Stranger Overload

By Tessa L. Whellord

Two heroines grapple with their own history and the ominous spread of a far-reaching power-drain in at least two known universes. Lona, acyborg T-9 stumbles from one misadventure to the next, the Mia, a highly evolved member of a series fights her way out of imrisonment on her home planet. And then there is Leri...
Anyone wishing to dream with the machines is invited on a light-speed journey into the far reaches of space and the workings of borg neuronia as well as the age old struggle between the sexes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504994354

Tessa L. Whellord

Born in South Africa, Tessa Whellord travelled extensively to grapple with changes taking place in our world. Questions such as "do machines feel?" " will there ever be a concensus on the ethical handling of techniques such as cloning and genetic modification?" were largely inspired by films and literature as well as the amazing developments in the field of science we see taking place now. In keeping with the eastern philosophy that all matter is consciousness, she took the subsequent ideas a step further to illustrate that we humans are only a small part of an infinitely complex dance of particles. There is more to existence than we have dreamed!

Book preview

AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2016 Natalie Decker. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse    03/15/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9436-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9437-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9435-4 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

List of thanks

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Marianne N.

Chapter 1

OVERLOAD

Sometimes, fear robs us of our motivation in such a way, it begins to control us totally. The right course of action seems blocked and aberrant experiences are attracted, so that more negativity follows: guilt, confusion, more fear. This in turn promotes outcomes, which the subject in the grip of this vice, would not normally favour, as these outcomes tend to be painful and or destructive. Like here, where the inner logic seems impaired, resilience is lowered and the ability of discernment clouded over. As so often, when we lose sight of the golden mean, it is the extremes which become our focus, and I fear, neither machines nor humans are made for these kinds of extremes. In this case, it is a trauma of some sort, in the subject´s past, which is overriding her ability to live a fulfilled and even happy present."

In other word, she panicked, Gram conceded tiredly.

Quite right! The psyborg affirmed, whilst viewing some faults in Lona´s program, displayed on the walls holo-board. Gram leaned back in his chair. The mosaic on the board pulsed softly. Every once in a while, one digi-pic traded places with the next: Lona´s sensorium, or at least a small part of it, was all they had to go by in the Numa-tenth ( six days of the two –moon phases) she had been missing this time.

Latent dorsal activity – a secondary reaction of the of T9´s stream of consciousness. The material on this disc is bound to the body through a complex pattern of electro-magnetic and biochemical reactions that continue in her absence. The patterns react to her as to a conducting ray.

Would it be possible to determine the position of – of the subject? Gram asked, hope welling briefly in his heart.

Not really. Current detectors are not sophisticated enough to pick up on such low frequencies and biochemical scans would just lead us around in circles as they react to all Impulses of Borg from our subjects series. No, communication here works more along the lines of empathy. Call it magic, if you want to. The strange little borg burst into mad cackling and turned his attention back to the Optivisor scan*.

Faces, gliders*, long shots of Halogen-lit landing sites, neon pointers at strange angles- tired, Gram thought. She must have been tired…He closed his eyes, trying to summon her picture- her grey protective skin and green poly-fibre hair, cropped short above her grey eyes. She would hate this, being searched out like this, he thought to himself and just then, it seemed he could hear her voice. He looked around but beside the borg and the machines, bathed in the small light of the evening that entered through the skylight, the machines hum filling the air, all was still inside his office. The doctor, cowering over his results seemed to have heard nothing. Don´t waste your time on me, Gram.

It WAS Lona! I meant it then, and I mean it now. But I am beginning to understand your concern and I thank you! By the way, the Comission has let me off even though they must have noticed that I had the source-code removed on purpose. But in Lieu of their own mistaken line of investigation, they let me go. I´m a free girl, Gram, well, almost. In case you are wondering about this contact, just question the common denominator- A soft laugh filled the air and then- Lona, wait! He called. Where are you? The humming of the monitors remained his only reply and F.R. Udi the psyborg fixed a curious gaze on him. Did you say something my friend? Gram had jumped to his feet and now he paced the room, perplexed. No, it´s nothing.

