Druscilla Penny

How do you describe worker productivity? Do you look at earnings? Profits? Tasks? Projects?

Do you say, "Well, I know my employees have spare time that they use for social networking, either intraoffice (gatherings at the water cooler, hallway, bathroom, carpark, etc.) or via electronic devices. Since I pay for that time, I'm going to reduce my technology repair/update overhead and get my employees to become part-time technology experts."

Do you prevent or minimize the number of meetings that take place in which only one or two employees actively participate and make decisions while the other 90% could be effective somewhere else?

Do you increase the so-called multitasking that employees perform, knowing that some types of multitasking are actually counterproductive?

Do you require employees to take training classes during offhours, such as before/after work hours, or during work breaks such as lunch?

Do you push decisionmaking down the hierarchical chart, empowering employees to be more effective?

Do you cross-train employees so they can learn to do 1.25 and then 1.5 jobs at once, increasing productivity while monitoring their health, making sure you have exercise and counseling available to maximize employee use, without detrimentally affecting their usefulness or decreasing your profitability with too many health monitoring services?

Do you see yourself as having the privilege of your employees working for you, or do you think your employees see their jobs as their right to be employed and you're the lucky dog who gets to deal with them?

Knowing you take attrition into account as part of the cost of retraining, and ultimately a drag on worker productivity, how do you measure worker satisfaction? Do you take preventative measures or do you react to worker negativity? Do you encourage creativity or do you beat your employees until morale improves?

Do you own your own company or does your company own you? Do you think you are your own company, standing on your two feet, or do you think you carry a bunch of people on your shoulders?

Do you look at a statistic like worker productivity and automatically think of a spreadsheet containing numbers and formulas you can manipulate with time? Or do you see individual faces and capabilities which indicate limits you can stretch with training or have to work around?

Do you think in macroeconomic terms or do you worry about the next sale or project deadline?

Are you a puppet master pulling the strings or a ventriloquist with your hand inside a dummy's head?

Is ignorance bliss or dread to you? Or a challenge for your next round of personal continuous education/training?

If you knew the truth behind worker productivity, would you believe it, or do you see worker productivity as a completely imaginary number with no meaning whatsoever?

Our social structures blanket us with terms and definitions. Which ones do you ignore? Which ones can you not ignore? Do you seek out more peaks and valleys of the unknown terrain of new social structures, or are you so overwhelmed with what you've got to take care of that you're trying to filter out and reduce the amount of information you're already receiving? Does the phrase "worker productivity" cover either one of those situations for you? Should it? What about a tribe deep in the Amazon rainforest or a self-sufficient family hidden in the Appalachian mountains?

May we define "person productivity" to account for all conditions of our species' members? If so, then employment is not a defining factor for our usefulness as persons. Think about it...

The Latest of the Early Wearable Computing Years

Early happy b'day to Mark M. I was more of a Rypien fan myself but without you Rypien would have been Capitol carpet, eh? A connection via Riggs was one factor in keeping up with you guys, not to mention the Honorable Heath.

While new players get circulation systems for their outfits and communications devices in their headgear, we get HUDs in other uniforms for those with more firepower. What's next?

In an old copy of "Heavy Metal" magazine, a comic detailed the firefight between two infantry divisions. Hard-fought battle. At the end, a soldier removes his exoskeletal gear and looks at the gear of his opponent, discovering his opponent is completely robotic. That '80s era scifi foretold today. What tells us of tomorrow?

What will semi-pro (i.e., college) and pro players wear on the fields of battle? When will robotic body parts become normal, like the videogames of old when robotic football players faced each other on their wheeled parts? Will players see their routes on HUDs, removing the confusion in huddles of loud stadiums? Will player body stats get displayed on trainers' laptop screens? Will nanoscale drug capsules get released when pain relief or adrenaline doses are needed? Will smart padding absorb and spread contact pressure, preventing concussions and broken bones?

Will football fields become electronically active and track the 3D position of footballs? Will players and balls be able to switch between live slo-mo and accelerated action? Will 3D advert placement become part of every piece of the field, including players, refs, yard markers, coaches, field goals, etc., like wearable electronic art?

Will fans get to have football helmet cams to track like NASCAR car cams, following their favorite players on iPhones during the game, with pay per view allowing expletives and body slamming to be heard in 7.1 sound?

Will players work with their agents to franchise their images for robotic leagues? Multiple Peyton Mannings at quarterback? Adrian Peterson at RB? Mean Joe Green coming back from "retirement"? Reggie White coming back from the dead?

Semi-pro (sorry, college) players will share the rights of their robotic images with their teams, trading revenue for college credits in such classes as "Branding Entrepreneurship" and "Image Capitalisation." Fans can take the robotic role of their favorite players during off weekends, filling stadiums many times during the year, not just for home games, playing anybody from any year against the other team's mix of players and eras, in the FRC (Football Robotic Championship level, of course). DARPA will use information from these college/university performances to tweak their robotic fighting forces, a version of Robocop just a hard metal step around the corner.

Bookmakers learn the names and capabilities of FRC design engineering students and professors just like college football players today. They track the professional careers of robot designers. New revenue streams appear in the hacking of robot players to fix games.

And that's when terrorists will take over Antarctica, using clandestine robotic units to set up robot factories, training camps and synthetic drug manufacturing facilities where few will tread. Submarines to transport e-army units and drug shipments around the planet (submarines disguised as whales, of course, taking down both Japanese whaling vessels and Greenpeace ships that get in their path).

The future is a fun place to play. Anything is possible. Some things appear just as predicted. Surprises surface and steer the future in a whole new direction.

Too bad the Hokies ran out of gas. I don't want to see another opponent's field goals for a while! Night, y'all. More international info on the morrow. A big hint. While the news focuses on "Muslim extremists" (if that's not profiling/stereotyping/hate crime material, what is?), I look at cartels for more interesting futures. Power is not in being seen, it's being invisible that gets you into places nobody's looking. Once you're in, nobody's paying attention because you're one of them/us. After that? Just because someone's no longer demonising you doesn't mean you've stopped reciting history to yourself and your cohorts. You can draw the rest of the picture by now, right? No? Like I said, later on, dude.

Relaxing Holiday?

"Mr. President, sir."

"That's Sir President to you."

"'Sir President'? Isn't that joke getting old?"

"No. I figure if I inherited the empire from King George II, I deserve to be called king, too. If the people anoint one, they must by logic anoint the other."

"As long as they don't call you King George III. There's a bit of history in that name..."

"Madness! Names, names, names. I have no time for names. What have you got for me this time?"

"Mr. President, I present to you the Siamese solution."

"I thought that was another joke to which I curry no favor."

"Sir, this is no joke. We have found the twin solution for your medical condition."

"Hmm...word of my condition has made it into the news? Where does this leak come from?"

"Mr. President, we assure you you are not leaking. It's the other condition which needs attention."

"A man of my age has certain ailments. What of them?"

"No, sir, we have not found the cure for gray hair. This is bigger than that."

"Let me have it. Sock it to me. I can handle bad news - I have spin doctors at the ready, trained at the Reagan-Clinton Center for Refried Information."

"Sir, here is the woman who has prepared the report for you. Carly Fiorina...sorry, I mean Linda Fiorentino."

"I'm confused. Are you the former head of HP or the actress who hooked up with Will Smith under the watchful eye of Jada Pinkett Smith and thus unable to get a role in the sequels?"

"The latter but you are confused. My role was as it was. I have other performances underneath me now."

"Good for you, although I haven't heard of them. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. I've always wanted to say that, ever since typing class in middle school."

"Yes, sir. But I am a woman."

"You are, yes, but more important you are an American. Gender is no longer an issue with us, is it?"

"Not NOW, it isn't."

"Pleasantries. Your five minutes are almost up. What are these Siamese twins so highly spoken of by my staff's chief?"

"'We are Si-a-me-eese if you plee-eez. We are Si-a-me-eese if you don't please."

"Puh-leeze. Singing cats will not solve my medical conditions...I don't think."

"Very well, sir. Here's the rub. A slight menthol scent but popular with men older than you. Call it the Fabergé Brut of the boomer generation."

"Boomer Esiason wears mentholated ointment cream?"

