Blood and Profit page 71

Kepi couldn't sleep. She, Eamon, Mew, and the rest of the senate were aboard the lead cruiser. Ship one of five hundred in pod one of one hundred, in group one of one hundred and twenty-seven.

She had helped design every step of the planned exodus. Each group of five hundred ships was broken down into pods of five ships. There were one hundred pods per group and one hundred and twenty-seven groups. The staging area for entrance into the slip was over fifteen miles long. They had worked out a staggered pod spacing to give each ship as much space as possible. With an estimated launch cycle of seven minutes per five hundred ships it would take just shy of seventeen hours to get every ship into the stream. And that was if everything went perfectly.

It was going to be a long day and Kepi couldn't sleep. It bothered her that she had seen every phase of this plan through from the beginning but now she would at the last and most important minute, when everything could go wrong, be on the first ship out.

She couldn't shake the feeling that she was running away from her responsibilities.

The logical part of her mind reminded her that her next responsibility was on the other end of the slip. Some unknowable time and distance away and into the future. She was among those who would be expected to pave the way for the colony's arrival, if they even lived long enough to get there, if there was even a 'there' to get to.

Fear gripped her stomach by the throat and flipped it violently. She shot out of her bunk and into the bathroom.

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It wasn't much longer before the evacuation plans fell apart. The colony was ready to go long before their estimated evacuation date, apparently the population more than believed their lives were in danger and found efficiency to be a very useful survival tool. They had also collected enough data from their network of Satellites to confirm the speed and width of the wave. It would blanket the sky in less than eight months. This wasn't a problem for the human population who had successfully tested the ring and was ready to travel through it. But the Starseed's tree was not yet ready and based on its growth rate, they would be cutting their evacuation very, very close.

The Starseeds sent a representative to the colony senate, the representative urged the humans to leave while they could and assured them that the Starseed population would take care of itself. Their collective consciousness had covered almost half the planet in inky darkness and the sooner the humans had gone the sooner they would have less territory to defend from their own thoughts.

The senate discussed for nearly a day. In the end they voted to leave ahead of schedule. By the end of the week, they would abandon their colony.

Mew and Eamon went home for the last time expecting their father to be in sour spirits, just as they were. But he turned out to be just the opposite. He was ecstatic. He met them at the front door smiling ear to ear. "Come in, Come in!" He ushered them in and shut the door behind them.

"Why are you so happy?" Eamon asked.

Their father sat them at the dining room table and pulled a box out from under the table. "My children are going to outlive me." He pulled the top of the box off to reveal freshly printed books. "And I have finished my life's work." His eyes gleamed as he picked up a copy and handed one to each of his kids. "Not a moment too soon I might add." He laughed at his own morbid joke.

"Dad that's not funny." Mew glared at him. Eamon opened the front cover of his book and his father stopped him. "Don't read them till you've gone through the ring." He demanded. "I want this to be the way you remember me, horrible sentence structure and all." His smile softened.

Eamon closed his book slowly and Mew looked like she was about to shatter into a million pieces. She leaned over and hugged him tightly, crying quietly into his shirt. Eamon gave up, stood up, walked over and hugged his father as well. It was the most affection his kids had ever shown him and it made him smile. "You two best not wear yourselves out. We still have to say good bye later tonight."

Mew squeezed him hard enough to make him groan.

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Mew had flown a lot of ships in her lifetime. From civilian cruisers all the way up to vehicle haulers. She had never flown the ship she found 'out back'. A vintage Shenear Luxury CT4. One of the most sought after space legal vehicles on the planet.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called Ling.

"I know right?" Ling answered.

"Ling, I used to dream about this Shenear CT4 and you guys want me to use it for an errand?" She almost shouted.

"It's a ship!" The professor shouted. "We needed a ship, now get in the ship, and go confirm our tests at the ring, please!" He yelled.

She could hear Ling walk out into the hallway away from the lab. "He really doesn't care about it, I honestly don't even know where he got it." She said before she ended the call.

Mew used the keys to open the door and it slid open in total silence. not even the hint of a compressor hiss or a gear spinning. She carefully stepped inside and marveled at the incredible hand done interior leather. She ran her hands along the mid wall seam as she stepped into the pilot bay. Sitting in the chair was like sitting in a cloud that was made specifically for her. After three minutes of just enjoying the experience of sitting in the CT4 she couldn't wait any longer and she started the ship. The door closed and the engine roared to life exactly as it had in ever vid she'd ever seen that had a CT4 in it.

It had been years since she thought of flying as anything other than a chore, and now because of this ship she was dreamily making her way off to do legitimate chores. She barely even noticed the almost two hour wait for the pattern to clear so she could safely transfer to orbit around the colony.

Once she was in orbit she took the opportunity to open the engine up and give it some room to run.

She zipped over to the ring at just over 60% of maximum engine thrust and could feel the rest of the ships power silently begging to be set free.

She was reaching for the throttle when the comms chimed. "Hey!" The professor shouted. "Are you there yet?" he asked, clearly frustrated by the waste of several hours.

She pressed a button to open the channel from her side. "Yeah, just got here." She confirmed.

"Good." He calmed down. "Let's get to work" He said almost sounding something close to happy.

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It turned out to be a surprisingly beneficial way to combat time. He was assigned to an indoor protean farm. For the first few days he was fascinated by the watching the system work. His job was to pull the full protean pouches from the grid and replace them with empty sacks. If any tubes gave a pressure alert all he had to do was go to where the tube had turned bright red and either undo the kink or squish out the blockage. Ultimately it was simple, mind numbingly dull work, but the facility had not yet been fully automated and so it required this one bit of human interaction.