If this sort of thing continued, he would have to consult a Psy about his own faculties. How long had he been pent up in this office, going over hundreds of consciousness-discs? He had not even returned to his quarters, for fear of having overlooked some result in this mystery. The Committee was awaiting answers, the Codex needed a solid foundation, in order to be voted in: fugitive Borg that gallivanted short-circuited in all directions of the heavens, following a calling only they could hear, were not very trust-inspiring even to the section AI.

The Committee…a great burden lifted off his shoulders when he realized, that with the information he had on Lona alone, the whole medical board could be called on to delegate this case of delusion. A good dose of exorcism for all and everyone, he thought , to oust the techno-demons which installed themselves on the highways and byways of borg neuronia.

May I ask how you came by the material now displayed on the screen? the doctor piped up from behind the wire-netting fixing his opti-scans into place. It was sent to me, following a neuronal collapse of the 7th order synaptic source. A cleaner of the C-Sector brought it here via a Guernian outpost. These Guern sure don´t take any prisoners, the doctor observed dryly. Oh, but they do. Their war-machinery demands for a constant stream of Intelligence which they tamper with, with the usual methods of intimidation…the Borg are ideal victims. Their memory-patterns are impregnated with a diversity of recycled materials. It´s a damn shame, because the Guern understand like no other race, how to thwart such karmic binds. Instead of grounding their consciousness once they have the Borg in their power, instating in them the idea, that they too are a part of an ecologically sound cycle, they just intensify the guilt built into the chip components. The older Borg-models often live with the sensation of contributing to an increasing environmental catastrophe. Their natural respect for the cyclical nature of life, leads them to worry about the fate and behaviour of their parts once their ghost has exited- even when they are very much alive. In some, this manifests in complex neurosis; impaired functioning in the simpler models.

As within, so without.

Exactly.

Chapter 2

Botto had been a great help to him, almost right from the start. He did not count the early phase (acclimatization, readjustment, the technician had assured him) in which the personal robot had spouted nothing but gibberish.

Leri was young, when T´mara presented the robot to him with much hoo-ha and further ado, still a few phases away from growing beard-hair.

You´re too old now for a nanny, she scolded him (everything she ever said to him when she was with him on private terms, seldom enough, was a rebuke.) She did not speak of his lewdness as he had heard the previous child-minder call him peeking on her in the bath, nor did she mention his never-ending barrage of nanny-sabotage. Pissing in their shoes, unravelling their uniforms, bringing home spiders…As he felt like an alien life-form himself, the change to being minded by an AI was relieving to say the least.

So on day one of their friendship, the two of them had sat in his sparsely furnished bungalow as his companion beeped and farted bit-speak. Little by little the adjustments had taken place and his PB (Personal Bot) had eased into a most pleasing mode. He teased Leri about his early escapades and unlike the BioFems, he TAUGHT him. He taught him basic, sensible things such as numbers and programming, but to Leri, the most wonderful thing of all, was that his Bot knew stories about life in the city*. He knew stories about insurgent women who shunned the monthly edicts and drove-whirrobiles to the Inlands only to return phases later with wild tales of other races and wild animals inhabiting the island. The robot was one of the few beings on Ajaxa who kept track of the Laws laid down by T´mara and in dull phases when Leri had no acting appointments and all other subjects were depleted and or both of them felt particularly driven to anger by the boredom of their seclusion, the picked apart these contradictions. Leri became a well-versed student of Ajai lifestyle and Botto- well, Botto was just glad to be in his company, away from the grind of some production line where his capacities were kept one-sided and numbed.

The first time Leri ever stood up against one of T´Mara´s assistants role-calls was in her much dreaded fairy-tale phase. (She borrowed heavily from Intergalactic block-busters to which no-one, really no one on Ajaxa could relate: flying ships and Guns and Phasers and the heroines were plastic and ALWAYS wound up saving HIM; the beaten man-child from doom. The plots were wildly unlikely and highly predictable at the same time; and boring but T´mara revelled in the subject and firmly believed that she was creating a kind of folklore for the destitute women on the island.)

