Story - Sisterhood of Havistal

[bill512]

Prolog

"What am I looking at here?" "Havistal dig. 1987. That's Dr. Biggs." "Who's the lady?" "His assistant. Um ... Laura Tripps. And that grey haired old lady is Leela." "Real looker." "Not bad for thirty thousand years old, if you ask me." Brad got up close to the monitor. "What is that? A tomb?" "We don't know. It might be some kind of dungeon. Torture chamber. Something like that. And that ..." Jeremy hit the pause button on his remote. "That my friend, is why you're here." "A fossil?" "An imprint." "Looks like a snake." "That's what we thought too. It's a tentacle of some kind. It's Leela's." "What?" "Leela wasn't human." "Sure looks human to me." "Nope. We got this in from London." Jeremy handed him a piece of paper. "DNA sample." "How'd you get a DNA sample off of a thirty thousand year old woman?" "Not important. What's important is that her DNA isn't base four, and we want you to reconstruct her."

The two walked out together and talked about the dig. Brad was a manager of a private software firm that specialized in virtual reality biological simulations. Almost anything could be simulated on a computer. Their software mimiced the intricacies of just about every known aspect of biologics. From virus infection to species migration. Their offices housed some of the most high powered computer horsepower in the world. But it was the software that made Brad's company truly unique. Expert Systems was a method of AI or Artificial Intelligence that utilized some of the best minds in the world, and stored their expertise in massive databases for computerized reference. A primative but effective scientific form of AI based strictly on data reference. Specifically suited to scientific research, without the classy, and user friendly interface redundancies that drained electronic resources and time. It was smart but not marketable, because it couldn't be read by anyone other than Brad and those who worked for him. One might think that intentional if one didn't place a value on CPU cycles. Jeremy was an unknown. He wouldn't tell Brad who he worked for, or what he specialized in. He only had the information and cash. And that was enough for Brad. No questions asked.

The two of them walked down that dark lonely city street. Two experts who, combined, probably out whitted most businesses of the world. The meeting of two of the smartest and most secretive minds. A rare enough thing by luck of pride alone. But what they conspired together was about to change the world. For better or for worse, they were about to discover an ancient secret that for many thousands of years no one ever knew. And uncover something so lucrative, so alive, so exotic, and so evil, that no one's lives on all the globe would ever be the same again. The Sisterhood of Havistal.

[Logan]

I like it so far. Keep it up!

[bill512]

Matched

I used to think myself a matchmaker. Now that I'm older and wiser, I recognize what a foolish endeavor that is. No man or woman is capable of joining together two people as idly and as casually as if it were a matching pair of socks. Things are far more complicated than that. Even if it were fun and for that never ending persuit of love and happiness that one might think makes the world go round. Some kind of pretentious philanthropist of the fuck. The very notion that two people's relationships, a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or whatever, is within your power to effect is itself a slap in the face of God. Leave them be, I implore you. For you can not know what it is you do.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" "Excuse me?" "I said it's beautiful. The ocean." "Oh." Tracy was leaning on that ferry's railing. She was fast at sea. Gulls followed her wake behind her. And in her belly sat a half dozen cars. She and another were the only access to the island. On this beautiful day most everyone was empty. Their occupants enjoyed the fresh salt air on it's tar deck. "Yes it is." "You're Tracy, aren't you?" "How did you know that?" "Margaret sent me."

Tracy Ulrich was a sad, dark haired, slightly overweight blue eyed Paralegal in search of happiness. Like all of us, her predicaments didn't fall within the social structure's definitions of normality. And the only solution was some high priced pill, and, and or, cosmetic reconstructive surgery. She looked normal enough standing there, admiring the fresh bubbling of the sea. But doctors all over the country wanted to put her under the knife. And treat the onset of a seemingly relentless state of depression and helplessness with neural adjunct. "Strange." "Why do you say that?" "I never told Magaret how I looked." Steve laughed.

"You're very unhappy, Tracy." And she snapped back from her railing. Maybe it was a bad idea. Bad indeed. "Don't get upset." And Steve, a rather short and dark man wearing a Yankee baseball cap and blue gean jacket and pants as quickly looked away, back out to that wonderous view. The humor on his face gone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." "But you did."

Thank goodness she didn't do the smart thing right then and there. Thank goodness she didn't walk away and take that long boat ride back to the mainland, forgetting the whole idea. I'd be out of a story. But she'd be back to her own square one. Her own sexually deprived predicament that left her on the verge of some kind of madness. An Equinox. A turning point. She'd have finally ended her relentless shadow pursuit of something imagined and phony, and simply either accepted her circumstances, or gone crazy. She leaned back on her warmed section of uncomfortable steel along side the strangely sentimental dude with the baseball cap. "Is Margaret far?" "The other side of the island. It's a pretty difficult drive. If you like, you can leave your car by the port and we can take my pickup." "I'm driving that." And she pointed to an old, jacked up Jeep Renegade that had month old mud splashed on its sides. "Ah!" And Steve forced out another humorous smile which Tracy returned.

"Maybe I should go with you." And for the first time on that beautifully warm day, Tracy laughed. Beautiful white teeth hidden behind a saddened mask that all but disappeared. Her face seemed a metamorphasis. Instantaneous. Dark and light. There was a woman underneath her after all.

[bill512]

Mechanized Moan

A lawnmower engine has nine horsepower. That's nine horses. You know how strong nine horses is? Strong. Now try the lightly compact and uncomfortable ride of a poor man's automobile: ten times that. Not to mention what the greasy lipped forever whiney and spoiled prick drives with his ten times that, on his cushy ass. But as a computer programmer, I know not of any program I can write that a twenty year old computer can't do. I am neither capable, nor mercifully minded enough to think myself able to need more horsepower than that. But this was not ten times, and not a hundred times that. Not even a thousand times more than that, yesterday. Brad Laramy's high speed liquid cooled superconducting computers produced a somewhat noticable mechanized moan. What they were being asked to do was the unachievable. A reconstruction of an organism not of this earth. A woman. A Leela. And the mighty stallion objected, and threatened to buck Brad's butt back over the railing, deadline or none.

"John ... yah. How much resources you need for your stem cell thing? How much? Dude ... no. Listen! I gotta take it away from you for a little while ... how the fuck am I supposed to know how long? ... twenty four hours, ok? Yah!" Brad slammed down his office phone. "Jesus Christ! You'd think I was asking him to hack off a limb!" "Computers can't do it, Brad." "Bullshit! They can!" "Brad, the gene is too complicated. Look! The thing is monstrous!" "I don't fucking care. I don't care if you've gotta shut down all the other operations. Get this fucking job done!" "You can't be serious." "You're fired! Get the fuck out of my office. Get the fuck out of my building!"

[bill512]

Do you guys like this story? It gets pretty raunchy.