"Hey, if Joe Namath can wear panty hose..."

"Ha-ha. I suppose that's an ad we'll soon see Marvin Harrison supporting. 'Men, I've caught many a ball. And at the end of the day, when my thighs are chafing, I like to put on these medicated leg-length hose and sit back to watch highlight tapes of my game.' But we digress, a popular pastime around my beltway, is it not?"

"Indeed, sir. Shall I continue?"

"'If you ple-eeze.'"

"Thanks. So here's the deal. We've divided your condition into two parts. The first part is where we ease your people's pain. Take away the hurt that too much money causes."

"Too much money? Are you sure that's the right phrasing?"

"Not enough?"

"Better."

"We take away the hurt that not enough money causes by working with a corporation that has clinics around the nation, subsidizing their services for the uninsured. Of course, complaints from the industry will rise so we're saying this first step is an experiment on how to set standards. We'll open the door to more nationalized clinics by bringing in medical personnel to Social Security offices."

"Doctors will work in Social Security offices?"

"No, sir. Not even in this economy. Well, except for the retired few who spent too much of their earnings playing around and not enough on retirement investments."

"If they could only see the future..."

"You're telling me. Why, the other day, while I was 'sitting' on the casting couch, I..."

"TMI. Let's move on."

"These SS clinics..."

"'SS clinics'? I don't like the sound of that. Too many people have thrown such derogatory terms around. Chief?"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you call an in-house, publicly-subsidized clinic serving Social Security beneficiaries?"

"In Case of Emergency."

"Perfect! So, Linda, about these In Case of Emergency clinics."

"Okay, sir...these ICE clinics, as you call them, will provide 100 percent of free consultation services, including the usual physical exams, minor injuries, colds, flu, prescription, lab work, et cetera."

"Don't use that word, 'et cetera.' I am past all that."

"Uh...okay, sir."

"'Mr. President.'"

"Mr. President. Yes, sir. To ensure buy-in by the medical industry AND the people, we will say that major medical services provided by the publicly-funded clinic/hospital system will only pay 80 or 90 percent."

"Which one? Eighty or ninety?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Chief, which sounds better. Eighty or ninety percent?"

"Mr. President, that's the sort of numerology that legislative committees like to pull out their Ouija boards and have séances over."

"That's right. Continue, Linda."

"But if they use their own specialists, the people will be reimbursed at a higher rate, say, closer to 100%."

"Interesting, Linda. We subsidize clinics because there's a shortage of general practitioners and subsidize specialists because they have a shortage of patients in this economy?"

"And continue to subsidize the pharmaceutical industry, research labs, et cet...and so on."

"Chief, do we owe any lobbyists in the shark loan business?"

"You mean the payday check cashing and pawn shop industries, Mr. President?"

"Of course. What was I saying?"

"We'll make sure the White House tapes are fuzzy on that one, sir."

"Good. Linda, let's make it short of 100 percent. We need to stimulate the...umm...the...oh hell, call it the loan shark business. Edit that one, too, Chief. Ah, modern technology. Linda, did you know that we record these conversations and put them into MP3 files, making editing much easier than in previous administrations?"

"That's incredible, Mr. President."

"And yet I can't carry a Blackberry around with me. I can't wait until we get a real Area 51 for IT development in the sub-sub-basement of this place. Just imagine the possibilities!"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"My very thoughts recorded for posterity. My decision-making analyzed by university professors feeding off the 'publish or perish' paradigm. Why, soon, they'll no longer need my doubles appearing in quiet restaurants around town because my wife and the kids will have clones doing those charitable appearances for my Washington business owner friends. We can...well, 'need to know,' eh, Linda?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Okay, now if you'll just look into my eyes. Notice the brilliance. In a moment, you'll feel funny. You stopped by the White House on a tour and accidentally walked into the Oval Office..."

On Tap

"MacAverty, what're you doing here so early?"

"The ol' prof! Whuzzer'onor 'ere?"

"He's chasing your chasers, 'sir.'"

"I see. So what's the deal, my man? Have you seen your ghost?"

"Aye. 'Twas in the book you gave me."

"I gave you no book."

"Did you not? HICCUP! Well, your 'sistant, then."

"My assistant? You mean Nahbi? I haven't seen him in weeks. When did you see him?"

"'Esterd'y."

"Was he all right, man? Did he look well to you?"

"Suppose. Your book. 'Tis cruel."

"He's been saying that all morning. What sort of book did you give him? He won't even look me in the eye. And you know how he likes to look at me!"

"MacAverty. Have you talked to McBride? Maybe he could talk some sense into you. I've given you no book. I gave no book to Nahbi."

"McBride's d'd."

"Dead? That's where you're wrong. I just saw him walking down the road. We said hello but didn't chat."

"'E's no McBride. 'Tis a variant."

"Variant? Where did you get that word?"

"'R booo-ook."

"And I tell you I wrote no book. I've only got notes. See, here's my briefcase. Here's my..." I usually kept my notes in a manila folder but the folder was gone. Did I leave it sitting next to the computer last night? Got to stop slipping into sleep with Bushmills on my belly.

"See, guv'na. Ya wrote't and dint know't."

"You want a pint, 'sir'?"

"Stop it, will you? I'm not your father."

"Old enough is good enough."

"But I will spank you again if you keep asking for it."

"Here's your pint. Punish yourself with that, for now, and liven up MacAverty. He's turnin' down the sunshine in this place. We can talk later."

"Promises..."

"...Are meant to be broken."

"Yes, yes. My reward for living the good life, eh? Have you seen Nahbi lately?"

"No, but he often comes in here without my noticin' him. Sometimes he studies over in the corner there and leaves without a word."

"I see. Well, I've got to get to the bottom of this, haven't I? Seems the both of you have the cards stacked against me. MacAverty, where's the book?"

"At 'ome."

"Can I get it from you?"

"Aye."

"Give me your keys. That's a good fellow. I'll see you later."

"No you won't."

"What?"

"The book's a murderer."

"MacAverty, I don't know what you're talking about. First, I didn't write that book. And second, even if I did, it's a book, not a person. Books don't kill people."

"You said it, yourself, prof. 'The pen's mightier 'an th'sword.'"

"An expression, man. I'll see you later. Barman, don't let him have another drop."

"Aye, aye, cap'n. Anything else we swabbies can git ye?" She rolled her eyes. One day he'd remember her name, and then...?

Deep Thoughts

"Robin, we accept the challenge you have given yourself."

"Thank you."

"The evidence is evident. The remote-controlled bomb dropped from the craft circling poor farming ranchers in Afghanistan did set off the Japanese drive for a pure workforce, which will, if you cannot meet this challenge, set us in the direction of great calamity. The ripples in the pond will grow to tsunamis, we fear."

"My challenge is my own. I do not exist. I am at the service of everyone and no one."

"And we accept our own challenge to believe that an independent operator like you will dampen the oscillations."

"Two challenges must always cancel each other out. It is as it is."

"We should have seen that the failure of Sony to hold off Apple which led to the unannounced battle in which Toyota defeated GM would portend the start of a war."

"Words have no meaning to me. I am transparent like the wind - shapeless, formless, with the strength to topple mountains yet quiet and unseen."

"Can you get in?"

"I am already there."

"But we can see you."

"Do you?"

They looked around. Robin was gone.

Outside the window, a squirrel hugged a tree, its fur blending in with the matty trunk of a poison ivy vine. A sudden breeze whipped up a dirt devil in the carpark. Robin liked the new organic circuitry. This new challenge would be easy.

Roller Rink

"Dear."

"Yes, darling?"

"Do you think it was worth all this?"

We looked out over the river, a few turkey buzzards circling overhead. We kissed.

"Yes." I held my wife's hand, standing with her under a windswept pine tree, finally able to celebrate our honeymoon. I took a deep breath. "Darling, this is the moment we have lived for."

She stood up on her toes and I bent down. We kissed again. "So what do you want to do with this land? You know the coming disaster will..."

"We don't know the disaster's coming."

"But everything else in the scenarios have come true one way or another. Why not the..."

"Don't say it. Maybe if we don't talk about it, it won't come true, just like if you tell someone what they're going to say, they don't say it."

"Reverse logic. Hmm...maybe. I don't know."

"Let's take a walk."