The plot of this particular Forging* which was set in one of the many abandoned high-rises that were built with some kind of surplus that had run out before they could be finished, went something like this: the son (Leri) of a Organe*magnate (Mara, played by an old crony friend of hers) is plagued by nightmares and so every night he is told by a voice therein, to descend into the cellar of his building to find the cause. The cause for his anxiety is also the cause of a terrible drought that has befallen the mythical country Oleinne. Every night he tries but he can only ever reach one floor below him before he is set on by some terrible creature or an illusion that nearly robs him of his senses. On every floor (23 in all!) he is saved by a heroine (who is then dismissed from the set, the project and the payroll) and he admits in introspection that he is a useless earthworm.

Bored and disheartened, Leri returned to his trailer each night and it was only Botto´s wry comments that kept him sane. Funny she should find it authentic to tell the story in such a way – one would think her own flesh and blood could never be as fallable… The following day would see him battle some mummies unsuccessfully until being rescued once more by heroine number eight. Leri was close to abandoning the Studio Complex but here Botto suddenly became stern- something he never did with Leri- his tone was always light and friendly. You will not run away. It is not the time now. You will be greatful for all experiences to come from here till a time designated. Surprised, Leri tried to question his personal Robot but nothing else passed its sound slit and he was unusually quiet and stern for the remainder of the evening.

The next day was windy. The sun was already high in a cloudless sky, when Leri, he who would not run away, leaned against the windowless wall of a production hall, took his personal time-out. Botto would not begrudge him this, and he needed to think. At his feet, white-washed cement sloped gently into the sea. Women were not allowed to bathe in its glittering waves (SHE probably thought that they would make away, swimming to The Land of Men, Omox0)

And considering the amount of refuse the two continents dumped in its vastness, that was probably not such a bad idea, staying out of its riveting blue. THE SEPARATION: that was how the balance was kept. After the Great Plague, a time in an uncertain past when women had born ailing babies and the Species was on the brink of decay, one great Man (in the Omoi version) had ordered the banishment of all women to an island not one thousand miles long and half that distance in width. Only the guarded exchange of egg-cells, sperm and technology had since taken place, far away from either nation, on high seas, under quarantine.

In T´Mara´s version, the women had left in order to escape the insolence and brutality of men. And their disease. And their general impotence. She had made herself empress of a bedraggled lot, living off what fruit and vegetation the narrow coastal strip yielded (too afraid to venture far into the thick of the jungle inland, where it rained incessantly and wild animals lived). As she had forced trade, black-mailing and wheedling the Omoi Trade Comission there had been some improvements in Ajai. At least in the city. At least for some of the women. This was the general mantra of those not too badly off, mainly those who surrounded Leri in his daily struggle with the InstaForge Production and these were many as the Pictures were the only industry she invested heavily in. There was everything: Ajaxa was… the pictures what a lovely name for a technology that used invasive surgery to pound its message home*.

But now he was captivated by another thing. The preparations for the next scene had taken place earlier, when he had played up against nothing, another trick to be digitized by the drones, and he had been about to be led off by Storey Time Maintanance/Stream, when he had noticed the set being built for the next challenge. Something in the usual bustle in the great hall had changed. It was, as though a whisper, a soft glow, was reaching out to him. Fazed, he had shrugged off Maintenance and he had almost reached the silvery coffin in which the heroine of platform 16 was to remain in stasis until she could free herself. (The hall imitated a room in the highrise, where only the external takes were being forged. It was, by the way of the story, partly transformed into a holding –deck of a spaceship- all life support-system fakes and sub-zero temperatures mimicked by dry ice and blue tints on the walls.). The glass of the Stasis-Tank was not yet in his view, but he sensed her there, a figure, getting into her role as ordered by Directions. Who is that? he managed to ask, as the Maintenance scooted up to him, very annoyed to have to remind him of Scene-preparation protocol: no actors on the set but those going through briefing. He opted for an unauthorized break. Now the seagulls were circling overhead and he was sighing with contentment, because, come rain or high water, he would SEE the wonderful girl in that silly sarcophagus and that would be…he wasn´t exactly sure, what, but I would differ radically from any meetings he had had in the past.

