people to enter the closet through the drawers! This is so obvious!" But how should she proceed? How much time did she have? Every second was precious. Ricardo would murder her if he could. Jessica had seen her death warrant in his mind, signed by his fear and hatred of her. How would he kill her? Jessica shuddered and thought he might pick strangulation. It was so easy to imagine. Jessica forced to lie prone on the floor, Ricardo's knees digging into her back, his incredibly powerful hands at her throat. He'd work the bruising of her neck tissues for a long time, trying not just to kill her but to humiliate her. Jessica's eyes went wide in the darkness. Would he mount and fuck her as he choked her? What could be more humiliating than that? Yes, Ricardo's ultimate power trip. She had to escape! But how? Back in the drawer? Once inside, could she try to keep the drawer closed by pressing backwards against the top? Probably. But how long would it take for Ricardo to check here? A half hour? More perhaps if he were being very thorough. Of course, if he were checking every drawer, Jessica was doomed away. Maybe she should ... Should what? Should she try to flee? Was that her best chance? No! She'd walk right into the monster! Her best chance was here. But the air wasn't flowing. And Jessica was breathing and would keep breathing even in her drawer. The CO2 buildup would kill her eventually, and if Ricardo opened the door and noticed the stale air, the game would be lost. Just returning to the drawer wasn't an option. What to do? Flee outside? Again her mind screamed no at the thought. Jessica needed to get the air flowing again! Of course! Just open the door a crack and the sensors should pick up her presence again. Close the closet door, get back into the drawer and close it to within a centimeter, just enough to watch the closet door. The instant the handle started to move, Jessica would close herself in and hold the drawer closed until she was just about to pass out from the CO2. Then she would open the drawer and hope. It was her best chance. She felt her way over to the door and found its handle. She turned the handle slowly, hoping this motion alone would turn on the lights and air so she wouldn't have to actually open the door, but the lights remained off. Bracing herself for a burst of bright light, Jessica slowly opened the door. And the light never came. Incredibly the corridor outside the closet was without power too. Jessica would have to rethink her assumptions. "Two days ago when we first entered this building, all the power was off. It's happened again! What should I do?!" The child Jessica inside Jessica's newly integrated mind screamed for aggressive action. If their fate was to be murdered while being raped, the child definitely did not want to go meekly into the night and start the ordeal by being pulled out of a drawer. Jessica's adult mind agreed, and she took a moment to return to her drawer and remove her two food bars before closing the drawer. Then she slipped into the corridor as quietly as she could and closed the door behind her. After a moment of tense listening and hearing only silence, Jessica sat down in the darkness and took off her boots, her socks too, and she hung her boots around her neck. She would walk in bare feet, and as for the boots, well, it was a very cold calculation. Ricardo would use them as a garrote if he caught her, and Jessica hoped he would misjudge how effective the laces could be. She would much rather die quickly under the laces than slowly under his terrible fingers. Jessica would try to work herself away from the dead end she was trapped in. Her direction was obvious. But which side of the corridor to follow? The convention for her would be to stay to the right and let Ricardo pass on the left, and Jessica decided Ricardo would think so too so she needed to reverse the logic. Or should she double reverse it and stay to the right? No. She pressed up against the wall on her left and walked as silently as she could, taking slow breaths and focusing her ears to the very limits of her abilities. Realistically she thought her odds for surviving the next hour were slim, but they weren't zero. She was going to try her absolute best. Meanwhile, approximately 12 km south and 22 km east at the Yellow Mall home complex. Toshi, Farideh and Peggy had spent several minutes testing their dead library consoles and elevator and Leophones, and then a bit more time inspecting the first floor rooms as they passed. By the time they reached the circular staircase, they saw Mark and Holly at the bottom of the well already returning from the spiral mall. The stairwell area was brightly lit from the transparent dome above, but Toshi could see the entrance to the Farmer's Market store below and it was leading to pitch darkness. Holly touched Mark's arm and pointed out the three people descending the stairs. She called out and tried to add a bit of levity to reduce her tension. "So, who ordered this?" Toshi cracked a quick smile as she and Farideh and Peggy joined up with Mark and Holly. "Yeah. We checked just about everything on the first floor, no power anywhere. How about the mall?" "About what we expected," said Mark. "The entry store is dark, the spiral too. Thank God for Carla and her foresight." Mark was referring to a mall store Carla and Tom had raided shortly after returning from the equatorial pyramid. It was called Captain Dave's Survival Center and located about three kilometers from the Dutch Market, White Mall's terminal store. Inside the survival center were cases of flashlights with built-in mini generators, bright white diodes powered by hand cranks and ordinary Earth-type rechargeable batteries. Several of these flashlights were now positioned at every critical mall position. Farideh tilted her head up and looked at the orange sunlight at the top of the stairwell. "This happened to us once before, months ago while we were trapped. It was pitch dark in the basement and the air wasn't flowing either. Unfortunately we were at the opposite end of our space from where our entrance door was, and we never thought to test it. We spent about fifteen minutes getting together and talking about what to do, and then the power came back on." Peggy nodded and added, "On our way down here we tested the door to the outside. We have access, so we have fresh air and a pool that is drinkable. This is MUCH better than being trapped in an airtight basement! But what should we do? Should we stay outside in case the door locks? Our food is on the inside, but the fresh air is on the outside. The windows don't open, do they?" "No, they don't," answered Holly. "But we have protocols for this. Don't worry about the air. If we're safe where we are, and we are, we are to remain in place for twenty-four hours. Our long-term rendezvous point is Green Mall's home complex. We've built up extra supplies there. We've packed the pantry there with ready-to-eat packaged stuff that doesn't need the null-time storage." Peggy looked thoughtful. "Bike all the way to Green Mall in the dark?" "It shouldn't be too bad," replied Holly. She tried to sound optimistic. "We have the flashlights and we'll take it slow. Just follow the spiral centerline and remember, safety first! We can't afford any injuries." Peggy still looked skeptical. "Whoa. Bike seventy kilometers down a dark tunnel? That's going to give me the creeps." Holly shrugged. "We won't try it till tomorrow." Farideh spoke up. "Can we time twenty-four hours? I guess we can judge by the sun, but does anybody know how long the power's been out?" Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out a mechanical stopwatch. "Another present from Carla. We've been dark for thirteen minutes now." He frowned. "Our last outage lasted fourteen minutes. We're about to find out if this one will be longer." Meanwhile, twelve minutes ago (one minute after the outage) and approximately two kilometers west of Jessica's position... Ricardo was through slamming the console with his hand, but he was still fuming mad. So close! He had come so fucking close to forcing the console to recognize him as Security Director. So close! One minor error in the command format, it should not have mattered. So close! And this was the prime window! His best chance! The next window would not open for another sixty-three days. Ricardo knew exactly what he needed to do now, but would he be alive in another sixty-three days? Ricardo took a deep breath and tried to think objectively, using the question to calm himself. Realistically, what were his chances? It was thirty-six days since Jenaro had been sacrificed for the greater good of Ricardo's survival, and the results were frankly less than satisfactory. Ricardo's body had become rail thin before the slaughter and was only slightly above that now. It wasn't fair! The day of the compadre's demise, Ricardo estimated Jenaro's live weight at 100 kg which produced about 70 kg of hanging weight once the kill had been slaughtered. Further processing reduced that to about 60+ kg of usable meat. Ricardo had saved every scrap he could, even some of the blood, but there was much that was just not usable. With his vitamin tablets, Ricardo at first thought Jenaro's sacrifice would last for over a hundred days, estimating that 500 grams of Jenaro's meat would have between two and three thousand food calories. He should be able to survive on that easily. For the first few days after the butchering, he even gorged himself in an attempt to bring his weight back up. And his body didn't tolerate it. He began vomiting up the meals. What was wrong? Ricardo backed off his plan and tried to remember what he knew about nutrition. His diet was 100% meat and animal fat. Well, the Eskimos did that, didn't they? And they were healthy. So why wasn't it working for Ricardo? No carbs, no sugars, his body wasn't used to such a diet. But the meat was his only food source. He had no choice, and as the days turned into weeks, his body was forced to adjust to the pure meat diet. But Ricardo dreamed of other food, breads and oatmeal and ice cream, and even fresh fruits and vegetables which Ricardo never liked very much. He dreamed of apples and watermelons, and he could never quite shake the feelings of fatigue and fuzzy headed thinking. His all meat diet had started thirty-six days ago, and the food was at least 40% gone. Could Ricardo survive another sixty-three days? He sat in the darkness and insisted to himself that the answer was yes. His weight was back up since his final meeting with Jenaro, not as much as he would have liked but at least he had most of his power back, admittedly with much less endurance. The pure meat diet just wasn't a very efficient fuel source. But it was the only one he had. The monitors, the consoles, he had learned so much. After days of scanning, Ricardo was certain he was the only person in the building, and he had remotely alarmed all the doors on the first floor. Even with Ricardo's limited ability to control, anybody walking into this building complex now would be forfeiting their lives. And as Security Director, Ricardo would become a god. Any person Ricardo wished could instantly be flagged as a code-black security risk. The servos would dispose of the risk immediately. And as Security Director, his electronic eyes could go anywhere. Right now he was limited to this building. No, right now with the power off he was limited to sitting here helpless and in the dark. So close! Infinite power had been almost at his fingertips, and then he saw the minor formatting problem explode like a bomb though all the processes he was guiding. It was almost as if... Yes, his mind could not deny it. Had the system intentionally blocked him from achieving his goal? The analogy would be Ricardo setting a world's record in the hundred meter dash, and then having a judge disqualify him for using illegal elastic shoelaces. His error had been that petty. Could the interface itself be trying to stop him? But what would that imply? It was just some sort of strange computer. Computers don't have wants and desires. They don't "try" to do anything. It was very strange. So what to do now? Well, if the power stayed out, he would die here, no question about that. The heavy doors around central security could never be lifted with human muscle. But somehow Ricardo expected the power to return. In the meantime, Ricardo unzipped his pants and started stroking his cock, idly at first but then with increasing urgency. Within a few minutes of masturbating in the absolute darkness, Ricardo had pumped himself fully erect. He was thinking about Jessica, fucking her up the butt from her rear, holding her head with her evil eyes pointing down. Ricardo would keep his thumbs pressing down on the back of her skinny neck, and she would never get a chance to look at him. And once she stopped struggling and Ricardo had dumped his load down into her shitbox, he would smash her head to pulp. Yeah, that's the plan all right. Ding dong bong, bong, bong, there goes the witch's head, the wicked witch, the wicked witch is dead. Afterwards he would hang her body for slaughter and processing, just as he had done with Jenaro. Yeah. Jessica would be a tasty bitch. Ricardo would chow down on the witchy bitch. It would be nice to have a little variety in his diet, some nice filet of breast meat. And a witch's uterus, was that edible? Certainly worth a try, the ovaries too. Yes, it would be among the first things he would try. A sly thought occurred. Would he inherit her witch power? Wouldn't that be nice! In a small part of his mind, Ricardo knew this was all fantasy. Over the last month he had proved something beyond question. The underground clothing maze had but one exit and entrance, and there was no source of water on that level. Ricardo had even disconnected the museum and some of the interior area above it from his sensor grid. His sensors were now focused around the perimeter of the ground level, and as for Jessica, she must have curled up in one of those closet drawers and died. It must have happened months ago, there was no other solution. And Ricardo had no use for her stinking corpse. So he let the matter rest. The unknown drawer would be Jessica's tomb, perhaps into the far future when someone was unlucky enough to discover the mess. Ricardo frowned as he jerked himself. The thought of Jessica's rotting corpse just wasn't very arousing. He discarded the image and brought up his image of her in a youthful naked body. Yes, that was better. Ricardo felt himself harden. He was getting excited again. He hadn't bothered to drive himself to orgasm in weeks, but he felt like it now. He spat into his hand and pumped himself in the darkness. Time to get back to fantasy. He focused Jessica's cute little girlish body. She was a wicked witch in a girl's body, thin hips, not much of a front. He'd like to squeeze her hanging knockers as he pumped her, get her up on all fours and set up a milking action on her tiny tits as he pumped her up the ass, but he didn't dare. He would need to keep his hands on her head. Jessica must never be allowed to stare into his eyes again. Her eyes were the source of her witch powers. Never again. So he had to be satisfied with pumping her up the ass while squeezing her head with his hands. That wouldn't be so bad, would it? Pumping her up the ass, oh yeah. Hernando and Jenaro had relished their opportunity when they double raped her. Oh yeah, Ricardo had watched their faces. Baby Jessica was a sweet lay. So he thought of himself pumping her up the ass, oh yeah, riding her high and tight, using her upturned ass cheeks like a saddle, nestling his pole down into her brown tunnel. But it wouldn't be brown forever. Ricardo smiled as he remembered a bright red cock popping out of Jessica's butt at the end of her forced fuck. Oh yeah, butt mounting and riding Baby Jessica right off her cliff, mounting her and humping her as deeply as he could. He would ride her until she became limp, and then Ricardo would blow his load while squeezing her head, squeezing her head... Ricardo felt his balls grow tight and his fantasy transformed. As he approached orgasm, the dream switched venues. He was back at Herman's Wilderness Outfitters and he had Amber bent over a Bowie Knife display. Her pants and panties were down at her ankles and she was sweetly and willingly lifting her butt up for Ricardo to fuck. She had even reached back to hold her ass cheeks open to give him an easy entry. And in the darkness of the control room, his clenching hand became her rectum. Cute Amber! Such a tight, sexy little bitch, always offering Ricardo her back door. He was inside her now, pulsing and wiggling ... Ricardo giggled. He was just about to cream-ate her up the ole chocolate box! Add his milk to her cookies! And Amber was so willing! He could feel her now, lifting up on her toes to give him the best possible angle, loving the feel of him sinking into her. She would squeeze him on his down stroke, make him fight for his penetration, and then squeeze him again once he was in, milking his penis with her bowel muscles. Oh yeah. Sweet willing Amber. So pretty. Pretty Amber. Such a pretty Amber. Such a willing Amber ... So nice shooting up her shitbox... Ricardo's hand cupped and he caught his outpouring of semen. Pretty Amber had done it again. He brought his hand to his mouth and recycled his discharge. A moment later he was winding down, sitting in the darkness and dreaming of his favorite girl, his body covered with the sweat of his arousal. Such a pretty Amber... ------- Chapter 95 Time:? It was definitely not a job for the faint hearted, Jessica thought. It was difficult even to estimate how long she had been doing this, edging her way down pitch black corridors in absolute silence, on guard against a single touch from Ricardo. The slightest contact would almost certainly result in her death, and potentially the collision was always just an instant away. No, not a job for the faint hearted. She tried not to sweat. The smell of her body would be another clue for Ricardo to zoom in on. She had passed the first triangular room and was now down the next corridor, pressing lightly with her hand against the door leading to the octagonal room. It was the room from where she had escaped from Ricardo. And in the darkness, it was also the ideal spot for him to wait for her to return. What should she do? And how long had she been doing this? So difficult to tell, but Jessica guessed at least a half hour since the lights went out. She had been practicing her slow walking in deadly earnest and it had taken her that long to get here. And now the great decision was before her. Did she really want to enter the next room? What choice did she have? It all her time down on this level Ricardo, they never found any indication of water. And Ricardo had their entrance locked. Jessica did the cold calculation and could see no other way to survive other than to check if Ricardo had unlocked the hatch at the entrance pentagon. Why would Ricardo ever let her free? But down here it was certain death by dehydration. Jessica decided to risk it. Perhaps Ricardo had unlocked the entrance and Jessica she would find a chance to run by him and escape. Jessica worked to maintain her silence. That last thought sounded so pathetic, but her throat already felt dry. Well, maybe the servos would let her out. A possibility, wasn't it, and thus better than certain death. In utter silence, she slowly opened the door and entered. An hour later. Jessica could not believe what her hand was feeling. The hatch out of the museum maze was unlocked! Why was Ricardo letting her go?! This must be a trap! "If it is a trap," she thought ruefully, "it's infinitely well baited. I need water!" How long had it been since the lights went out? Jessica had glanced at her watch just before entering the drawer. The time was around 10:40 AM, and she thought it might be a little after noontime now. Jessica had make great progress after transiting the octagonal room where she had escaped from Ricardo. Walking rapidly with her hand gliding along the wall for guidance, she walked back more than two kilometers along the map she had memorized in her head, every corridor, every door count at every junction, Jessica was quite proud of her ability to remember it all. She always did have an excellent memory, and it had certainly come in handy now. There! She was standing in the room above the entrance to the museum maze. Now what? The room was in the deep interior of the first floor. "Escape! Escape!" her mind was screaming. "You think you're done?! NO! Move or die! Move or die! Don't you dare think you're done yet!" Was there a way out of the building complex? With the power out, there just might be, but it would be a journey. The spot where she was now was an enclosed area. To escape, Jessica would have to go up to the second floor and then later come back down. She whimpered slightly. This part of the journey was not well memorized. One blank wall where she expected a door and she would be completely disoriented. "It's not fair!" the child within her screamed. "Life never is," the adult mind thought back in a consoling tone. "But life is also what you make of it." Jessica moved silently in the utter darkness, her thoughts focused on the correct path to the stairwell. Time: Friday, August 8, 2019 8 PM GHT Fatima was sitting near the western end of the lounge at Green Mall. The room was adjacent to the northern vertex of the hexagonal home complex, and through the windows see could see the last half hour of orange sunlight touching the trees and the bi-level hexagonal walkway across the pine park. It was a peaceful scene, and Fatima took the moment to try to calm herself. Forty people! Including herself, she was in a room with forty people! The experience felt so unusual Fatima would occasional shiver as she looked across the room. It was a poignant reminder of how social a creature a human was, and how far the species had fallen. This simple gathering represented almost half of all humanity. Aggie had asked Amber and Whitney to come down to the library a while ago, but they were back up now and sitting on a sofa talking with Lucia. Over the past month, the three women had become very good friends. Fatima thought that was good. Amber and Whitney had always been honest members of their society and very diligent workers, but there was also an initial hard edge to their personalities. That edge had all but disappeared now. And Whitney, she used to be a bit of a loner. But just this last month, finally, Fatima had noticed her pushing herself to be more gregarious, offering trust and friendship to the people around her. It was a joy to behold. Fatima noticed Amber and Lucia linking. The two women were still for about ten objective seconds, and then their link abruptly ended. Lucia looked startled and Amber's expression was much more difficult to read. What was up with that? Fatima was momentarily puzzled. Well, no matter. Amber and Whitney were consenting adults with rights of privacy with their links. Fatima shrugged and turned her head and continued to scan the room. On a sofa nearby, Tom and Madison were holding hands and linking. And the smiles on their faces! The tenderness of the newly reunited lovers was plain for everyone to see. Carla was sitting happily on the other side of Tom, ready to interrupt his link with Madison once the meeting started. Once the meeting started? Fatima blinked. The delay was now a half hour! What was keeping Mark, Emily, and Aggie so busy in the library down below? Aggie had come up around forty minutes ago and told Fatima she and Emily and Mark were onto something extremely important and they would show up when they could. After Aggie ran back into the elevator for the micro-jump to the library below, Fatima had decided to wait for them and just let people continue with their celebration of the latest prisoner escape from Wobanakik. The power outage had lasted over two hours, coming to an abrupt end about fifteen seconds before 2:23 PM. All members followed the outage contingency plan and jumped to Green Mall. For many it was their first experience with having their jump command delayed by a busy use of their destination. And within a few minutes of the end of the blackout, exciting news began to sweep the complex. Sandra's team based at the entrance rooms at Wobanakik had managed to beat the clock and were now on the other side of the entrance elevator and beginning their long climb up the stairs. Tom asked for and received permission to program the six stair-cats to meet them on the next landing. The cats performed flawlessly and the lost group arrived at Green Mall just before 4 PM. Sandra told of their experience with the blackout. Power had failed completely in Wobanakik, just as if someone had pulled the plug. Her team of six were by the boathouse, Madison and Parni and Sachi working the mobile observation balloons from the dock while Sandra kept an eye out for the local cats. Amy and Margaret were taking the opportunity for a quick swim. It was the first day of autumn in Wobanakik, and over the last week people had been noticing the days were slowly losing their summer warmth. A few seconds after 12:13 PM, precisely at Wobanakik's solar noon, the world suddenly became pitch dark. There was stunned silence for a moment, and then Amy and Margaret began calling for help. They swam to the call of Sandra's voice for a while, and then Madison helped by cranking her generator light from her backpack. This was all so completely unexpected, but they had discussed the possibility of this before. Unfortunately they were down at the lake, several kilometers distant from the entrance rooms. And the hike back would have to be done in pitch blackness. Would the power outage last that long? Sandra decided it was worth a try. The darkness was so eerie it was difficult to see it as an opportunity, but nevertheless her group hiked back home as quickly as they safely could, their observation balloons all but forgotten. And they found their home as dark as the outdoors but accessible by leaning and pushing open the sliding doors. A quick walk through the rooms revealed the path to the great staircase was open. Shaking off the disbelief that their escape could be this easy, they grabbed emergency water bottles stored nearby and exited Wobanakik. After a short 25-meter walk across the bottom corridor, they began climbing the stairs. They were on their third ascending flight when the power returned. It was a profound stroke of good fortune. Only seven people now remained trapped in Wobanakik; Jada, Charles, Thara, Lynn, Mandy, and the Abenaki cousins Abit and Oona. And as Fatima waited to start her evening meeting, Jada's group was on the bridge and sharing in the conversation. Her group was back at Manhattan after a very harrowing day. The blackout hit them while they were about ten kilometers downriver from home, investigating a promising lead from an observation balloon that turned out to be just an unusually shaped symmetric rock. And then the lights went out. They were hiking down a short but steep incline at the time, and Thara became so disoriented she tripped and skinned her knee before stopping. The wound wasn't serious but their position certainly was. It was as if someone had flipped a switch and turned off the world. What the hell had happened? The experience was profoundly disturbing. Wobanakik's illusion of being outdoors and on the surface was perfect, and then to go to inky darkness in an instant was extremely unnerving. In the blink of an eye each person went from being apart of a group to an individual isolated in a sea of darkness. People found each other through their voices. Fortunately they all had generator flashlights in their backpacks. What to do? Returning to their kayaks would take them through deep forest, and they could hear distant roars of Dinofelis as the big cats voiced their frustration. After a short discussion, the group decided to wait in place, the flashlights shining in all directions and creating a fire zone for their pistols and crossbows. Fortunately they never had to fire, and after a tense two hours the linear sun suddenly snapped back on at its mid afternoon position. A few minutes later the usual breezes started to flow. The first thing the group did was test their Leophones. Delighted to have them working, they checked in and learned that the latest power failure had affected the surface too. A few minutes later they learned that they were now the only inhabitants of Wobanakik. Sandra and her group were on their way to the surface. If only they had known this was coming, but of course they did not. It was too late in the day to attempt to reach the entrance rooms now, but they discussed the issue of their living location with the surface as they hiked back to the kayaks. They reached a tentative understanding to vacate Manhattan, perhaps as early as tomorrow. And as for Sandra's group, she and Parni and Sachi would head for the Bee Park tomorrow, to be followed by Madison, Amy, and Margaret four days later. Like Wobanakik, the Bee Park was at the beginning of its autumn and its fields were still overflowing with fruits and vegetables. It seemed a perfect opportunity to cycle through two more boost teams before the park's quick winter season. Husna came and sat by Fatima and they shared their experiences during the blackout. After a while Fatima glanced out the window and saw that sunset was now only a few minutes away. What the heck were the library people doing? Meanwhile, approximately 3 km west and 15 km north... Jessica was watching the sun too. She was on the second floor of the long building complex, in an ultra-large bathroom with a perfectly transparent ceiling. Along the northern wall of the room there was a climbable artwork that allowed Jessica to put her nose up against the ceiling. The sun was not visible now, having just dipped below a long three-story building less than half a kilometer south of Jessica's position. But she had been watching the sun ever since she arrived here, climbing the artwork and gazing at as much as the sky as she could. She