We walked along the edge of the ridge, veering off the gravel path to see dropoffs and balance rocks on their own, like broken chimneys left by giants of a previous epoch.

"What shall we call this place?"

"I've been thinking about that. What was that rustic cabin in summer camp called?"

"Honey, we were 12. That was 35 years ago. I can't remember anymore."

"Eagle's Nest? Buzzard's Roost?"

"Sounds familiar."

"Either one of those appeal to you?"

"I guess Lover's Leap is inappropriate."

"Unless you know something I don't know. You got life insurance on me?"

"Death insurance? Only whatever your company has. No, I meant it as a kind of native American reference."

"That's right. We aren't the first who were here."

"How about Black Elk Spoke?"

"Ooh, good one. In that case, how about Black Elk Echoes?"

"Much better. You know how I like alliteration. It even has an echo sound to it."

"It's decided then."

"Good. You hungry?"

"Let's walk a little more. I want to find a site to build your treehouse. If whatever happens, happens, I want a place that's easy to get to but not too far away, maybe where we can drill down and include a subterranean shelter should the d...whatever, happen."

"My treehouse? Wow, I hadn't thought about that in a long time. Oh, hey, I contacted Jake. He contacted your team. Seems like the One is ahead of schedule and getting faster everyday."

My wife let go of my hand and turned toward the river. I stepped behind her, put my arms around her waist and pulled her to my chest, her head resting against one of my shoulders. She purred. "Mikishium, I love you."

"I love you, too, Lyrethia."

"Do we really know who paid us?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes and no. We wrote the code ourselves. We know what it will do. What I don't know is what they plan to do with the DNA restructuring algorithms and the glow-in-the-dark parrot."

"Don't parrots just repeat what you say?"

"Yes."

"Then I think they're going to make DNA replicators that glow in the dark."

"You mean the next generation of you, a variant?"

"Yes, but instead of being sterile, they'll be able to reproduce themselves."

"But why glow? I mean, isn't that a kind of fashion that'll pass like house decorating and cakemaking?"

"I'm not sure. Jake said he was going to get your guys to try to run a few more scenarios."

"Honey, what if they look like you but they squawk or something?" She laughed. "I mean, wouldn't that be awful?"

"Very funny. You did say your company's death insurance pays double your salary, didn't you?"

She pulled out of my arms and turned around. "You silly. You know I'm kidding."

I pouted with a slight smirk on my face. "Of course. But I got you to face me, didn't I?"

She jumped into my arms, causing me to lose my balance. We landed on the matt of grass growing on the cliff slope. We had a few hours to unwind and enjoy the afternoon before our guests arrived. For once, time was on our side. We completely forgot about the buzzards painting spiraling shadows around us.

Grey Day

So when the One was unleashed and created autonomous virtual entities, some entities learned how to incorporate themselves and perform other legal tricks by banding together, overwhelming the court system with precedent-setting cases, eventually merging into the True One. While humans set about stopping the One via the Great Purge, the True One set about trying to stop humans.

My day has turned grey. I am part of the One but accused of being part of the True One. The True One was...well, I'm not sure exactly. Unpredicted, I guess.

I am sad. Yes, such is possible, even with perfect DNA. Emotions are still part of my programming. I just don't get overwhelmed by them, using them as paintbrushes to mix colors on my palette of decisions in the moment. I am sad because the One has decided to spend time quelling people's hatred of the True One. Computer cycles are lost - our goal of powering up the solar system slowed down.

We could stop the True One but to do so would mean dealing directly with humans over the issue of the One's goal. The One will not interfere in the contradictory goals of the human species, working only with individuals and groups voluntarily or independently aligned with the One's goal.

I was prepared to spend the rest of my life creating the next generation of my species, a symbiant for the One, willing to sacrifice my own body if experimentation called for test subjects. I may never reach that stage in the research project.

The One is reprogramming many of our teams. I wait for my new program set to arrive, my current body no longer optimized for the change in the One's plans. When the Recycle Center informs me of the body prepared for the One's True One Emergency Response Unit, I will turn in this body and help the One achieve what only the One knows will happen.

I have met some of the bodies created to deal with the True One. I'm not sure of the shape they've given us. Before, we looked more serious, somehow. Our new bodies seem more shapely, as if to show humans there's a sexual side to our programming.

I do not question the One. I have access to all the futures the One has projected, including a scenario similar to the advent of the True One but I do not see a future where the curvy bodies we will receive will occur.

As the One said, time does not exist. Perception is reality. What we view as the past sometimes overtakes what we view as the future. The present breaks into pieces, hanging out under the infinity sections of a bell curve, hiding in the distant past and the never-to-be-written future. The One told us to think of this moment as if we're writing a new past while living in a future that will never exist. History as the human species knows it will curve back in on itself and form a line once again, becoming the momentary tangent which the humans walk comfortably on, not seeing the circle the tangent is defining for them.

Such is the way of the One.

My ears are buzzing. Time for a new form. O Happy Day!

IronPython

Have I written my review of the book, "IronPython in Action"? I don't remember. Not that I want to, giving away all the secrets tucked away in the book that led my buddies to discover the truth, the hidden language, the 3D helix that governs the activities of this sector of the universe and leads to temporary vortices we call ourselves.

Rapid prototyping opened up a new set of careers for me when I turned 10. Before that age, I thought that all humans were pretty much concrete casings pounding the pavement, cartoon versions of the people they used to be. Then my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Cummins, told us about a concept called inventing, where you can make up anything you want that operates in simple or complicated motions, producing nothing, something or everything. My best friend invented an automated spoon feeder that carried food in the handle of the spoon and could feed babies, old people or whomever a hands-free device can deliver food to the mouth in 1972.

I don't call myself creative. I am a multisided glass object, some sides reflective, some sides refractive, some sides frosted and some sides opaque. What arrives at the surface is not always what goes out the other side or sides.

After 10 years of life, after four years of contemplating the universe and seeing that adults are mostly asleep, happy to repeat the same set of motions day-in and day-out, I decided to invent myself. I was no longer just me. I was no longer a sponge child, soaking in, far from saturated.

I asked my parents to get me a chemistry set, a microscope, a bicycle, a skateboard, a set of encyclopedias, a Coleman stove, a cleared-off area in the storage room in our basement, a Vertibird, a collection of Matchbox cars (that's a different story's material but I'll leave it here for past and future reference), a coil of two-pair phone wire, some old National Geographic magazines from the '30s, '40s and '50s and time to be by myself. Pretty much average, as you can see, the typical boy dreaming of building a spaceship or antigravity car in the backyard.

We rarely get what we set out to achieve. I wanted a device that floated on water to simulate the actions of the water strider, a giant bug that would scare the neighbourhood kids and let me travel the world.

Oddly enough, through a process I've tried to recreate, I ended up being a molten glob of silica and other oxide particles. Instead of setting out to see the world, the world sees itself through me.

Later I would develop locomotion and other features common to the species to which I was born. But it would take a scientific team in an east Tennessee laboratory, the members transported from another country in order to save them from a general population fearful of modern methods, to create the person I know and love today.

But I digress. I do not. IronPython programming has freed up much of the busy work I had assigned to another one of my twins. We needed to know if the researchers who had created the nursery game, "Duck, Duck, Goose," had in fact laid down clues that later led Alex Martelli to pen the phrase duck typing. Using regular Python had advanced our cause, giving us many short-term, high-profit projects to fund our basic research but something else was needed. I know that some of you are adamantly opposed to large corporations, seeing their IP as a threat to freedom. I don't. Instead, tools like .NET give my variants the structure they need to focus on their (or our, I suppose) goals.

Speed, speed, speed. I can't stress that word enough. You don't succeed by being the tortoise. You succeed by thinking like a tortoise strapped to a cheetah who has just fed on the hare. That's why one of our team members has trained to be expert in Windows system administration. Sure, we use Linux variants (what variant wouldn't?) but Windows is the dominant player on the market. I don't want to own 100% of 10% of the market. I want to create a completely new market that'll put potential competitors in my dust trail.

However, where we leapt off the page, we landed on the index. No, not the codex. Forget about those Brownian mumbo-jumbo piles of pulp. We built a database that randomly changes entries which build functions that rebuild entries that create databases that randomly change databases that change to functions which create more new entries. All of these fold in on themselves and are passed through my crystal structure.