GLOSSARY

city: capital of Ajaxa, Tessar, also known as Produxa City.

Forgings: entra-vid recordings done on splendid sets in the studios. Entra-vids are audio-visual recordings that can be viewed on small or large screens. Intra-vids however are a whole different story.

Organe: a shimmering element that is needed in Torcan stabilization. Torcan in turn stabilizes fusion drives in slow propulsion.

The pictures: fond term for the images cast in the forgings. The pictures are Ajaxas only export and thus the basis for its economy. There is so much lore around the production and distribution of these somewhat dubious works of art, that they can easily be mistaken for a sort of culture in a place where the greatest part of the population suffer from harsh conditions off living.

Chapter 3

P´ALMA

Back on the set, Dockermusic was pounding along to the build up. The Lumix drone was running a lighting-check. Leri wondered briefly how Sulein had got by the bow of this particular sonata. Probably some palm-crossing, in an obscure embarking-point in a small star-cluster none of them would ever see. 29 seconds, the Lumix was done, he took his place by the plexi-coffin and waited for his cue. As the music rose, a harmony of sweet intensity, he bowed over and saw her face, pale with the shadow of her lashes like moths on her white cheeks. Her mouth, a petal of a succulent flower held back the mirth he could feel radiating from her at the sheer ridicule of their scene. Her body flowed, delicately beneath the gauze of her suit and he detected the hint of the darkness the aureoles around her nipples betrayed through the fabric. He did not think he could go on, but somehow they evolved through the farsical dialogue (are you okay) and the ensuing action to the point when Sulein final called Finish! and they were alone in the wings.

For once, oh Goddess, he escaped scrutiny from the ever-present docu-forge drones that roamed to keep track of him. Not for long but long enough for him to lose his heart. And his head. She extended her hand to him. P álma, of the Sitmay Sector. We did allright, all things considered, no? Her laugh was infectious and she did not seem to mind that he was holding on to her hand as though he were drowning. It was small and cool and he thought he had never touched anything so tender. She was telling him about her apprenticeship at a craft-welder´s shop when the inevitable Docu-drone whirred up to his face, followed by an irate assistant. No contact outside the scene, goddammit. What are you, some kind of lecherous man-creature? The shame that normally overcame him at this standard reprimand was annihilated by P´Almas steady gaze from the darkest eyes he had seen. Like the night sky, he sighed to himself and like the night sky, it swallowed up the ugliness of his surroundings. She smiled sadly. Good-by Leri, it was a pleasure working with you! Not goodbye, Alma of my heart, but see you soon. A plan was forming in his mind and he counted on Botto to help him.

Oh no!No!NO! Anything my dear young man, but not that!

You cannot mean that. If you do, then you are on their side!

"I am not on their side but I know what being on their wrong side means!

Do you want to end up with even more surveillance? Do you want to end up in total quarantine? God only knows, what they would do to the girl, if they found out!"

I´ll go without you then, but either way, I am going to Produxa City to meet her and nothing will stop me.

It took Leri another 16th of a phase to convince Botto, that he, Leri, could disguise himself so artfully, no one would ever tell him from a real woman, well, girl, and that he could drive a whirobile to Central Town * from his secluded bungalow in less than it tokk for the numae to shift horizons*.

And back? How will you get back? Suppose the drive runs out or you have to work the next day- and you do, you know! This excremental forge is going to go on for all of a Turning!*

Oh sleep, Botto, really! Who needs sleep when the glorious, the radiant, the one and only Pea is at their side! I shall never sleep again, but look upon her as though the sun itself were gazing at the Numae…

Pea now, is it? And I know for sure where you´ll be gazing and who could but forgive your youth and folly, but don´t you see? It IS folly! So she is beautiful and she looked at you a certain way, but so will many women and you will still be a prisoner of this system. We must figure out a way, to get you OUT of here, so that you can have a life and love and all that but in order to be able to do that, we must be diligent!