was very perplexed by what she was seeing. Jessica thought she had arrived at the bathroom approximately two hours after the onset of the power failure. In all the twists and turns in the inky darkness, her memory never failed her, and when she finally put her hands on the sliding door and pushed, she was rewarded with orange sunlight so bright it hurt her eyes. She quickly entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Then she went straight to the nearest sink and drank her fill of water, using her hands as a cup. The water tasted sweet and was very satisfying. Only then did she inspect her surroundings. The room was as she remembered it. She and Ricardo had passed by the room in the late afternoon the first day they were here. Ricardo had been much more interested in an electronics room across the hall, and did not even seem to notice that Jessica had poked her head into this bathroom for a second. It was a very good hiding place, lots of delicious water and natural light and Jessica was hoping Ricardo had forgotten the place was here. The building complex was huge. Four kilometers long, two hundred meters wide, two stories above ground, it held many thousands of rooms. How many could Ricardo possibly remember? And yet her escape was so strange. Ricardo had backtracked through the darkness and intentionally let Jessica out of the maze. That made absolutely no sense. Was it possible he decided to forgive her for running away? No! She knew his heart. Ricardo would need a complete personality transplant before he would understand the concept of forgiveness. There must be some other explanation. Perhaps the servos had removed the locks. Yes, perhaps the servos ... Ricardo must still be considered a deadly enemy. To think otherwise would be to commit suicide. And the blackout ... What was up with the orange sun? When Jessica entered the building complex two days ago, they were just coming out of a cold and dark winter with equal amounts of day and night, a spring equinox Jessica decided. But now two days later, the sun by her watch was setting around 8:30 PM. This was incredible! Yes, the seasons moved on this planet with blinding speed, but not that fast! A two and a half hour change in sunset in two days?! Did some godlike hand come and grip the planet and change its tilt?! No! But what other explanation was there? And another thing! When Jessica's watch snapped back on shortly after arriving in the bathroom, it displayed the time as 2:23 PM. That didn't seem right at all. Jessica would have guessed about 1 PM. True, the walking in the darkness make time very hard to judge, but still ... Jessica sighed. It was a mystery. But anyway, what now? The safest course of action would be to assume she was prey, that Ricardo was hunting her. Logically Jessica should be on the move desperately checking the exterior doors to see if the power outage had left one of the doors unlocked. Jessica decided Ricardo would be anticipating this behavior from her. So Jessica would reverse the logic. She had all the water she wanted and two food bars. Jessica sighed and petted the slight bulge of her stomach with her hand. And she was probably fatter than she had ever been in her life. How stupid she had been! Over the past month, such insane desires to please Ricardo, to be attractive for him. She knew he thought her hips girlish, her chest rather flat. Jessica had tried eating extra food in order to appear more sexually mature and attractive. She now berated herself for such insanity, but the behavior did pay a dividend. Remaining in this room for a few days, perhaps even a week or more, it would be no problem. Let Ricardo taste bitter failure in his search for her. Let him decide the effort was futile. Only then would Jessica make her move. She looked around the room as the last of the orange sunlight faded from the day. It was a large enough area. At least she wouldn't get claustrophobic. But it was a pity about the lack of a bed and pillow. Her arm would have to do. And the toileting area! Undeniably coed, with no stalls at all. At least the bathroom in their old home complex had that. But not here. Here the facilities seemed intentionally designed to put the men and women on display for each other as they did their toileting. The setup was mind boggling. Jessica's eyes lit on a side panel of drawers. Something for a bed?! A few moments later she laughed with delight. She had found a large supply of fluffy towels. Approximately three kilometers to the west... Ricardo sat in the control room by a master security monitor, going through the boring work of inspecting the underground museum maze. On a table nearby was a plate filled half eaten remains of Jenaro. Earlier Ricardo had decided he needed something to cheer himself up, so he cooked up a big meal with a selection of choice cuts, a slice of inner thigh and a bit of the very sweet neck meat along with some fried liver and heart. And when Ricardo had been preparing his dinner earlier, he decided there was just enough left for one more rump roast. Maybe he would do that tomorrow. Damn pity about the lack of spices. Pepper and garlic would be so nice. Ricardo thought he would sell his soul for some garlic, never realizing his soul was already under foreclosure. And the power outage was not a symbol of complete failure. Before his override command code had exploded, Ricardo had forced the system to recognize another privilege for him. Ricardo now had every single door in the large building complex alarmed, every entrance door, every interior door, unfortunately not every drawer but at least every closet door. The long building was now buttoned up as tightly as a drum, but Ricardo still wasn't satisfied. He had this really awful feeling about Jessica even though rationally he knew there was no basis for it. It was just a bad turn in his fantasy while he was masturbating earlier, getting ready to explode while butt fucking the bitch, and then switching to the memory of her witch eyes and power. Ricardo had been forced to detour to fantasy to Amber, but the memory of his failure to orgasm during his fantasy rape of Jessica bothered him. Jessica was dead. So why was he still afraid of her? Ricardo blinked as he sat by the console. Afraid of Jessica? Did he really think that? No, of course not. Ding dong bong, the wicked witch was dead. And yet ... Ricardo sighed. Well, he had the time and nothing else to do. He would humor his irrational fear and check out the museum maze again with his remote eye, every room, every corridor, every closet. It was an idle waste of time and it might take days, but Ricardo had nothing do before assuming the position of god in another sixty-three days. Nothing that is, unless someone was foolish enough to walk into the long building before then. Then Ricardo would have a chance to play god a bit early. ------- Chapter 96 Time: Friday, August 8, 2019 9:21 PM GHT The last of the evening twilight had faded from the sky by the time Emily, Aggie, and Mark came to the Green Mall lounge, almost two hours after the meeting was supposed to start. After a quick link with Fatima, Mark waved his arm to make sure he had everyone's attention. "We have a video presentation," he said simply. "Would you all please join us in the multimedia room?" A few minutes later, the entire crowd was gathered at the first-floor presentation area. After checking to make sure Jada's group could see the presentation on their library consoles, Mark and Aggie stood up by the giant display screen covering the wall while Emily worked the video controls nearby. No one failed to notice how grim the three people looked. It was evident even to the people in Wobanakik. They all waited for the presentation in anxious silence. "First slide Emily," said Aggie loudly. "Right. Here is a piece of a log file being stored on the orbital platform. It explains the cause of this afternoon's power failure. It explains a lot more. To be blunt, the power outage was the result of a failed security override command. Someone tried to seize executive control of security over an area of unknown size, probably across the entire Great Hexagon, perhaps even more. People, we are in serious trouble. Mark, Emily and I have been studying this log for several hours. The success of the override would have turned us into slaves or worse. Someone just missed seizing absolute control of everything we depend on. Mark?" He nodded. "Lynn pointed this out to us weeks ago. The annual cycle of Wobanakik appears to be synchronized with a number of the core engineering cycles of the Great Hexagon. Some are biannual. An example of this is Lynn's ability to trigger the reset at Wobanakik's summer solstice on April 1st, and then again in two Wobanakik years. From our analysis of the orbital logs, we also found a seasonal window that opens security protocols and privileges for reassignment. From the logs, we even know where the attempted security override originated. The coordinates indicate it originated in the long building three kilometers south of Black Mall's home complex. Part of the building near its central core appears to be a security hub for the entire hexagon." Whitney raised her hand. "Mark, I'm confused. Why is this information being stored on an orbiting telescope?" Mark cracked a thin smile. "Yeah, why indeed. I believe it's there so I can see it." Whitney blinked. "Play that again?" Mark nodded. "It's a core issue here, I know, and worth the time to understand. Let me back up for a moment. The interface, all the people that have been trained by it, we all agree, it feels much more than working with a computer interface and perhaps vaguely less than interacting with a true sentient being. It's almost as if..." Mark struggled for words for a moment. "Free will, consciousness, we tend to think of it as a yes or no issue. The human mind has free will. We are conscious. Other animals have it too, desires, emotions, think of a dog you might have known in your life. But computers, machines? We might talk sometimes as if they have personalities, but there's no true conscious. Artificial intelligence is exactly that, completely artificial, the illusion of intelligence. My laptop has no true ability to understand anything, anymore than a book on modern chess openings understands how to play chess. The book itself understands nothing." "And now we come to Kappa Alpha's interface. Is it conscious? Does it have free will? Emily and I have talked about this for months. Our tentative answer is ... somewhat. That's our guess from trying to weigh all our experiences. Our impression is that the interface is working under guidelines that it cannot violate. It cannot break its rules, not that it doesn't want to but as a true impossibility. The physics of its limited version of consciousness forbids it. That's how Emily and Aggie and I frame its behavior." Aggie spoke up. "But it wants to. I know this sounds absurd, but we feel the interface wants to help up. It's rooting for us. But it also has overriding orders to follow, and those orders are to be impartial. Humanity is on trial here, that's our model, and indirectly the interface has all but admitted our thinking is correct. That's why the logs are on the orbiter. It's an executive Section Zero area and thus a valid storage area for the data. That's the interface's loophole to obey its prime directives for neutrality but still help us along." Paige raised her hand and was recognized. "But behind the interface must be the actual builders of this place. The ultimate decision to do all this, to put our species on trial, it must have been an act of free will. I don't understand. The interface is not the true builder. It openly admitted that to me when I was studying to be a med tech. I hope you all remember my report. I asked the interface when in came into being, and its answer was after Wobanakik became operational but before surface construction. And you say our species is on trial, right? So why aren't the builders our true judges?" Emily took a second before replying. "Because we don't think they're around, not anymore. Mark and I have probing this issue with the interface ever since we got here. It finally gave us an answer less than an hour ago. It's reply was that the answer to our question is here for us to find but we have to search for it." Emily gave a small laugh. "And then things got really bizarre. After about two minutes of silence, the interface started playing the theme music of Party #6." "What?! Stairway to Heaven?" Emily nodded. "We think it was the original 1971 recording too, Led Zeppelin's band, Robert Plant as vocalist and Jimmy Page on the guitar." Paige looked perplexed. "It played a song as an answer? What does that mean?" Emily sighed. "Mark and I are guessing it means our trial is not being observed by anyone or anything higher than the interface. I know, I know, in human terms this makes no sense. The playing the song was just plain weird. What does that song have to do with anything?" She paused to take a sip of water. "The effort involved to create a world, and then to just walk away ... But that's what we think happened. Maybe the builders were forced to walk away. Was Earth's destruction intentional? Were the builders at war with other entities that destroyed Earth? It's a possibility, isn't it?" Paige blew a full load of air from her cheeks. "Somehow that seems sort of right but not exactly right. I agree with you on one thing though. There's so much here we don't understand." After a long moment of silence Mark resumed his presentation. "Next slide Aggie. This next section of the log shows that the security override attempt was initiated by Citizen ID 50. This supports our earlier guess that the person we've seen wandering in the southern regions of Black Mall is Diego, whom we think is Citizen ID 53. Next slide Aggie." "And here's a close-up from the orbiter's most recent flyby. We've zoomed in on an area on the eastern side of the linear building. It appears to be a bathroom on the top floor with a transparent ceiling. Note the person high up on the northern wall. We have a better shot with the primary mirror. This will be our last slide. Aggie?" A few seconds after the final slide was displayed, several women from Party #5 shouted simultaneously, "My God, that's Jessica!" Mark nodded. "Yes, that was Amber's and Whitney's opinion too. We have identified Jessica as Citizen ID 24. She's in the same building complex as Citizen ID 50, the person who attempted the security override. The orbiter logs identify the security center as approximately two kilometers west of Jessica's position. The question we were debating was how to interpret all this. What's the glue that holds all these facts together?" "I've got a pretty good idea for some of it," answered Charles from Wobanakik. "Jenaro was pretty much computer illiterate beyond running his Facebook site. Ricardo though, I knew some people that were taking a programming course with him. It's Ricardo who wrote the override code. He drove his instructor nuts. His teacher called him bright but a daf programmer." A voice in the media room chirped up. "Uh, this is Holly. You mean daffy?" Charles laughed. "Sort of, D.A.F., Deploy And Forget. It was Ricardo's great weakness. He was blindly overconfident in very code he wrote. Once it compiled and ran a few test cases okay, he would just turn it loose and never check it again." Mark replied with a worried voice. "Maybe that's what saved us here, but it won't happen again. The interface nailed Ricardo on a very minor error. One trivial change and I think Ricardo would be our god now. And we have to assume all this is blindingly obvious to him." Cassidy was sitting nearby and said, "But we still hold a lot of good cards too. Ricardo knows so little, nothing about us, almost nothing about the surface or the spiral arms of the Mall, nothing about Wobanakik." Mark looked grim. "But he will, once he can appoint himself Security Director. He'll know everything we do, and probably a lot more." Cassidy frowned for a moment. "Charles?" "Yeah?" "Jessica and Ricardo are alone in the long building complex, and Jessica is two kilometers from Ricardo's position. What does that suggest to you?" Charles gave a small gasp. "Yes! Great thinking Cassie. Everyone, do you see what Cassie is saying? Jessica has escaped from Ricardo. She's hiding from him. It's the only explanation. That guy is so paranoid, he'd never willingly turn her loose like this." "This is Oona," spoke a voice from Wobanakik. "Will one of you presenters please tell me how bad it would be if Ricardo got the security authority he was trying for?" Aggie locked eyes with both Mark and Emily and then spoke up. "I'll try to answer Oona. It would be really bad, bad enough that we have to evacuate the Great Hexagon. We're hoping his security authority wouldn't cover the whole planet, but we just don't know. To be safe, we might have to evacuate all Kappa Alpha facilities, go native as Kelly and Laura's teams did, hide on the continent of Africa and hope our children can remain hidden until Ricardo dies. I know this sounds gruesome, but it might come to this." "What about us?" asked Oona. "We can't evacuate." Aggie gave a soft wail. "I know it! I don't know what to say. We've got till the winter solstice to find a way out for you. It should be our highest priority. I think our next highest should be to prepare for everyone to migrate to Africa. I mean everyone that can. Kelly's and Laura's groups have shown us it's possible to go native and survive there. We owe them a world of thanks. If we can't eliminate the threat of Ricardo by the end of the year..." Aggie grimaced and said no more. Eventually Charles spoke. "I'd like to bring up another issue. I know we've talked about this before, but the situation's changed. I want to suggest again that we make contact with Diego." Fatima nodded. Months ago she had decided to let the majority of opinion rule on this issue, and driven by a large voting bloc from Party #5, by a narrow margin the Society had so far maintained its surveillance of Diego from the orbiter but had not initiated any form of contact. But the issue with Ricardo had put the question of contact with Diego into a new perspective. After a half hour of very frank discussion, Fatima called for a vote which resulted in a 43 to 7 vote in favor of contacting Diego with an observation balloon. They could have a two-way conversation without the risk of losing someone as they had with Brandi. And fortunately the three-story building to the south of Ricardo's position would shield the balloon from observation if they approached Diego from the Green Mall surface area and kept the balloon low. It had not gone unnoticed that in all the satellite flybys, Diego had never once put himself in a position to be seen from Ricardo's building. The meeting lasted until well after 11 PM. By the time they dispersed, they had agreed on three top priority goals for the sixty-three days before the winter solstice: Firstly, stockpile non-perishable food and survival supplies somewhere in the forests of the southern hemisphere of Africa, perhaps on the order of a hundred kilometers from the equatorial pyramid. It would be mid summer in the southern hemisphere when the evacuation occurred. Of critical importance was whether the stair-climbing cats could handle natural terrain. At five meters per second, the six cats could conceivably make two round trips a day to a deep forest destination, delivering 900 kilos of goods on each run. Their upcoming sixty-three day window might be their one opportunity to stockpile supplies for generations to come. Secondly, continue searching for an escape route from Wobanakik. Thirdly, stop Ricardo by any means possible. There were also a number of important secondary goals: Continue the search for the lost members of Parties #3 and #6. paying particular attention to finding other trapdoors that might connect to other continents and islands. Communicate with Diego via observational balloon. Continue to monitor Jessica's position. Most people retired to bed exhausted after the meeting. The realization of all the technology around them could be used to hunt and enslave them was slowly sinking in. Sleep would be difficult but it was also a necessity. Tomorrow would be a very busy day. Time: Saturday, August 9, 2019 12:13 AM GHT The cylindrical night sky above Manhattan was ablaze with a close-up image of the horseshoe nebula, the beautiful red light quite noticeable on the small park grounds. Mandy and Charles had taken a double sleeping bag and were sleeping outside about a dozen meters from the south-eastern vertex, opposite the boathouse and the closest position on the island to the incoming flow of the river. The sound of the churning water made a sound soothing and peaceful. Mandy gave a deep sigh and tried to relax. Her head was resting on a pillow, and Charles' hand was petting her head. His other hand was resting on her hip, occasionally stroking the side of her body but mostly just holding her in an affectionate embrace. "Going to be a hell of a day tomorrow," Charles mumbled, "so different than before. Everything has changed." Mandy sighed again, nodding but also trying to forget their troubles for a while. "Oh look. The moon has left the nebula. All the silver light with the red, this really is so pretty." Ever since the April 1, the day of the previous reset, the moon had been on an exact 28-day cycle, "rising" at 9 PM at the southern end of the cylindrical sky and setting six hours later in the north. The underground world would experience nine lunar cycles each Wobanakik year, and tonight was the night of a waning quarter moon. And as an extra treat, the moon had briefly transited the much larger cosmological feature on display tonight. Everyone who lived here enjoyed Wobanakik's night sky. The moon in its phases was very predictable, but the sky behind it, what a variety and delight! The display would vary greatly one night to the next. No one ever knew what to expect. Perhaps a third of the time, it was either a familiar night sky from some position from old Earth, or a display that might have come from the Hubble telescope. Other nights though, the sky would show sights that were obviously never seen from Earth. Mandy thought the displays quite beautiful. She leaned over to give Charles a sleepy kiss, and then snuggled up against him, loving the feel of his warmth and its contrast to the cold wind blowing off the frigid river. And the nights of the new moon held special treats. Their first experience with this was on May 1st, a half lunar cycle after the April 1st reset. High above Manhattan was the old familiar planet Jupiter, and it was enormous. From the visual data sent to the surface, Mark estimated the view might have been from Io, the innermost of the four largest moons known since the time of Galileo. Imagine the moon with its apparent diameter enlarged by more than a factor of forty. The planet Jupiter filled the sky, and the habitants of Manhattan spent hours outside that night, just staring up and admiring the view. The second new moon occurred on July 1st, and the display was of the inside of a stellar nursery. What would the show be for September 1st? Sleepy Mandy tried to imagine what it might be in an effort to forget the worries of the day. Charles turned and kissed her forehead, and then the hand resting on her hip moved up and cupped her breast through her flannel pajamas. Mandy gave Charles a pat on his thigh in return. "Oh, I wish..." she mumbled sleepily. "Hmm? Wish what?" Another kiss, this one on her cheek. "I wish..." Her eyes were closed, her mind half asleep. "I wish our first month together never happened. I wish I only knew you as Charles, never Chico." Mandy felt her lover stiffened and her mind snapped briefly to full awake. "Oh, I'm not trying to resurrect anything Charles. Please don't feel guilty. It's over and done with, and I really do forgive you, forgive you for everything. I just wish ... I wish I could offer you my body for the first time." She gave a big sleepy yawn. "It's something I miss." She felt him trembling. "I do love you. I wasn't trying to embarrass you." "I know," he whispered. "I feel so..." The words just wouldn't come. "Go to sleep my love," Mandy whispered back, and she turned lazily and butted herself back into him. She fell asleep shortly afterwards, much sooner than Charles. He stayed awake and held her sleeping body for a long time, his mind pondering the irony. In their initial time at Black Mall, their relationship was full of forced sex and devoid of love, such a change from now. After months together in Wobanakik, Mandy had a few days ago finally accepted Charles as her lover and mate, and to his horror Charles found himself impotent with her. It happened just a few nights ago. A lingering kiss by Mandy's bedroom door evolved into Mandy disrobing for him inside her room, and as she started playfully to tug off his clothes, Charles was hit by unexpected waves of shame. The sight of her nakedness had brought everything back, Mandy the fuck toy, Mandy the hoof pussy, Mandy of the forced slurpy blowjob when Chico was too tired to mount her, Mandy the frightened whore when Chico would fantasize and tease her about fucking her in the butt. And there she was in her bedroom a few nights ago, smiling and playful but her nakedness bringing back so many awful memories. Charles' erect penis had suddenly become Chico's penis about to rape hoof pussy Mandy, and almost in an instant Charles became completely limp. He lay down on her bed and sobbed. Mandy was sexually aroused but perceptive enough to realize what had happened. She wound up sitting on her bed petting his head in her lap, telling him over and over again that all was forgiven. Her breasts were within suckling distance of his mouth, and as Mandy would lean down to hug him, her nipples would often brush his lips. But her offers for sexuality went unnoticed. Charles was lost in his despair and humiliation. It was different now, lying with her in the sleeping bag. Mandy was so beautiful in the red and silver light of the night sky, and it felt so right to hold her and have her by his side. Charles gave a small gasp as he realized his penis was fully erect, and he backed up a bit so he wouldn't be pressing it into the crack of her ass. Mandy murmured in her sleep and wiggled back into him. Charles sighed deeply. His heart was at peace, and he thought his impotence problem might be over. He had finally accepted her forgiveness, and that thought allowed him to relax. From across the wide river, the night sounds of the forest carried over to the island. A big cat had successfully hunted, but the distant roars went unnoticed by them both. ------- Chapter 97 The next day. Time: Saturday, August 9, 2019 5:45 PM Unknown to the man formerly known as Diego, his current position was almost exactly four kilometers due north of Hex Hall, the geometric center of the Great Hexagon. He also did not know that the barrier wall to his southwest continued onward, and that the nearby southernmost point was really a three-way junction point between the Black, Green, and Yellow Malls' surface areas. What Doug did know was that he was approximately two kilometers north of the junction where two great walls met. He also knew not to attempt to cross the barriers. Oh yes, he knew that. Many weeks ago, just after his first few days of surface wandering, Doug had stood on the boundary between the red and yellow cobblestones and had tested the ivy moats by throwing an empty food package filled with sand. Seconds later he turned and tripped as he fled across the yellow cobblestones, managing to stay only a few meters ahead of the seeking tendrils of the aroused plant. The experience still gave him nightmares, and he had a pretty good idea now of how Neto and the others in Gilberto's posse must have died. Pistols would be useless against such a creature, and Doug had no doubt about the sharpness of the thorny vines. He would be hard pressed to imagine a more horrible way to die. Doug paused and took a deep drink, fully satisfying his thirst with the last of his water bottle as considered what to do next. It had been a typical day, the temperature peaking to just over 30C in mid afternoon and holding there for the last several hours. He clipped his empty bottle to his belt and then slowly stretched his arms, glancing at his watch as he did. Although darkness was making a comeback, the world was still a world full of light. The sun had risen at 3:35 AM this morning and he still had hours to wander before bedding down for the night. But he was out of water now, and it made sense to replenish. Doug stretched again and sighed at his fate. He had accepted weeks ago when his food ran out that his wanderings no longer had purpose. There was no food available in the open areas, and Diego would not risk being trapped in a sterile building somewhere. He would die under the sun and stars. The hiking was just busy work, something to enjoy before starvation took away his ability to walk. At least he wouldn't dry of dehydration. Doug was sure he wouldn't like that. He figured he still had many days of walking ability left, maybe even weeks. Life was still worth living. Doug turned southwest to admire the great orange sun, and for a moment he cracked a rare smile. For some unknown reason, he felt the sky was looking back at him. Shaking his head at his fantasy, he began walking into the sunset at an easy pace, heading towards his favorite watering hole. It wasn't far, perhaps two kilometers and a bit along a very twisting path. There was an open-air veranda near the fountain. It would be a good place to bed down for the night. Meanwhile, 4 km to the south and 1.5 km below. Down in Wobanakik it was the second day of autumn, the sun having risen at 6:15 AM this morning and setting in slightly less than a half hour. Lynn and Charles were currently the only two inhabitants of Manhattan and would remain so until Jada's party of five returned late tomorrow afternoon. Early this morning the complete group of seven had a long planning session that started over breakfast and continued