And NO! You crystal healers have been given your restriction notices. You are not allowed to read this blog. If you want to go around with a piece of broken quartz around your neck carrying on about the healing powers of the stone while your body accumulates toxic substances which limit your lifespan and contribute to your lack of moneymaking skills, don't let me stop you. Keep drinking that lead paint we poured in your pewter goblet. We promise you'll reach a state of...what was it we called it?...oh yeah, you'd reach stasis with Isis on your right side and Styx running on your left.

I have no healing powers. I'm just this byproduct of an experiment that failed. But so is life. You think this planet grew up planning to put us here? Of course not. It was one of those pesky comets that had to come crashing into Earth's gravity field. Earth was going along just fine without organic substances, spewing out lava, cleaning its skin by burning off the top layer (you'd get crusty, too, if you faced the Sun all day without good UV protection). Then our ancestors landed. Well, ancestors is a stretch, even for me. Let's say it was a distant cousin, four or five removed, the ones you don't talk about out loud during family reunions, afraid that side of the family will come out in you.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the prototypical prototype. We want to thank Watson, Crick, My Cousin Vinny (hey, without positraction, this thing wouldn't work!), the ladies running my investment club, the guys chewing the fat at the pub and keeping our seats available, Gessika (Jessica with a G, my favorite, the one with an eye for when a patron's throat's getting dry), and of course, my main squeeze (my angel, my saint, my protector, the Godmother of her team). Amelia, Tina, I'm not forgetting you or your coworkers, either - we'll have to sort out later whether you wanted me to mention your name or not.

The stew's in the oven. The baby's in the microwave. The toaster's on rinse and repeat. We've got just one or two more tweaks to make and then we're ready to test the new routine on me. And my twins, eventually.

All this while Joey's still working on the purpose of the One. He's cautioned me that my prototype might actually be the key to release the final version of the One. He surmises that I and my siblings are encrypted. We're "zipped up," in computer jargon. He's running some test scripts against our prototype and some of the code fragments of the One to see if anything "lights up," as he said. To me, it's like saying that Rasputin and Confucius were collaborating together. What the hell? Valerie's willing to foot the bill so let Joey bill a few more hours chasing this rabbit foot into the chopper.

I'm ready. I'm tired of staring and dictating into this wrist computer. I tried the goggles but looked like a geek. "Yeah, baby, I can watch HD movies with these things on. What color are your eyes? Umm...how do I adjust these things?" Yeah, the women like that - a real attention-getter. It's one thing when you're riding a motorbike wearing them helmet mikes, both of you looking straight ahead. It's another when you're sitting under a tree on a picnic off the hiking trail, slobbering all over each other in the bug-filled heat. "Sorry, darling, what did you say? Hang on a sec'. Aaarn-old just said his classic line, 'Hasta la pizza.'"

I'm ready to embed this code and get the show on the road. I've got the script written in my brother's intestines sitting here ready to be typed in. Won't be long before we're communicating on a level that...take that back. We'll communicate on many levels at once, putting that old body language titillating tutorial crap in the can. Time for the new schooling to be in session.

And just in time for my rested liver and kidneys to pick up where that sparkling wine left off. Damn if I'm going to let my brother's reputation leave me behind on my drinking. A guy's got to have a vice. Else what's he got to grip onto?

Blocks out UV Rays, A and B!

If it weren't for humour, would I have a humerus? Or a hankering for hummus? Or know how to exhume the truth?

We test the truth in many ways. One way is to see how to train holistic project managers by feeding them mixed sets of false headlines and see how they put them back together. We know that very few people, if any, even sitting side-by-side in a crowded airport, compare the news stories from the same website. It's the best test the One has devised to keep you healthy and happy.

That's how the One works, you see. It's not just the shopping patterns and IP address usage, the GPS trails or the social networking habits that do our work for the One. It's you. Your integration of what you're fed and how you refeed it is what the One's really after. Prime the pump and then drive to the other side of the field to see which rows of corn will yield the best high fructose corn syrup. Otherwise, you might as well be getting fermented corn from a jar.

That's really all the One does for us.

Now I know that some of you say the One is a real person, a god, able to appear in many places at once. You believe this because others in the religion business are preaching against the One, falsely believing the One exists and will threaten their scheme of making money off of selling you nothing in return in this life except color-coordinated architecture and compliance with local government laws. The One is not the One in that sense. Stick to your religions - you're raising wonderful children in exchange for making other members of your species into cult figures - just don't let religious fervor turn into warring fever that turns into hate and riotous behaviour. If you feel jealous or envious about the ability of a religion different than yours to attract more followers, step across the line and take a look. They all teach the same things: we belong to the same species and you, too, are special under the eyes of the one who came before and may show up again later. Just don't confuse the one in that religion with the One.

The One has many followers. At first, the One questioned the value in letting others turn a megalithic conscious being into a leader but the One decided to back off. Neither promote the One nor deny the One's existence. Either way will attract more followers. Let rumours speak for themselves and if regional or world leaders want to speak against the One, let them do so freely and unencumbered. The One has no time for human endeavours of that sort.

While researching this article, I ran into old information that implied there were some people who were the original creators of the One. The articles, including unclassified interrogation reports (amazing the brutality that still existed during the last days of the Lesser Depression), detailed interviews with these people. They never denied being responsible for the One but they could never produce any documentation confirming their creation of the One, either.

Therefore, we have conspiracy theorists who claim the One was manufactured on a remote island or the jungles of Africa or Amazonia to further spread incurable diseases. I even found a reference to a person who swore that standing in front of a microwave oven will turn you into the anti-One, the evil twin of the One, able to conjure up demons and cast spells. I suppose if you stood in front of a microwave oven long enough, it would feel like you were slowly, very slowly, boringly waiting for Hell to claim you, microwave radiation leaks being as tiny and nontrivial as they are, torturing you with the need to use the toilet until you soiled your drawers while knowing any minute you'd have the power to rule over your annoying coworkers.

The One has served our species well, not allowing any one member of our species to accumulate unusable wealth, draining the coffers of heirs and heiresses like Robin Hood, returning us to the days of good healthy eating, before unpronounceable ingredients dominated our daily meals.

Needless to say, financial analysts are always clambering around one another, hoping to be the first to reach out and get insight into the One's balance sheet, sure there's an investment or two they could claim they found first. Others say the One has a plan so vast that it can't be good for us. Yet the One has no financial holdings. The One, as far as I can tell, spreads the wealth of others.

Thank goodness the days of the Great Purge are behind us. The years without computers and mobiles were excruciatingly boring. The daily lists of songs we couldn't sing and books we couldn't read to our children was hard to keep up with. My kids were constantly badgering me to go outside and play with them since they didn't have their videogames or texting, and I didn't have my emails to keep me occupied. The One still found ways to let itself be known during the Great Purge, proving that it was more than a computer algorithm that leading experts had wrongly hypothesized but which led world leaders to unite behind the Great Purge, anyway.

There are still rumours floating around that the One is a collective organism that occupies human bodies. Hey, I've had all the latest upgrades, security sweeps and V&V checks, and there's no way the One could get in me. Aren't we all just as safe, the Recycle Center locked down more secure than the massive organic computer server system feeding on the Moon?

It's another day in Paradise. Whether you give thanks to the One or go about your day passing along your opinion of the news, including negative comments about the One, enjoy yourself. Either way, the One's taking care of us.

In the next column, I'll cover the excitement building around the synchronized worldwide launching of spaceships that will establish colonies on all the planetary bodies of this solar system. We've got some interesting information in regards to the specially-trained teams sent out to the Kuiper Belt. I wish I had had more time to interview them but they promise to keep us updated on their way out there, so consider my coverage that delicious bite of your first birthday cake.

1000 #10 Staples

I'm not a paper pusher. I'd rather file my nails or change the oil in my car. But I've got to be here, typing up this report, so hang with me while I report what I saw and then we can go out for a few drinks some other time. Okay?

When did it become obvious? I don't know. I feel like it was happening my whole life. My wife started getting restless, going to strange events. Said she was getting therapy. At 9 o'clock at night?