Apparently mind numblingly dull repetitive work was what his mind needed to regain its creative drive. By the end of the first week he was a chapter into the only writing he had done in more than five years. His weekend disappeared into delivered food and the constant clacking of his keyboard. His mind only barely gave in to the biological needs of his body and by the time he was due back at work he felt the toll it was taking, but he didn't care. He grabbed a tablet, got dressed and went to work.

And that's how P.H. Turner wrote his final work. using every spare moment he could find while working at a Protean farm helping to create supplies for a journey he would never take.

It was over a month into the draft before his kids could get away to visit him. They had scheduled their breaks so they had two days off together to catch up. Mew arrived home not long after P.H. had gotten home from the farm. She rang the door bell out of politeness but then let herself to find him sitting at the kitchen table, typing like a man possessed, still in his dirty farm clothes. She saw what he was doing and couldn't help but smile. "I was going to ask how you were holding up but considering the fact that your writing again, I'm going to say that things are going slightly more than well." She patted him on the shoulder lightly before walking into the kitchen.

He didn't respond with anything more than a non-committal grunt. She opened the refrigerator and saw that it was nearly empty. "Let me guess, you've been living on takeout and junk food." She sighed. "Dad you could have said something, I would have come by sooner." She whined.

"Uh-huh." He offered, totally absorbed in his writing.

Mew shook her head with a knowing smile. She hadn't seen him like this since she was a teenager and she was happy to see him so absorbed again. "Ok well, I'm going to go shopping for food and things for the weekend, you just keep writing." She said watching his hands blur over the keyboard as he worked.

"Ok honey, you have fun." He offered automatically. She nodded and left the house.

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Time is a fickle and vicious mistress with the sense of humor of a pit viper.

P.H. Turner had never liked time. He had failed as a writer for years due to his inability to manage it. Never having enough when he needed it, or watching it slip through his fingers when he wanted it to freeze forever.

His wife seemed to have completely mastered the manipulation of time. It was only with her help and guidance that he began to publish his writings. Of course she wasn't his wife at first, but he realized on the day he held the first copy of his first book in his hands and couldn't take his eyes off her that she would be someday, all he needed was time.

She was gone now. Her memory was a constant reminder of everything time had robbed him of. Her voice was always there though, organizing and planning out the day, making sure all the proper sacrifices to time were made, even now after all these years, the bills got paid, the chores got done, time was methodically disarmed every day.

And there were the children. They had their own lives now and visited often. At first they moved around the house as if her memory were a piece of furniture that took up too much space. But time played it's little games and she slowly stopped being an oppressive absence and became for a fine layer of memory that coated everything in the house. A layer that wore down a little more each passing day.

He loved watching the children live their lives. They both in their own way had their mother's drive. Neither saw time as the enemy it so clearly was, and for that he was eternally grateful.

Eventually the river of his creativity dried up. Time had wounded him again. Robbing him of his desire to write, while maliciously leaving him alive. Nothing more than a burnt out light bulb fused into its socket unable to be removed. With the children so busy all the time, and his creative drive gone, he was left alone face to face with his oldest and most dedicated enemy.

Then the wave came, riding in on that pit viper smile. The children had plans within plans, and they filled him in with urgency. He cheered them on but told them with absolute certainty that he would be staying behind. He could not leave his wife, and he could not run away from time. It seemed like forever ago but he once again felt eagerness in his blood. He was ready.

But the rest of the world was not. They were short on everything from ships to food and fuel. The announcement of the shortages and the draft turned his eagerness to apprehension and dread. Suddenly there was not enough time and all he could hear was his wife's voice telling him to go, telling him how to use the time he had left.

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Eamon was torn. He had always seen his path so clearly, always known where he wanted to, needed to, and should be. For the first time in his life all three of those places were different. He needed to be in the forest working with the Starseeds and continuing to be their point of contact with the colony. He should be in the capital taking the burden of responsibility off of Kepi's shoulders. And he wanted to be at home with his father if only because now more than ever the realization of how little time they had left together was getting heavier by the day. But Kepi and his Father had both in their own way told him to finish what he started, so he stayed in the forest, even as his heart and mind were elsewhere.

The Starseed library was a success. The dark matter of their collective unconsciousness had to be dissolved several times a day to protect the now gargantuan tree ship. And the books were already being used as a reference. Eamon had to reteach them how to make books twice already. It had only slowed them down a little.

The tree ship was also growing, it was larger than any other tree on the planet and would soon be larger than any building if it kept up, and as far as the Starseeds could remember, it would definitely keep growing.

All in all the last two months had gone much smoother than they had any right to, Eamon admitted to himself as he made dinner a few days after the senate voted in favor of the labor draft. Just as he was sitting down to eat he got a message from his sister,

[Have you talked with dad about this stupid draft thing? - Mew]

He typed out his response in silence.

[Enough to know that he's not really interested in talking about it. - Eamon]

He knew his sister was just getting started so he ate with his right hand and held his phone in his left.

[He's already volunteered! - Mew]

The message was quick to arrive but not all that surprising.

[He's a grown man, his life is his own. - Eamon]

He hadn't thought about it until he typed it but his father's acceptance and his willingness to volunteer made sense to him. Eamon shook his head and typed out another message.

[Besides when have you ever known anyone in this family to think of themselves before others? If it bothers you, you should talk to him about it. - Eamon]

He set his phone down and focused on his dinner.

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The session, and more specifically the coming reality they discussed during the session, started as an acidic lump in her throat. They did not have enough ships to get everyone off the planet. The lump in her throat sank to her stomach and flipped over when it became clear that even if they had enough ships, the didn't have enough protein generators or protein packs to get the population safely to Earth. Simply put, they were not ready to leave and would not be ready for some time.

And time was their truest enemy. There were plans within plans to steal as much time as they could, but she worried what they would be giving up in exchange. Most manufacturing was already automated. and they were shown that all automation had already been re-purposed to turning out huge star liners, but it would be weeks or even months before any of them were ready to launch with sites working 24/7.