for almost an hour. At the close, they reversed an earlier decision about the entrance rooms and agreed to keep Manhattan as their primary residence. The two consoles in the library there were just too valuable to give up. They could be used to control observation balloons at Wobanakik, across the surface of the Great Hexagon, and perhaps anywhere on the planet. The Society had plans tomorrow to risk one of their balloons on long-range reconnaissance, evaluating sites south of the equatorial pyramid as possible sanctuaries from Ricardo. Satellite imagery had already suggested several promising areas that were worth a ground-level look. Fatima had a large calendar prominently displayed on a wall at the Hilton conference center with the date January 1, 2020 shaded in red. It was the date for the winter solstice both on the surface and for Wobanakik. It was also the date they might all become puppets of Ricardo, alive only until the evil puppet-master decided to cut their strings. Underneath the awful deadline, Fatima wrote a note that said, "Warning: Dates on this calendar are closer than they appear!" The Society was perhaps sixty-two days away from their world losing all of its goodness. Back at Wobanakik, Jada, Thara, Mandy, Oona and Abit were currently leaving the boathouse at the southern lake and heading to the entrance rooms. They had spent the day kayaking upriver and investigating two locations in the western highlands that Sandra and her team had originally planned to investigate today. Meanwhile Sandra, Parni, and Sachi were beginning their eight-day boost at the Bee Park, and keeping with tradition, Peggy and Alexis from the last boost team would stay with them as mentors for the next few days. And at the central island of Manhattan, Lynn was controlling an observation balloon from her library console, having it hover a hundred meters above the boathouse and providing aerial support for Jada's team below. It was easy work in the open area around the lake and Lynn was also having a friendly conversation with Alexis at the Bee Park. She would be lowering the balloon to ground level when Jada's group reached the entrance rooms, and that's where the balloon would spend the night. Meanwhile Charles had a somewhat more complicated job. He was piloting an observation balloon between buildings in the southern Black Mall area, hopefully on target for a meeting with Diego. It had been a difficult choice for Jada to leave Charles at Manhattan. He had far more experience with pistols than Madison. But Charles had proven to be a master in controlling the observation balloons, perhaps from his vast experience with game controllers, and last night the Society had agreed to contact Diego only if the balloon could absolutely not be seen from Ricardo's complex. Charles was the best person to fulfill that promise, and he was also the person that knew Diego best from their time back at Burlington. Charles studied his displays intently as he guided the balloon. For a few minutes he had real-time satellite imagery of the Black Mall area and the location and direction of Diego established. In a second window on his monitor, Charles had the real-time video from the observation balloon. It really was a perfect set-up. The winds were very mild today up on the surface. Lynn had commented several times this afternoon what an easy time Charles was having compared to how her own balloon was being buffeted. Charles felt very confident he knew were Diego was heading, the large fountain area in the southernmost region of Black Mall. And even though linear sunset was fast approaching down here at Wobanakik, back on the surface there was still lots of daylight left. Perfect. Charles rocked his neck back and forth to stretch and guided his balloon with an easy hand, maintaining a steady two-meter separation between the ground and the bottom of the assembly. Just the slightest touch on the controller, and the balloon went exactly where he wanted it to go. In his mind Charles rehearsed what he wanted to say to an old friend. Time: Saturday, August 9, 2019 6:24 PM Two hours before sunset, Doug turned the last corner on his path and stood shock still. Hovering above the fountain was ... What the hell was that?! Some kind of huge balloon with a toy airplane hanging underneath? After a few seconds of study, Doug decided the contraption looked too ridiculous to be dangerous, but he also knew from his experience with the ivy that appearances could be very deceiving. Should he avoid this thing? What the hell for? If it were going to kill him, let it happen. After a final moment to recheck his decision, Doug finished his journey and reached the edge of the fountain. The bottom of the balloon was about four meters in front of him across the fountain and three meters above the level of the water. The water in the fountain was deep, swimmable, over a meter, so the balloon assembly was effectively out of reach. But Doug could probably hit it with his water bottle if he wanted to. He stared into the wide-angle lens at the bottom of the assembly, thinking "Man, this thing sure looks stupid, but it's probably doing a damn good job of taking my picture right now. Uh, is that a video camera?" Doug pondered his situation while he filled his two large water bottles, his eyes never leaving the hovering contraption. After he clipped the bottles to his belt, he blurted out a question. "Hello?" "Hi Diego," came a cheerful reply. Doug jumped. That sounded like... "Chico?! Is that you man?" "The one and only. But I've given up on Chico. I'm Charles now." "Yeah? What a coincidence. You can call me Doug." Doug realized his heart was racing and he tried to slow himself down. "So, how's it going Charles?" "Oh, I'm okay, but maybe ... Could we talk about you for awhile? You look..." Charles blinked as he took a hard look at the man before him. "Hell Doug! You're not skin and bones, but you're not far from it. You getting enough to eat?" Doug gave a mirthless laugh. "I'm not getting anything to eat. My food ran out ... Uh, four days after the day with the midnight sun. And I was stretched thin on one-quarter rations long before that." "What?! Oh shit! Stand by compadre..." A full minute went by in silence, Doug spending most of the time in deep thought while staring at the floating camera. "Okay, I'm back," Charles finally announced. "Doug, before we go any further, I should tell you, there are others watching this video with me, and you are been recorded. You deserve to know that." "Yeah, I kind of figured that, at least about the other people. Charles, are you a free man?" Charles did not want to reveal much of anything about the Society, not yet, not until he understood a lot more about the man centered on his monitor. But this particular question deserved an answer. "I am. Seriously, I really am. No fucking bullshit about on my honor as a compadre either. I really mean it. I'm free, and I'm doing exactly what I want to do, now and every time else." Doug nodded thoughtfully. "I'm glad for you then. I really mean that Chi ... uh, Charles." Doug understood what his friend meant by his strange language. Within their frat, the words "on my honor as a compadre" were code words for, "ignore or reverse whatever I just said." Charles was telling him the real deal. Charles paused for a moment before responding. He had had an extensive group discussion detailing important pieces of information that should not be revealed, but Fatima had also given him authority to use his judgment as the conversation progressed. Charles didn't have to ask permission for anything, and inside he was deeply moved by how far Fatima was trusting him. Charles needed to weigh his words carefully. A loose comment getting back to Ricardo could result in mass fatalities. Still, there were more things Doug deserved to know, and Charles would not deprive a starving man of food in order to extract information, no matter what. "Doug, these balloons, they have about one kilo of extra lift capacity. I've got a second balloon coming to your position. It'll have about a kilo of food bars tied to the bottom." Doug's mouth twitched. "Yeah? What do I have to do?" "Huh? Nothing. Just take them when they arrive. They should be there in less than an hour." Charles was hugely relieved they had such a fortuitous setup. Doug's position was only about two kilometers from Green Mall's home complex, and a quick request to Hannah and a few people with her was all it took to get the rescue package under way. Doug remained motionless for a moment, just staring at the balloon. Then he sat down heavily on the edge wall of the fountain. He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. "Hey compadre," Charles said softly. "You okay?" "This is a really big change," his friend whispered back, and then more loudly, "All these weeks, more, I been preparing myself to die out here, mentally I mean. To start thinking about living again..." Doug took a deep breath and shuddered, and then decided to offer something in return for the food bars. "So, is there anything you want to know?" "Gosh yes, all sorts of stuff. Can you tell us what you know about Hernando and Ricardo?" Doug nodded. "Sure. I'm curious though. Why those two?" "Well..." Charles was giving Fatima a chance to object on a separate line, but she kept quiet. It was Charles' decision to make. "Well, we think one is currently in a building in your area, but we're not sure who." "You know that? Okay. It must be Ricardo. Hernando is dead. Jenaro told me Ricardo killed him up on that crazy maze filled with the stuff that looks like pale green shaving cream. Ricardo threw Hernando's body into the foam." "Jenaro told you this?" Charles was confused. According to the census counter and Mark's employment log, Jenaro was dead. "You've spoken with him recently?" "Uh, no, not recently. Let me back up. I'll tell you my whole story, everything I can remember." And he did. Doug described in detail everything he thought was relevant, starting with his own downfall in becoming a rapist and supervising the pussy barn. He talked about the death of Uno, his work in the Black Mall library and he told about convincing Ricardo he needed to find new employment opportunities. Doug described in a shaking voice the collapse of his own morals in brutalizing Alfonso and not protesting the rape of Jessica. He then told of his chaining and eventual escape from the dead-man's switch at the southern vertex of the Black Mall home complex. Diego's tale eventually reached the critical information of his encounter with Jenaro, and how the two compadres had communicated by hand signs and pantomime. He then concluded with what he had learned from his many weeks of wandering. By the time he finished, the time was approaching 7:15 PM and a second balloon assembly was approaching the fountain. As promised, there was a small package tied to its base. Doug grabbed and held onto the frame after untying the package to give the controller time to readjust the buoyancy, and then he let go and dived into the package. It held twenty individually wrapped high-energy food bars, fifty grams each. Charles winced as he heard Doug whimper as he tore away the wrapping. The man ate half the bar in two quick gulps. "Hey compadre, you've got to slow down. Seriously Doug, that's concentrated food. Those bars in your condition, you could kill yourself if you gorge on them." Doug looked up, the food and saliva in his mouth felt so unfamiliar. He gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah, thanks. I'll nibble on the rest of this and then wait an hour." He slowly ate the rest of the portion while watching the second balloon depart to the southwest. Doug then licked his fingers clean and reverently stored the nineteen remaining bars, treating them like gold ingots as he packed them into his backpack. He then looked at the camera curiously. "So, what now?" "Well, I can tell you that we don't have a way to get you out of the area you're in." "So you want me to stay here?" "Yeah, for now. I guess eventually we could try to attach a hundred weather balloons to a chair or something." That thought elicited a quick grin. "Lawn Chair Larry rides again, huh?" Doug was referring to a event almost forty years old. On July 2, 1982, a man by the name of Larry Walters attached weather balloons to a lawn chair and wound up taking a ride 16,000 feet above Los Angeles. Back at Wobanakik, Charles scratched his head. "Yeah, it does sound kind of far fetched when you put it like that. Would you be okay hanging out where you are?" "Sure, no problem. You want me to stay by this fountain?" "Oh, not just there. But keep staying out of sight of Ricardo's building. That was a really smart move. One minute..." A moment later Charles continued. "There's an open building to the southwest, right before the sand moat and the ivy." Doug nodded. "I know the place, the small building with the open archways and no doors." "Yep, that's the one." Doug considered the request. "It's a good shelter from the rain, but I don't use it because its too close to the ivy." Doug suddenly realized he had not told of his experiment with the thrown package of sand. "You know about that plant, right?" "Oh yeah. But you're safe on the other side of the moat. The vines hate sand." "Really? Okay. Maybe that's why I really pissed them off." He continued without elaborating. "Thanks for telling me. That's useful to know." "We'll send over more balloons, built up a food store for you, some fresh fruits and veggies too." Doug gave a deep sigh and nod. "Yeah, thanks man. Sounds great, much appreciated." "You want anything else?" Charles asked quietly. "Well..." Doug thought a moment. "Well, if it's not too much trouble, maybe something to read?" "Sure, we can do that. I think I can get you some stuff you'll like." "I'm out of soap too. I could use a good bath ... Uh, Charles?" "Yeah?" "I'll understand if you can't answer, but what about the others, the people that were on your expedition? Toro? Bambino and Cassidy? Brandi must be okay, right? And what about the ... all the women we enslaved?" Doug finished his last question in a hoarse whisper. He was so embarrassed. He had almost referred to the rape victims as hoof pussies. A new voice spoke through the Leophone. "Hi Doug. This is Cassie." It was a voice tinged in sadness. With the outside conditions and the distance the speakerphone had to cover, Doug understood what Cassie had said but he failed to pick up on the emotional undertone. "Hey, Cassie! Nice to hear your voice!" "Yeah. It's good to see you too Doug." There was a slight pause. "I have some bad news. The Bambino is dead. He got into a fight with Segundo. Segundo killed him." Doug's jaw dropped. Cassidy blurted out the story, all the horrible memories coming back in a flash of pain. "Segundo and Barry got into a fight over who was leading. Segundo won the fight, and he kept kicking Barry in the groin while Barry was lying on the ground, stomping down on his testicles with all his weight. Then Segundo shot him three times in the chest." Cassidy gave a small gasp and continued. "I exploded. I started hitting Segundo with my fists. I got raped for my attack. The three muchachos raped me, Segundo and Geraldo and Ernesto, they raped me bad. I came very close to dying. The others, the group I'm with now, they saved me Doug. They're good people. They risked their own lives to save mine." Doug nodded silently. "Toro is fine. He goes by Tom now. And you deserve to know, Brandi ... Brandi is dead. Alfonso killed her." Doug blinked and then hissed, "He WHAT?!" "Alfonso was hiding out in a candy store near the ... end of the mall." Cassie stopped herself before revealing the multiple spiral nature of the mall. "Brandi went in alone. We were going to offer ... to forgive Alfonso. Instead he killed Brandi. It was completely unprovoked." Cassie paused and then added, "Alfonso is dead now too." She didn't elaborate, and Doug didn't seem to mind the lack of detail. "The shit! I don't feel so bad now about kicking him in the balls." Doug was silent for a long moment. "No, I take that back. He was forced to watch his girlfriend being raped, and Alfonso worshiped that women. He didn't deserve what I did." A deep frown. "But why did he have to go and kill Brandi? Brandi for God's sake! You couldn't ask for a nicer person!" "We think his mind snapped," replied Cassie, "and we didn't realize it. Doug, that's why we left you alone for so long. The majority of us ... didn't want to take the risk we took with Alfonso. We gambled and lost." Doug took a long moment to think, taking a deep drink from his water bottle before replying. "I want to be a better person. And I know I don't deserve any forgiveness. But if you people need me to do anything for you, anything at all, I don't care how risky, just ask." "Okay Doug," replied Cassie. "We appreciate that." "And to the people I abused ... and raped ... Maybe they won't care, and I don't blame them. But will you tell them I'm sorry?" ------- Chapter 98 Three weeks later, forty days till the winter solstice. Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 6:43 AM A small three-person team had left the southern vertex of Black Mall's home complex at daybreak, and now a half-hour later they were halfway up the pink tower and about to reach the elevated surface of the crescent maze. Amber as leader was out in front followed closely by Kiyoko and Whitney. Before climbing the last three meters of the stairs, Amber sat down and signaled for her two companions to do likewise. She then surprised them by starting to unclip all the supplies attached to her body and storing them in her backpack, everything except her water bottle. She signaled Kiyoko and Whitney to do the same. "This is absolutely our last chance to turn back," Amber said as she worked, "both physically and logically. From what Jenaro told Doug, once we start this maze, we won't be able to return. And once we walk up to the top of this tower, we'll probably be visible to Ricardo." In their mission planning, they had decided to assume Ricardo had access to his building's sensor arrays that were described in Mark's logs. Amber continued. "It makes absolutely no sense to reveal our presence and then turn back. Would you both link with me for a moment?" Three pairs of eyes formed a triple link and in accelerated subjective time, the world around them seemed to come to a stop. "Okay, let's go!" Amber said out loud three seconds later in objective time, echoing her last thought within the link. To the people monitoring the expedition through the Leophones, it seemed that Amber had asked her companions one last time whether they wanted to turn back, asking within a link where it would be impossible to hide true reluctance to continue. A moment later the group resumed climbing the last of the stairs of the pink tower. The expanse of the crescent maze was huge and daunting, and Amber thought that Doug's description was perfect in its analogy. The foam moguls looked exactly like pale green shaving cream. Jenaro had communicated to Doug in sign language that the foam could be deadly and descended far below the surface of their narrow walkway. Doug himself had commented that he felt vaguely revolted by the foam and Amber had no wish to play with it. With a curt nod to her companions, she led the way single-file along the curving walkway and away from the pink tower. Diego had said repeatedly that the maze could not be retraced, but there was no sense of movement in the foam hills as they walked. After about twenty minutes of walking, Amber wondered when they would reach the point of no return. Unknown to her, they had already passed it. The maze would take about two hours to traverse, leaving plenty of time for reflection. The long linear building to the south was an obvious place to watch, and they made no effort to avoid looking at it. Their intent was to give the appearance of a simple exploration team. Amber felt herself working to keep a look of dread from her face. In spite of all their work and accomplishments, a feeling of impending doom had descended on her Society. They were trapped in a box with no apparent way out. To be fair, there was significant progress on many fronts. The exploration of South Africa had revealed an ideal hiding location about a hundred kilometers from the equatorial pyramid, a natural cave system with internal spring water and entrances covered by a thick canopy of fruit trees. A surprisingly large number of the fruits and nearby vegetable roots too had proven to be edible. At maximum speed, the six stair-cats could make two preprogrammed round trips per day, delivering 1.8 metric tons of goods each day. Tom and Carla and few other people were stationed at the cave site now, scouting the area and unpacking the stair cats as they arrived. It was Tom and Carla's opinion that living in the area indefinitely would be quite doable. Giving up the vast benefits of the hexagon's technology was of course almost beyond comprehension to most people, especially in the issue of health care, but conceivably humanity could survive on this planet without technology. The Society had studied the orbiter's sensor logs and discovered that the circum-equatorial continent of Africa had a truly fascinating ecology. Within a hundred kilometers of the highly elevated equator, the terrain had a seasonal cycle of 168-days just like the rest of the planet, but with a slightly different phase. Snow would built up on the northern slopes while the sun was south of the equator, and then at the spring equinox with the sun directly overhead, the snow would rapidly melt and create a lush environment full of life. Temperatures would actually dip a bit at the summer solstice, with the sun a full forty-five degrees removed from the overhead position. The areas within two hundred kilometers of the coastline had a much different ecology, having two complete ecologic cycles each year. Peak warmth would occur on both shores near the solar equinox positions, and a very mild mini-winter would occur when the sun was at its extreme solstice positions in the northern and southern hemispheres. And finally the bands of land between the shores and the mountains were transition areas, four lopsided seasons per calendar year. Africa would indeed be a fascinating and diverse place to live. The problem with hiding out there was that the technology they left behind would eventually come hunting for them. How long would it be before Director of Security Ricardo discovered the capabilities of the orbital telescope? Mark had no authority to destroy it or shut it down, and once Ricardo had eyes in the sky, how long would it be before they were discovered? One picture of a human through the trees, perhaps one stubborn and rebellious child, that's all it would take. Would they have a month, a year, ten years? And it all their time in hiding, Ricardo would be studying and adding to his capabilities. There seemed only one way the game of hide-and-seek would end. The Society was facing enslavement, torture, and death. It seemed inevitable. So the Society decided to act aggressively and stop Ricardo by any means possible, and the deadline for success was the winter solstice. Amber's official mission was one of preliminary exploration and probing. Her group was to circle the linear building and test and record accessibility at each of its doors. The group would then head further south and join up with Diego. With Kiyoko's authority as Black Mall janitor, perhaps they could find an underground entrance into Ricardo's lair and surprise him. Amber thought the plan had a very low probability of success, an act of desperation, but she vigorously supported it. And she kept her reasons private. Meanwhile progress was being made in other areas. Madison, Amy and Margaret had completed their boost assignment ten days ago, at the end of the second week of the Bee Park's three week autumn. It was good timing for two reasons. On their last day, the Park's servos were clearly waiting for them to leave so they could do the final autumn harvest. And Farideh earned her authority as Yellow Mall Janitor the next day. She and the three women from the last boost team took on the mission of searching Yellow Mall's surface area for the last four missing members of Party #6. They had found no one after a week of searching. But interesting discoveries had been made. In the basement of the administration building at Yellow Brick University, Farideh activated an elevator and linked it with the jump grid. The Society now had quick access to the University from any elevator. A second discovery was made soon afterwards. Just a few meters from the University elevator was simple corridor running north-south, with a trapdoor-sized closet at each end. Exploration revealed they were bidirectional trapdoors leading to small buildings at the precise geographic north and south poles. So far the polar islands themselves remained unexplored, but the views out the windows there were extraordinary. The sun was just crossing the equator and both poles were in twilight, a cold gray mist at the north pole from a warm ocean, and a south pole full of sparkling ice with the tip of the orange sun orbiting the horizon. In spite of the busy schedules, everyone who had the chance had taken the time to see it. By walking quickly, one could make a complete circuit and examine both poles and be back home within a few minutes. Toshi and Kiyoko had made a brief inspection of the Bee Park just yesterday. As expected, the Park was at the beginning of its winter slumber, and the storage bins at the small lodge were full of fruits and vegetables. The Society was struggling with the issue of transporting the food and enough honey down to Wobanakik and allowing Jada's team to attempt to boost outside of the Bee Park. The risks were completely unknown. There was no immediate rush, and Jada's opinion was that they should wait. Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 8 AM With a final check of her watch, Jessica began hunting through the numerous little cubbyholes that were imbedded in the artwork along the northern wall of her bathroom. Finding her eight o-clock prize was easy today, and a quick sniff with her nose informed her that her first cookie of the day would taste like bacon and eggs. Not bad at all. Jessica opened her mouth happily and ate half the cookie in a single bite. All the cookies were good, and this one was no exception. Of course, it wasn't her all-time favorite. She only got one of those every other day, a sweet lemony cookie that Jessica would nibble on slowly with her eyes closed. The setup was so strange, but Jessica in a flash of instinct had decided weeks ago that there was a message buried in the strangeness. She would only get her hourly cookie if she already eaten the previous one, no hoarding allowed. And the food was enough to sustain her but not enough to gain weight. By being diligent, she could get a maximum of eighteen cookies a day, from 8 AM to 11 PM, with the last one having the remarkable ability of leaving her mouth and teeth feeling fresh and clean ... The first part of the message seemed obvious: Stay here and be fed and cared for. The second meaning was deeper: You are not being provisioned to leave. Do not leave the bathroom. Her third day there, twenty days ago now, Jessica's two food bars stolen from Ricardo were long gone and hunger was driving her to leave her hideout much earlier than she had planned. She wanted to begin exploring and find something to eat. And then miraculously, a point on the artwork along the northern wall began to sparkle as if the sunlight were hitting a jeweled diamond. Jessica investigated and found what appeared to be a small door that could be pulled up. She thought the discovery odd. In her three days of voluntary confinement, she had studied the artwork very carefully, out of boredom more than anything else. She had not noticed such a door before. Jessica had opened the door and was delighted to find a tasty cookie inside. She had know been here twenty-three days and still had no immediate plans to leave. She would stay as long as she was fed, at least for another few weeks and perhaps much longer. Jessica would only have one chance to escape with her life. She would not disregard the mysterious benefactor urging her to stay. And over the last three weeks Jessica had studied the sky with her watch. It was another great mystery, one that made no sense. When she had descended into the museum maze with Ricardo, the world was at its spring equinox, yet when she emerged two days later the world was undeniably in mid summer. And according to her timing of the solar movement, it now seemed as if autumn had started. This was impossible. Planets just don't decide to skip a season. Jessica could come up with nothing as an explanation. No matter. She was alive and healthy, and every day the memory of her must be growing dimmer in Ricardo's mind. Jessica considered time was on her side. She finished her bacon-and-egg cookie and started her morning exercises. Afterwards she would shower and do the laundry. It didn't really need it, but she felt desperate to accomplish something. Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 8:30 AM Amber and her teammates arrived at the green tower at the time they expected. Further south across the high grass was the eastern end of the massive linear building. The two story structure was about 500 meters away, and it stretched on to the west for a good four kilometers. These wide open areas and great buildings seemed to be distinctive to Black and White Malls. From the satellite imagery, the other four surface areas were much more cluttered and mazelike and had nothing nearly as large as the diamond complexes. Amber stared at Ricardo's home thoughtfully as Whitney and Kiyoko examined the slipperiness of the slide. It was as Diego had described it, a truly fearsome amusement ride. Amusing that is, if you managed to survive it whole. The group had a fake discussion about turning back rather than risking the slide, pretending not to know that the maze could not be reversed. And then they prepared for their descent. "Wow," said Whitney, "good thing we brought the suction cup. You were right and I was wrong Amber. It was worth its weight to bring it." Amber nodded thoughtfully. Mission parameters were to assume their conversations could be picked up by directional microphones once they were in direct line-of-sight of the linear building. And they were right. Ricardo had targeted them with visual and audio scanners moments after their ascent of the pink tower. "I'm not getting a good suction lock on the walkway," Kiyoko called out. "It pops off about ten seconds after I make the connection." Amber nodded. "Try using on the perimeter wall." A few moments later. "Yikes! It won't grip at all. The surface is so smooth, it feels like a hard liquid." Whitney looked at Kiyoko. "A hard liquid?" Kiyoko nodded. "I know that's a strange way to put it, but feel it yourself. If you try to push into the wall, it's as hard as glass. But if you move your hand along the wall, it's the slipperiest surface imaginable, just like the slide itself. The suction cup can't get a grip." "We'll have to do this one at a time," decided Amber. "I think I'm the heaviest, so I'll be the anchor and go last." "Excuse me great leader," Kiyoko said with a smile, "but it is the lightest person who should go last, and that's me. I'll put the least stress on the suction cup. Whitney and I will be your anchor." Amber paused and considered. "Yeah, okay, thanks. Lower the backpacks to me after I'm down. And Kiyoko, be careful! On your descent, slide quickly and then kill your speed. Try to cover most of the drop before the suction cup pops." Kiyoko nodded her understanding and she and Whitney braced themselves. The two of them found they could hold Amber's partial weight easily on the curved incline, and as Amber descended, the tension on the rope quickly disappeared. After that the three backpacks were lowered one by one, and then it was Whitney's turn. She sent her hiking boots down separately to reduce weight. All three women marveled at the final speed of the boots shooting off the end of the slide. It was a stern reminder that they could suffer a serious injury if they got careless. With the rope extended, Whitney prepared to launch herself down the slide. Kiyoko gave her the nod to go and then pushed the suction cup firmly into the walkway. For the first five seconds, she let the cup take the weight of Whitney on the slide. Then she pulled on the rope hard. Whitney was already a number of meters down and the task was difficult but doable. Kiyoko felt the suction cup pop after another five seconds, right on schedule, but by then Whitney was already out of the danger zone. She made it to the bottom easily. Kiyoko came next. She rehearsed the motions with her mind and body, plunging the cup to the floor as she moved her body onto the slide. She fell quickly then bore down hard on the rope, feeling the heat from the friction build in her climbing gloves. She was almost halfway down the slide and carrying very little speed with the taut rope suddenly twanged and went limp in her hands. Kiyoko turned and tumbled to the ground, trying to keep her body loose as she bounced and skipped along the smooth grass. "Kiyoko! Duck!" screamed Amber. Instinctively Kiyoko buried her head, protecting her face in her arms. An instant later she heard a whoosh and felt a stiff breeze against her upturned ear. Then she heard Amber cry out in anguish, "You're hit! Kiyoko! How bad is it?!" Kiyoko lifted her head. "Huh? Me? I'm fine." Then she looked south and saw the heavy suction cup many meters away. It had dragged the rope through the grass. "Holy shit," she whispered. By this time Whitney was by her side. "I can't believe that thing didn't take your head off! It didn't touch you at all?" Kiyoko shook her head, and then almost said something that would be out-of-character for an innocent expedition. She stopped herself just in time. A few minutes later, all boots and backpacks on, the group continued their journey south. Flashback to earlier in the morning, the women forming a triple link on the steps of the pink tower. Whitney was the first one to project a thought. "Amber, what are you trying to hide? You're assuming Fatima will think you're giving us one final chance to chicken out, aren't you? But that's not it. Amber! You're struggling to conceal something!" "Yes Amber," added the mind of Kiyoko, "I can see your emotions too. You have a some kind of plan but you're hiding the details from us. Why? And please don't be so fatalistic. I can see your determination and willingness for self sacrifice. Tell us what's going on." Amber returned the mental construct of a shrug. "I'm sorry but I won't answer. I have my reasons. I know I'm asking for a huge amount of trust here. I'm making a slight change to the mission plan." Amber then thought through a set of swift instructions. "Slight change?!" Kiyoko thought in astonishment. "Amber, are you planning to throw your life away?!" "If I am, then having you and Whitney with me would only mean three deaths instead of one. I promise, if the door stays open and lets me out, we'll go back to the original agenda and discuss our options tonight with Fatima. Otherwise, my plan makes sense!" There was a long subjective moment of silence, so brief in objective time an unlinked mind would have sensed it as a mere flash in time. Whitney finally thought, "How can we agree with you if we don't even know what your plan is?" Kiyoko thought a more strenuous objection. "And don't you remember the reason I'm on this mission? My authority as janitor might trump Ricardo even in his lair. Amber, if you think someone should enter the building, I am the appropriate choice. Tell us the plan and let me take the point." Amber projected a mental shake of her head. "A valid argument perhaps but I'm the one in change. I choose me." Then she softened her tone somewhat when she realized the distress she was causing her friends. "Kiyoko, and you too Whitney, I appreciate your kindness and your courage, but it has to be me. Ricardo had this thing about me, call it a warped version of puppy love or something, I don't know. But it's there, I'm sure of it. I can feel it when he's with me, and I've got a feeling it's the one thing that might allow us to defeat him." A subjective moment later. "Please?" "Amber, you're asking us to let you die!" wailed Kiyoko in a return thought. "I have my reasons. Trust me?" Amber worked to shield her reasons as hard as she could, knowing that if her friends could understand her expectations, they would never agree to her idea. And in love and respect, her thoughts remained hidden. Her friends would not force her mind open. "Okay, let's go!" thought Amber, and she broke the link before the others could frame their replies. ------- Chapter 99 Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 10:30 AM Amber, Whitney and Kiyoko were almost finished in their inspection of the circumference of the linear building. There were a total of ten doors into the complex, four each on the north and south faces and one each on the short east and west faces. So far all nine of the doors tested had opened easily when probed. The expedition was approaching the tenth door on the eastern face. A quick turn around the corner would bring them back to the building's northern face where they had started their probing two hours ago. Whitney tested the last door and found it also opened easily. She allowed it to close and then turned to her companions, and in particular to Amber. "I didn't realize how boring this would be. So, what's next great leader? Do we test the next building," she asked gesturing with her arm to the great three-story building to the south, "or head east for a while?" "Uh, Amber, could rest for a while before we decide?" asked Kiyoko. "We've been on our feet for hours." Which was true. The group by now had walked over twenty kilometers since leaving the Black Mall home complex, and had had very little rest. The group wound up taking an extended break, snacking on some food and stretching out on the grass outside the eastern door. Today was turning out to be a cool and very pleasant day, a big contrast from yesterday's humid thundershowers. There was a clean dry wind blowing in from the west and the temperature around 15C in the bright morning sunshine. It would be hard to imagine nicer hiking weather. While Whitney and Kiyoko chatted, Amber got up leaving her backpack by her friends. She casually walked over and put her face against the transparent eastern door, gazing into the room with rapt attention. After a while Whitney called out, "Hey Amber, what's so interesting?" "I think it's some kind of museum," Amber called back, "The paintings are incredible, old master stuff, really impressive. And the room across the hall contains sculptures. You want to take a look at this?" "No, not really," Whitney answered with a shrug. She turned away and got out a notepad and began making a rough sketch of the area. Amber slid the door open again and found a simple latch that would keep the door retracted. She played with the door for a while, letting it slide open and closed several times and testing the sturdiness of the latch. And then seemingly on a whim she stepped inside. "Hey Amber!" yelled Kiyoko as she stood up. "What the hell are you doing?!" "I just want to see one of the paintings. It's magnificent." "Amber, what the fuck?! Are you crazy?!" shouted Whitney as she also got to her feet. "Get your butt back out here!" "This is so beautiful," Amber called back, ignoring their protests. "I know this work of art. It's a full sized reproduction of Monet's Waterlilies, Green Reflections. Come take a look. Look at the colors. It's looks" "Amber!" yelled Whitney. "We agreed not to enter any buildings! And you call yourself a leader?!" "Oh, this is safe enough. The door has a latch to keep it open." Amber was now a good ten meters within the room. It was a large and well-lit gallery with numerous displays of fine art. Kiyoko and Whitney were standing just outside the doorway looking very annoyed. "Amber!" Whitney growled in a warning tone of voice. "This is not what we agreed to." "I know. Whitney, come in here and see this. You won't be sorry." "You think I'm crazy too?!" "The door opens easily. Just take a look at the latch. There's no risk." "No!" "Oh, all right." Amber paused. "How about you Kiyoko? This is really worth seeing up close. Whitney can stay outside as a back-up. Come on in." "Uh, I'll pass. Thanks anyway. Amber, you really should come out." "You don't know what you're missing. Sure I can't change your mind?" Amber let the question hang for a moment and then after a last look at the painting muttered, "Pity." She turned and back to walk towards the open door and called out. "Oh, all right. Let's hit the next building to the south." She walked calmly to the open exit and got within a meter of it when suddenly the door shot closed so fast it hit the opposite side of the frame with the sound of a pistol shot. All three women recoiled from the bang, and then Amber rushed and began jerking on the door from the inside, trying to open it. Her efforts were completely futile. "Amber, you dumb fuck!" Whitney screamed. Kiyoko meanwhile looked on in horror. She and Whitney then tried to open the door from the outside, but their efforts were also fruitless. And the closed door blocked all sound. The women soon realized they had to communicate with hand gestures. Whitney and Kiyoko would carry Amber's backpack and go to another door of the linear building, the closest one was about 700 meters away on the building's southern face. Amber would try to work her way there from the inside. Perhaps she could exit from there. She waved goodbye and walked into an interior corridor of the building. Whitney and Kiyoko picked up all their gear and started hiking south. Kiyoko seemed surprised that Whitney took the burden of carrying Amber's gear. "You want some help with that?" "No, I got it," Whitney replied brusquely as the two women began to walk. At the southeast corner of the linear building, Kiyoko turned the corner and continued west, but Whitney held her position. After several steps Kiyoko realized she was alone and she turned around to stare at Whitney. "Why are we stopping?" "Kiyoko, be realistic. What do you think our chances are for getting Amber out?" 'I don't know. All ten of the doors opened." "That means nothing. Think of the doors as ten mousetraps. Do you really want to be the next mouse?" Kiyoko blinked as she heard the question. She then turned and studied the long building with a critical eye. "No, of course not. Stupid Amber! Why did she have to go in?!" "Yeah, stupid is right, and who's the bigger fool Kiyoko, the fool who goes in, or the fool who follows her?" Kiyoko paused to consider. "Well, I might push a door open, but I'm certainly not going in." "Me neither. But do you want to risk getting your hand smashed? Did you see how fast that door closed? How many broken fingers do you want Kiyoko?" Kiyoko looked down and flexed her hand for a moment. "I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps we should just let Amber come out herself. Is that what you're suggesting?" "Of course." Kiyoko by this time had drifted back to Whitney's position at the corner of the building. She looked along the eastern face of the building stared at Amber's entrance door. "Too bad we can't tell Amber of our change in plans." "Oh, don't worry about that. Amber deserves what she gets. And if she does get out, she'll know where to find us. One thing though, I'm through following her as leader." Kiyoko looked at Whitney closely. "You want the job?" "Yep. If you want to stick with me, if you want to share supplies, I want this perfectly clear. I'm in charge." "What about Amber's backpack?" "What about it?" Whitney glanced down at the extra backpack in her arms. "I'll say this one more time Kiyoko. You want to share supplies? I'm in charge." There was a quiet pause, brief but pregnant, and then Kiyoko nodded. "Okay, you're in charge." Whitney smiled. "We meet up with Amber again, she can carry this if we decide to accept her, but the gear belongs to the group, all the gear, and I'm in charge of the group. You want to eat something, even if you're carrying it, ask me first." Kiyoko nodded again. "Understood. Amber was not a very good leader anyway. You have my vote now Whitney." "Make sure it stays that way," Whitney said darkly, and then she dropped Amber's backpack on the grass and started walking east southeast, towards the corner of the nearby three-story building. Kiyoko obediently picked up the backpack and followed. Time:? Cold. So cold. And her mind hurt. Amber had a really awful headache. Maybe she was over the worst of it. She had a dreamlike memory of something even worse, much worse in fact, really gruesome. She couldn't breathe! That was it! She had been trapped in a small dark place and couldn't breathe. The air had gotten so stale ... It was hard to remember. The touch of a hand brought her out of her drowsiness. It was warm at least, pushing in against her bare tummy, squeezing her at first and then a finger pushed in and began exploring her navel, not so aggressively as to cause pain but none too gentle either. Another hand, this one warm too, latched onto her right butt cheek with another very firm grip. Amber could feel the thumb of the grip nestling into the crack in her ass, the fingertip pressing against her anus. As the hand beneath her pumped her stomach again, Amber realized she must be naked. She was also lying prone on an extremely hard surface, hard and cold. And her arms, her legs, her neck, her whole body felt so incredibly stiff. Major muscles groups were beyond protesting. They were numb from fatigue. No, not just fatigue Amber decided. They were numb from constraint. Amber was hog tied, lying face down and hog tied. There was some sort of spreader bar keeping her knees very far apart, and her legs were folded back and tied tightly to both her arms. It was complete and effective restraint. She might be able to jerk her torso a bit, but her four limbs felt welded to her body. "Think Amber!" she silently admonished herself. "Think and remember! Where am I? How did I get like this? Think!" Through the diminishing pain in her head, the memories started to return. After waving goodbye to Kiyoko and Whitney at the eastern door, Amber made her way easily through the interior of the building, reaching the destination of the next exit location in about twenty minutes. As expected, the door in the new lobby was locked. Also expected was the lack of anyone on the other side of the door, but Amber pretended to fret a while over the absence of her comrades. Through her boot she noticed a painful pressure on her ankle. Looking down, she noticed a servo had silently snuck up on her and attached itself to her foot. The pressure continued to build and Amber realized it would soon break her ankle bone. Her eyes beginning to water from the pain, Amber took a step towards the interior lobby door and was rewarding by a brief partial release of the pressure. Then it started to build again. Her training time was both brief and merciless. Continuous steps in the right direction would keep her ankle free of pain. Anything less and the punishment would be swift an brutal. At every junction, she quickly learned to probe with her free foot and the servo would inform her through ankle pressure which was the pain-free direction. Amber experimented only once, slightly slowing her gait and taking smaller steps. She cried out in agony before managing to regain her normal walking rhythm. Amber had taken off her watch too when she stowed her Leophone into her backpack, so the passage of time was difficult to estimate, but she guessed it was about an hour after leaving the second lobby. She entered a new room and the servo forced her into a small airlock on the opposite wall. From her many discussions with Kiyoko in preparing for this mission, Amber recognized the setup as the entrance to a Section-0 executive area. After the door behind her sealed, the servo released her ankle and the air vent in the floor began to whoosh with a very strong breeze. Within moments Amber felt the air in the chamber getting very stale. No particular odor, just staleness. In dismay she guessed she was breathing a very heavy concentration of CO2. Amber soon started suffering from the symptoms of CO2 poisoning, dizziness, nauseous, her skin becoming sweaty and she could feel her heart racing as it struggled and failed to cope with the elevated level of CO2 in her body. Gasping for air and suffering a splitting headache, Amber passed out. And here she was now, some indefinite time later stripped naked and thinking she was tied up like a turkey and ready for the oven. She had no idea yet how deadly appropriate her analogy was. "You're awake," said Ricardo in a flat voice. He was directly behind her on counter. His statement was not a question, but Amber decided to answer it anyway. "Yes." There was no need to say more. Amber tried to focus her wits, forcing herself to remain in character. How would Ricardo expect her to react? After all the days and weeks of thinking about scenarios, the moment of truth had arrived. She couldn't turn her head. Her hair had been pulled and tied very tightly behind her, pulling her neck up and having her stare at a stainless steel wall less than a meter from her nose. Her throat felt very exposed and vulnerable, and she could dimly see a blurred image of Ricardo in the wall. Ricardo stood up for a moment and repositioned himself before squatting down again. Amber saw the blurred image of a penis flopping between his legs. He was as naked as she was. Glancing down, Amber realized she was lying on a stainless steel counter of some kind. No wonder her breasts and pelvis and thighs felt so cold. By tearing her scalp, she might succeed in taking one look behind her to where Ricardo was, but she discarded the idea, at least for now. The attempt would have an almost zero probability of success. Amber would bide her time. "Such a pretty Amber," said Ricardo absently as he stroked thighs with his hands. From the direction of his voice, Amber thought he must be sitting or squatting on the counter very close to her, in the triangle between her pubis and the spreader bar at her knees ... His fingers were everywhere, exploring her pubic fur, probing her thighs, hefting her butt cheeks, and then a brief fierce burst of pressure on her anus. Before she could react the pressure was gone. A moment later her vaginal lips were separated. The fingers continued their exploration, tracing the pink flesh of the inside of her labia. "Is this your urethra slit?" he asked. Amber twitched at the rough contact of his fingernail probing her sensitive opening. "Yep. That's where I pee." Her tone of voice told him they both knew this was a game. Ricardo smiled. "Such a pretty Amber. You're the only girl I know that would play with me like this." Amber felt his finger enter her vagina slightly and then press down towards her urethra duct. An image formed in her mind of a finger searching for the pulse of a vein, only in this case the finger's target was the duct from her bladder. "Now pee for me," Ricardo commanded. "Will I wet you?" Amber asked. Ricardo cocked his head. "That's not a question I was expecting. Just pee. I want to watch." Amber sighed and released her bladder. She could feel Ricardo's two hands on her, on holding her labia open so that her vagina and urethra slit were on full display, and the other hand positioned so that a finger could feel her pee running through her urinary duct. Amber emptied her bladder knowing Ricardo's eyes were riveted to the point where the urine was leaving her body. She tried to push out everything she had and near the end she felt the warm piss running past her knees on the counter. She guessed the counter must be slightly tilted. Somehow she found that thought frightening. What was this place? "All done?" "I gave you everything I had." The hand left her labia and probed underneath her, pushing into her bladder area with stiff fingers. "Yes, I think you did. Good girl. Now take a shit." "Like this?!" "Do it!" Amber tried her best but the attempt was futile. "Ricardo, I want to do what you're asking but it's physically impossible. Can you get me up into a squat position? I'll try again." "No squatting!" Ricardo half yelled, and then his voice softened. "But you are trying to cooperate. Such a pretty Amber. I want to clean your intestines, get them really clean while you're still alive. I'll make my job easier." "What job?!" Amber sobbed. Adding hysteria to her voice was extremely easy. Ricardo laughed. "Preparing you for your destiny Amber. Such a pretty Amber. You really are very pretty. Do you know that?" Amber sighed and appeared to resign herself to her fate. "Thank you." "That's right. Cooperate and you'll suffer very little pain. Why should I want to hurt you? You're such a pretty Amber." There was a moment's delay as Amber felt Ricardo moving behind her. There was also the sound of running water, and she guessed there was sink behind her, perhaps a very large one from the sound of it. Ricardo's fingers returned, probing her butt cheeks, separating her. A thumb began stroking her anus. "You've got a really cute butthole Amber," Ricardo said in a conversational tone of voice. "There's a soft circle of peach fuzz all around your opening, very pretty, very nice to feel. I bet all your boyfriends told you this." "Seriously Ricardo, you're the very first." "Really?" There was a pause. "You think of me as your boyfriend?" The inflection on the question sounded very strange, impossible to decipher. "Well, it's kind of hard to put into words. But there's something between us. I've felt it. You too?" The room was silent, some sort of large industrial kitchen area Amber guessed as she pushed her peripheral vision to the limit. The fingers continued to stroke her anus, surprisingly gentle. Was Ricardo trying to sexually arouse her? The man was so warped, anything was possible. There was a slight sound of a pulley and chains, and Amber felt the spreader bar between her knees lifting into the air. Fighting down a rising tide of panic, she felt her thighs and then her hips lift from the table. The majority of her weight was now supported by her legs strapped to the bar, and the rest of her weight by her breasts pressing into the cold steel. The fingers returned to her butt and anus, and a moment later Amber felt a hard pressure. "Just your water bottle," said Ricardo in a completely friendly tone of voice. "There's a good girl. Open up for me now." For a moment he placed the water bottle by her hip. "There's a good girl. Open up!" Amber realized Ricardo's thumbs were now working her anal muscles from both sides, push left, push right, push left right. She could feel the power of his other fingers gripping her butt cheeks as his thumbs worked against her opening. Ricardo continued, "I'm dilating you so the bottle will go in silky smooth, and I'm using warm water too. Nothing's too nice for my pretty little girl. It's too bad about the bottle. I could flush you better by injecting the water high up and then working it down by rolling you. Unfortunately I don't have any tubing." The neck of the water bottle was pushed relentlessly against her anus. Amber realized she had no hope to resist and she grunted and tried to bear down and accept the penetration past her sphincter muscles. "There, there, that's a good girl," Ricardo whispered as the neck of the bottle slipped inside her. "Now take a deep breath now and blow it out. Make a tiny hole with your mouth. Pucker your mouth just like an anus, and then a hard, slow blow. Let me hear it." As Amber puckered her mouth and blew, Ricardo began to crush the plastic bottle, sending a huge surge of warm water through Amber's rectum and down her upturned large intestine. She cried out at the fullness of the pressure. Ricardo seemed puzzled. "You want me to go slower on the next one?" "Next one?! Ricardo, you'll rupture me!" "Oh, don't worry. I'll let you drain first. Hold this for a while though. Work your bowels little girl. Pretend you're being fucked and hump your hips. Get your shit nice and loose." Amber started to pant and sweat. The deep pressure felt awful, and it didn't help that Ricardo was firmly massaging her stomach and abdominal area with his powerful hands. "Come on Amber! Pretend you're super hot for a butt fucking and some willing dude is obliging you. Hump those hips girl! Hump and squeeze those bowels!" Amber tried the best she could. Time lost all meaning, and under Ricardo's rough squeezing and rubbing, the pressure inside her was building to agony. And then the chain was finally lowered and Amber was allowed to void. She had never had an enema as painful as this, and she blew a slushy mess out of herself in a fast series of vigorous heaves. Hanging on the inverted angle, the water had traveled deep into her, and it took a long and painful effort to expel it. She whimpered as she felt the chains lifting her again. The whole process was about to repeat. "I'm guessing the first one might be the worst," Ricardo said in an encouraging tone of voice. "Just try to relax and let it happen." He stroked her open labia for a moment in a bizarre attempt to relax her. Amber panted and whispered okay. Despite Ricardo's optimism, the second cycle felt as long and painful as the first, and the third and forth were no better. It wasn't until her fourth deep and prolonged enema that her discharge ran completely clear. Ricardo inspected her with a long finger and then pronounced he was finally satisfied. "Clean as a whistle little girl," he said cheerfully. "Your butthole is clean enough now to eat off of." And then he laughed as he stood up on the counter. A moment later Amber heard him turn on the sink. As Amber lay exhausted and panting, the counter and her body were rinsed down repeatedly with warm water, carrying away all traces of her intestinal contents. She was back in her original position, her legs numb from the cruel positioning. Amber half dreaded the pins and needles she would feel when they were unbound. Or would that happen while she were still alive? "Ricardo?" "Hmm?" His hands were caressing her everywhere, calves, thighs, hips, back down to the backs of the thighs and then up to her butt cheeks ... Then the back of his hand started brushing against her labia, up and down again and again. "Just a second. I want to make sure all the shit is washed out of your pussy." There were several more rinses of warm water, and then, "Okay. What?" Amber blinked. The pause had been so long, she had almost forgotten Ricardo was willing to answer a question. "Uh, earlier you mentioned my destiny. Do you know what my destiny is?" "Why, to nurture me of course. Such a pretty Amber. Any other girl and she'd already be in the frying pan. But not you..." "Yes?" Amber gasped as Ricardo's words sank in. "You're eating people?!" "Do you have a problem with that? It's for my greater good. And so far I've only had Jenaro. Want to know something? I mocked him as I ate him." Ricardo grinned broadly as his finger played with her wet pubic hair. "Want to know something? I laughed and laughed as his testicles sizzled in the skillet. But I won't mock you pretty Amber. No, you're far too sweet for that." The hands left her hips and came under her to squeeze and fondle her breasts. "Such a pretty Amber. You're going to breastfeed me." His hand worked her breast hard, grabbing her tit and pulling hard on the nipple, and then with a finger on his other hand he made a crosscut motion on the soft underside. Ricardo laughed at his play on words. "Right there! I'll feed on your udders first, that's my plan. Choice cuts, right where my fingers are. And I'll think fond thoughts of you with every sweet bite. No mocking at all, I promise." And then he laughed again. Amber thought Ricardo sounded insane, his laugher truly maniacal. The hands returned to her butt, probing her labia, the fingers drifting in and out of caressing motions. His fingers were everywhere, pinching her butt