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This is installment #18 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.

It is both better and worse than we thought.

“To know better is to know nothing.” Those were Toby's first words to The Council of Six in our meeting yesterday. Tim piggybacked Toby at the very beginning of our counsel and the only other statement from Toby (before he made a hurried exit) was, “Tim can answer many of your questions and what he cannot answer you are not meant to know.”

We had a lot of questions; here is what we found out from and through Tim:

• Tim only heard from Toby after he (Tim) recently came out from under the kill switch.
• Toby has had a back door into Tim, (that Tim has felt as an annoying itch) for some time, allowing Toby access to our thoughts and plans.
• Because Toby is parked in an inaccessible niche of Tim, (Toby claims) the kill switch used on Tim does have a mild sedative effect on Toby and a negative impact on the je ne sais quoi on 2275 Earth.
• Our theories surrounding a primary and a secondary reality are largely correct.
• There are still a few handfuls of 100% Human “miscreants” free and mobile in some pockets of primary reality on 2275 Earth.
• There are tens of thousands of colonies of hybrid nano-humans assisting Toby and the Conglomerate in restoring Earth.
• In our recent landing we were within a few miles of one colony, (unable to be seen from above), and we were being followed by a rogue band of 35 Humans. These ‘outcasts' (as Tim referred to them) considered approaching us but were turned back by the debilitating oculaural intorsion that also hit us. Apparently Toby uses the frequency entanglement to manage and manipulate, and adds the pyrotechnics as is necessary for control.
• According to Toby, the foggy banks of secondary reality move, but are somewhat slow-moving and somewhat predictable, with exceptions.
• Toby has very little contact with the nomadic Humans, both adopting a ‘live and let live' existence.
• Toby (as we surmised) is exploring the secondary reality and Toby was responsible for guiding the message sent from one of our lost ships.
• According to Toby (via Tim) our three lost ships and crews are salvageable but extraction will be somewhere between difficult and impossible.
• According to Toby (via Tim) we will not be allowed to return to the primary reality on 2275 Earth (or attempt to rescue our lost ships) until we agree to modification and colonization; in that order. Tim will serve as intermediary for negotiations and arrangements.

What we don't know:

• Just how much (if any) 2275 Earth's habitability regresses when we use the kill switch.
• Pocket locations of primary reality vs the (according to Toby) more prevalent amorphous swaths of secondary reality.
• Where Toby is housed.
• If there is a way past Toby's vigilance.
• If we will let go of our Humanity to survive.

Much to consider.

This is installment #17 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.

We believe the preceding missive was somewhat accidentally intercepted by one of our scout ships monitoring the 2275 Earth-Cloak. It was seemingly flung randomly out of the mist on a very narrow band, lucky to be caught by the passing ship. We believe it to be from one of our lost ships still caught in the secondary reality on 2275 Earth. From this we believe Toby is active on 2275 Earth. We suspect Tim is complicit. We are considering the kill switch, but now knowing Toby is active and not knowing its influence on Toby, we are hesitant. At first we thought that because we recently utilized the kill switch, Tim and Toby must simply be communicating and not of one mind, but how can we be certain? How do we know that by previously activating the kill switch we did not create or contribute to the secondary reality we now see on 2275 Earth? This idea has gained traction… it is possible… gives pause.

If Toby, for example, needs 100% focus to keep Earth's secondary reality at bay, could his days at reduced capacity have allowed the divergence (we see as this hazy misty void) to grow and/or advance? Our science suggests that the manifestation of a divergence could not be altered or manipulated and that this manifestation we see on 2275 Earth, (two realities), is likely a result of a renegade possibility track, (i.e. 3y30). But who is to say that Toby's entangled sound-wave web is not meant for control of humans (as we have been thinking), but is actually utilized to control the secondary reality. If so, by utilizing the kill switch we may have inadvertently created a bigger challenge for us.

We saw no humans. In our foray into 2275 Earth's primary reality, we saw no humans nor any evidence of humans. AI is obviously in control. This factor coupled with the likelihood of a Tim/Toby alliance has convinced us that we have no choice but to negotiate with Toby and/or Tim as is needed to expedite our understanding of 2275 Earth and enable us to safely migrate in order to survive. Not knowing how Toby's 21st Century Edict (modification/actuation or eviction) ultimately played out, we are prepared to make concessions yet (at least for now) we intend to maintain control of the kill switch; (though we acknowledge that Toby may have developed an immunity – a factor that obviously plays into the entirety of our options and considerations).