In the meantime. there were three hundred million people to help solve the problem of the protein generators and packs The plan made Kepi's stomach twist violently and not just because it was Fletcher that proposed it.

As usual he did not stand. "We have all we need to solve our current dilemma." He began. "The Corporations have already set aside their own interests in service of the common good, we cannot afford to ask any less of the rest of the citizenship." He leaned forward and raised his giant hand to silence the growing murmurs of the room. "We must re-purpose a majority of the population to the goals of preparing for our escape. I am certain that it will not be hard to convince them." He said flatly.

Kepi avoided speaking for fear her stomach had more control over her mouth than her mind did. One of the other representatives spoke up. "Who gets, re-purposed first?" They asked.

Fletcher leaned back in his chair. "A draft system has been in place for years now, all we need to do is set the selection parameters People already listed in manual labor jobs relating to our direct short or long term survival, can be weeded out. I suggest we start pulling from the arts, sciences, and education sectors.  There will be little to no school, no research and no entertainment for a while, but in the end, we will survive." he finished.

The black walls of panic were giving Kepi tunnel vision and muffling the logistical argument in the room. YOUR PHONE her mind yelled at her. She dug it out of her pocket and looked at it. Without conscious thought her fingers moved over they keys, her heart had detached from her brain and was doing the only thing it could thing of. She sent a message to Eamon.

[E-  We don't have the ships or the supplies to get everyone to Earth. The senate is going to forcibly draft workers until we do. I can't stop this, they're starting with artists, scientists, and teachers...I'm sorry.  -K]

She hit the button and the warning was off.

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Once the pattern cleared, Kepi was directed to the senate landing site. Once she touched down she was escorted from her shuttle by one valet as another jumped on board to actually park her shuttle elsewhere.

The valet led her to a electric kart, and drove her to a bus  that looked to be pretty full. She hopped on board and the driver closed the door behind her and slowly headed for the senate building. Kepi saw the only seat available was the one in front of Fletcher. She widened her fake smile and sat in the seat. "So," She started. "The response to the cal for ships has been pretty incredible." She said.

He nodded slowly. "It's a good start." He replied, looking out the window. "But we've got a long way to go." He looked back at her.

Kepi nodded. "How hard can it be?" She asked. "What ever gets left here is going to revert to the most basic matter in the universe. Do you really think there are going to be people who refuse to lend a hand out of sheer spite?" she spat.

He shook his head. "You misunderstand." he replied. "I am not worried that there's not enough interest in getting off the planet." He sighed. "I am worried there is too much interest." He explained.

Kepi rolled her eyes. "Of course you are Fletcher, God forbid too many people want to escape before it's too late." Sarcasm dripped from her lips.

Fletcher glared at her. "You think I want these people to die?" He spat. He looked around the bus and leaned as closed as his girth would allow, and then whispered. "Kepi we don't have the resources to get three hundred million people off this planet." His voice was rushed. "If we have the space, fuel, and supplies to get even a hundred million of us to earth I'll be shocked." He admitted.

The numbers hit Kepi like a ton of bricks. She never taken the colony population from theoretical to actual fact in her mind. She had been prepared for Greed, not for resource limitations.

The color drained from her face.

Fletcher sat back and took a few breaths. Kepi looked like she might cry. He patted her arm  "Don't worry, we have options and plans and hard decisions to make." He said as soothingly as possible. "They aren't going to be easy to make, but that's why we were elected to make them, right?" He gave her an awkward empty smile. She nodded and smiled back in a way that betrayed the fact that she was heavily considering throwing up on the floor of the bus.

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Kepi spent four days learning how to and helping to make books for the Starseeds. Within that four day period the seriousness of the situation became clear when the inky blackness of the collective unconsciousness had begun to grow closer to the tree ship. There was no way of knowing what they would lose when they started to push back the darkness so if a Starseed wasn’t helping grow the tree ship they were working obsessively building or filling books.

The darkness entered the grove of the tree ship. It wasn’t hard to destroy it, all a Starseed needed to do was touch it. And the inky blackness just, faded away along with whatever knowledge that part of the cloud contained.

Once the first part of the cloud had to be dissolved the Starseeds were instantly aware that something had been lost, but none of them could tell what it was. After that they became practically obsessed with the books.

Her phone buzzed on the fourth day. She was being summoned back to the capitol. The message didn’t say for what, it was a basic text that had gone out to each representative. She finished sealing the covers of the six books she had been working on and stood up to stretch. A Starseed took her place almost instantly.

She had expected a summons but not this soon. She expected it to be some time wasting check in and considering the fact that she had not seen any updates from her staff concerning the ship count from her district she expected it to be bureaucratic nonsense.

She updated Eamon and took her cruiser back to the capital.

On the outskirts of the city she received a call from skyline command. She opened the channel and was greeted by a young air traffic controller that looked very tired. “Good afternoon representative.”

Kepi nodded. “Is there something wrong?” She asked.

The air traffic controller shook his head. “Wrong isn’t the correct word. We’ve got about twenty four thousand zone 2 contacts coming into the city over the next three days and that’s on top of the ten thousand that we’ve have arrive in the last two. So I apologize but I have to ask you to maintain the course and speed I just sent your computer until your spot in the landing pattern comes up.” He explained.

She looked at the computer and realized there were going to have her basically fly in a circle. “Any idea of an estimated time table for landing?” She asked.

The air traffic controller shrugged. “When I know, you’ll know.” He offered.

The channel went blank and kepi encoded the course and speed into the navigation system.

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The game console they found was in much better shape than the one Mew remembered Toll constantly playing with, which made sense considering this device had likely been in storage for generations.

They took the console back into the main lab and treated it like a legendary piece of history, which it very likely was. They made sure it was still fully functional, replaced some parts that were failing due to age and turned it on.