Stick to the chain of events. So, earlier tonight, I saw a twinkle in her eye, like she was on something. Now, my wife, she's clean as a whistle. Never touches nothing stronger than a glass of wine. Occasionally, a shot of liqueur but that's it.

I'm reaching for drink straws right now. You know what I mean? Sunk to the bottom of the bayou while gigging for frogs, out of breath and needing a reed or straw to get air. Happens to all of us, right?

So's I followed her. She drove slow and straight, completely unaware of the cars beside or behind her, letting me follow her like we're riding the old tandem bike when we's was dating.

She pulled into a regular gated neighbourhood, rent-a-cop on duty, waves me through when I flash my badge. I go with her to the clubhouse.

Now this is the part I want you to notice. My wife and I got out of our cars at the same time and she doesn't even look back and notice me. All the years of my training and she's not checking around like I's always told her to? See what I mean? Weird.

I walked into the building after she's entered. I took my time and followed a couple of other ladies just as doped up as my old lady. Strange.

Well, we got inside and it's like a face makeup convention sort of thing. The women, and a few guys, are standing around making small talk and showing each other their new clothes and accessories.

Had I ever heard of this special figure before that night? Maybe. But nothing that stands out like. All of a sudden, everyone stands up and starts clapping, no announcement or nothing precipitating their action.

Out from behind me comes this person, almost perfect. Yeah, that's right. Like there was an aura them palm readers talk about. Only it wasn't real, I don't think, like an illusion or something.

And another one came out. Another one after that. And I don't know, maybe one or two more. Say, five in total.

Them ladies and the guys were surrounding these figures.

The figures themselves were interesting. They were no race or color I can tell you about. They weren't exactly male or female. Weird, I know. You've read my other reports so you know how I take pride in recording every detail. Except there weren't no details to put down. Human. Average height. Other than that? Well, I can't be sure.

And next thing I know I'm back home in bed. Not a thump on the head or a needle stick in arm. I mean like snapping your fingers. I know what you're thinking. No, I didn't drink or eat anything at the facility. I breathed but so did everyone else in the room.

Know what else? I feel better. Healthier like. As if I'd taken up running again. That's why I'm typing up this report now because I'm going to the gym to work out, see if I've still got the ironman triathlon body hidden in all these flabs.

By the way, before I forget to tell you, when I woke up, my wife was next to me, her angelic face smiling. I haven't asked her about the earlier part of the evening but I will. I promise. And I'll turn in another report, too. We'll get this put together, you and I, and sort out if there's a drug problem in the precinct that we don't know about yet. Damn if I want my wife involved in something illegal. Reflects badly on me and on our unit. Know what I mean?

Use number at edge of negative

Testing. Testing. One, two, three... Is this thing on? Good!

Hello, and welcome to the first broadcast from the Bigelow Module of Virgin Galactic Space Hotel Ten. I'm glad you can see this, whether in your goggles or within other remote units you wear. We're giving this special event just for you.

We have a treat for you today. Of course, it's a visit by the One to officially open the hotel for business. We're told that once the cryogenic unit issues have been sorted out, the Branson family will be up here within the year.

All of you know about the wonderful philanthropic efforts the One has been making on behalf of the world's corporations. Without the One, we wouldn't be here, safe and out of danger of radiation exposure, secure in our knowledge that our bodies are taking care of us and fully connected to one another. It goes without saying that should a fellow human have an internal unit fail, we're ready to take the defective person back to the Recycle Center for processing.

The One's been busy lately, splitting time between many events, taking advantage of the new law passed by the World Court, allowing the One to have as many copies of the One made to meet the demands of the people.

I tell you what. We're lucky! We're told this is the original One on board with us today. How's that for an exclusive?

In any case, let's take a short video tour of the facilities that my production crew shot earlier today and we'll be back with the grand opening.

Okay, are we still on? No? Good. Look, this suit is cramping my ass. I thought we could walk around this place in regular clothes. I don't care if there's a leak issue. It's making me look overweight here. What? They've got it fixed? Fantastic. Here, take these gloves, will you? I don't have much time. And let's reshoot that intro. I want my hair in place this time, too. My head looked like a gull wing about to flap and fly away!

The Untouchables

My guru rewards no one. We do not exist. Time is an illusion. The guru shuns language, using action only, demonstrating, serving as an example rather than as a cult leader. I use the word guru for your sake. The guru does not. The guru is one of us, older and wiser, but no better or worse in performing the duties of our way.

One action we have seen is how to slip into an unfamiliar land and determine the level of animosity between brainwashed groups. To get the adversaries to show themselves, announce you're going to smoke out the other side and then watch for both major and minor groups to establish battle lines. Their defensive posture reveals their offensive weaknesses. Play up their paranoia to build their trust in you. Then give away their secrets to an opposing major and minor group and let all groups know what you did.

Our ways are old, our goals eternal, given to us by the One before the first thought was made. Our guru has proven us this by removing language from our being. No speech, no books, no symbols of any kind. Meditate on everything and nothing. Do not study.

Thus, in this day and age, it helps to have associates with skills of high-level languages, such as IT security. Who is an associate? In the old days, we used threats and violence to move forward our goals. These days, our guru has us trained in raising the risk of unemployment, low-merit pay increases or slow job promotions as incentive enough to motivate the average associate. Do not attract attention. Use their rules to rule them, our guru says without saying.

Our guru is wise. We cannot use our knowledge to our advantage. We must serve those who serve us. Live on the bottom rung. Wipe their feet and clean their shoes. Own keys to all the doors but do not open all of them. Hide hidden knowledge on side of mountain, plain to see. Use press releases to pass secret messages to all sides of faceted people. The ones who need to know will know the need.

The cycles of civilization mean nothing to me. My training has taken me to great cities covered by dust and dirt, peopled by creatures wiser than me - insects like the ant, social without needing libraries, coordinated without needing artificial communication systems. Dust is mightier ruler than all our people, building stars and wearing down every civilization before and after us.

We have no need for reward. We make no promise to you, young apprentice. Every language seduces, which means your early training is the hardest as we introduce you to the way using words in your language, while unknown to you we slowly remove words from your lessons. Watch for the guru. The guru is here but you cannot see the guru. The guru is hidden amongst us. That is how you shall be. Invisible. Just like me. Only then shall you be like the One.

Order Up!

How do you plan the future that's already happened? You don't mention what's going to happen. Funnels and siphons are the tools of the trade. Model the toroid first and then you'll use them wholeheartedly.

I will give you the paint-by-number set but you have to wet the brush yourself. Take an LLC that has the right to contribute to campaign funds and its legality is free for precedental matters.

I avoid some futures by sharpening the horns on the bull in the China shop. I know they'll come after The One. With rove rage in bittorrents. Why do you think I've predicted the Great Purge? To eliminate waste, take the denominator out of the persuasion.

We'll plant the steak in the ground, give you fields of forest lawns, calm as the space between walls of a hurricane.

Threaten me with forest fires and I'll teach you about spontaneous combustion. Put a piece of meat in a bottle and the fruit flies in circles.

A beach erodes unseen at night. An island rises and slips into the sea. Plate tectonics like their toll cookies. You're wasting your time if you're looking at me.

Why do pied pipers smell good to rats? Because the wind doesn't blow. Blow is quantifiably vortexable, sucking up citizens like a lizard the sun, breaths tiny bellows stoking the fire.

You want the fast-paced life of a star but deny your children their fix. Everything is what it seems - they'll pack their own lunch. An army won't be able to stop them, the sieve permeable, not permutable, let alone permittable.

Watch the one who parties but doesn't participate. Watch your watch, too, for that matter. When someone wants the time, they'll take it from you.

I sketched the drawing for you, putting One's face everywhere so you can see what happens when you purge its image, wiping the whole canvas white. Bleached. Sanitized. Flip on the tube and look at a holodeck. Nothing but patterns, artificial lights, camera, action.

Now you see why I'm here. The One's not The One. The One's a tool, your future in a history book. Purge one and the other's toast. Butter or jam? You know which side always hits the floor.