Oh, Botto, please not now… Leri nearly cried from the exhaustion of making his case while being torn apart by his desire for the girl P Álma. And he knew all too well, Botto´s ever faithful adherence to the CAUSE. The Cause was what had brought him here, the Cause would further the rights of all beings on Ajaxa. Once the machines were Synchronized and once the right Contact had been established… it was only a question of time until T´mara and her vassals fell.

(In the nights, filled by the roar of an angry sea, or the hush of a sedate one, as the Numae shone their benevolent light onto his bed, he could hear Botto, sitting still in a corner, running checks for Ai, tuning himself, then sending out quiet transmissions that sounded like electronic songs, lulling him into sleep…)But now he did not care about revolution or the ever-boring dictates of his so called mother- he cared simply and solely for Alma.

It was a lull in Botto´s peaceful revolution (no signals came and he grew restless) that finally led him to consider. You´ll go, but only if you let me come along. I will be there the whole time and as long as I deem safe only.

Leri hardly dared to speak for the sheer joy of it all. He would see the love of his life! They would be together, in nighttime Produxa City, just like anyone else! Oh they would drink and laugh and maybe- You will not touch her. Leri swallowed this. You know what the grapevine is like down there. She probably has a million guardians and we MUSTBE CAREFUL. A pretty young thing like yourself, whom no one will know and recognize… Botto sank to the ground, just thinking about the sheer impossibility of their endeavour but it was Leri´s blazing insistence that drove them along to the fateful night of the meeting.

******************************

Soaring, from the flurry of the final days´ forgings, knowing he would be free to walk through the craggy beauty of the cliffs, to read and speak to Botto and to stay up nights, sitting on the roof of his bungalow, Leri entered into the night of his meeting with P´Alma triumphant. Botto had become more and more silent, withdrawing to some far corner of the house at night. He is making arrangements, he is speaking to her now Goddess! The music would be loud in Chinmay-town, and the lights would be dim. PÁlma would hold him close and whisper secrets only she knew to him and they would enjoy the nightlife. Hell- he did´t care if she whispered sums or lithurgical prayers to the Okiniwian Race, as long as he could look at her, feel her near…

The dress-up was efficient and professional- he had hoarded powder and blush and a luxurious aubourn wig as well as a simple suit he donned now. He did not stop talking, asking questions which Botto answered tersely and the drive down the coastal road felt like freedom. Slow down, Botto finally piped up from in between his arms. Leri looked down at Bott´s square head in exasperation. What now, dear friend, what now? Leri, not- not everything will be as you expected in Chimay Town. All the merriment all the dancing and secret meetings… What, they were lies you fabricated to amuse me?

No, not lies, just a thing of the past, it would seem. There have been incidents that- Oh Botto, in this city there are always incidents! Leri declared merrily and speeded the whirobiles engine. Whatever his friend had to say was lost to its sound and the wind but even Leri, poor exilant man-child, had to admit that there was an ominous silence settling over the skyline of Produxa City. The fabrics did not emit their periodic alarms, nor was there much traffic on the roads and the cone-shaped dwellings of the produxas did not emit their usual golden lights but lay, against the moons light like ancient pylons of doom. They drove on into Middle City, through the tradespersons bazaar district of Zittya and Limaer. His spirits sank. It was true, there was no music or dancing in front of the shops, even in Chimoy, just the sickly flicker of the IntraPorts*, of which there were many. Countless, it seemed to Leri. Only a few bedraggled figures stumbled past them, hollow-eyed and in a hurry.

As yet, it was early. They hung around street corners, drifting a bit. Botto took him aside and fixed him up a bit. once, you were nothing but the victim of that woman who, undeservedly calls herself your mother. It´s taken a while, but now you feel your heart beating. A heart I always knew was (here he looked aside and did a kind of sneeze-thing that he always vented when he was upset) infinitaley richer than these women will credit you with. Please remember that I will be one street away, waiting by the whirrobile. Where? Where" Leri was electric and Botto directed them to a particularly crowded part of Chimoys, stalls and boarded shops spilling over onto the cobbled road.