The console booted perfectly. The professor turned it back off and plugged the ring controller into the game console. He turned the console on again and after the introductory screen a menu came up that referenced the ring controller. Ling, Cory, and the professor all shouted in excitement. The professor accessed the button for the ring console and they were dismayed to see a never ending list of options come up. Each entry was nothing more than a string of numbers.

The professor sat down hard in his chair. “Solve one problem, and a whole butt load more present.” He sighed as Cory pressed the button to go back to the top of the screen. The screen showed a total of two hundred and forty five files they had discovered.

Mew was totally lost. “What do those numbers mean?” She asked.

Ling shrugged. “That’s the problem. We don’t know.” She admitted as cory opened the first file and found more files that seemed to be named with random strings of numbers and letters. “And it’s going to take us a decent amount of time to decipher them.” She said.

The thin guard and the fat guard came through the lab doors with the pizza that the professor had ordered. “Here’s your lunch. From now on you get delivery from actual pizza delivery, this crap is below our pay grade.” The thin one dropped the pizza on an only partially filled lab table, turned and walked out as the fat one followed him.

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The room Ling led Mew into was a state of the art computer lab. She watched as the male assistant sat at the nearest interface and pulled up a search program.

Mew leaned over to whisper to ling. “So what’s his name.” She asked.

“That’s Cory.” Ling replied.

Cory filled out the search parameters that they knew. He set the system to its task and a large [SEARCHING] icon popped up and faded in and out.

“And why is he searching for the game console?” Mew asked.

Ling nodded. “To see if we have one.” She explained.

Mew was lost. “To see if you have one where? Why?” She asked.

Ling gestured to the rest of the building. “This ware house is the technology library and machine repository. We’re hoping that we have one waiting for us in one of the storage compartments here.” She explained.

Mew nodded. “Ok but what’s so important about the game console? Aren’t we supposed to activate the ring?” She asked.

Ling nodded. “The ring console is based on three hundred year old technology. On a consumer level we moved past it long, long ago. When your friends erased the data on the ring and console we were left with a three hundred year old remote control that has no known visual interface and runs on code that no known machine can interpret. We’re down to digging through the oldest machines we have in the library to see if any of them are able to show us why this ring console isn’t turning on.” She said.

Cory stood up “G – G- G –Got it!” A paper with the box code and game system information printed out.

Ling grabbed it and glanced it over. “Toll definitely had a passion for old rare electronics. This thing wasn’t made here, it was brought all the way from earth.” She said as they left the computer lab and headed for the machine repository.

The doctor saw them come out into the hall. “Did you find anything?” He asked, jumping off the chair and running to catch up with them. Ling handed over the paper. “Vintage to the point of being nearly useless. I highly doubt your friends were into video games that old.” He said looking at the rest of the information. “Row nineteen, Section F, Box eight. You’ll need a ladder” He said handing the paper back to Ling as they entered the repository proper. 

The others moved with purpose, the storage facility was nothing new to them, but Mew was stunned instantly by the sheer size of the area and the never ending rows of stored materials that went all the way to the roof of the building. “How?” She uttered mostly to herself.

Ling came back her direction with a large ladder. “Decades of dedication, and organization, Come on.” She headed down the hall toward the nineteenth row.

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Mew stepped in front of the thin and the fat one to introduce herself. “I’m Mew, I managed the recycling center station were Toll worked. Before he and Rusty stole a ship and made their run for the ring.” She said.

The Doctor sat up in his chair and rolled forward a little bit. “Do you work on the ring console with them?” He asked. She shook her head. “Did they tell you how they did it?” He asked. She shook her head again. He slumped back in his chair again. “Then why the hell are you here?” He asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “You’re the scientist, you tell me.” She grumbled.

He rotated his chair and turned his head to look at her. “Can you order pizza?” He asked.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re one of the smartest people on the planet and you don’t know how to order pizza?” She asked.

He shrugged. “I never memorized the number.” He said before he pushed off backward down the hall.

The doctor’s assistants came out of a smaller computer lab and saw the group by the main door so they walked over to introduce themselves. The girl held her hand out. “Hi I’m Ling, if the doctor said anything rude or annoying feel free to ignore him.” She said with a smile as Mew shook her hand.

The doctor rolled by on his chair. “Excuse me, I have three degrees in computers and engineering, everything I say is equally brilliant and insightful.” His voice echoed down the hall.

“’You’re a sexist asshole’ isn’t insightful it’s just an unpleasant reality.” Ling shouted down the hall.

The Doctor rolled back. “Hey now. I’m not sexist, I don’t care who gets the pizza as long as it’s not me, and it doesn’t have olives.” He said before pushing off again.

The male assistant finally spoke up. “W- W- W- Can you tell us ab- b- b- about your friends?” He stuttered.

Ling nodded. “Anything that might stand out about them relating to technology? Did either of them have a favorite computer on the station? Or any obsession with any kind of machine?” She asked.

Mew thought it for a moment, her eyes got wide. “Oh hell yes Toll did! He had this ancient portable game machine that he had on him practically 24/7.” She growled. “I hated that thing.” She spat.

Instant the doc rolled back and stopped quickly. “How old? What did it look like? What was it called?” He asked in rapid fire.

Mew shrugged. I don’t know how old, It was green, like an ugly neon green that had faded a long time ago to this sort of tired green. I don’t know what it was called but it played these horrible computerized tones that Toll called music. The only other thing I remember is that Rusty got almost as angry as I did when he caught him playing it. Which he did, pretty much all the time.” She explained.

The male assistant ran back into the smaller lab that he and Ling had just come out of. Ling had a huge smile on her face. “Video game machines were on the bottom of our list, if he can figure out which machine it was, and we can find another one we might have our first real lead.” She explained as she ushered Mew back to the smaller lab.