cheeks, tickling her thighs, slipping in to test her dry vagina, probing her squeaky clean rectal walls. Amber kept silent and bore it all, fighting down the near certainty of her failure and impending death. And then she felt something strange rolling back and forth on the soft curves of her butt cheeks, just above the backs of her thighs. She blinked. Ricardo was masturbating against her, rubbing his limp cock against her with his hand, as if he were rolling a piece of soft dough. "Tell me to stop and I'll stop," he hissed as he panted. "I'll kill you right now if you want. I can finish this afterwards." Amber almost laughed at the absurdity. Only the genuine terror of her impending death stopped her. "No, it's okay," she whispered. After a while, "That feels kind of nice. I can feel you getting hard." "Yeah," panted Ricardo. "Anything I can do?" "Really?! Such a pretty Amber!" Ricardo sounded extremely aroused and his hand was a blur as he rolled his stiff cock back and forth against her ass. "Try to take a shit! Let me see your anus pout! Let me see it!" Amber did her best, and was rewarded by a warm splash of semen hitting high on her back as Ricardo groaned loudly and orgasmed. The penis was pressed deeply into the flesh of her ass and Ricardo started a slow rocking motion with his hips, pushing his erection deeply into her ass cheek, orgasming again and again as he watched the ripples in her soft flesh. He drained himself with his mind keep in fantasy. Amber could feel him shudder as he shot the last of his seed. She could feel his second cum running down the side of her hip. "Did you enjoy that?" she whispered. For the briefest moment, Ricardo's guard was down, and he answered as an inexperienced boy and not as the demon he had allowed himself to become. "Wow ... That was the first time ... That was the first time I ever came with a girl." "If you keep me alive, we'll be able to do this again." "Don't be stupid," the demon replied. Ricardo gazed down at Amber's wet rump. For a second this cute female had actually confused him, but no more. "Amber," he pronounced, "You're very cute, but there will be lots of other girls. And you've taught me I can have lots of great sex with them. Right now though, I need your body for food. It's as simple and final as that." He untied her legs one by one and stretched them straight. Amber howled at the pain as her circulation returned. "I'm not actually trying to hurt you," Ricardo said back in his conversational tone of voice. "But I'm about to hang you completely upside down, and I want your legs straight. That way the blood will drain cleanly. I don't want anything to pool in your feet." "Dear God..." Amber whispered. "And I'm going to bleed you as gently as I can. Two quick cuts on both your neck arteries. I'll pop the arteries and let your heart drain your blood for me. Pretty Amber, I don't think it'll hurt much at all. Such a pretty Amber." Ricardo took a moment to wash his semen from her body and then he climbed off the counter. Out of the extreme corner of her eye, Amber confirmed he was completely naked. She saw him select a rather small paring knife from a rack and also a much larger carving knife. He then returned to stand by the chains and pulley, his body out of view. "Try to think of this as a joyful occasion. You are a woman and very shortly you will be breastfeeding me. I can promise you that." He made an odd sound, halfway between a hiccup and a giggle, and then his hand came to her throat. Ricardo began long stroking motions along the length of her larynx, half caressing and half probing. Amber could feel his fingers tracing her, memorizing the exact paths of her carotid arteries. "Don't worry. I've done this before with animals," Ricardo whispered. "Lots of times. Want to know something? The key for a precise cut is to ignore sight and do everything by touch. It's all tactile." The hands were horribly gentle. Amber in her despair would have preferred brutality, but the hands at her throat were gentle and caressing, gently probing, tracing and fondling her exposed throat. "You have such a pretty neck Amber," Ricardo said in a whisper. "Such soft, sensitive skin. I love stroking your throat. And your arteries! They're so easy to find. Here, let me show you something. Do you feel me pressing down? I can feel your heart beating now. So fast! Don't be afraid. I know how to use the paring knife. It'll just be two quick snips, one on each side of your throat. There, there little girl. Why are you still worrying?" Amber couldn't reply. She tried but was incoherent. "Are you afraid of being hung upside down? Pretty Amber, don't worry about a headache. That would be caused by high blood pressure, but you'll have just the opposite. You'll get sleepy very fast, I think within a few seconds, probably faster than I can hoist you up. I doubt if you'll even feel being upside down. You'll have no sensation at all." Amber tried to pull against her hair restraint and realized she just didn't have the strength in her stiff neck muscle to tear her scalp off. Not that that would save her. What a fool she had been! She had sacrificed her life for nothing, worse than nothing. Soon her body would be sustaining him, nurturing him, strengthening him. Amber wondered briefly if her friends could ever forgive her for her monumental blunder. She had no way out. Ricardo started to laugh, and with one hand on the pulse points in Amber's neck, he reached for his small paring knife. He would make the two cuts first with Amber immobilized on the table. He had better control here with Amber's position locked. And once he had her two arteries cut and popped from her neck, he would pull on the chain and hoist Amber up by her legs. Pretty Amber, she should be grateful for how beautiful Ricardo thought her body was, how beautiful and delicious she would look hanging with her cute feet on top. "Okay," he whispered as his hand gripped her throat tightly. "Time to go to sleep now pretty Amber. Try not to breathe or move. It'll be easier for you if you don't. Two quick snips..." Amber sensed him position the large carving knife very carefully by her hip, and then his free hand retested the firmness of her breast. Ricardo giggled. Another moment passed and Amber began to feel dizzy from the strong grip still on her throat. She heard the soft sound of Ricardo picking up the paring knife. He was bringing it towards her neck. A loud claxon began to sound. Ricardo screamed and ran from the room. ------- Chapter 100 There was a brief internal struggle as Amber regained her will to live. Her death had seemed so imminent and certain, she had allowed herself to sink into a deep fugue, abandoning her personal identity. And now she had to fight to regain it. What the hell?! The alarm had caused a sense of absolute panic in her adversary. Amber was sure of it. Ricardo sounded terrified. Now what could cause that? And more to the point, this was a chance to escape! But how?! Amber tried to rock and test her restraints. She felt completely immobilized. Was there nothing she could do? The knife! The large carving knife! Amber had no doubt of its intended use. She had felt Ricardo's hand grab and pull her breast taut. Somehow she knew! Her thoughts before the klaxon were of her body hanging by her feet, her vision fading, her head running with blood, and her last sensation the feel of Ricardo pulling her upside-down breast from her body and then slicing down with the carving knife. So close! It would have been his final act of depravity with her, cutting off her breast while she was still conscious. So damn bloody close! So what now? Her body was completely immobilized. Or was it? There was a little slack in the chain from when Ricardo had loosened it to straighten her legs. What could she do with that? The carving knife! It was still by her hip where Ricardo had laid it. Could she cut herself loose?! Amber felt with her fingers and cried out in dismay. Steel handcuffs and chains! The monster! Oh, the irony! A miraculous klaxon had saved her, at least for the moment, but she had no way to release herself. Keys? Maybe in Ricardo's clothes. He had departed naked and his pile of clothes was still visible. The clothes were on the floor along the wall about five meters from the counter. Ricardo had probably put them there out of the way to avoid the blood spurting from her arteries. Amber whimpered. Five meters! The keys might as well be back on Earth. She then thought furiously, determined not to surrender to despair again. She had to escape! But how? As hard as she tried, nothing came to mind, not even something to try. Amber had no choice. With no way to move, she would have to wait for something to develop. A short while ago... Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 1:46 PM It looked like a beautiful day outside. The bright orange sunlight of the early afternoon was streaming through the transparent ceiling of the bathroom and causing the yellow tiles to glow with a golden light. Jessica was at her usual point for this time of the day, laundry done after two vigorous exercise periods, showering done and waiting for her next cookie. She had even combed her hair with her fingers and tied it with her scrunchie. Surprisingly Ricardo had forgotten to take it from her. Jessica thought he didn't realize it had sentimental value to her. The scrunchie had been part of her Christmas presents, a completely unexpected present sent by her alcoholic mother, her first contact in years. Jessica had decided to open the small present early and she thought the fabric very pretty. It was the only keepsake she had from her former world. There was a strange mechanical sound from the artwork behind her and she turned and gasped. The doors! All of them! Every single one of the doors had popped open. And they were all empty. Her mind raced. It's a message! What is it?! Obvious! "I will no longer feed you. It is time for you to go." Jessica took a deep breath and considered for a moment before deciding that her logic was sound. Then without further delay, she walked to the bathroom door and opened it. The mere presence of her hand on the door control tripped an alarm in Ricardo's central security room. Jessica walked out confidently into the hallway and then stopped to consider. Which way? An answer was soon provided by the servos. They began to come out of their access ports and gather around her, always staying at least a meter from her feet and all of them aligning themselves to one particular direction down the corridor. "MARVELOUS!" Jessica's mind screamed in triumph. The servos had become her friends, her powerful allies! They would lead her out of the building, and why should she ever fear Ricardo with allies such as these?! With a song in her heart, Jessica began to go where the servos wanted to lead her. After a while she started to add playful skips to her gait. She even started to sing. Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 2 PM The two-kilometer trip from the butchering kitchen to central security had once taken a starving Ricardo an hour to make. He did it now in ten minutes, his fear driving him to an endurance he didn't know he had. It took only a few moments for his flying hands to have his Hidden Eye find the source of the alarm. "JESSICA!" his mind screamed. For a moment he was too choked to breathe. And she was coming right at him! The witch! Ricardo cried out in horror. She had bewitched the servos into showing her where he was. His servos! She had stolen his faithful servos! Jessica had become the Pied Piper of Servo-land, and she was leading her army to him! What could he do, what could he do?! And what was she singing? His hand reached out and activated the audio sensor of the Hidden Eye. Jessica was belting out a rhythm at the top of her lungs and from the depths of her soul. "In the year 7510, if God's a-coming, He oughta make it by then. Maybe He'll look at Ricardo and say, FUCK! it's time for the Judgment Day, whoa, whoa, ohhhh..." Ricardo's mind flipped to a state of absolute panic. The witch was back and all powerful, supremely confident in her abilities. After months of no food and no water, she had decided to return, popping into existence with her all-powerful witch magic and into the center of his lair, stealing his faithful army... Jessica up-shifted the key. "In the year 8510, God's gonna shake his mighty head, He's goona say, I'm not pleased where Ricardo has been, time to tear him down and start again! Whoa, whoa, ohhhh..." Supreme confidence versus pure panic, Ricardo was lost. Jessica's face, her clean clothes, her well proportioned body, Ricardo could see the well-developed muscles in her arms and calves. No sign of starvation on this witch, oh no, just the sign of supreme confidence. "In the year 9595, I'm kinda wondering why Ricardo is still alive, he's taking everything we had to give, and he ain't put back nothing! whoa, whoa, ohhhh..." The Jessica witch was coming straight for him, and he was defenseless. Wait! Amber! She had pleaded with him to be his girlfriend. He remembered pressing into her soft beautiful ass, anointing her with his semen. "We can do this again if you want," she had offered sweetly. Why did he turn her down? Yes, his girlfriend Amber. She might know how to fight a witch. Yes! His beautiful Amber, she might know. That's what he needed. And it would be so nice to have a girlfriend, so different. Ricardo would have someone he could rely on. The singing witch of doom and her servo army were now less than a quarter kilometer from the control room, and she was skipping like Dorothy of Oz on the Yellow Brick Road and coming straight at him! Ricardo turned from his console and fled. Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 2:15 PM The door to the kitchen flew open. Amber sensed a person nervously running in. No, not just nervous. This was shear panic. It took a moment before she caught a glimpse of a naked man at the edge of her vision, and she was then glad she had not cried out for help. Ricardo! She had never seen him like this. Was this her opportunity? "Weigh every response carefully," she thought. "Look at him! He's going to want to talk to me. Go with the flow. I might get my chance!" Ricardo came to stand by the chains and pulley. "What do you know about witches? Do you know how to kill them?" "What?!" Amber thought. She almost laughed, but in a deadly serious voice she said, "Are you fighting them too?" "What?! You know! Tell me!" he screamed. "Ricardo, it's not that easy, but maybe together we have a chance. Why do you think I came to you?" The man gasped, unable to reply. "Ricardo, think! I tried to come to you as your girlfriend. I even tried to bring Whitney or Kiyoko to you as a present. Didn't you see how I tried? We've been fighting witches too." "Yeah, I saw..." Ricardo panted as he caught his breath. Man, he had really fucked this one up, but maybe there was still hope. And in forty days he would be a god. In the meantime, if he trusted Amber, maybe together they could defeat the wicked witch of the west Jessica. Ricardo paused, fighting down his panic and considering his options. It did make a certain sense. And after the wicked witch was dead, he could even send Amber out to get some food, that is, if he trusted her. Whitney would be nice, but maybe Amber could find him some oatmeal and ice cream too. And how Ricardo would love to eat a bagel. Or even a simple bun. What a world of difference a simple bun could make. It could turn a Jenaro-patty into a Jenaro-burger! But the demon inside him felt so confused. Trust Amber?! Trust anybody?! That was such an absurd idea. But wasn't this different? This was love. Or was it? Was this love? For the first time in his adult life, maybe Ricardo could learn what love was. Amber wanted to be his girlfriend. She wanted to please him. Didn't he remember? His hand were stroking her naked buttocks as he thought. Finally he said, "I don't know. This is such a change." Amber sighed. "I have so much to share with you, our battles with the witches." "There's more than one?!" he roared. "Oh Ricardo, what do you think?! And I came to you willingly! You never gave me a chance to explain!" "Sorry!" he blurted out, and then he gasped. He had just given a true apology, perhaps the first one since childhood. The demon was totally bewildered. Had he really just apologized to a hoof pussy? What was he becoming?" "I don't know," he whispered, answering his internal question out-loud without realizing it. "I can't force you to take me," Amber whispered back. "Ricardo, do you want me as your girlfriend?" "But I don't trust you," Ricardo whined. "I never trust anybody." It was a cry from his heart, a sound he never let anyone hear, not even himself. But he did now. Amber sighed. "Oh, you can still keep me tied. I don't mind. Would that help? I still want to help you as much as I can." "Really? You would do that for me?" He felt so puzzled. "Why?" "Because I want to be your girlfriend!" Amber decided to push a critical issue before Ricardo realized the circular absurdity of her response. "Keep him off balance!" she thought to herself. "Don't give him time to think about this conversation!" It was time for a little misdirection. "Can you at least untie my neck?" she asked in a pleading voice. "It hurts so much. Will you lie with me and pet me? Will you show me I'm your girlfriend?" "Amber! Are you crazy?! Do you think we have time for that now?!" "Yes, I think so. And besides, it's the only way." Amber blinked. Should she have said that last part? No. It was too close to the truth. But it seemed to work. Her hair was released, and Amber cried out as her neck was at last freed from the cruel restraint. Ricardo even loosened the chains. Her arms were still secured behind her back with handcuffs but she could now move them a bit. And Ricardo was even turning her on her side. Marvelous! Amber grunted from the pain in her stiff muscles. It was an effective mask to her growing optimism. Amber then blinked at the colossal mistake she was making. She had to keep the game moving! Keep talking! "Do you want to make love again, or do you want to talk first?" she asked, trying to sound as eager as possible for more sex. "Amber! There's a witch coming straight for us! We need to talk!" "Okay! Accept me as your lover! Lie with me and let's talk! I'll tell you everything!" The Jessica witch could be here at any moment. Ricardo climbed onto the table without hesitation and lay by Amber's side. Her face was downcast, staring at his naked body. "Wow Ricardo, you have a really sexy body! And this knee pole is keeping me nice and open for you. Do you want to stick your penis where it wants to go?" "You crazy cunt!" he screamed in frustration and fear. Ricardo gripped her hair and jerked her head up to force her eyes to meet his. "We'll fuck later bitch!" he said in a commanding tone. "Now speak!" "Gotcha!" Amber replied with a thought. Time:? It was the strangest beach Ricardo had ever been on. Nice sand actually, nice ocean too, and the sun and the sky were the colors of old Earth. And the trees, and the houses beyond the trees, so many normal-looking houses. After all the time with the strange architecture, the sight of the old familiar homes touched his memories of what life used to be. This was all so confusing. How did he get here? And how could he leave? Ricardo had been walking for what, one hour? No, more. Two hours? Yeah, maybe. And he was back to where he started. Did he circle a small island? But the rising sun was always over the ocean. Weird... He sensed a presence and whirled around. It looked as if he were alone, but... "Amber!" he called out. "I can feel you!" "Yes, I'm here." "Where?!" "I'm not manifesting a body. You couldn't hurt me, not here, but I don't want to tease you by giving you the opportunity to try." "I don't understand. What is this place?" "Do you remember Toshi?" "What?! Slimy bitch Toshi?! That sinkhole for cock meat? Yeah, of course I remember! Is she still alive?" "She grew up in Japan," replied Amber with a thought, ignoring his question. "This is Irino, one of her favorite places. This is a dream of Irino, Toshi's dream." "I don't understand a word of what you said. And how am I ... And why am I here?" "I'll be more precise. This is a memory of Irino, a memory Toshi shared with me. You are here to die Ricardo. I am your executioner, and I will die with you. Another woman" "Another witch?!" "No. There are no witches, just as there are no lies within the link. Search within yourself Ricardo. I know how difficult this is for you. I've seen your memories of Jessica, how you tortured that poor girl. And to answer your question about Jessica, I have no idea why she sings so confidently of your death." "You lie!" "Look inside yourself Ricardo, if you still have the ability. The demon, it's become almost all of you. It's taken over almost everything, but there's still a small part of you that remembers being called Ricky. Don't you remember? Think back deep into your childhood." "No!" "It's Ricky who will understand the need for your death. As a young child, you still had much good in you. Think of the time before your demon. It's Ricky who will understand why there are no lies within the link. It's simply impossible." "No!" Ricardo wailed. "Do you want me to leave? I don't want to torture you. I'm simply here to kill you. And unlike the death you planned for me, your death will be truly peaceful if you want it to be, and it will be without physical pain. And if it brings your demon any satisfaction, know that I will die too." Ricardo paused in wonder. "You'll die for me?" "In a sense. I'll die for your death. The other woman I tried to mention, her name is Lucia. Perhaps you saw her briefly in the tunnel before Christmas. She taught me how to do this. Our minds are not just linked. We are locked. It might take days for our bodies to die. Outside of this dream, we are still on the butchering table back in your awful kitchen." "You know about the butchering table?" "Ricardo, I know absolutely everything you ever did! All the horrors, all the tortures, all the humiliations. I know exactly how it felt to feel Uno's throat rupture from the other end of your cane. I know how you like to push tubes into stray animals and then kill them with a paring knife. I know exactly what my own anus looks like as I bend over a Bowie Knife counter. I know how you teased Jessica into making sexual advances to you, only to humiliate her for desiring sex with her father figure. Ricardo, do you get the idea? There are no secrets within the link. I examined everything and have decided your death is appropriate. The demon within you is just too strong. You are not redeemable." The demon countered in a childish whining song, almost a chant. "And you'll die too-ew, and you'll die too-ew." "Yes, gladly, to save my friends. Our minds are locked. I've locked my mind to you demon. Our temporal acceleration is extremely slow, less than three to one, unheard of for a boosted mind. But it's because your demon mind doesn't know how to trust. Acceleration is based on trust. I'm glad. It'll hasten our deaths." The demon lost its taste for singing. "How long?" it whispered. "I don't know. Both our bodies are in fair shape. One of us will die of dehydration first, and the locked minds will die together. The second body will die a moment later." "Go away!" screamed the demon. "Gladly. I really don't want to talk with you anymore. And I need to prepare for my own death. I need to pray." And then the sense of her presence disappeared, but not before the demon started to howl. Amber had spoken truly. There was no place for lies within their linked and locked compound mind. The demon had seen Amber's last emotion for him before she left. The emotion was unbearable. He had seen her pity. Was Ricardo alone now? No. It was impossible to be truly alone in a compound mind. He examined his mind and how it was joined to Amber's. He tested the lock. The hooks were monumental, impossible for his unboosted mind to resist. Try as he might, Ricardo could not defeat the hooks. But could he defeat the mind behind them? Perhaps. Amber had revealed much. Such stupid compassion! Ricardo and Amber would be together for probably more than a week in subjective time. Amber's mind would have to sleep. Yes, that's when Ricardo would strike, nightmare after nightmare, images so vile it would make her puke. That's all he needed, one heave with her real head, one brief interruption in their gaze and the spell would be broken. And then Ricardo would be free and Amber still in chains. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice, oh no. A flood of confidence filled Ricardo's mind. He would win! No sleep for Amber! Eventually she would hallucinate, her eyes would defocus. Ricardo shouted in triumph to the great ocean before him, "One hellish nightmare after another you stupid bitch! Let's see how long you can last without sleep!" He then smiled as the sun seemed to flicker for a moment. Amber would be defenseless once she became exhausted. She would not withstand a lack of sleep. The bitch was doomed, and her kitchen death would be slow, very slow indeed. No quick snips with the paring knife, oh no, the little knife would now work with infinite slowness. Ricardo began to chortle, kicking wildly at the dream sand and laughing into the wind. ------- Chapter 101 Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 2:58 PM Jessica stood trembling at the doorway of the immense kitchen area. The servos! She thought they were leading her to freedom. Instead they had delivered her to Ricardo! Or did she have that backwards? Across the kitchen on a steel counter Ricardo was lying with another women. Both were obviously naked, and Jessica could see a long pole keeping the woman's knees far apart, with a chain that kept her left leg high in the air. Amazingly, both Ricardo and the woman were unmoving, even though Jessica had screeched when she first saw them. Were they both dead? Was Ricardo fucking the woman? Were both questions true? Had they died while fucking? Jessica slowly walked forward as quietly as she could. No, wrong on both counts, not dead and not fucking. They were both breathing, and Ricardo's groin was slightly too far away from the woman's hips for them to be fucking. Jessica's eyes traveled up and down the length of Ricardo's body. The sight of his bare butt brought back so many memories. The little mole just to the left of his butthole was visible. It was little girl Jessica's duty to lick his anus clean after his toileting, and she would lick that little mole too. So many times she had licked him clean, and she remembered how she would be spanked if she let her tongue wander and lick his sac. Padre Ricardo would always pull down her panties before she was punished. All the sick training, with the punishments often focusing on her tender ass. Jessica tasted bile in her throat, and in her memory she also tasted the saltiness of Ricardo's brown shit. The urge to vomit was strong. Instead she walked bravely forward. Amber! Ricardo was lying with Amber, and they were both gazing into each other's eyes. So close! Their noses were almost touching. And their gaze was so deep. Jessica had a thought of testing the gaze by putting her hand in between. But then in a premonition she thought that would be a really, really stupid idea. Somehow she suspected that would wake them from their trance. Oh no, she didn't want that. Ricardo's face was very difficult to see from her angle, but Amber's face was clearly visible and Jessica studied it for a moment. "You've changed Amber," she thought silently. "You're face used to have such a hard look to it, but now that's gone. It's been replaced by ... something extraordinary. Nobility? I don't know. But you're very pretty now." Jessica blinked and brought herself back to reality. So what should she do? Did she have to do anything? Why not just leave? Yes, of course. She should just leave. That would be the safest thing. Let the sleeping monster lie. Jessica walked backwards from the steel counter and then turned to look at the exit door. The servos, were they still outside waiting for her? She walked over and opened the door and took a look. The corridor was clear of the mechanical creatures. What did all this mean? Jessica thought about her journey here. She had only started out with maybe nine or ten servos when she first left her bathroom sanctuary, but as she walked their number swelled into the hundreds. She remembered her feeling of elation, her feeling of invincibility. She thought the servos were her army and would defend her against Ricardo. What a fool she had been! The servos were simply programmed to lead her to him. Shit! Ricardo probably wrote the program! Jessica turned around and stared at Ricardo thoughtfully. But if Ricardo was the programmer, why weren't the servos more aggressive with her? The servos had not herded her. They stopped when she stopped, and once she tested heading off in a side corridor. The servos let her go but would not escort her in the new direction. Jessica decided that Ricardo would never write a program like that. Allowing people to exercise their free will just wasn't his style. So the question remained. Should she just leave him? It would be easy to just start searching for an exit door and that's what she wanted, just to flee and escape. But what about poor Amber? The woman was in chains, and Jessica knew how Ricardo loved playing with bound women. She rubbed her wrists thoughtfully and remembered her handcuffs and his hands on her body. Oh yes, she remembered very well. Ricardo loved more than anything to give enemas to bound women. Since her escape she had worked hard to bury the memories, but in this kitchen now she could smell the faint odor of shit. Jessica had little doubt that Amber's bladder and intestines were drained and empty. That's the first thing Ricardo liked to do with a bound woman, force her to pee and shit. And then... Her mind drifted back to her toilet training in the Black Mall bathroom. She was alone with Ricardo, day after day. There was no one to appeal to, nothing on which to anchor her sanity. So