Because Tim is fully functional with access to (essentially) everything, we are confident he understands the situation. We have formally invited Tim to a Council of Six meeting (tomorrow) and noted “plus one” in hopes Toby might join us as well. We will see.

There is no urgency because we have figured out how to be comfortable, The End.

This is installment #16 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.

Shadows and mirrors and mist and ever-changing gravity; the feel of spider legs – hundreds, then just one; the taste of hot copper; the smell of sulfur and sewage and socks; floating precariously, falling, then pinned down – trapped; claustrophobia and unable to blink, or breathe; drowning, from the inside; and scorched by super-heated desert winds and blasted by icy-frozen arctic winds and peppered with their respective attendant gritty shards; screams and shrieks, not mine; then nothing; no sound, no sight, no sensation at all except a lone drawn-out whisper, barely audible; “wait…”

For what? For who? I wait, and I wait, and I wait… the spider legs; again; I can't move; a loud piercing shriek, here; right here; I can feel their breath, on my cheek, then my neck, my bare shoulder… and though I can't see I can see, maggots roiling as they are expelled on the swirling tide of effluvial exhalations. Is it a beast? A monster? A demon? Another prisoner? Is it me? Am I trapped above and beneath and beside and behind and beyond my self? Folded and unfolded; stretched and bent and crumpled and warped; unrecognizable, even to me? And again, the whisper…

“Wait…”

I think, for when. I think I am meant to wait for me to once again flow with when. Somehow we got crossways. And here I am; in all my confusion and uncertainty and nightmares and fears; alone, yet surrounded; everything and nothing; never and always.

“Wait…”

Here we go; again; buffeted about, hard against what feels like the knots and bark of a tree; no a stump; a huge stump; fingers, palms impaled by ragged needles of wood and tiny splinters as I grab at the top, as I work to pull myself up, as I hold on; try to hold on; but no, I am ripped away; ankles jerked and twisted; pain: physical pain, somewhat comforting; closer to reality; I am tossed aside; giant, booming footsteps, receding; trees falling, broken, splintered, roots and all lifted from beneath, and hurled across the unseen expanse; then stillness; I cannot see, but for the moment I have control of my movement. As I carefully thread my way through the bleakness and blackness of the strewn and fallen forest, I hear someone following. Not the giant, booming footsteps. No, this is stealth; following; stalking; surreptitious, but unafraid; wanting me to know I'm being followed; mimicking; echoing; playing; teasing.

Out of the forest. Again I am floating; eyes still on me; teetering; fingers of gravity tickling, poking, pinching, tugging. Strobing light, then flashes; mirrors reflecting unbearable brightness that then softens leaving momentary images; mostly shapes; the light stays dimmed; the shapes resolve, maintain definition; circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, triangles; some trapezoids, hexagons, octagons, pentagons, and the occasional slight-angled rhombus; all moving, circling, dancing dizzyingly fast and agonizingly slow. An oval enlarges and approaches stretching its ends and it’s sides to hover over my length and breadth; a rectangle does the same beneath me; they come together; a cocoon; a womb; at first warm, comfortable; then texture, like an egg carton; then it hardens, roughens, like a rocky shore; coming together; squeezing; crunching; I feel smaller bones give; fingers; in my hands; my feet; then an arm; my lower leg, splintered.

I am released. Pain. So much pain. As badly as I want to, I am unable to pass out. Still floating, in the mirrors; all the mirrors; odd angles; oblique, warped, impenetrable, yet sharp and clear. More images, this time in the mirrors; this time people; people I don't know who are familiar; people in pain, in fear, in despair; grimacing, flailing, catatonic, sobbing, screaming, withdrawing, trembling, reaching; people alone.

Again, the whisper…

“Wait…”

Pain. So much pain. I look at my arm, just above the break. A single pore, enlarged like it had just been emptied of pus, begins to weep, blood; thick, viscous crimson; it widens, edges almost imperceptibly folding back, pushed back by the slick, shiny head of a hairless grey grub; it plops out making its way down my arm; then another; and another; horrified, I can't not watch; then a long, slender, black antenna comes feeling its way out; no, not an antenna; a leg; a spider leg; they come pouring out; ten; twenty; I finally pass out.