The doctor looked at the fat and the thin gentlemen that had delivered Mew. “So that’ll be a large, sausage and mushroom pizza, light on the sauce, cheese stuffed crust mkay?” He waved them off with a hand.

The fat one flinched and the thin one held up his hand. “You do and we all die.” He said as they turned for the door.

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The flight to the testing facility was quiet. Mew couldn’t figure out why seeing the ring work would in any way make her more capable of helping them figure out how to get either of the last two controls to work but the entire colony was depending on the ring to get away from the wave. For a split second she was worried that the whole thing may have been a trap to interrogate her privately concerning Rusty, Toll, and the lost station but she couldn’t figure out what there was to gain by pumping her for information and decided fairly quickly that they must just be really lost in relation to the ring controls.

About an hour into the flight she had gotten bored with staring out the window. “Do either of you know who I’ll be working with?” She asked.

The skinny one put the cruiser on auto pilot and turned his chair around. “Once the aliens arrived and the senate became aware of the situation they tasked the Department of Satellite Design and Maintenance with regaining access to the ring.” He explained.

Mew nodded. “If there’s an entire department working on this, what do they need me for?” She asked.

The skinny one smiled sadly. “D.S.D.M consists of three people. Cordon, the head of the department and seventy four year old brains of D.S.D.M. His recently graduated assistant Brent, and Lucy their administrative manager.” He listed them off.

Mew was a little stunned. “Three people? D.S.D.M consists of three people?” She asked in shock.

The skinny one nodded. “You’re the fourth.” He said with a smile, turning his chair back around.

The cruiser cleared the mountain range it was flying over and they were greeted to the sight of the Colony’s capitol city. Mew had seen it from space often and never got tired of it, but as a civilian pilot planeside she had never gotten permission to fly this low and enjoyed the unique view of the oldest and most spectacular city on the planet.

They moved into standard transit lanes and made their way through the city, passing everything of interest quickly. They reached the far side of the city where the grand and fashionable architecture gave way to the boring simple utility of the industrial districts.

D.S.D.M was housed in an unassuming squat windowless building with a simple black and white sign to identify that the giant warehouse was something more than a storage facility. The skinny one landed the cruiser in the parking lot and Mew’s door opened automatically.

When they had left her father’s home it had been a beautiful sunny day, the weather in the capitol was heavy dark clouds that threatened to rain at any moment. As they made their way to the only door in the nearest side of the building a crack of thunder made them scamper a little quicker to avoid the coming rain.

The fat one shoved the door open roughly, the skinny one snuck inside just behind him and he turned to hold the door open for Mew. She stepped inside to familiar music. It was a recording of a band that Toll listened to incessantly. At first she didn’t mind his obsession but as time passed she did everything in her power to try and get him to play other music, none of it worked.

The music was being played over the intercom system throughout the entire building. They reached the end of the entrance hallway and the skinny one stepped up and held the door to the actual lab open for Mew.

She stepped through in time to see an old man in a worn and grungy white lab coat coast by on his rolling office chair. “No, we have nothing new to share with the senate. We’re still trying to figure out how to get the console to interface with any equipment we have that's even remotely functional.” The old man said as he spun and then kicked himself back the way he came.

The fat one huffed in annoyance. “It doesn’t look like you’re doing much of anything.” He accused.

The old man’s chair slowed, he rotated himself and kicked off again lifting a hand in the air and pointing to a bank of computers where his two assistants were working. One of the machines chimed and a robotic voice interrupted the rock band on the site wide sound system. “Integration test one hundred and twenty six unsuccessful.” The voice finished its sentence and the music faded back in.

The Doctor stopped his chair in front of the trio and sat up straight. “Like I said, nothing new to report.” He pointed to Mew. “Who’s she?” He asked.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 56

Mew loved her mother but she was always closer to her father. Her brother had their mother’s passion for social work and activism. Mew loved her father’s stories, she had read all his books half a dozen times by the time she graduated high school.

She knew her father had high hopes that she would become a writer herself, but she didn’t have the same passion for writing that she did for reading. By the time she was two years into her post high school education she really didn’t have a passion for anything the way the rest of her family did.

It wasn’t until she took a low orbit trip for a college class where she saw her home from space for the first time with her own eyes that she knew she was going to work in space somehow. She switched majors and went straight into the flight academy, got her assignment and while she could have taken almost any job available she chose to work on the satellite repair and recycling station. So while she kept in touch, she hadn’t been home much in the last ten years.

So she and her father had a lot to catch up on, more accurately she had a lot to tell him about and he mostly talked about his most recent book, how the house was holding up, and the fact that he was thinking about getting a pet, an idea he was now very serious about considering the status of the planet. Their conversation lasted for days. They talked about her mother, her childhood, she walked her father through the night that Rusty and Toll went through the ring and everything that happened after that. They talked about his life growing up and he told her for the tenth time how he met her mother and how they fell in love. They had all the conversations they had missed over the last decade and they tried to have as many as they could before something took her away again.

That something turned out to be representatives from the senate. They arrived ten days after Eamon left. There were two of them. One short and rail thin, the other taller but equally as wide. Mew saw the insignia on the thin one’s briefcase and let them into the house.

“How can I help you gentlemen?” She asked as she led them to the dining room table.

The thin one spoke first. “The senate has voted to take all ships that wish to leave the planet through the ring.” Mew sat on the far side of the table and wave at two empty chairs for her guests. They sat and the thin one continued. “After a little investigation it appears that your friends deleted almost all the information we had on the ring and its control system.” The thin one placed the briefcase on the table and opened it. He pulled out a file folder and handed it to Mew. She found it filled with a picture of the ring control, a single picture that labeled each button on the case and four pictures that showed basic menu layouts.

She looked up from the photos. “And you’re here because?” She asked.