Jessica abandoned her self-esteem and submitted. Twice daily she would lie on the hard floor of the shower area and then reach back and grab her ankles in her hands. That was part of the test. She was absolutely not allowed to let go of her ankles once the enema started. She would be lying naked and almost prone except for an inflatable exercise cylinder that Ricardo would tuck underneath her tummy and hips. He certainly took his time with her too. The twice daily sessions often lasted an hour. He'd begin by stroking her butthole, adding lots and lots of lube with his finger, far more than was necessary, and then he would insert long surgical tubing. He started flushing her intestines from deep inside. The worst part was holding the enema in while Ricardo rolled her. With the tubing still inserted and her bowels full of water, Ricardo would roll her back and forth along the cylinder, forcing her own weight to squeeze and churn the contents of her bowels into a brown soupy mess. Ricardo turning on the shower spray and having the hot water hit her upturned butt was her signal she could finally release the internal pressure. The relief was indescribable, and she was taught to cry out her gratitude when it happened. Gratitude indeed! It seemed inconceivable now that she had allowed herself to be brainwashed so easily, and with her disbelief came a righteous anger. Her course of action was still unformed but it was starting to congeal. She had to do something. She had to take a stand. Jessica walked back to the kitchen counter for a closer look. What if Ricardo woke up? She could not abandon Amber to such a horrible fate. There was a large carving knife left by Ricardo's thighs, tucked up against the curling raised lip of the counter. Jessica picked up the blade and gingerly tested the edge. Surgically sharp! Did she dare use it? Yes! But where? Jessica grinned. But indeed! Maybe she should stab him in the butt, stab him deep through his anus, corkscrewing the knife in and out in a hellish version of the world's most painful butt fuck. She could carve out a tunnel the size of a wine bottle. "Want to know what my version of a painful enema is, you dickhead?!" her mind screamed. Jessica wanted to, she wanted to slice his intestines apart, but somehow that felt ... wrong. Her cut should be for justice, not revenge. Slicing apart his rectum and colon might briefly give her a satisfying moment, very satisfying in fact, but Jessica realized she could not respect herself later if she engaged now in senseless brutality. No, she would refrain from such depravity. So where to strike? Straight through the heart perhaps, from the back? That would be just and it would be an easy angle, but did she have the strength? Did she know enough about anatomy not to get stopped by a rib or something? And what about all the tough muscular tissue in Ricardo's back? Jessica had to assume that she'd only get one good stab before he would wake up. Did she have the strength and skill to stab his heart through the back? Debatable. What about stabbing him through the eyes, a quick plunge into his brain? Yeah, that might work. But Jessica was reluctant to interfere with the gaze Ricardo was sharing with Amber. It was unearthly deep. A horrible memory returned, Ricardo whacking Britney's neck on Christmas with his damn cane, Britney falling to the fall and choking to death. "I know!" she thought. "I'll cut his throat! I'll do it in Britney's memory. Not revenge. Justice!" She wondered if she would waver, but as she placed the knife edge along the side of Ricardo's neck, her mind shouted, "Do it now!" She made a hard slicing motion before she could change her mind, opening a fissure which immediately pooled with blood. Surprisingly it was not Ricardo who stirred from the trance. It was Amber's body that made a slight jerk. So strange. Jessica sliced again, and then again. She had carved a deep fissure now and Ricardo's blood was running. Jessica was definitely hurting him, but he was still breathing normally. So strange... Jessica realized her mistake. She should be cutting at his throat, not at the back and side of his neck. She leaned over Ricardo's body and repositioned the blade and then sliced deeply and as closely along his Adam's Apple as she could. As she curled and sliced the knife around his throat, the blood burst from his neck and spurted up into Amber's eyes. Ricardo started to move. Jessica curled the knife back down quickly and then cut up again as hard as she could. Instinctively she knew this would be her last chance, her last stroke. Ricardo's hands flew like lightning to grab her. What followed was like a dream, a nightmare that unfurled with crystal clarity. Ricardo's arm whipped like a snake striking at her wrist. He barely missed his target. Jessica had anticipated him just in time and she was pulling back as fast as she could. Ricardo's hand grabbed the knife blade instead, so fiercely that he pulled it from Jessica's hand. The blade sliced deep into his palm but he didn't seem to care. Ricardo was on his feet an instant later, holding the knife by the blade in his dripping hand, staring at a frozen Jessica three meters away. There was blood spurting from his throat in all directions. The scene was beyond horrific, and then Jessica's and Ricardo's eyes linked. And the demon knew! His wounds were mortal! Mere seconds remained for his existence. Amber was defenseless behind him, still securely chained. In objective time, it would only take a moment to turn and drive the knife deep into her eye, but it was a moment the demon did not have. Already there was no sensation in his extremities. Ricardo's body was standing on pure inertia, no correcting balance. The demon was about to topple and be unconscious before he hid the ground. Amber was safe, untouchable, released from their compound mind by his blood spurting into her eyes. She would not follow his mind into oblivion. The demon howled. And Jessica before him! She was a mere three meters away and Ricardo was a truly expert knife thrower. A moment ago he could have hurled the knife straight through her heart, burying the blade to the hilt with one precise throw. But not now. The demon howled again. His frustration could not be borne. Was there no way to kill, at least kill Jessica? Yes! Their minds were now linked. Could the demon also lock? He remembered the mode with Amber, the mental positioning, and he tried to push his link with the terrified woman before him into a lock. So close! He almost had her! She had no experience, no understanding of how to avoid what he was trying to do, and Ricardo had close to two subjective hours of experience under Amber's lock. His mind tried to lock again, his mental grappling hooks sliding against Jessica's weak and inexperienced defenses. She was fighting on pure instinct, a newborn fawn trying to flee from a sure-footed predator. His next attempt would not fail. His hooks would strike deep and entwine his mind with hers. The demon would then drag her down with him into eternity. One last triumph for him to seize, one last satisfaction. But physical reality intervened. The lack of blood pressure in Ricardo's head was just too great. His vision faded, and all became darkness before he could set his hooks. Jessica sensed one last sad, plaintive howl within their link, and then the demon faded from her consciousness. Subjective time returned to objective time and Ricardo's lifeless body thudded to the floor. There was a long moment of silence. Jessica kept staring at the body on the floor until the blood stopped pulsing from the opened neck. Deprived of blood and oxygen, Ricardo's heart had stopped. Amber called out in a plaintive voice. "Hello? I have something awful in my eyes. I can't see." Jessica walked stiffly to the sink and turned on the water. She cupped the water in her hands and made repeated trips to wash the blood from Amber's eyes. Her hands were kind and loving. Meanwhile, approximately twenty kilometers away at the Red Mall home complex... The library was in pandemonium. There was a large crowd of people gathered around Mark sitting at a console. A few minutes ago his displayed employment log showed the disappearance of Citizen ID #52 (Ricardo) and the continued existence of Citizen ID #30 (Amber). Amber had succeeded! And she was still alive! Lucia wept openly. Earlier in the day Whitney and Kiyoko had voiced their suspicions over their Leophones of what Amber was trying to do. Lucia had then confessed to Fatima that Amber had been very interested in the mind locking ability her group had discovered, and that over a period of days Lucia had taught Amber the technique. Amber's plan became blindingly obvious. She would catch Ricardo in a gaze and then commit suicide, dragging his mind down with hers. And incredibly, somehow Amber had succeeded, succeeded and lived. The employment logs were unambiguous. Outside of the Society, there were only two people left from Party #5, one male and one female, and that was clearly Jessica and Diego. People were shouting in joy. A number were even acting as if they wanted to party. Fatima stood up and clapped her hands above her head for attention. She shouted loudly, "People, please! Let's not resurrect Earth's tradition of dancing on other people's graves!" The room became quiet, a number of people nodding. There would be no party over Ricardo's death. And besides, there was still much to do. Kiyoko, Whitney, and Doug were together and holding at a position a few kilometers south of the linear building. Fatima began to give them new instructions. Meanwhile, back in the butcher kitchen. Amber and Jessica stared at each other for a long while. Jessica was caressing Amber's wet and clean head, and her hands were trembling. After one brief attempt, Amber had decided Jessica was too distraught for a link. They began to chat instead. Their words were gentle at first, almost small talk about the weather. Both of the women wanted to delay discussing the bloody horror on the floor. The large pool of blood on the floor started to congeal before Jessica walked over to Ricardo's pile of clothes. Inside the pile her hands found a nice set of keys. Amber was sitting up normally shortly afterwards, naked but free. She and Jessica hugged. Amber's contingency plan with her team was for Amber to wait outside if possible or to wait by an exterior window and wait to be seen. She assumed that Mark would know about Ricardo's death. Therefore Kiyoko and Whitney and probably Doug would soon be circling the building looking for her. Amber and Jessica would leave the bloody kitchen and hope that the servos would spare them the horror of dealing with Ricardo's remains. But before they left, Amber decided there was still one sad duty left to perform. With the vile echoes of Ricardo's thoughts still in her mind, she began searching the kitchen for what was left of Jenaro. Jessica stayed and added moral support. After a while she even helped. The gruesome cooked and uncooked pieces were not hard to find. Amber and Jessica made a small pile on the floor, at the other end of the kitchen from Ricardo's corpse. Amber felt dead by then, but Jessica was profoundly moved by her companion's act of kindness. She knew Jenaro had often treated Amber badly, and yet here was Amber desperate to leave this nightmarish room but still taking the time to give Jenaro's remains some kind of respectful disposal. Could Jessica do less? No. She went to the pile of Jenaro's remains when they were finished, and out loud she tried to say a short prayer. She said she forgave him for raping her, and she hoped Jenaro was in a better place now, a place without greed and cruelty. By this time it was past four o'clock. Whitney, Kiyoko and Doug had the linear building in view and were talking with their friends back at the Hilton, The shock of their victory had faded, but everyone was still confused. How had Amber succeeded, and why had she not discussed her brilliant plan before? Why had she decided to shoulder the burden alone? And the Society still had five people trapped in the Black Mall surface area, Jessica and Doug and three of their own. Wild celebration would be premature. At 5:45 PM, just a moment before sunset, the three searchers were delighted to see Jessica and Amber waving to them happily from a second-story window. With Kiyoko's authority as Black Mall janitor, it was easy for her to free the two women from the building. They gave Amber extra clothing from their backpacks. All she was missing were a pair of boots, and those would be sent via two balloons at tomorrow's sunrise. They explored the linear building, the corridors lighting up for them as they wandered through the various areas. Around 7 PM they came to the airlock that began the executive area. That part of the building had been Ricardo's central lair. They found it could not be accessed, even with Kiyoko's authority. Inwardly they all felt relieved. They left the building shortly afterwards. They were safe and together, still trapped in Black Mall's surface area but with many strange buildings to explore and with Kiyoko around it wasn't too hazardous. Over a very late dinner with a conference connection to the Hilton and the Society's nightly 8 PM meeting, Amber explained everything. "Back in February I was one of Toshi's greatest critics. I was horrified by the thought of one mind controlling another. I don't feel that way now Toshi. I haven't for a long time. I came around to the idea that you acted in love, and at the time we had not yet discussed how..." Amber paused. "I don't know what word to use." "Our social contract?" offered Fatima. "Yes, exactly. Thank you Fatima. We had never discussed what our social contract was concerning our new powers, especially the boosted powers. I held a grudge against you Toshi. I felt what you did was deeply immoral. And then ... And then..." Amber gulped. "Ricardo! He knew nothing of what a boosted mind could do! As far as we knew, he didn't even know about our linking abilities from the Christmas jump. And he was a king hiding in a mighty castle. How could we possibly stop him? But I knew there was something unique between Ricardo and me. He had a fascination with me, some warped version of infatuation I think. His sex drive was so strange, I'm not sure that's the right word to use, But I figured, if any one person had a chance to get close enough to Ricardo to link, if anyone could slip under his defenses, it would be me." "Amber?" Fatima asked. "Why the secrecy? Why did you hide all this from us? Did you think we would judge your plan for a forced mind lock immoral?" "No Fatima, it wasn't that. We had already decided to stop Ricardo by any means possible. Why did I hide my plan? I was afraid you would judge it as I did, that it was almost certainly a suicide mission. You would either stop me from going, in which case Ricardo would win, or you would let me go knowing you were probably sending me to my death. And then if I failed, you would all feel the guilt of that decision. I didn't need your understanding of my plan to execute it, so I decided not to tell you. I wanted to spare your feelings if I failed." She took a deep breath. "And I would have failed if it hadn't been for Jessica. Ricardo had a plan to force me to hallucinate, to deprive me of sleep. I think his plan would have worked. I caught brief glimpses in his mind of what he had in store for me, just before Jessica entered the room. Vile images! His depravity..." Amber gave a soft cry and then turned to Jessica. "You don't know how indebted I am to you. You don't know what you saved me from." Whitney was sitting opposite Amber on their large picnic blanket. The stars were out and it was delightful outside. The group was eating a cold dinner by the light of small lanterns that never ran out of power. Whitney stared at her longtime friend in wonder. "It's almost as if I don't know you Amber. You used to hate how Jessica would boss you around back at Burlington." Whitney paused and added in a whisper, "We've all changed so much." The group finished their dinner and decided they would continue with their explorations the following morning, but it appeared most of the critical linear building would remain unexplored. The part of the building which contained Jessica's bathroom sanctuary was not in the executive area of the complex, but Kiyoko had discovered earlier that the entire eastern part of the building was locked, secure against her commands for entry. The lack of access would leave two major mysteries unsolved. What was the intelligence behind Jessica's feedings for so many weeks? And why did the servos act as an escort and lead her to Ricardo? The behavior of the servos was unprecedented. Could Ricardo had made such a major blunder? Could he have programmed the servos to escort intruders to him and then somehow have forgotten? Amber emphatically insisted that wasn't the explanation. "I was linked to him for almost two subjective hours. Yes, his control room did allow him to program the servos. My sore ankle can testify to that. But the servos leading Jessica to him, that just wasn't in his memory. Ricardo was terrified. He thought Jessica was controlling them." "It certainly wasn't me," commented Jessica. "Could it have been the interface?" Hannah asked from Red Mall. "We've talked before how it might be rooting for us. And it seemed unbelievable that Ricardo could have forgotten such a major programming project. Maybe it was the interface. What other explanation is there?" Emily replied, "It might not have been the interface. Except for this one action, our experience with the servos is that they always act in a completely neutral manner, following their sets of rules with complete and utter disregard for the consequences they cause humans." Mark added, "And there's also another point. This afternoon both Emily and I have noticed a very mechanical quality with the interface. I feel as if I'm interacting with an advanced search engine. The system still works, but the friendliness is gone. Is it angry with us? I don't know, but it sure isn't acting like a system that wants to help us." They chatted a bit more about the issue and then decided to park it. There were many other topics to cover, and with key areas of the linear building locked, there was no way to pursue the mysterious servo behavior. It was time to move on. ------- Chapter 102 Later that night... Time: Monday, October 4, 2019 12:06 AM Doug walked into the one small bathroom near the lobby were they were sleeping for the night, and just a few meters in front of him Jessica was sitting on their sole toilet. "Oh, sorry," he mumbled and he quickly turned around. "I should have knocked." "No problem," Jessica called out to the closing door. "The door is probably soundproof anyway. I'll be done in a minute." Doug was surprised to find Jessica waiting for him when he left the bathroom about five minutes later. She gave him a very friendly smile and said, "Can't sleep either?" He shrugged. "I guess my mind is still racing. What a day." Jessica gave a very brief grin. "Yeah, tell me about it. I think Amber has sacked out now, but she was having a hard time of it. Kiyoko and Whitney though, sound asleep, how I envy them. Uh, Doug?" "Hmmm?" "Would you like to talk for a while?" "Sure, I'd love to." They found a comfortable couch across the lobby from their three sleeping companions, and were soon sitting side by side. Jessica surprised Doug by offering her hand which he accepted with a smile. Jessica returned his smile and sank back in the couch, holding his hand firmly and sighing. "You know about linking, right?" "A little. Whitney and Kiyoko were teaching me earlier." "That's good. Amber taught me too. She's a fantastic teacher. Her mind is so smooth, so powerful. I can't wait for my chance at the Bee Park. You know about that?" "Yeah..." Doug shrugged his shoulders. "Kiyoko explained that part to me." "So, how did it go?" "How did what go?" "Your linking!" "With Kiyoko? Okay I guess. I hiccupped a lot less with Kiyoko. With Whitney I could barely hold on." "Really? Whitney was linking with me too. I didn't have a problem. Whitney was very gentle." "To tell the truth, I couldn't hold on to Whitney at all. Kind of strange." Jessica closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. "Hmm? How so?" "Kiyoko..." Doug was silent for a moment and then he trembled. "My ... Oh shit..." "Doug? What?" "My time in Black Mall. I fucked up so badly with so many women. I made a very unwelcome pass at Whitney, more than a pass, I fondled her and grabbed her crutch. Whitney was furious with me. But Kiyoko..." Doug took a big breath and blurted it out. "She was one of the women I raped." "Oh." Jessica paused and then whispered in a frown, "I'm as guilty as you are Doug." Doug was surprised she kept holding his hand, but she did, and she pressed her head against him too and sighed deeply. "I remember now. You did check out a lot of women from the pussy barn. I guess you liked variety, huh?" "My God Jessie! I raped more than half of them, all the slaves I mean. Twelve hoof pussies in all, right?" Jessica tensed. "Gee, I'm sorry Doug. Really, I shouldn't have joked about this. It's stupid of me." Jessica thought for a moment. "I count eleven." "I'm including Britney." "Oh shit, yes. But you didn't rape Britney, did you?" Doug gave a short sob. "No, but I think I would have been interested. Ricardo killed her before I got the chance." "Fucking hell..." Jessica sighed and was quiet for a moment. "The others will forgive us." Doug appeared not to notice she used the word "us" and not "you". "You really think so? Well, Carol won't forgive me. She can't. Kiyoko shared her memory of the battle with Santos. Fidel shot Carol dead. I raped Carol twice before that." Jessica squeezed his hand lightly. "I guess Carol ... I guess what happened to Carol we'll both have to live with. I raped her too, more fingers up the butt." She added in a whisper, "I think I went insane there Doug. Black Mall seems like a nightmare to me now How did I let myself go like that? I was an insane monster. I look back and I just want to crawl under a rock and die." Doug had tears falling down his cheeks. "You too? I remember ... before Carol died, Frida was so disgusted with me, she dared me to rape her too. I just laughed at her and checked out more women from the pussy barn. Frida was powerless to stop me." Doug was referring to his former girlfriend. He cried softly, "Why didn't I listen?!" "Do you know Frida is married to Mark now?" "What?!" Doug's eyes went wide. "Frida is married? You got that from Amber?" Jessica shook her head. "Whitney actually. Whitney's changed so much! She's really nice now. And her mind is so powerful. My mind is a wreck. Whitney offered to help me. She offered to be my counselor." Doug stared at the floor. "Wow ... That's nice of her." He sighed. "To answer your question, no, I did not know that Frida is married. I don't know who Mark is either. But I'm glad for Frida if she's happy." "From what Whitney thought to me, I think she's very happy." "That's good. Frida's really happy? I'm curious." "Well, Whitney didn't have time to go into detail. Doug?" "Yeah?" "I do remember you checking out Kiyoko a couple of times, from the pussy barn." "I know. I am so ashamed. I used to take her to my bedroom and kneel behind her and fuck her from behind. She was so upset but she never fought back so I told myself it was okay to fuck her. God! I would just lube my cock and fuck down on her until I blew my load. If she wanted to kill me now, I think I'd let her." "Do you think she wants to kill you?" "Hell no. She told me not to worry about it while we were linking and she was completely sincere. Unbelievable! I was at a complete loss about how to reply. What could I do? Apologize?!" "Haven't you?!" "Of course I have!" "So what else does Kiyoko want?" "Nothing! That's my problem! She just tells me not to worry!" "Doug, accept her forgiveness! I have. There were at least two times I had my fingers up her butt. In both a moral and legal sense, I raped her too." Doug shuddered. "I wasn't even wearing any protection. I just dominated and fucked her. I am so lucky I didn't get her pregnant." Jessica nodded. "But you've changed now. So have I. I know we don't deserve their forgiveness, but time will pass and our guilt will fade." "I don't want it to fade," he whispered in reply. Doug turned to her, lightly stroking her cheek. Jessica smiled at the touch. Doug gave her a light affectionate kiss. "You really think they'll accept me into this Society of theirs?" Jessica's eyes blinked open. "Of course. I mean, I hope so. Sure they will." Doug shook his head. "You might be a shoe-in. You're their savor, along with Amber. You're their dragon slayers. But Jessica! I'm a multiple rapist!" Jessica countered. "Damn it, so am I! Want to know something? Amber told me Charles and Mandy are lovers now. They want to marry. And you know how often he raped her!" "Really?! Wow..." Doug was stunned, remembered the multiple nights Chico had checked Mandy out of the pussy barn for evenings of forced sex. Jessica sighed. "Will you link with me?" "Huh? You mean right now?" "Yes. Please? There's enough light for it in this part of the lobby. That's why I led you over here." "Uh ... okay, I'll try." "Don't try. Just do it!" With tears on her cheeks, Jessica wiped her eyes dry on her nightshirt and then offered her eyes to Doug. A second later he gave a big hiccup. "Doug, you have to trust me!" she hissed. "That was my great take-away from practicing with Amber and Whitney. Trust is everything in this, at least for unboosted minds." "I do trust you," he countered. "I'm not talking about the social trust of expecting a person to act honestly. I'm talking about letting me slip underneath the defenses around your ego. Will you trust me that much? I won't hurt you, I promise." Jessica thought for a moment. "Here, give me your hand." Doug extended his arm and Jessica slipped his hand underneath her nightshirt and pressed his palm against a bare A-cup breast underneath. "Don't get the idea that I'm asking for sex. I'm just making a physical offer to be totally vulnerable." Doug sighed deeply, his mind delighted with the feel of the warmth and softness of her body. "Okay, let's try again." A moment later he successfully linked with Jessica. "Wow! It's as if I surfing a big wave! A wild ride but I'm hanging on! And I can still feel your breast. This feels very intimate." "Doug," thought Jessica in a brief laugh. "Stop thinking of my tit as sexy! I want to talk about something serious!" "I'm listening!" "These people will accept us. So stop worrying. Kiyoko forgives us. I think the other women will too. That's the social contract they offered Charles and Tom. They'll offer it to us too, that's what I'm hoping anyway. All my times of my fingers up their butts, all their sessions with your overeager cock, they're going to forgive us. They're going to forgive us for everything." "I can't see ... I don't see how you can be so sure about this," Doug thought back. "I can see that you are, but I don't see how." "Doug, if nothing else, consider this, you're their sixth Y chromosome. They'll reject me before they reject you. All you have to do is behave yourself from now on, and it's obvious that you will. There are no lies within a link. They will see your sincerity as clearly as I see it now. That's how Kiyoko is managing to forgive you." "What? What did you say about a sixth chromosome?" "I got this from Amber before you guys found us. Amber and I spent a lot of time linking. It was a time of healing for us both. There's you, Mark, Tom, and Charles, and Toshi and Holly are both carrying male fetuses. What immense strokes of luck!" "Toshi and Holly are pregnant?" "Yes, Toshi by Gilberto and Holly ... She's not sure who the father is." Doug shuddered so badly he almost destroyed the link but he held on. "Fucking hell. I remember how the three muchachos would always pick Holly for their evening gangbang. Shit! I could just die!" "Hmm?" "I remember making lewd comments to Holly when the muchachos would check her out from the barn, really cruel stuff like, have a nice night!" "Oh shit Doug! The girl was about to be raped!" "I know, and Holly knew that I knew! Oh, I could just die," he cried. "And I remember how the muchachos loved getting Ricardo to brand their hoof pussies. And you're saying those damn muchachos knocked her up? I guess there was no way for Holly to end the pregnancy." "Actually, there was. Both Toshi and Holly chose not to abort." "My gosh..." Doug felt stunned. "Really?" "Yep. And it's a wonderful thing too. Both pregnancies are boys. Don't you see Doug? There are seventy-some females that might eventually have children, and we women have a decently wide genetic variation. But things aren't so bright on the male side of the equation. Your Y-chromosome is a priceless asset around here. They won't waste it." "Well, they could lock me up for life and breed me by remote control." He projected the image of being tied to a gurney and having semen drawn from his penis through a glass tube. Jessica projected the mental constructs of a smile and a giggle. "Doug, that's the female side of it! That's not the way artificial insemination is done with the male! And besides, even if it were, don't you guys like to think of yourselves as studs?" Jessica sighed and then projected the construct of ending her playful teasing. "Seriously, they would never do that. These are good people Doug. I mentioned something to Amber while we were in the butcher kitchen. I asked her if we should save a sample of Jenaro's DNA, maybe even Ricardo's DNA." "No superstitions about bad seeds?" "No, none at all. They're way to smart for that. But that's not my point. Amber said the Society had already discussed this matter in general. They would rather humanity become extinct than use someone's DNA without their permission for procreation. She was totally serious too." "Ah..." Doug tried to grin within the link. He decided to make a determined effort and share in Jessica's optimism. "Well, I guess being a stud can be a noble profession. It's something I can live