Here, Botto rasped finally and Leri pulled the ´bile to a stop outside a ramshackle two-storey whose iron bells and tinker-toy decorations could have been merry, had they not looked then, like the innards of some iron beast spilled over into the realm of the women. Here? It was here he would meet the most delicate of all flowers? And when he saw her, her face looked drawn. All the merriment seemed gone from her eyes as she nervously pulled him into the shadow of the shop´s awning. You should never have come. But I am here, and soon we will be together. You can come to my house on the Cliffside and… He had looked around, dazed. He had envisioned a crowd of Mid City merry folk, sitting in the opened shops, talking and music and now there was no one and his love was sad beyond belief. He felt a small but infinititely supporting awning of his own mind collapse under the weight of this discrepancy between expectation and reality. Let´s drink something. Come on, what is it this season? A Stardust slight? A Zoiros? We can sing, if there´s no music! And he broke into a shrill rendition of a shanty he had heard on Botto´s transmitter. Sh, please don´t. I must tell you…some things She broke off lamely and looked to Botto for help. He raised his grips as if in surrender and she pulled him inside. The machines- there has been a mistake. One of the Distributers picked up on a Common Stream and – She continued to talk but it was as though Leri himself had turned into a machine that, geared to one end, could not now calculate, much less comprehend, what this new vein was, in which all those around him (save for the Produxas who only ever talked about the fabrication of lies) were acting. Somewhere deep in his neo-cortex a sure and burning rage was beginning its ascent: it was Bott´s fault- he had done this to P´Alma, talking his nonsense about the Cause and the rise of the machines. Yes! Had he not been an incoherent driveller of bit-mess when they first met? It had never changed ! He had been defective all along. No, Alma (don´t call me that!) please listen to me! This is all an illusion! What do we care about what some machine or other has to say? He gripped her arm and she struggled, crying now. Machine? DO you think this is only about them? It´s my sisters who are dying, havn´t you been listening? The Intras have turned toxic and T´Mara won´t abate in her phase-plans! We are all forced to go in, but some of us don´t return, not really! She tore herself loose and ran, ran down the narrow alley and he tried to follow her but he lost her at the first turning amid a mess of low awnings and narrow lanes obstructed by water-collecting canisters and techno-junk. Aaaalmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! He shouted. He tore off his wig, crying and his deep voice resonated eerily in this maze that was Mid City Chimoy. A few lanterns came on and lo and behold, there were women there, just not where he had expected them. They peered out from behind the gratings to cellars and from thatched roofs, they cowered behind antennae and on the darkest of corners. Slowly, a tumult was forming, as more of them recognized him to be the impersonator of their more harmless duty: the consumption of Intratainment Forgings.

Glossary

Central town: market district

Numae… shift: the two moons cross each other only once in a sixteenth of a solar phase (about 20 days) but their wanderings on a full moon night, they can be observed to drift apart in about one terran hour.

Turning: also knowen as a full rotation. As there are no real seasons on Ajaxa, this 10 month period is marked by various traditions.

Produxas: the Dictatress´s henchwomen who orchestrate the inflow of digits inot the infrastructure of Tessar and who are also T´Mara´s creative advisors in the production of new Vids.

Intras: Intra-Vid technology, once a test-ground for neuronal stimulation, the in-neuron entertainment has become the staple diet of all Tessar natives. It is prerequisite for earning digits; all women of the working caste are obliged to fullfill their weekly, daily or twice daily stint hooked in.

Chapter 4

FYNCH

For a while, she had indulged in her new hobby: making her own nutrition, she had come across some negligent labelling on industry–made cyborg-grub- it seemed, not all nutrients were really as highly provided for, as the labelling read. It was a nice break, to be away from the heavy-duty machinery for a while, puttering around with Bunsen burners and scales. At the same time, she was finding out interesting things about the chemical composite known as Glam. (Recordings of her research would take too much space; the material can however be sighted under .%§ ;° = /%&).

Business was going fine, her regulars visited the shop and when they were not too strung out or wasted, actually told her some interesting things. For example that Genentech, her adversaries, were recruiting Glam addicts under the pretence of healing