The wider gentlemen finally spoke. “You worked with the escapee’s for nearly a year. Did you know anything about what they were planning, or do you know if they had any backups for the information they destroyed?” He asked.

She shook her head. “If they had any backups that they didn’t take with them they would have been on the station and that’s inside their collective consciousness stuff.” She said.

The gentlemen nodded. “We have a team working on the two controls we have left, but they are both very old, and the senate formally requests that you accompany us back to the location where they are working and oversee and test their work. We need to access the ring as soon as possible and you are the last living person that has seen it work.

Mew wanted to tell them to leave but she looked up at her father who was standing in the kitchen. He was all smiles and mouthed “go” at her.

She sighed heavily and nodded her consent. “Let me pack some stuff.” She said.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 55

Kepi had not yet been to the forest. She set in motion the requests for supplies and transports and grabbed a shuttle to the forest. She was excited to see the alien forest, and the giant ship tree they were growing.

When she arrived she was disappointed to find that most of the forest was covered by the darkness that Eamon had told her about. She landed her shuttle next Eamon’s and was greeted by two Starseeds. They summoned vines from the canopy above which carried them to the tree ships clearing.

Eamon had had incredible success teaching the Starseeds the purpose of and how to make books. They had already needed them as it was clear they had been forced to cut back the collective consciousness away from the shiptree’s clearing. When the vines set Kepi and her companions down at the edge of the clearing her jaw hit the floor.

The ship tree had grown an incredible amount in such a short time. It now easily dwarfed the rest of the forest and was taking up more than half of the clearing. She found Eamon and Rootan working on books that were in different stages of assembly. Other Starseeds were filling completed books with the knowledge they could not afford to loose. They already had a large bookshelf full of completed volumes.

Kepi was stunned. “How have you gotten so many done?” She asked in awe.

Eamon turned and stood to embrace her. “Kepi! Time flies I could have sworn we only spoke a few moments ago.” He looked at the books they had completed. “The Starseeds don’t sleep and once I showed Rootan how to make a book they all took to the process like addicted bibliophiles. They haven’t stopped building or writing since.” He said with a great smile. “How goes the council meetings?” He asked.

Kepi smiled. “Better than I would have hoped.” She grabbed his hand and they began to walk together. “They aren’t stupid people. You just never learned to talk to them the way they liked to be talked to. Once they saw reason the vote was a simple matter.” She explained.

He patted her arm in excitement. “You were always more cut out for that work than I was.” He complimented.

She nodded. “Perhaps, but there are more than a few ways for a person to be useful and there is no shame in it not being through public service.” She pardoned him. “All the districts are going to start gathering supplies and ships in the next twenty four hours.” She explained.

He nodded. “Not a moment too soon, and possible too little to late” He said with a furrowed brow.

She shook her head. “What will be, will be.” She said looking up beyond the canopy in a second of silent prayer. “Will you be coming back to the capitol or staying here a while longer?” She asked him.

He stopped walking and she stopped with him. “I am making sure these people don’t lose everything because they came to help us. What in the capitol could possibly be important enough to take me away from this?” He asked.

She smiled sadly. “I’ll contact your sister and father and make sure their ready to leave then.” She looked back to the clearing behind them. “Can you even ride in that thing with them?” She asked.

He laughed. “Humans to their ships, Starseeds to theirs. I want to be left here for a while, not left behind.” He said with a smile. “Come on, let me introduce you to Rootan.” He pulled her back to the edge of the clearing where the Starseeds were working on books.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 54

The vote was complete. For the first time in her political career Kepi was nervous. It was not unheard of for the senate to speechify on a point of order indefinitely until they had lost interest in selecting a course of action or had forgotten what they were so passionately arguing about. She knew this vote could very well be the last shot almost anyone on the planet had of leaving it alive. The center hologram began to tally the count. It was fast, but not faster than the beating of her heart. The count and her heart stopped at the same moment.

The senate had voted in favor of traveling through the ancient slip tunnel. There were many conversations and several members of the senate clapped and congratulated each other as if making the decision had been the hard part. Kepi knew that the work was just beginning.

The senate leader rapped his gavel and the room went quiet. “We will leave our home by way of the slip gate.” He began. “Now it is up to this council and all those who serve it to gather the ships, the food, and all those who wish to leave before our home is erased from existence.” He looked to Kepi. “Do you or our new friends know how much time we have to accomplish this feat?” He asked.

Kepi stood and cleared her throat. “I do not know. I will return to the forest dwellers today and find out how much time we have and if they can help us prepare for our journey.” She stated.

The council leader nodded. “They may not wish to accompany us through the gate. We cannot guarantee what kind of reception they will receive when we reach earth.” He pointed out.

Kepi nodded with a smile. “You can’t even guarantee what kind of reception we will receive when we reach earth, so let’s focus on making sure we get everyone off the planet first.” She pointed out.

The council leader nodded. “In three days we will return with our preliminary ship counts, available resource totals, and a rough idea of how many people we need to transport.” The council stood in unison. “Good luck to us all.” They all filed out of the room to begin their work.

Once she was out in front of the building she made a call on her phone.

Eamon picked up on the second ring. “How goes the speeches?” He asked.

She smiled. “We’ve voted to assemble a convoy and take it through the slip ring. I’m headed to the Forest now to gather more information about the wave.” She explained.

“That’s great. I’m already here. Teaching them to make books. How long till you get here?” He asked.

“Three or so hours.” She replied.

“See you then.” He said ending the call.

She dropped her phone in her pocket and headed for her ship.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 53

Once they council had agreed to accept the evidence before them a sense of panic ran through the group, She would never tell anyone the amount of time they spent discussing leaving the rest of the colony behind and leaving that evening before anyone noticed.