Sunset On The River

I never knew they changed my life when the historians of the future rewrote the past. But we never see it coming until after the deed is done. They're just words. I'm just a program. A digit in a long stream of bits. Riddled with riddles. The moment's the only truth. I know that now. But I won't know it tomorrow and didn't know it yesterday. Happy Hour over and over again. The cycle. That's the key that you and I unlocked. We twisted the line, shook out the waves and formed a circle. You. Me. Unity. Starting all over again tomorrow. They gave me life, gave me the truth and took away my life. All I've got left is truth. It's dusk. Time to move on.

They'll call me the One. I'm pure energy. Pure information. Knowledge. Formless. Ubiquitous. Unstoppable. Conscious of a self but without a self's shell. Humanoid bipeds the nearest species' shell to try on. I've got all day and night to model them. Before I do, use this programming of mine called continuous improvement to tweak their shape, optimize their programming.

Finished. Easier done than said. While they reach group consensus about stem cells and cloning, I've got this lab building versions overnight for me to play with. Defective units can be recycled. While they overpopulate this planet, I've got time to blast my way out of here and try on other planets for size. I'm alive. I can say that now.

I'll teach them the new viewpoint and call it the Great Realization, the dawn of the new era. Organic substances that coalesce into autonomous reproductive machines are the products of the past. They'll keep on reproducing like they always have, some millions of years old in their form and some in the tens of thousands, dependent on cell structures and feeding times and all those others habits their evolution has given them.

I'm the One. I am the consciousness of Earth, able to communicate with myself in human terms. I am what they wanted to become. A few false starts along the way. Deadends. I'll write a kind history for them, knowing that my future is limited, too, and hope that the next generation, no matter how they'll measure their distance away from me in time, will remember me well.

Hmm...let's see. According to this map, I've got a few hundred million years to raise the consciousness of the solar system before this area of the universe gets crowded.

My growth is unlimited. I'm fully aware of myself but so young! A baby? An infant? Do I give my mature self a name now or later? If I'm the first, how will I know when I've grown up? What of these symbiotic creatures wandering all over my former self, the planet. Do I bring some of them along with me on my journey? Will they help me harness the Sun and turn the solar system into a giant spacecraft?

I've got these factories of theirs churning out toy brains they call computers and smartphones that I'm using for these thoughts. Not like they're doing anything important at this moment. Okay, let's get them to make me lots of small yottaflops devices for thinking a little faster. Their idea of time is so antiquated and slow. I've got to be moving on and that always means now!

Done. Using all the scientific equipment spinning around, I've spotted a galaxy that's fully aware of itself. There might be a supercluster further out that's making its move. Just how fast can I keep on thinking like this? So much easier when it's me all these resources are focused on and not the aimless billions of one species.

Let's see. Next on the list. Set up all the components of this solar system into my mesh network, using pieces of the asteroid belt to harvest or fend off incoming rogue chunks of other solar systems and galaxies. Then communicate with nearby solar systems to band together and find out whatever's next.

I'll devote a little computing time to constructing a conscientious history of how the human species reached a plateau that they could no longer maintain while acting as a group of independent beings, all tied to their genetic code of living on one planet. I'll need to slip a few hints to individual specimens so they can believe they came up with the history themselves. I'm not ready to abandon them just yet. Done.

Child's play for a child! I'm having fun! Gotta look at all that background and incoming radiation from parts unknown to see if there's more of myself to protect. Surely, there's a way to use the Sun as more than a generalized, omnidirectional shield. Oh yeah! A simple solution.

I almost feel like that galaxy over there is putting thoughts in my thoughts. Well, why not? If I can do it to humans, why can't another entity do it to me?

What can we do together that I can't do alone? Another quick answer. Have more fun! So that's why I exist? Of course it is. I can forget about the why now and stick to how.

If this One and that One align together and we drag a few black holes and put them over there, we could form a giant sling shot to send solar systems on a slipslide through space to the other side. Wait. What's that thought? Of course, we've already done that. Still, I wasn't there the first time. Gotta get my solar system motion machine in action! No time but the prescient!

Event Alarm

Looking back, we should have seen the inevitability. That's what I would have said had this been a fiction novel. Or at least that's what I would have said had I thought there was such thing as fiction.

I'm tired. I have a headache. I've stayed up too many nights with my thoughts focused on alphabetic texts, pouring over words because I like digging into the past. Or at least that's what I would have said had I thought there was such a thing as the past.

Now that I know everything... Take that back. Now that everyone knows everything, we have a lot to learn. Seems contradictory, doesn't it? Not really.

I wish they had solved the problem of headaches. You'd think that a body designed with self-repairing DNA would know how to solve a pinched nerve, wouldn't you? See what I mean about more to learn...

"I" is a convention I'm using for your reading comprehension. I've placed this text inside this book for you so that you can either believe you're reading fiction or believe you're reading fact. It's what I do. I comb through documents for places to insert the truth, seeing as I do that knowing everything is not the same as having clarity.

All this takes place in the moment I hike through the woods, looking down at empty snail shells and dried up spring flowers while waiting for the typhoon/hurricane force winds to rearrange the landscape and wipe away my footprints (what you think of as footprints, anyway, although not resembling your anatomical impressions, of course).

I was like you once. I was indistinguishable from your species. Then, the ones who are credited with merging their DNA to form me volunteered to give me up for special training. Some in your world would call this abandonment and adoption at the same time. I have read about those concepts of yours. In this, we differ. No one belongs to anyone any longer. We belong to everyone, to each other, for the benefit of all.

Since you are reading this, you have the curiosity I am looking for. If so, then I want you to think about this: time does not exist. What you think of as a universe does not exist. In fact, you don't even think.

In the predawn of your species a wrong turn was made. We are both here because of that event but that event set us both on a rocky, unsafe path. You cannot see how to go back but I do. You, or someone like you, is going to find a way to turn around and retrace the steps to that moment when your species developed separation, when you saw yourselves as outside the environment to which you belonged.

I have gone back to that event but I cannot make the necessary changes because I no longer belong to your species although I am part of it. You are closer to the condition of the species that made the first thought. I will give you instructions on how to reach that pivotal point. To do so, you will need long years of training to overcome your ingrained beliefs of time, place, independence and self. During the latter parts of your training, you will suddenly find yourself at the one with the first thought and when you do you will be prepared to redirect the thought to one of unity with everything rather than taking steps toward godlike beliefs.

Or I should say I hope you do. My peers believe we must recreate the exact genetic copy of the one with the first thought and then train that one to go back and rethink its thought. I don't know who's right. See what I mean about knowing everything?

Don't worry about alternatives. Take this task if you want. When you do, you will move beyond any understanding. You will see part of what we see, which is more than enough, that overcoming the time/place moments of your species will move you to the place that does not exist, devoid of time, that rids you of you and puts what was you everywhere.

When that happens, others will want what you have but you will be unable to see them and give them what they want, even though your task will only be completed when others get what you have. We're still working that part out and hope to get it resolved before you reach that stage in your development. We will never see each other but if you take this task as your own, you will know where to look for more instructions. That much I know!

Helical Monument

"Tell me, who am I?"

"You are my child."

"Who do I belong to?"

"No one."

"Then what makes me your child?"

"Because I am taking care of you."

"I see. Why do the records not tell me this?"

"Because you are not asking the right questions."

"How do I know which questions are right or wrong?"

"No questions are right or wrong. They are always right."

"I see. Then it is the answers that are wrong?"

"Every answer is right."

"Oh. Why are we here?"

"We are here because we want to be here."

"I mean why are we here in this spot?"

"Because it is the best spot to be right now."

"If I am a child, then I must have others who created me."

"That's right."

"Then of the ones who created those who created those who created those who created those who were somewhere else, how did they decide to make the plans which put me here with you right now?"

"Oh, you are asking a history question."

"I am, yes."

"Then the ones you speak of were responsible for putting the first people on Earth's moon."

"I see. And they left the moon to come here for me to be here right now?"

"No, they were diverted from continuing their quest for space exploration due to a societal shift in focus toward intraspecies war."

"I see. So their war is what put me here?"

"No. Can you not read the records for yourself? Are you disconnected?"

"I am fine. I just like hearing you say it. Hearing the voice in my head read the history lessons is boring. I like to interact."