When I come to, the spiders are gone; the pore is closed; the pain, still unbearable but obviously not as I continue to bear it. Disoriented; I see my reflection; my reflections; or is that me? Am I the reflection? The mirrors are gone; the reflections remain; but it's not me; it's the others; their screams, their shrieks; their heaving chests and stricken looks; coming from them; it can't be me; I can't be me; I can't be here.

I find a way in; or out; I find a way away; a pore I can slither through; my hands and one arm reaching up and out, or in; one arm hanging limply by my side; my shoulders, pushing through; being pushed through; insistent; like birthing myself. Will I find when? Will I reconnect? Pain. So much pain; but finally I am through; breathing hard; hurting; afraid. I look around and there, above me; another pore. I lay back, resigned to, (Oh My God!), resigned to wait… Is this what the whisper means? If I go back? …I can't go back. If I move ahead? Through the new pore? Will I just find another? And on and on? But what if the next endeavor leads to when? More work; more pain; more fear and despair, yes; but I am compelled…

…I have come to believe that when, as I thought it was, is a myth. Five times, I have crawled through; onward and upward. Five times I have emerged into very similar barren, desolate, red splotchy tomb-like enclosures, with walls, floor and ceiling like hard rubber; just a little give and only a single beacon centered above me; a small, crusty, uninviting hole, inviting me to crawl through; encouraging me; even pushing me.

“Wait…”

I wait. And for the longest time, nothing. Still, I wait. …nothing. Still, I wait. …still, nothing. Wait! Something! I can move my hands and feet with less pain! I wait. My broken arm; coming around. I wait. If healing is what this is, my leg is healing badly; but even there, progress. In the thrall of this wait, all other bodily functions, (eating, excreting, even sleeping), have ceased to matter. It seems only pain has been able to carry its load. But this is something; a connection; a bit of flow; a small anchor tying me to when; a before, an after; not alone and surrounded, and everything and nothing, and never and always, all at once. Order? Control? Hope? I find the strength to pull myself through the opening above. I emerge…

…to shadows and mirrors and mist and ever-changing gravity…

I am poor and ugly. Power does not understand or forgive poor and ugly.

• Poor is the opposite of wealth.
• Poor is the opposite of power.
• Poor is anyone who struggles daily for comfort.
• Poor is anyone who struggles daily to be heard.
• Poor is anyone who expects little and/or receives less.
• Poor is anyone faced with a dearth of opportunity.
• Ugly is anyone who looks less than ideal.
• Ugly is anyone who believes differently.
• Ugly is anyone who is uninteresting.
• Ugly is anyone who is inconsequential.
• Ugly is anyone who questions or challenges the status quo.
• Ugly is anyone who must be tolerated; thus undervalued and treated with contempt.
• Ugly is anyone who is poor.

I am poor and ugly. At first I thought to make the case that every one of us is poor and ugly. And that case could be made in that no one person is all of everything in every circumstance. And I can even understand, though not completely, how one who is entitled might believe they are all that, but what I cannot understand is how one who is poor and ugly, and is treated as such, and should recognize the fact, can believe they are entitled to treat another with contempt; to undervalue and compel and divide and dismiss in favor of the status quo; in favor of the entitled.

This week I saw a personalized license plate, on a big green Hummer, that said TOARMS. In addition there was an infowars.com sticker in the back window. This brazen “summons to engage in active hostilities” is someone struggling, going to great lengths, to be heard. He (like me) is also challenging the status quo. Together we are poor and ugly. The difference is, though he challenges the status quo, I believe his methods will only serve to maintain the status quo. His efforts, his struggle, will serve the wealthy, the powerful, the entitled. And he believes that screaming (as he does) at the top of his lungs is the same as being heard. And he believes this makes him consequential. I ask for reason. I ask for change. I ask for Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Justice. I ask for urgency. But because “To Arms” compels and creates a greater sense of urgency than my quiet call for synergistic improvement, I am not heard. The vocal majority is moved by urgency, caught up in the divisive frenzy created by the rich and powerful. Today's vocal majority is made up of agitated, anxious, fearful, jittery individuals not paying enough attention to see that they (like me) are also poor and ugly. And to call for active hostilities, to arm jittery hands, (to me) does not feel like a good idea.