Kepi stayed silent as the council worked through how they were going to gather everyone together, how they were going to make sure that everyone that wanted to leave was granted passage. By the end of the day they had worked out an uncharacteristic amount of details.

The senate leader rapped his gavel. “If there are no other points of order I recommend that we adjourn for the day.” He offered.

“I have a question.” A voice filled the hall. Kepi grimaced. An elderly senator stood with the aid of a cane and cleared his throat. “While I appreciate the situation, and applaud all the effort made thus far to save lives, I fear that I must ask. Once we leave the planet. Where exactly do we plan to go?” He questioned.

Murmurs from the other representatives filled the room. The senate leader rapped his gavel for silence. Kepi raised her voice. “We must use the transport ring. We have no other options.” She explained.

The elderly senator nodded. “That system is three hundred years old and has never been successfully tested. We could kill everyone we send through it.” He pointed out.

Kepi shook her head. “The ring was activated just two weeks ago, It’s the reason the Starseeds came here in the first place.” She explained,

Again murmurs filled the room. The senate leader rapped the gavel several times.

The old man shook his head. “I read the report of what those boys did. We have no way of knowing what happened to them once they left this area. For all we know they are long dead stranded in the middle of nowhere, a fate I would not wish on the rest of this colony.” He said

Kepi shook her head. “They could just as likely made it all the way back to Earth, senator.” She countered. “As you said, we don’t know.”

The old man nodded again. “Is ‘we don’t know’ enough of a guarantee to bet the entire future of this planet on?” He asked as she sat down.

The murmurs of the other senators broke out again and this time there was no gavel to silence them. Kepi looked up at the leadership and saw that they too were discussing this question amongst themselves.

Kepi’s shoulders tightened and made her final point, shouting it over the other conversations. “Given the choice between ‘I don’t know” and Certain Death, I’ll take ‘I don’t know’ every time. Senator.” She room went dead silent and stared at her. She found the rest of her confidence and her shoulders relaxed. “And that is the choice life has given us. It is not great, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy but it is where we are. So, I call for a vote. A nay vote means certain death for the colony, a Yay vote means we take our caravan through the gate and see what happens next.” She looked to the leadership table.

The leader reluctantly rapped the gavel. “Is there a second?” He asked.

Kepi looked around a room full of statues. “I second.” A voice rang out. Kepi couldn’t believe it. She looked to Fletcher’s seat where he had raised his giant hand and voiced his support. She had not expected this, and it made her uneasy.

The senate leader nodded. “The vote has been requested and seconded. Return with your choice in fifteen minutes. This chamber is dismissed.” With no further reason to whisper the room exploded into a uncountable full volume conversations. Kepi couldn’t handle the noise and made her way out into the hall. Where she ran into Fletcher. She stopped in her tracks. “Why support my vote?” she asked suddenly.

Fletcher smiled. “I’m a business man, I can work with ‘I don’t know”. There’s not enough wiggle room in “certain death” for my taste.” She said floating off down the hall.

Kepi breathed a sigh of relief. 

Blood and Profit: Chapter 52

There was no doubting that the corporation was profit hungry and soulless. But the scientists and designers that worked for the corporation three hundred years ago were very good at what they did. The colony ship that was sent to what would become Mew’s home was designed to have almost every inch of material repurposed once it had landed on its colony world. Over the first decade the settlers had done just that. The ship that had been the home for two generations of settlers had been dismantled and built into countless homes, factories, community buildings and utility stations. And they had never seen a need for another large ship to replace it.

Kepi and the other representatives were now trying to solve an impossible problem. And most of the representatives loved nothing more than sitting in session going on at length about each and every impossibility. Luckily, Kepi had infinitely more patience for these sessions than Eamon. She was the kind of person who liked to stay silent until she had something of real value to add to the conversation, and she was not the kind of person who felt that merely hearing her own voice added anything to the conversation except time. This was a rare quality in the senate.

Cole Fletcher loved the sound of his own voice and was more than eager to launch into never ending speeches that often had no point or purpose other than to make sure that no one in senate had the opportunity to forget it. He was the representative for district seventy eight, many of the families that had held power as far back as the generations on the colony ship and possibly further lived in district seventy eight. Cole Fletcher served as a barking guard dog, protecting what passed for royalty on the colony, families that had never worked a day of any kind of labor in several generations. His girth was possibly the only thing that exceeded the size of his ego. He could not stand to speak and thus gave his blubbering oratories from the comfort of his giant hovering chair. “It is patently absurd to assume that anyone, let alone my constituents be asked to leave behind the only lives they have ever known! I find it incredibly suspect that we are taking the word of foreigners, interlopers, ALIENS, without even the barest shred of verifiable evidence. I cannot in good conscience consent to the destruction of everything this colony has worked for just because we might be in danger.” He leveled the last sentence directly at Kepi, who may as well have been the physical shield for Eamon. Fletcher had drastically altered the course of people’s with fewer words and he meant to scare Kepi out of the room with these.

She was less than moved. “Representative Fletcher. While I more than anyone understand your concerns we have all had the co-ordinates and the satellite access codes to witness the wave at any time over the last ten days.” She smiled sweetly as she spoke.

Fletcher slammed his fist into the armrest on his chair. “Are you asking the citizens of this colony to trust some piece of technology that we cannot guarantee the accuracy of?” He shouted.

She calmly picked up her tablet and input a few commands. “Funny you should question the quality and accuracy of our satellite system sir.” She sent the page she had pulled up on her tablet to the main screen and all the desk tablets of every representative. “Would you be so kind as to look at the third name on the board of directors and founding members of the company that makes the satellites in orbit around our planet?” She highlighted and enlarged his name COLE FLETCHER so that it was clearly visible, there was almost no where you could look in the room without seeing it. “Are you telling this assembly that your own company’s product is defective? How long have you known of these defects? How would you suggest we go about being compensated for defective equipment we bought and paid for based on the word of several generations of your family?” The sweet smile never left her face.