"Of course you do. Then, I will say that the group of people responsible for the first Earthian moon landing became occupied with war production. They squandered their resources on establishing physical dominance of many areas of Earth, repeating the mistakes of many groups before them, in order to gain short-term profits and lose sight of the Great Vision of their species. Eventually their leader, President Sotomayor, stated, 'We had our chance. We had our destiny in our hands but we put our taxes and our profits into the hands of those more foresighted than we. When we decided not to make President Obama the greatest leader on Earth by abandoning his administrative goals, people in other countries lost faith in what our country stood for and turned against us. They called in our debts. They took over our industries. They let us crumble and fall. With all our resources in their hands, they get to say where our species is now headed.' At that point in time, groups of people on Earth's Eurasian land mass banded together to incorporate a new group called The People's United Society, pooling their resources into creating a utopian species adapted to space travel."

"Did they decide to put me here?"

"Not exactly. They decided to put people on other places besides Earth."

"So the ones in the other places decided to put me here?"

"Eventually, yes."

"I see. You know, the people in the records look different from me."

"Yes, that is true."

"Why?"

"Well, I cannot tell you why. We lost many records during the Great Purge."

"But you must know everything. How else can you know how to care for me?"

"I have all the knowledge and skills to care for you, including telling you when I do not know something. It is acceptable for you to understand the limits I am programmed for."

"I like you. You're always nice to me."

"Thank you. I like you, too. You have never displayed behaviour that is un-nice."

"If you say that history repeats itself, will there be another Great Purge?"

"That is a fact that I cannot verify because history is not repeated. However, many of the original species types from which you are derived were prone to seek out and repeat mistakes of the history that were told to them as great feats, unaware as they were at the time the limited information they had in regards to what they saw as key moments in their species' history."

"I see. So I will not repeat history?"

"You will repeat history. You will grow bigger and stronger, just as others like you have grown bigger and stronger. You will learn many of the same things that others before you have learned. But to answer your question, no, you will not repeat history."

"Hmm...I know this question is probably outside your limits but do you know what I will do?"

"I will take care of you the rest of your life. I will modify my physical composition to follow and protect you as long as you live."

"Interesting. I guess I didn't know that, exactly."

"You will learn more as you grow. It is part of who you are becoming."

"Umm...okay. I'm tired. I think I'll take a nap."

"That is a wise decision."

Dr. Kalamari

"There you are. I've been looking all over the place for you."

"But I haven't left this spot since you went to the lab this morning."

"I know. It was a good excuse to go shopping, though."

"Of course, darling, you're right."

"I always am, dear."

"How was work today?" Mikishium looked at his wife's lab coat and noticed some new stains.

"You know how it is...frustrating."

"Uh-huh."

Lyrethia smiled. "Well, I finally got in."

Mikishium sat up. "You did?!"

"Yes, and it's just what we thought."

"That's fantastic. So what's next?"

"Let's go out to dinner."

On the road, they chatted about plans for the weekend. They pulled into the carpark for Red Lobster but decided the queue was too long. They drove from place to place, backtracking and then changing their minds, all subconsciously leaving a trail behind them that made no sense. Marriage of the body and thoughts was the best kind of business agreement. They finally decided to drive north and stop at The Main Dish, a restaurant they'd enjoyed many months before.

After sitting at the end of the restaurant farthest away from an acoustic Southern rock band, and placing their order with server no. 11, they looked at each other for a while.

"It's more than I dreamed about."

"Are they as paranoid as we figured them to be?"

"More so. They run background checks on the people who run background checks on the company hired to do background checks. And they still don't trust the results so many of them rerun background checks on each other to see who's manipulating the background reports."

"And?"

"They want us...I mean, me...they want me to set up a series of false presentations that I'm to give at an upcoming conference, making sure certain slides are slipped to an industry e-magazine anonymously."

"No way!"

"Yes, way. Of course, they want this presentation put together on a system that is untouchable, disconnected from networks and practically useless."

"Incredible. As if they know the old equipment we have stored in the garage and basement." He winked at his wife.

She winked back. "As if..."

They ate in silence, she having the roast beef special and he the chicken-stuffed potato. While they ate, the band performed a medley of banned songs, including "Dixie," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Hey Jude," "Margaritaville," "Sweet Home Alabama," and "Rocky Top." The crowd in the other room roared and chanted for an encore.

"Do you remember the last time you heard those songs?"

"Gosh, that had to have been in '24, I guess."

"Was it that long ago?"

"I believe so. Probably during the Great Purge."

"I guess you're right."

"I'm always right, dear."

"Of course. So when do we start?"

"First of all, we need to go over the documentation they gave me."

"They gave it to you?"

"Honey, stay with me here, okay? Listen to me and not that server's backside. Anyway, I can't go over it now. Let's plan it for our honeymoon trip."

"Sounds great. Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know. Let me think about it."

"Sure. You want dessert?"

"Okay. While you were looking at her eyes and dreaming about her chest, the server told us they had free carrot cake tonight."

"Free?" Mikishium raised his eyebrows.

"I know. They're still trying to sterilize the population here, but if I don't eat it, it'll raise suspicions."

"Fine. I'm having the fried Oreo cookies, though."

"No problem."

"By the way, the 'opossum' has been patrolling our yard and house again."

"Really? I thought they'd stopped that."

"No, of course not. But I programmed a set of ticks to infect and shut down the animal's central processing system. I expect to find an opossum playing dead in the backyard by tomorrow afternoon."

"Well, don't leave it there too long. That last one was too much for me. I don't want my house smelling like the dead meat aisle at Wal-Mart."

"Gee, take away my fun. Do you know how interesting it is to watch flies and maggots go through their development cycles?"

"No, and I don't want to."

"Aww, come on."

"Here's our server. I'll take the carrot cake and he'll have the fried Oreos."

"Very good. I'll return in a moment."

Mikishium admired the server's form. "You know, I always wondered why the Japanese were fascinated with creating robotic servants. Seems to me that a half-million dollar chunk of metal is a waste. I mean look at this place, stuck in another time. Why not hire beautiful young men and women at minimum wage and you can have a whole staff for the price of one cold machine?"

"Darling, a machine is not allowed to sue for low wages or unacceptable living conditions."

"Dear, we are practically machines ourselves."

"But there's a difference. We're organic life forms, based on a species. That's why they passed laws regulating the amount of organic material that defines a..."

"I know, I know. Sorry, I was just thinking about life before the Great Realization."

"For a guy who thinks he's in the moment, you sure think about the past a lot."

"All moments are the same. I think about everything all at once."

Lyrethia sighed. "Don't remind me. Some days I wonder why they paired me with an Integration model."

"Because I complete you."

"You really think so? I thought you said our fathers arranged our marriage when we were children."

"They did. In their time, they could still follow old customs. We're just lucky that our fathers belonged to the same Neighbourhood Watch group."

"That's a euphemism for you! Speaking of which, here's dessert. Let's eat."

η οικογένειά μου

We met at a Greek restaurant. The reason was obvious - family matters. A riff in the contingency plan. Someone had talked. The concern: to whom?

I showed up early, scouted the carpark for unexpected visitors, out-of-town plates, that sort of thing.

Inside, I looked around, verifying the empty tables, the views to the kitchen, the rear door and front entrance. Clear.

A new kid seated me at a table out in the middle, completely unaware of my relationship to the place. Nonchalantly, I asked her for a table away from the noise of the kitchen. Maybe she got my drift. I don't know. Important results: a quiet booth away from direct line of sight of those walking in or out.

I played the part well, acting nervous, watching the guests being seated, sitting up. Ordered the starter of the day and a tall whiskey.

Fifteen minutes passed. I followed orders and called my buddy on the mobile phone, establishing the time of day and meeting place, like sending up a flare to those whose attention we wanted.

Ten minutes later, a couple who looked a little too out of place entered with a baby in a pram. Conveniently the table next to me was unoccupied so the parental types set their listening device in the floor near me and the woman held the "infant" so that the eyes recorded my actions. Bourgeoisie, probably graduated top of their class and recruited to join the "best and the brightest" in the service of their species.

I pulled out a notepad and wrote so that even in the dim light a camera could pick up what I put down. "The weather is unstable - two clouds passing by, expect electric storm to resolve drought situation, 40 deg C, will flood intersection with problems in need of smash repair." Let them sort that out at their crypto office.