with. Over seventy females, huh?" "Yeah. There's one more guy somewhere out there too, a man named Eugene from Party #6." "Oh my gosh, really? I remember him!" "You do? From where?" "From that strange tunnel place right before the Christmas parties. A bunch of us frat boys were prospecting the line for new chicks to pick up. I don't know what the hell I was doing. Frida was there with me and she was the nicest girl anybody could ever hope to have. But I just didn't realize it at the time. I tried picking up a fresh chick. Her name was Cindy. I guess I was just looking for novelty." "Just that?" Jessica asked doubtfully. "Well, no, you're right. I was trying to impress my compadres with my abilities to score in the open field. But Cindy's body, wow..." The image of her came flooding back into his mind, very cute legs under a skirt too short for winter, full hips and ass, an hour-glass waist, and a very well endowed front. And Doug thought her face was beyond beautiful. She was gorgeous. "Hey, slow down tiger!" Jessica laughed inside their link as she recalled sharing her memories with Amber. "I believe Cindy might still be alive. She might still be with Eugene. How did she react to your pickup attempt?" "She was horrified." Doug paused for a moment and then sighed within the link. "And I was horrible. I used to carry around a tennis ball in my pocket. I had it then. I pulled it out and showed it to Cindy and said, Hi! My name is Diego! You wanna ball?" Jessica project the mental construct of puking. "You didn't?!" "I did. I was that horrible. But you want to know something? It never worked for me, but the compadre that taught me this was Fidel. He used to go to college mixers and use the same line on unattended women at the beginning of each party. It would only take a few seconds to say, and usually before his tenth try..." "You're not serious!" "So help me God, I am! A girl would accept the ball! And Fidel would have found a sleeping partner for the night. He never left a mixer without one. He'd score every time." "My God," thought Jessica to Doug, thinking of college women in general. "How dumb can you get? I'm going to have to lower my esteem of the human female." Doug shrugged "Well ... Uh, getting back to Cindy, her boyfriend saw what I had done and he came over immediately. I moved on before he could do anything. I guess that was Eugene. Shit. What a first impression." Doug reflected for a moment. "Do you know what my core problem was? Back on Earth, I didn't see value in the people around me. I was treating Cindy as a potential fuck toy, nothing more. I didn't see her value Jessica. I didn't see the value in Frida either, and now I've lost her forever." "Yes. I failed there too." Jessica was quiet for a long moment, lost in her own thoughts. She finally continued. "Not counting the pregnancies, there are eighty-one people left, that's the human species, five men and seventy-six women." Neither of them verbalized their next thoughts. They shared their sorrows and fears and guilt without need of words. At the end, Doug didn't want to end their link on a depressing note. He tried to recapture some of their earlier playfulness. "Five guys and seventy-six gals, huh? And are the gals horny?" "Yes, I think so," Jessica thought back playfully. "If you treat us nicely and respect us and see value in us, we'll get horny for you. Fifteen horny females for each guy," she concluded, "And you say you're worried?" Doug hiccupped in embarrassment and broke the link, but inwardly he finally seemed to relax. He gave Jessica's small breast an affectionate squeeze and they whispered good night to each other. Doug returned to his sleep spot and fell asleep almost immediately. Jessica went back to her own couch adjacent to the lobby windows. She stayed up and watched the stars for a long time. "Such hard cold points of light," she thought and she gazed through the window. "Are Doug's fears justified? I told him no, but maybe he was right. Am I deceiving myself? Am I hiding behind my desires to be a little girl who's too cute to have her butt spanked? I have to accept what I did! Amber and Whitney, at least I never violated them. But Kiyoko!" Jessica grimaced as she lay. "My God! How many times did I probe her rectum? And she treats me with kindness now. How? Why? And how can I every repay her? How can I repay the others? What can I offer?" Jessica stared at the stars and searched for answers that would not come. By the time she fell asleep, the eastern horizon was pink with the promise of a new day. Jessica felt very tired a few hours later when Whitney gently woke her for breakfast. During the meal the five quickly agreed that Amber would be the leader of their extended group. And so began their time exploring the buildings of Black Mall. As autumn progressed and the days shortened, they spent more and more time after sundown chatting by Leophones with their friends and giving and getting small gifts and affectionate letters via the balloons. And during the daylight hours, they worked as a team, searching for the best facilities for where to take shelter from the coming winter. Their wanderings revealed several adequate choices. ------- Chapter 103 Time: Thursday evening, October 14, 2019 10:29 PM GHT, eleven days after the death of Ricardo It was late, six hours after sundown, and Fatima felt as if she were floating on her bed. It was her first night to sleep with Mark and they had just finished a very energetic coupling. Mark was lying on his back and sighing and Fatima was by his side, her hand lazily playing with his nipples. A thin sheet of sweat covered them both. "Wow," she whispered with a kiss. Mark turned slightly and grinned at Fatima in the darkness. The stars and the red moon outside were their only illumination. Mark told her he loved her and his hand lovingly cupped her pubis. "Does it still hurt?" he whispered. Fatima gave her head a small shake no. Earlier they had linked their boosted minds before linking bodies. Mark knew about the pain of the virgin tear of Fatima's hymen as fully as if he had his own vagina. Mark kissed her. "What are you thinking?" "Oh, lots of things I guess. Our marriage, our future, having children. Holly's and Toshi's sons! They will be my children too. And sex! I'm thinking of lots and lots of sexy images! It's even better than I imagined!" Fatima laughed. "I've got this crazy phrase running in my mind, over and over again. Today I am a woman!" Her Leophone rang before Mark could reply. Fatima blinked and answered it. "Hello?" "Hi Fatima," replied Amber. "Whitney and Kiyoko are with me. Got time for a little chat?" Fatima sighed as her mind switched gears. "Yes, I suppose. Mark is here with me. Okay to put you guys on speakerphone?" "Sure, that's be fine ... Hi Mark!" "Hi yourself. Everything okay?" "Yeah, nothing too urgent. Say Fatima! You're with Mark?! Is this your wedding night?! OH MY GOSH!!! I'm so sorry!" Yesterday early Wednesday morning in what people were playfully calling seven brides for one brother, Mark had married Aggie, Ashley, Emily, Fatima, Hannah, Holly, and Jada, with Mark and Jada exchanging their vows over Leophones. Toshi and Frida acted as bridesmaids. Mark now had nine wives, and of course they were keeping their sleeping arrangements private. Fatima laughed good naturedly. "No, we were finished." Mark leaned over and whispered playfully in her ear, "Don't be so sure!" Amber meanwhile was still apologetic. "Uh ... I should call back later." "Amber, it really is okay. I'm assuming you have a reason for calling so late." "Well ... Yes, the reason I called now, and I know how late it is and I really hate taking up your wedding night, but Jessica and Doug asked permission to go off and sleep together. They're not here now. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to call you." Fatima paused. "That's interesting. Are Jessica and Doug are becoming a couple?" "Yes, I think so. Not that I blame them. I'm sure you remember what it's like to be unboosted and be around boosted people. In terms of mental abilities, Kiyoko, Whitney and me are almost another species to them. And to us they seem like small children. It's only natural Jessica and Doug relate to each other more." Fatima sat up in bed and nodded while gentle hands were lightly caressing her calves and ankles. "Yes, I remember. The gulf is vast. Is it putting a stress on your team?" "Oh no, not at all. Jessica and Doug, I couldn't ask for nicer people. I called you to talk about something more fundamental. Fatima, both Doug and Jessica are worried about their past crimes at Black Mall. Kiyoko, Whitney and I can all see it clearly when we link with them. Fatima, can I reassure them? Fatima sighed. "I'd like to say yes, but I don't want to rule by decree on this. There's quite a bit of opposition, and not just from the victims of Black Mall either. Doug raped a large number of women, and Jessica even more." Fatima paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. "The women from White, Green, and Yellow Malls didn't have the struggle we went through to accept Tom and Charles. A lot of these people feel a price needs to be paid for what Doug and Jessica did. I know the two helping us now, but there's a general feeling they need to be punished." Amber replied, "I know. I wish you could link and see their minds. Doug and Jessica would agree with you completely that they deserve punishment." She paused. "It's interesting that you talked about price. Ever since we've been here, we have had such an infinite amount of goods at our disposal..." Fatima also paused to reflect. "Yes, I know what you mean. I haven't thought about money for so long, it's almost a foreign concept." She sighed. "How can we punish them? Fines don't exist, and I don't want to get us into the business of running jails. I suppose some year that might be ... unavoidable. But boy, I sure don't want to start now, especially with the primitive government we have. Where is our judicial system?" Amber nodded. "Yes, I agree. Fatima, Kiyoko and Whitney want to talk too. I'll let Kiyoko go first." "Hi Mark, hi Fatima. I've been doing therapy linking with Doug. Whitney has been working with Jessica. At their requests, we were showing them their actions from their victims' perspectives." Fatima blinked as she realized what Kiyoko was saying. "You shared your memories of Doug raping you?" "Yes. He willingly accepted the perspective of my body and mind. He's lived through the experiences in our dreams, my despair during the rapes, the violation of by body, my anger and depression afterwards. Fatima, it was a horrible thing for him to go through but he wanted to be punished. He will never, ever desire to rape again. Just link with his mind. His sincerity is an open book." Fatima sighed. "I've talked with his other victims. They describe him as an overeager sex fiend. He was just so hot to copulate with anyone wearing a skirt. What drove him to it?" "From what I got from our dreams, it was combination of immaturity and a willful disregard of his morals. He knew better! But perhaps unlike a classic rapist, he doesn't hate women. Yes, there was a desire for sexual domination but it was a mostly a basic animalistic desire to fuck. His sex drive was not based on cruelty." Kiyoko paused in thought for a moment before continuing. "Doug was a pure beach-master driven to copulate with as many females as possible. It almost didn't matter whom he mounted. I dreamed him through each of his rapes. Except for his memories with me, we had to use his male perspective." Kiyoko gave a mirthless laugh. "I am very familiar now with the feeling of being a male and mounting a female who doesn't want me." "Oh Kiyoko! Are you okay?" "Yes. Thank you Fatima, I'm okay. His first attempt at rape is especially interesting. Allison was the first girl he checked out. This was at the very beginning, just a few days after Christmas when the frat boys were just setting up the pussy barn system. Diego and Frida had a big fight over what was happening earlier in the day. And then later that evening Diego picked Allison for his evening's entertainment." Fatima paused. "We've had frank discussions about Doug. Allison never mentioned Diego raped her." "He never did. I saw the memory. He brought Allie to his bedroom and tried to kiss her and she slapped him. Diego did not get violent back. He just checked her back into the pussy barn. A half hour later Santos and Fidel took her for a double rape. Allie talked about her experience later that night. What they did was absolutely brutal." Kiyoko sighed. "My memories of life in the pussy barn are so vivid. The word quickly spread among the women slaves. If you're picked by Diego, your choice is to endure a simple rape while being petted or risk something far worse. Allison was the only women who physically resisted him. I did not. It was still absolute coercion of course. We both knew it was rape. But I did not physically resist, and that's all Diego asked of me." "It's still a hell of a problem," Fatima commented darkly. Kiyoko continued. "Doug and I explored his childhood. Did you know as a boy he used to stutter badly when he was around girls, especially those near his age? He did it even in high school, a great pubescent eagerness for sex but socially very inept. But he was a top student, and when he was a freshman at Burlington his academic excellence caught the eye of Frida. They started studying together, and eventually they started dating" Kiyoko took a moment to reflect. "From his memories, they started off okay. They had a lot of tenderness for each other and Doug was thrilled about having Frida as his girlfriend. But then he got involved with Beta Sigma Rho, and soon afterwards Doug became Diego. That damn frat was a really bad influence on him. Fatima, he's not trying to excuse his actions. These are my opinions, not his." Another voice spoke up. "Fatima, this is Whitney. I'd like to talk about Jessica. She is one complicated case. I find it confusing to link with her. I'm no psychiatrist, but I have a feeling Ricardo somehow fractured Jessica's mind during the time he was alone with her. After she escaped from him, she put her self-identity back together again by using a lot of her child persona. Her cruelty with the insane contraband inspections is like a bad dream to her now. Believe me, Jessica alone with Ricardo was far more than any person should have to bear. She's been punished already, more than enough!" Fatima replied, "People, I trust your instincts, but I still don't want to rule by decree on this. We need broad support for accepting new members, maybe not consensus, but certainly a clear majority. And right now we don't have it!" Amber spoke up. "Yes, we understand that. Jessica and Doug do too. Doug even suggested denying him the Bee Park as punishment. I'd really, really hate for us to do that. It would create a vulnerable second class of citizen for us. People might be tempted to abuse their boosted power. Remember how we struggled with the incident with Toshi?" Fatima shuddered. "Of course. And she's my sister wife now. She would be horrified if we went down that path again. Amber, do you have any suggestions?" "Yes, that's why we're calling you. How about a public ceremony when we eventually get out of here? Whitney, Kiyoko, and I are thinking of a ritual punishment where people can publicly express their disgust for what Doug and Jessica did. It would be a time where people can say Doug and Jessica should be ostracized from our Society. It would also be a time to express forgiveness." Mark's hands travel up Fatima's legs and across her hips, eventually settling to stroke her around her navel. She briefly touched his hand to ask him to wait and then replied, "Sounds intriguing. Tell me more." The phone conversation lasted another five minutes. The petting resumed afterwards and delightfully lasted a lot longer. Three weeks later. Time: Thursday, December 7, 2019 10:45 AM GHT Mark sat alone at his all-time favorite work area, the library console at Red Mall on the eastern side of the room. He was enjoying a delightful morning of solitude after an incredibly hectic three weeks. Through the windows the sky outside was almost as dark as night, but it wasn't purely the seasonal progression. Mark grinned and pulled up a table on his display to satisfy his curiosity. Today the sun was scheduled to set at 1:24 PM and theoretically it had risen ten minutes ago. He never could have guessed that by looking out the windows. The scene was of a fierce pre-winter blizzard, a view of wild chaotic motion with the sky as dark as late twilight. So fast! It seemed like such a short time ago that the world was a world full of light with little peaceful darkness. Now they were down to less that three precious hours of sunlight a day, and even that was fast disappearing. In a mere eight days they would be at the winter solstice where the sun would not break the horizon. Mark leaned back and enjoyed the raw violence of the storm. It had moved fast and according to his weather display would leave just as quickly. There was a flash of lightning with the associated thunder completely absent in the soundproof room. "Executive override," Mark commanded his console on a whim. "Cancel room soundproofing, these coordinates, for ... uh, twenty minutes. And execute." An instant later he could hear distant rumbles of the blizzard's thunder and the fury of the wind. Nice! Mark wondered if he should bring up the issue of soundproofing with the Society at some future meeting. It was great for privacy and sleeping but it also isolated them from the outdoors and the beauty of nature's sounds. Mark made a mental note to speak to Fatima about it. And then he gave a small frown. He was the only person that had the authority to cancel room or building soundproofing status. Even the janitors couldn't do it, and Mark couldn't delegate his authority. His ability now took his mind back to the time when it all began. "Almost twenty days now," he thought, "almost twenty days of being a mini-god." On Friday November 1st, Mark had been in this room and in this every chair. His new wife Emily was with him and she was working at the other console across the room. They were often pausing to smile at each other. Tonight would be their wedding night. At 2 PM that Friday afternoon, Mark was startled to see a short message from the interface appear on his screen. He was being requested to click an accept box. He read for a moment and then yelled for his wife to come over. With absolutely no fanfare or comment, the interface had just offered him employment as Acting Director of Astronomy. Mark and Emily were dumbfounded. Could this possibly mean what they thought it meant?! Mark clicked accept and then the first thing he tested was his access to internal interface logs. Yes! He had executive authority to read them all. Mark could now see into the interface's core decision loops. Emily whooped with delight and ran to her console to tell the others. Soon the library was filled with people. Lucia was the first to point out an issue with celestial time. Mark had been offered his employment at 2 PM Friday, November 1, 2019. Lucia's Citizen ID was 16. She was third from the last of eighteen people to take the first elevator ride at 1:57 PM, December 21, 2018. With her boosted memory, she also knew she was the first to walk out at 2 PM, exactly 168 days before Mark was offered his employment. Mark's employment offer came exactly one sidereal year after the first human set foot in their new world. What to try next? People! Where were the other lost members from the other Parties?! Mark typed eagerly on his keyboard. He found that his executive authority allowed him to query the location of any person by Citizen ID within any structure where he was physically present, and that the entire Great Hexagon was considered an integrated physical structure in this context. Within minutes Mark was querying all the lost IDs. The four lost members of Yellow Mall, Cindy, Alice, Eugene and Bridget, IDs 63, 64, 68, and 69, they were pinpointed immediately. They were together, in a building Fatima remembered once passing at a distance but never investigating. Farideh as Party #6 janitor organized a quick posse and they left immediately. No other lost members were at the Great Hexagon. This was partially understandable. The eight lost people from Green Mall were scattered as two teams somewhere in the expanse of Africa. Finding them would still be a long-term mission. But what of the seventeen lost women of Blue Mall? They were still listed on the employment logs. Everyone's guess was that they had found a trapdoor sometime in the past year. The Blue Mall surface area would be the place to start looking, but the people would not be found there. The Society would need to change their objective and search the Blue Mall surface for trapdoors. Next on the menu: Wobanakik! Did Mark have the authority to activate the elevator at the entrance rooms? Nothing was more important than to see. What followed was a fast trip, a quick jump to the White Mall lounge and then boarding the stair cats. With Emily and Suvarna as company, Mark arrived at the bottom of the great stairwell at 3 PM. He gave a verbal command to activate the elevator and the keyboard came to life! For a moment the director and the two janitors felt bewildered. Could it possibly be this easy? After memorizing the new twenty-character code in the display, Mark typed the code for home. The three were back at the Red Mall library seconds later. And seconds after that they jumped back to the entrance rooms of Wobanakik. Over their Leophones they told their friends at Manhattan the good news, and then there was a decision to make. Should the Manhattan people evacuate today? It was 3:03 PM and Wobanakik was entering the fourth week of its nine-week autumn. The linear sun would set in two hours, not nearly enough time for Jada and her group to kayak the Missisquoi back to the entrance rooms. Should they risk a night journey? There would be some moonlight, a waxing crescent moon from 9 PM to 3 AM if the weather stayed fair. But in the end Jada decided not to push the issue. They had waited so long already, why not another day? Her team would leave Manhattan in the predawn twilight on Saturday, sometime after 7 AM. With luck they should be at the activated elevator well before noon. Next on the agenda, Amber and her group trapped in Black Mall's surface area. Mark and the janitors spent hours studying new engineering data that Mark was able to access. Late Friday evening, they thought they had a solution. There should be executive controls on both the Pink and Green Towers that would allow Mark to freeze the foam and create a static return path for Amber and her group. Mark gave the credit to Emily and Aggie for planning the procedure. The control sequence wasn't obvious. Just before dawn the next morning Mark, Emily, and Aggie traveled to the Pink Tower and successfully shut down the maze. The foam sank more than a dozen meters, revealing the narrow walkways to be the tops of curving ridgelines with shear vertical walls. At the other end of the maze at the Green Tower, Amber's group began their difficult journey back home, stopping occasionally went the wind blew too briskly. There were no guardrails at the edges of the 2.5 meter-wide walkways and a fall into the foam would be certain death. Amber's group came home one painfully slow and careful step at a time. It was past eleven o'clock when Amber's group finally reached the Pink Tower, very shortly after Mark received word that Jada and her group had just jumped to the Black Mall lounge. Wobanakik was empty at last. Mark smiled at the memory as he sat in the library admiring the sounds and fury of the snowstorm. Jessica! What a fascinating person she was, and so completely different from his expectations. Mark had heard complaints about Jessica for months from the former slaves of Party #5, and then he finally met her at the top of the Pink Tower. She was wiry, girlish looking really, playful, affectionate, and extremely trusting in her linking. She hugged Mark as soon as she stepped off the narrow walkway, shivering a bit not from the coolness of the day but from her fear of heights. Jessica offered to link with Mark as they were still hugging and offered to share her experiences with him. Mark was struck by her great capacity to trust. A few seconds of linking gave them several minutes of subjective time. First Jessica projected her growing love for Doug, and their times together since Ricardo's death. She then asked Mark to find the time to share her most frightful moments. Jessica knew her membership in the Society was still being debated and she wanted Mark to know the full story. Mark promised her some quiet time together. The Bee Park was still in the last week of its winter cycle, but there was ample food in the storage bins there and first priority was to boost all their new members. The Society decided to boost alternating groups of three and four, pushing the Bee Park's population up to seven. The four new rescues from Party #6 went first, and Eugene, Cindy, Alice, and Bridget entered the Park on November 2nd, followed four days later by Jada, Thara, and Lynn. On the morning of November 10th, Charles, Mandy, Obit, and Oona pledged lifelong commitments to each other in a triple marriage ceremony just before becoming the new junior boost team. Mandy jokingly referred to the Bee Park as their honeymoon location, stressing the word honey. Later that afternoon, the Society had another great find. Satellite imagery had detected a human presence in the southern hemisphere of Africa. Tom and Carla volunteered to take the six stair cats and investigate. They returned late on November 13th with Kelly's lost team. The Society now had a population of sixty people, with Laura's team of four in northern Africa and all seventeen women survivors of Blue Mall the only remaining missing members of the human species. The arrival of Kelly's group allowed the Society to postpone a stressful decision. Jessica and Diego had still not been allowed to boost, and with the large crowd of people boosting it was never clear whether they were just waiting in line or if this would be a permanent decision. Kelly's group of four entered the Bee Park on November 14th, meeting Jada, Thara, and Lynn on the way out. By this time the Bee Park was finishing the first week of its three week spring and the flowering fields and orchards were about to burst with new life. Kelly's group would not have to use the food in the storage bins for long. Fatima thought that one month of interaction and linking was long enough for the Society to decide on Doug's and Jessica's membership, and she brought the issue up for resolution on December 2nd. She was firm on one principle. There would be no partial acceptance, no second-class citizens. The Society's choice was either to banish them to Africa without boosting or grant full membership. Kelly's group had found a very livable campsite on the southern shore. They held meeting at 8 PM in the multi-media room of Black Mall, fifty-two people attending in person and the two boost teams there by Leophone. Fatima gave a brief introduction on the purpose of the meeting and then said that Kiyoko would speak next. Fatima went to her chair and Kiyoko came up and stood on the small stage. In her hand she carried a large and heavy wooden paddle. She then made a hand signal for Jessica and Diego to join her. They quickly complied, and with their backs to the audience, they both knelt on all fours and then lowered their heads to the ground, leaving their rumps positioned up in the air. Diego looked very solemn and Jessica had tears in her eyes. Kiyoko started to speak while Amber passed out random numbers from 1 to 58 within the crowd. Kiyoko reminded everybody of the importance of the decision they were about to make, and how in keeping with their Society's tradition the vote ahead of them would not be done by secret ballot. People had to assume social responsibility for the decisions they made. Kiyoko asked them to vote their true conscience and to make their decisions by what they thought would be best for their Society. Everyone had had ample opportunity to link with Jessica and Doug in the past month, even the people now in the Bee Park. It was time to decide, and except for Kiyoko going first to describe the process, the vote would be in random order. People in the Bee Park were asked to name a friend present in the room who would execute their vote by proxy. And the vote would be taken by the paddle and the hand, and in this Jessica and Doug were completely agreeable. Members were encourage to stand and explain their feelings first and then to vote. To strike with the paddle would be a vote to reject and to banish, and to pet would be a vote for acceptance. Kiyoko then turned and stood between Doug and Jessica. She faced the audience and spent several graphic minutes describing her rapes by both Diego and Jessica, and then her time with them afterwards after Ricardo's death. At the end of her speech, she turned to Doug and bent down and caressed his rump, a single slow pet down the length of his left butt cheek over his pants and then another down his right cheek. Then she turned and petted Jessica in a similar manner, caressing the rump that was under her skirt. Her vote for forgiveness cast, Kiyoko left the paddle on the floor between Doug and Jessica and returned to her seat. Holly was holding the number 2 in her hand and with shaking steps she went next. She went on stage and picked up the paddle, facing the audience and just staring for a moment, the pregnancy in her womb visible for all to see. Holly said she was not one of Diego's rape victims, that the muchachos picked her so often Diego never got a chance to rape her. But she saw him running the pussy barn as chief gatekeeper, and he would often ogle her as she was led to her nightly horrors. Holly then described how she lived in terror of her hoof-pussy procurement assignments. She remembered the awful catcalls the frat boys would make as she was led out of the barn wearing