Cole on other hand had turned beet red in fury. His giant fists clenched in anger. “Of course Avionic Satellite Systems are of the highest quality.” He admitted slowly, through clenched teeth. “I merely wanted to remind the council that we are talking about the future of this entire colony.” He stared daggers at her.

She didn’t even flinch. “Why senator, I think you might be the last person in this room to realize that talking about the future of this entire colony is the only reason we were elected.” She cleared the page from everyone’s tablets and the main screen. Fletcher was gripping the arm rest of his chair so tightly that it might tear loose at any second. 

Blood and Profit: Chapter 51

The rest of the day was hard. They talked for a good majority of the morning, everyone cried. They played almost every board game their father owned. Mew didn't win a single game.

The next morning Eamon was ready to make good on his promise to teach the Starseeds how to make books. He had one last breakfast with Mew and his father. A simpler affair, cereals, fruits, toast with jam. He and his father were basically addicted to Fruity Marshmallow Bombs. A completely un healthy kids cereal with an annoying cartoon mascot. They both had gigantic bowls as was tradition in their house, a tradition Mew broke with a modest bowl of some boring adult healthy wheat garbage. 

Eamon noticed her choice instantly. "Seriously?" He asked pointing to her bowl.

She nodded. "Yeah seriously, I'm having breakfast, you and dad are having early heart attacks." She said as she playfully swatted his pointing finger.

Eamon shook his head. "How can you call that breakfast?" He started. "It doesn't turn the Milk into a sugary rainbow slurry, it doesn't have an annoying mascot, and it's commercials are boooring!" He accused while he dumped almost two full cups of milk in his bowel. 

Mew shook her head. "Hey it's got a slogan!" She playfully protested. For the millionth time in their lives.

Her father sat at the table with his giant bowl. "A healthy way to start the day is not a catch phrase it's a eulogy for fun." Eamon and his father gave each other a high five. "Now what time are you and your  brother leaving?" He asked.

Mew shook her head. "I'm not leaving."

They both looked at her quizzically. "At least not yet. I'm not going back to the station, and I have nothing else to do, so I figured I'd spend some time with you dad before, well just before." She explained.

Eamon nodded. "Something tells me the Starseeds are going to want you around eventually." He guessed. 

Mew shook her head. "Why me? I've got nothing to offer them, I'm a low level admin for a now defunct orbital facility. They need me like I need another hole in my head." She offered.

Eamon shrugged. "You made first contact, something tells me that's important. But I could be wrong, we'll see." He said. 

They finished their breakfasts and Eamon got himself ready to go. They said their goodbyes and gave each other hugs after Eamon had loaded his stuff into the ship. "I'll be back in about a week." He assured them as he climbed aboard.

The door shut while Mew and her father retreated to the safety of the house. Once the ship had taken off and could no longer be seen her father looked down at her with a smile. "Well now what?" He asked.

She smiled. "Tell me the story of how you met mom." She asked as they went back inside the house.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 50

The remnants of breakfast had long since gone cold on the dining room table. Mew had become too curious about the state of the game board and wandered over to assess the situation. It took her less than thirty seconds to realize that neither her father nor her brother had improved much. “You are both STILL terrible at this game.” She chided them as she finished the last of her toast.

Father and son shot up from the table to defend the interstellar gridlock they had maneuvered themselves into. “Hey! This is why we stopped playing against you!” Eamon protested.

Mew pulled a chair over and sat down. “Because I’m good at the game and you two are pretty spectacularly not?” She said with a smile.

Eamon stuck his tongue out. Mew returned the gestured. Their father sat on his side of the table. “I swear you two are going to be six until the day you die. I don’t understand how your mother put up with it.” He said with a warm smile.

Mew grabbed the box and started pulling out the pieces for her own faction. “If you remember, mom was always smart enough to encourage us to follow the paths we were both interested in.” She answered as she dug through the box.

Eamon nodded. “We didn’t exactly spend enough time around each other to get on each others nerves. What are you doing, We’re like fifteen turns into the game.” He protested.

Mew pointed to an area of unsettled planets. “I’m going to start on these three planets. You guys have had nearly one and a half games worth of buildup and I promise to take it easy on you so I’ll give you another seven turns before I try to win.” She smiled at him as she started placing her pieces.

Her father pointed at his side of the board. “Why not just take over my team?” He offered.

Mew shook her head. “It’s been forever since we played this game, I missed this. I know mom’s not here so its not exactly the same but we should have been making memories like this a long time ago.” She admitted. Eamon and their father nodded. The men went back to studying their board positions and resources. Mew rolled the traits and quirks dice. The red dice came up with a cartoon piece of meat on a bone, the trait showed a DNA strand. “See it’s going to be even easier for you guy to deal with me, my race is carnivorous and we’re genetic purists so I’m boned on alliances. You guys ready?” She asked.

Her father was looking at her with gaze that stared more into the past than at her, and his smile was sad. “Every now and then you remind me so much of your mother.” He admitted. Mew felt the urge to get up suddenly and hug her father. He held her tightly and they hugged for a long time. When the separated she could see that he had begun to cry.

Eamon spoke up as his father wiped the tears away from his face. “Dad you need to tell her.” He pushed.

Mew looked instantly concerned. “Tell me what?” She asked. Her father fidgeted with his cards for a moment. Mew’s mind was starting to run away with her. “Daddy tell me what?” She asked again.

Her father put his cards on the table. “Your brother caught me up on the situation last night after we put you to bed, I know what’s coming and as much as I want to go with you, I can’t bring myself to leave your mother. I’ve loved her every day for forty seven years and we swore we’d be right next to each other for eternity, I have every intention of keeping that promise.” He explained.