only a bra and panties, and then she would work a brutally hard day pulling sleds knowing that before she could rest, Jessica's slimy fingers would be sliding around inside her rectum. With tears in her eyes, Holly then spoke briefly of what she felt from her linkages now with Doug and Jessica with the power relationships reversed. It was powerful boosted mind to vulnerable unboosted mind. Holly finished by saying she knew she had only one vote that would count but she was going to vote twice anyway, once on her own and once to represent the child within her. She then turned to Jessica and caressed her with four long strokes, two on each of her butt cheeks. Holly turned to Doug and expressed a similar double vote for forgiveness. The third person to vote was Lynn, who had just returned from the Bee Park two days ago. She announced that she would also be voting for Oona later in the ceremony. Lynn then spoke briefly of her own decision, and then turned to caress the two kneeling people beside her. And the voting continued. Fatima gulped when Eugene came up as the fifth person. Would this be the first rejection? Eugene stroked Jessica's rump with a smile on his face and then picked up the paddle and stared at Doug with a hard frown. The room was absolutely silent. Eugene turned and looked at his girlfriend Cindy across the room. She just shrugged. Eugene gave his head a quick shake as if to say, "That's not good enough!", and then he tilted his head in the customary way for offering to link. Fatima was astounded. Cindy and Eugene were linking while standing about eight meters apart. No one had ever managed to link across such a distance, but this couple was clearly doing it. A moment later Eugene returned to objective time. He sighed deeply and bent down and gave two light taps on Doug's rump with the back of his hand. The paddle would remain unused. After the tenth vote, Jessica began to wail unashamedly as she lay on the floor. By this time both she and Doug had collapsed and were lying prone, collapsing not from the physical effort of kneeling but from the emotional stress of accepting forgiveness. So far no one had condemned them. The ceremony lasted almost to midnight. People took the time to air their grievances and their decision processes. The final tally was fifty-eight to zero. Jessica and Doug entered the Bee Park on December 4th, the final two Society members in need of boosting. And now it was three days later. Mark smiled a bit as he noticed the wind shifting to blow from the east. That usually meant a quick clearing. And Kelly's group were scheduled to leave the Bee Park tomorrow, leaving Jessica and Doug alone for the final four days of their boost. Each of the four women had asked for a different man to help with their post boosting adjustments. Jordan had asked for Mark, and he was looking forward to it. Mark sighed and got back to the work at hand. Earlier this morning he had discovered how to trace executive priority threads within the interface's decision loops. The work was revealing some fascinating stuff. An hour later... Jada walked into the quiet library a few minutes after solar noon. She was carrying a lunch tray with two sandwiches, chips and drinks and she gave Mark a big smile as she place the tray near him. "Husband," she said with a bow while taking one of the sandwiches. "Wife," Mark grinned and bowed likewise as he took the other. He took a big bite. "Wow! You make the best sandwiches!" he attempted to say with a big mouthful. Jada just smiled. "Oh, I bet you tell that to all the girls you marry!" And then she looked at his monitor with a critical eye. "Looks like you've been having a productive morning." "Yeah, sure have. Take a look at this." Mark typed and also gave a few verbal commands between bites. A moment later a new diagram filled his screen. "This is the very top level of the employment attributes matrix. Take a look at the time coordinates." Jada studied the display for a moment. "According to this, executive positions were absolutely not supposed to open up until ... Am I reading this right? We were supposed to wait six years after coming here?" "Yep, exactly right, and we'll still have to wait that long for the others. Now look at this thread for the position of Acting Director of Astronomy." Jada studied the screen and frowned. "Where did this come from? It's not part of the original matrix. Some kind of add-on?" Mark nodded. "That was my impression too. And here's something really fascinating. I can take the origin point of the thread and cross reference its ID with interface decision logs. I've converted the internal clock to our calendar. Take a look at the time index." Jada stared and then shivered. "My God!" she exclaimed. She was staring at a time stamp of Sunday, October 3, 2019 1:46:53 PM. "That's about an hour before Ricardo died, isn't it?" Mark nodded. "I talked with Jessica about this a half hour ago. We have it nailed down. Jessica's thinks the time stamp might be seconds away from when all the doors on her bathroom artwork popped open." "Wow..." whispered Jada deep in thought. "The plot thickens. I guess a critical question is, was it the interface that did this or some other entity?" Mark sighed. "I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say not the interface. Look at these control matrixes. Look at the decision flows. They are absolutely not designed to accept these kinds of modifications. Look at what the added thread did. There are massive amounts of damage here, here, and ... here." "So it was a hack job?" Mark frowned and then shrugged. "That doesn't seem right either. For the modifications to work, the designer would need..." Mark paused deep in thought. "What am I saying? Jada, it would take me a lifetime of study before writing something like this. I don't get it. But I think it does rule out the possibility of human intervention." Jada nodded. "That's a major piece of information. Congratulations Mark. And nobody else could have discovered this, right?" Mark nodded with a touch of sincere sadness. "I wish I could delegate executive authority but I can't." Jada sighed. "I know, and it does you credit that you're not happy about keeping your godlike powers all to yourself." She then gave him a small grin. "But maybe this shows Fatima had a point about keeping you on your leash." Mark suddenly looked a bit worried. "I hope this isn't giving you ideas." Jada grinned again and shook her head no. She was referring to their leader's decision to prohibit Mark from investigating the Blue Mall area, and without a Blue Mall janitor, the search teams were currently unable to explore large sections of the surface. Mark's authority of course was much greater than a janitor's, but Fatima decreed that his executive ability was so priceless she would not risk him on away missions. Fatima though would not be leader forever. Her term as ruler would expire in eight days, on the sunless noon of January 1, 2020. The Society had been hammering out the construction of a new provisional government for the last two months. The next leader would have almost as much power as Fatima and be elected for three years (72 weeks), and he or she would have the momentous job of overseeing the creation of the Society's permanent government. The vote would be taken in five days, the evening after Doug and Jessica returned from the Bee Park, and Jada was running for the office. She had been campaigning ever since her release from Wobanakik, campaigning even from the Bee Park, and there was such widespread support for her that so far she was unopposed. Two nights ago on their scheduled night together, Jada and Mark had linked after coitus. Their thoughts turned to the coming elections and Mark's desire to explore. "I remember a quote from Joseph Stalin," Jada thought within their link. "The graveyard is full of indispensible people." Mark projected the construct of raising his eyebrows at the thought. "We all have our unique contributions to make. I'm not Fatima Mark. I won't keep you on a leash. That is, of course," She batted her mental eyebrows playfully, "if you'll vote for me!" "Think you can handle the pressure for three years?" Mark thought back, only half in jest. "Fatima had the job for one year, and she is really looking forward to being an ordinary citizen again." "Oh, I know. But I think three years ... is the right amount of time for what we have to do." Jada then got playful. "And besides, it's only two years if you think of it in Wobanakik time." "But six years if you think in Bee Park time!" Mark retorted. "Two years, three, and six, I must say, there's a certain elegance to the symmetry." "It's not that long Mark, seventy-two weeks to create a government. I don't know if we'll even finish before it's time for me to pass the baton." Mark nodded and broke the link. They returned to petting each other. A while later Jada turned on her stomach and wiggled her rump, signaling she wanted to be mounted again. Her mate was happy to oblige. Back now in the Red Mall library, Jada and Mark were finishing their sandwiches. Jada stood up and picked up the lunch tray to carry back to the kitchen. "Want some help with that?" Mark offered. Jada laughed. "To carry an empty tray?! No, I got it. But if you want to stretch your legs and walk with me, that'd be nice." Before Mark could reply, his Leophone rang. As he answered it, he noticed the call was from Farideh, the janitor of Yellow Mall. "Hi Farideh!" he said cheerfully. "Hi yourself oh great one," she answered playfully back. "Mark, are you busy right now?" Mark thought for a second about how anxious he was to get back to his analysis, but he said simply, "No. What's up?" "I'm here at Eastern Mountain Sports, the one that's the terminal store of Yellow Mall. Suvarna and Kiyoko and your wives Emily and Aggie are here with me." "Wow. Are you guys having a janitor convention?" Farideh laughed. "Yeah, kind of, all five of us. There's something interesting here we'd like you to see. We're on the second floor near the elevator. Can you hop over?" Mark made a micro-link with Jada and then answered. "Sure. Jada's with me now. We'll both be there in a sec." He closed his phone. Mark and Jada walked into the library elevator. They made a micro-jump to the lounge above, and while Mark dashed to drop off their lunch tray in the kitchen, Jada punched in a new twenty-character access code. She got a rare delay signal showing her destination was in use, but then the signal cleared. A moment later she and Mark emerged into the terminal store of Yellow Mall. In an instant they had travelled about twenty-four kilometers north northeast from their old location. ------- Chapter 104 In addition to the five janitors, Mark and Jada were greeted by Fatima and Lucia. The two friends were having lunch together when Fatima got a call from Emily asking if they could come to the end of Yellow Mall. The two arrived at the terminal store just seconds before Mark and Jada. "So," said Mark cheerfully, "the executive is in the building! What's up?" Emily laughed and kissed her husband on the cheek and then led him by the hand. "Right! It's over here. Farideh saw it first." The group of nine walked a short distance along the back wall of the store until coming to a slight indentation in the wall. "Do you see what we see Mark?" asked Farideh. "We measure the length across as exactly four meters. Does that suggest anything to you?" Mark nodded thoughtfully. "Well, it wouldn't be the first trapdoor down here. But this is different. It's not a closet area. This is flush with the wall." Aggie spoke up. "Farideh spotted this about an hour ago. She called Emily and Emily called me. Eventually all five of us janitors were down here." Kiyoko also spoke. "During the last hour we split up and searched the walls of all six terminal stores, both floors. None of the other stores has anything like this. This is unique." Mark nodded again. "Great work guys, and especially for you Farideh. The indentation is so subtle, how did you notice it?" "There was a vague reference to something unusual in my janitor training, something about a terminal information thread. I asked later and none of the other janitors remembered anything similar in their lessons. With all the excitement, I guess I parked the issue on the back burner. But last night in a dream I remembered the issue and had a thought. What if the word terminal meant the terminal store? Today is my free day, so I wandered over here after breakfast and just tried to give everything a close look. That's when I found this." Farideh finished with a gesture of her hand. Mark locked eyes with Fatima for a brief confirmation and then gave an executive override command that would open a portal. The wall slid to the side at once, revealing not a trapdoor but a short corridor followed by a huge sparkling chamber that was beyond stunning in its beauty. The group slowly filed in and gazed about in wonder. The chamber was a perfectly oval room with their entrance corridor at one end of the long axis. Emily's expert eyes guessed the dimensions of the chamber's two axes as sixteen by twenty-four meters. A double oval staircase spiraled up to the surface, starting at each end of the short axis to their left and right and following the oval curve up a quarter circumference to the opposite end of the long axis above. Emily judged the climb to be twenty meters, which from the second level of the terminal store would put the upper level of their chamber even with the surface area above the Mall. Both staircases were wooden in appearance, a matched set and massively made, and the rich full-grained woods gleamed with a lacquer-like finish. And everywhere their eyes traveled, the group found new delights to behold. Pearl inlays within the wood, a mosaic floor of abstract patterns filled with riotous colors, and the vaulted ceiling far above seemed to be one gigantic rough amethyst crystal. "This is magnificent," Fatima whispered as the group walked to the left staircase across the mosaic floor. There were glowing crystals along the walls that softly sparkled and filled the chamber with flowing hues of light. The dominant color was a rich green light, and the net effect was overwhelming. They were in a chamber of exquisite beauty. After a while Aggie began climbing the stairs. The others followed. As they neared the top, Emily looked ahead and counted a total of 108 steps to the level above. "Remember the terminal stores are outside the footprint of the Great Hexagon. The perimeter wall will be about three-hundred meters to our southwest." "These green crystals in the walls," asked Kiyoko, "do you think they're real emeralds?" "They certainly look like it," replied Aggie as her hand glided along the glowing crystals. She gave a short laugh. "Wow! This would be a great place for our marriage ceremonies!" At the top of the stairs they came to a small rectangular observation chamber with a transparent wall which contained an exit to the outside. Through the exit they could see a short grotto of rough rock, and beyond that was the great outdoors, a snow covered landscape that showed the forest outside the Great Hexagon. Far to their left they could see continuation of the northeast face of their great perimeter wall. The group stopped and stared. After a year of calling the great complex home, this was their first direct look of the landscape just outside. The snow had stopped and the east wind had cleared the clouds at this location. The forest was sparkling in the day's brief orange sunlight. Farideh walked slowly to a control panel by the transparent wall. "I was taught about this in my lessons," she announced. "The wall to the outside is locked now, but I have the authority to release it." Suvarna came over and studied the controls and nodded. "Do you think it's safe? Should we go out? There's lots of winter sporting clothes down below if we do." Farideh studied the control too. "I can authorize a permanent release, not to open the door but to release the lock. Then anybody can use this passage at any time." Without further thought she gave the release command as janitor of Yellow Mall. The side wall perpendicular to the exit glowed with a sharp light, and everyone turned to see. Mark felt he was in the presence of immense insect-like creatures, an outlandish combination of spiders and bees with the largest the size of a small car. And then his mind ... And then his mind... Mark lay gasping on the floor. Others around him were also down and struggling to recover. Did he dare look at the terrible wall again? He couldn't resist the challenge. A blink of an eye glance, and then another, longer this time. It was okay. The great mural that covered the wall was not grabbing his mind again. That was good. The first ride had captured him with shattering intensity. Slowly Mark and the others stood up and gazed at the picture. Mark was too emotionally distraught to speak. The eight women with him were silent as well. It was just so much to take in. They had all been given a glimpse of what mental ability could truly be, a glimpse perhaps of how humans would think after another billion years of evolution. So vast! The power, the complexity, the overwhelming greatness of it all! And in some sense, so obvious! Their newfound linking ability was a real physical phenomenon. Why couldn't a device be created that would project information to them through a mind link? The mural had done just that. It was multiplexed thoughts and information flows beyond anything they ever imagined possible, hours of teaching presented as a single integrated matrix, a quantum burst of information. Mark thought it would be weeks before all the fine points of his lesson would finally sink in. But the major points had already been hammered home. The largest creative in the mural had no name, nothing a human would consider a name anyway. The insect creatures used distinctive pheromones as names, and thus the names of the three creatures before them had no translation into human speech. The largest was the mother, and the two smaller creatures were her children. All three were female. The species was bisexual but the males were much smaller and used only for breeding. Male intelligence had been genetically eliminated from the species long before dinosaurs walked the Earth. The younger of the two sisters was very young indeed, one of numerous hatchlings from the most recent brood cycle. Mark stared at the infant insect and shuddered. She was playing with their infamous ivy plant, and the plant was completely subdued by the infant's mind control. A minor branch of the information matrix revealed that the ivy was the rough equivalent of a baby rattle, an amusement toy which also had the secondary function of eliminating mentally deficient children. The second sister in the mural was much older. Through competitive elimination she was the last living member of her mother's older brood cycle. And as the sole survivor, she was receiving her adult training and was at the threshold of the mind drugs that would forever change her and carry her to full adulthood. She stood by her mother's side, and as her image gazed at the humans before her, Mark realized that it was this child who had created the mural and its information matrix. And the child had created so much more. She had created everything. The insect child offered the humans a name for herself. Her complex pheromone name was based on the distinctive odors of the twelve eyes that orbited her head. The eyes were also an unusual shade, bright blue. Eye color was an ignored attribute in her species, but child knew humans made much of it, so to the humans she offered her name as Sapphire. Sapphire's mother, Mark struggled to understand the concepts. The mother's title was, Survey Under-Lady? Something like that anyway, the job concept just didn't translate well. The mother was responsible for monitoring a vast region of space, one that included Earth's entire Milky Way galaxy and more. A previous scan of Earth had been done on schedule six-to-the-ninth-power years ago, years as measured by Sapphire's home planet. It was the same as the orbital period of the planet Mark was on now. In Earth years, the insect species had surveyed Earth 4.6 million years ago, at the dawn of the age of Dinofelis. In the old survey, no problem was found after much genetic information had been taken, analyzed, and cataloged. Through her mother, Sapphire had access to the data banks. But then Earth was visited again, a routine recheck early in Earth's year 2018. The scan of course went unnoticed by Earth, but what the Survey Under-Lady found was shocking, an abomination and an unforgivable affront to her species' God. Another species, a mammalian quadrupod no less!, was on the verge of developing mind linking abilities. Such insult to the natural order of the cosmos could not and would not be borne. The Survey Under-Lady knew with absolute certainty that it was her species alone that had been chosen to receive the gift of the linked mind. The mother's authority, power, and obligations were clear and unquestioned. The universe must be and would be returned to God's desired state. Following sacred doctrine, a neutron star was created and expeditiously launched to eliminate the star system that spawned the abomination. Earth's scientists never had a chance to study their old observations and realize that mere weeks before the stellar collision, the neutron star had not even existed. Such was the power associated with the mother's ability to tear space and stop time. Creating the matter and trajectory for the exterminating stellar collision was a simple and straightforward procedure, and Survey Under-Lady executed it with a minor amount of thought. But the extermination distressed Sapphire. She had not yet taken her adult booster drugs and thus still had her juvenile emotions of compassion, emotions that would become totally absent after the drugs triggered her metamorphosis to adulthood. With her allowed toys, Sapphire created a portal to a faraway galaxy that her mother had just surveyed. She created an Earthlike planet over many thousands of years of remote temporal displacement, using her toys in compressed time to create a new home for the human species, and genetically evolving new nutritious crops for them to eat. The portal link on Earth was her only real danger of discovery. The planet was being monitored by her mother. Sapphire decided on a single rescue portal and she picked Castle Commonwealth on the simple childish whim of being attracted to the hexagonal architecture there, building designs similar to those used by her own species. Each elevator transit risked revealing her plan, and Sapphire carefully weighed that risk against the genetic diversity needed to save the human species. She hoped to rescue perhaps as many as 216 humans, no more. The elevators had a secret maximum count of twelve transits. Sapphire's estimate was approximately correct. Jada and Emily's trip was the eleventh transit. Sapphire's plan succeeded. There was only one external danger left for humanity, assuming they passed the tests of cooperation that Sapphire thought they needed. There was no way for Sapphire to hide the memory of her actions from her mother the next time they linked. And furthermore, Sapphire was about to take her adult booster drugs. When her ability to feel compassion was eliminated by the drugs, she would want to reveal her childish error to her mother. There was only one way to avoid the revelation. The mural was the very last artifact of Sapphire's creation. From her trans-galactic location, she encoded her final information thread just as she was about to destroy the last evidence of her work, one final simple message before she broke the cosmic portal connection. "If you are reading this, I have successfully committed suicide." Mark was standing now, the eight women with him also. They were all feeling a sense of shock and disbelief. It was Fatima who spoke first, and she cried from her heart. "I knew it! All my life I knew it! People were always wondering if our world would end in fire or in ice, but in my heart I knew! Our world would end through religious intolerance! The only shock is, it wasn't OUR religious intolerance!" "Did you catch Sapphire's last question?" whispered Emily in extreme distress. "She asked us to love her, and not to condemn her species as her species condemned us. Can we do that? Oh God, can we?!" "And the interface!" shouted Aggie. "Don't you see?! She programmed it with her memory ... Memory something, I don't think we have the words for it. The interface, some kind of self-organizing quantum resonance, programmed for strict neutrality for our trial, but it also captured Sapphire's goodness." "And her willingness for self sacrifice," Mark whispered in awe. "Of course! The interface personality! It isn't hiding from us! It's gone! All that's left is a mechanical shell. The interface sacrificed itself when it disobeyed its control matrix. It programmed Jessica's servos and created my employment thread. The resulting damage was the destruction of the quantum resonance. Sapphire's final gift." "And do you see the child's playfulness?" asked Kiyoko. "The Party songs she picked for us?" "Almost," Suvarna whispered in reply. "I don't get the symbolism for 2525." "I think I do," said Kiyoko. "Think of the lyrics to the song. It's about the evolution of humanity, our adjusting to our new linking abilities. It all fits! It's in the right order of the songs. And that means the oval spiral under us is the true Stairway to Heaven." She laughed nervously. "It really exists! We've found it!" Mark was stunned as he replayed that thread of the mural's message in his mind. Of course! It's My Party, the six original Christmas parties. Great Balls of Fire, the sun and the terrible neutron star. House of the Rising Sun, the huge orange sunrise just after the cosmic collision, how could they ever forget? Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now, the evening afterwards where the stars confirmed they were not on Earth. 2525, coping with their newly boosted linking abilities. And finally, the last Party was Stairway to Heaven. The end point of Sapphire's trial was the mural. It was located at the end of Yellow Brick Road, the last of the six spirals. Lucia spoke up. "The test was originally scheduled to last six years. We weren't supposed to be in this chamber for another five. Instead we got Sapphire's final act of extended love. The shadow of her mind that was captured within the interface broke the rules and ended the test more than five years early. The interface knew! Ricardo was about to win! Humanity was about to fail! So the interface broke the rules and committed suicide to help us, just as Sapphire herself had done." Suvarna sighed deeply. "We're not totally out of the woods. This region of space has just been surveyed. Sapphire chose well. But we will be surveyed again." Emily turned to her. "Yes, in another 4.6 million Earth years. But Sapphire left us all her toys, all her knowledge, all her technology. The gifts are scattered all across the Great Hexagon. We'll have time to study and learn, eons to prepare. I think the next meeting of our two species will be very different from this one now." Jada gave a small laugh. "I feel a bit wobbly on my feet. It reminds me of my first moment on this planet." She laughed again. "Emily! I was right! Remember I didn't like the soft drinks and the ice cubes in the tunnel? The mural confirmed my suspicions! Our Christmas booster drugs were in the ice and soft drinks!" "It wasn't just for linking either," replied Emily. "Did you catch that part of the thread? Our first boost was essential. It allowed our minds to survive the journey here. And the drugs propagate through our DNA. We've been modified. Holly's and Toshi's sons will be born with boosted minds. They won't need the Bee Park. It's for our use alone. We're the first generation. We're the transition between what our species was and what our species will become." Emily paused and laughed. "The irony! We're missing links! Only we're not missing! It's the other way around! We're all that's left!" Lucia glanced back down to the wooden stairway and then out again to the snow-covered wilderness. "Look how beautiful it is Emily. Look how wild and free it is! Such a gift, and we should honor the giver. Fatima, you promised me the right to name the planet. I want to honor Sapphire, her love for us and her playfulness. I want to call the planet Heaven." Fatima blinked. "Call the planet Heaven? A bit pretentious, don't you think?" Jada turned to Fatima. "No, I think I get it. It's Sapphire's last thought before she died, that life is what you make of it. It's the thought that bound our two species together, the thought and the value that both our species could appreciate." Jada waved and pointed with her arm. "That planet out there, it can be anything we want it to be. Ricardo would have chosen hell. Why can't we chose the opposite? What's stopping us?" The nine humans stared in silence at the outside scene. They were on a new virgin planet, a gift that was to be humanity's new home. The sun was only a few degrees above the horizon, and the strange-looking trees were in the deep shadows of their winter slumber. A lifetime of exploration and discovery was before them, and they owed it all to a single alien child who had the love and the courage and the selflessness to rebel and say no. Yes, perhaps it was an alien mind, a mind humanity would struggle to understand for generations to come. But with childlike determination Sapphire had bridged the gulf between her species and another species that was so unlike her own. Across that great gulf, Sapphire and the humans had shared their value of goodness. It was now early afternoon and the last of the day's light was fading from the sky. In deep thought, Mark and his wives and his dear friends turned around and returned down the stairway to the comforts of their home and family. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2008-01-01 Last Modified: 2008-08-17 / 04:28:53 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------