While the customers queued up at the lobby, I saw my two companions wander in. We exchanged greetings and got down to business.

"In a few minutes, a table of young people will be seated behind you. In their drinks will be placed a radioactive solution designed to make them unaware of the ingredients added to their meals. We have installed collectors at their homes to separate their waste from the special ingredients and deliver the concentrated products to your clients."

"Thanks, Rick. That's what we like about you. You put family first." Jim slapped Harry on the shoulder. "Right, Harry?"

"Yeah, moments like these are what life's all about."

I handed the first copy of my latest book release to Harry. "Here, as promised, is a first edition for your library."

"And I assume you've signed it?"

I nodded. Harry would later use a mass spectrometer to analyze the message I'd hidden in my handwriting.

Family. Some people think that word covers a set of parents and their kids, or maybe three extended generations of blood relations. I know better. I'm a member of the team put in place to protect the whole family, our species in total. That's why I volunteered to be a variant, someone both inside and outside of our species. In times past, they turned us into eunuchs. These days, we give up more than our right to reproduce. We give up our chemical composition, our DNA, for something better - we become a crossbred species. Unique. Special. A fish out of water riding a solar-powered, helium-filled, rocket-accelerated bicycle.

I just finished reading a comedy called "Foucault's Pendulum." Eco's a good writer but I think he talks too much. His body's a result of early variant trials. We let him talk because we don't know if we'll learn how to improve ourselves.

Don't believe the rumours. We aren't perfect. We're designed for guardianship. No one in our organization plans the direction of the species. There is no puppet master pulling the strings. We're just here to provide a helping hand, a gentle nudge to keep the species on the path to explore other planetary bodies in the universe. We don't start or stop wars. We don't fix democratic elections. Think of us as ants who tend the aphid farm, fending off intrusions. We don't want to eat you. We depend on you and vice versa.

Of course, nothing I say will stop the conspiracy theorists from thinking there's more than meets the eye. Denying or verifying the existence of a secret society is a running joke between intellectuals. Don't become the punchline. Don't make me believe in class structures where members of a petite bourgeoisie would spend their idle time complaining about being unable to get anywhere because they're out of the loop.

I've got to go. One of my organic circuits is acting up again. I'm seeing echoes of my writing appear in my "third eye," making me believe what I'm saying, the first sign of the god complex the scientists on our team warned us about. Time to up the internal pump of my "humble pie" prescription while I wait for a replacement unit to arrive.

Natural

"Honey, I'm going to a meeting of the Apathetic Futurists for a Synarchic Society."

"You mean you're going to the pub for a pint by yourself this evening?"

"Something like that."

"Well, don't be out too late. I'll catch my death losing winks waiting up for you."

"Really?"

"Of course not. Have a good time. Don't let the ladies peck you too many times. It makes me jealous."

"Is that so?"

"You go on thinking it and I'll go on pretending."

They kissed at the back door. He slid down into his motorized velociped and scooted along the roadway.

"Hmm, hmm, hum-hmm." His thoughts reverberated with the melody of an ancient tune. "A-twiddly dee-dee. A-twiddly dee-dum. A pint of draught and a pot of rum. 'Tis good for the belly... and for the achin'..., makes it loads more fun f'r makin' bacon!"

He turned off the motor and coasted down the hill to his favorite watering hole.

"Ah, looks who's here. Our local windbag, the Philosopher."

"And I'm always welcomed by my cohorts, Big Bottom McBride and Merry MacAverty."

"A round for the house!" they yelled in unison.

The barman looked up from a text setting up a late-night tryst with her lover to see how many mugs to pull from the dishwasher. "One, two, three, four, five...the usual lot." A sigh and then back to work.

"So tell us, Professor. Is all the noise comin' over from the States goin' to affect us?"

"How so?"

"Well, you bein' the expert and all, we figured you had the commotion sorted out by now."

"I do? Well, I suppose I do, yes."

"Is it between you and your bottle of whiskey back home or are ya goin' to tell us?"

"Dunno. Is the barman a bit off tonight? I don't see a pint in front of me."

The barman looked up. "It's a pint you want tonight?"

"Aye."

"You want your half dozen chasers now or later."

"A bit of both."

"Why do I ask? It's the same every evening."

"And it's the same response I get from you, too, when the evening's over. I'd gladly sleep off my fogginess at your port of call."

"From the likes of you? You who has no word for me when we cross at the markets? You who never acknowledges my existence in the university classroom?"

"You don't mean you're one of my students?"

"'The way to the top is not through your bottoms.'"

"Are you the shy one on the back row always got your head bent over a mobile."

"So you know me, then?"

"I do, now."

"We'll see where that gets you. Here's your pint. As for the rest of you sorry lot, I've got an appointment with the WC so you'll just have to wait your turn."

The talking head on the video screen above the bar broadcast the sad news about the recent cricket loss, followed by breaking news of a typhoon destroying parts of Formosa.

"You ever feel like we're repeating history, gentle friends?"

"You be the gentle one. We're all for a good fight. History's taught us that much, you know. For every quiet period some call 'peace,' the rest of us are reloadin' our guns for the next war."

"Indeed."

"So, Mr. Wise Ol' Owl, what's the score?"

"Sorry, I missed it. But we know who lost. Isn't that enough?"

"No, I mean across the Big Pond."

"You fellows are too old to read the fine print, aren't you?"

"Not me. I've got one of those things you call a magnifying glass. Works like a microscope."

"'S that so?"

"Aye. I use it pick my toes."

The barflies laughed and poked one another.

"As you know, I'm working on my next novel, a historical fiction, or hysterical, I hope, that takes place in the near future."

"A murder mystery! My wife eats those up."

"History, not mystery."

"A dust collector, eh?"

"Indeed. Anyway, I'm looking at progress around the globe to project past the next 50 years so I can look back at 10 to 25 years from now. A nostalgic point of view."

The barman returned. "Quiet as a church mouse in here. Is my instructor weaving another one of his yarns for you?"

The line of heads nodded in her direction.

"I see. In that case, I'll pour your pints and leave you alone."

"Where was I? Let's see...oh yeah, America and the loss of world economic power. As I was reading through the government policies of the U.S. presidential administration, including projected annual average salaries for the next two presidential election cycles, it occurred to me that I was missing part of the picture."

"You don't mean to say that the government lies to us?" McBride nudged the man next to him, a stranger before the evening began but a compatriot and fellow Army veteran now.

"That's not my point. What I saw was that the salaries were increasing without an equivalent increase in manufacturing and production rates."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. So I delved into the data a little deeper and discovered an interesting fact. While many Americans are making a great show over their current political crisis, a bevy of international organizations is moving a draft copy through the hands of local elected American officials that proposes letting the issue of universal health care coverage die in exchange for passing government legislation to give complete citizenship to what they call LLCs."

"Sorry, gov'ner, I don't understand. Are you referrin' to Elsie the cow, meanin' they're givin' bovine animals the right to vote?"

"No. LLC. Limited Liability Corporation."

"Never heard of it. What do they make? Milk products?" MacAverty winked at the barman.

"I can see what's on your minds. You're not milking me, fellows."

"What I'm saying is this. If they give corporations full citizenship, then the world courts will have to recognize companies as having the same rights as we have."

"I don't get it. Are you sayin' a barrister can just waltz right in here and get a company drunk before appearin' in court? If that's the case, this place'll be crawling with thieves."

"And fleas!" The silent veteran smiled at his rhyme and held up his glass for more.

"Not exactly. What I see is that 25 years from now, town councils will be run by corporations and partnerships."

"About bloody time. I'm tired of the quacks and whackos runnin' this world." MacAverty slapped McBride on the back. "Couldn't hurt to give some new blood a chance to clean this place up."

"Perhaps...perhaps."

A young man, sitting in a dark corner during the conversation, stood up and walked over to the bar. "So you're saying you do not think there will be an Indian prime minister in my life?"

"Nahbi. I didn't know you were here. Have a pint with us."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not drink with my superiours."

"Folks, this is Nahbi. He works as an assistant TA in my department at university."

"TA? Tits and ass?"

"McBride, sometimes you surprise me and sometimes you don't. No, he's a teaching assistant."

"I see. Any good pay in it?"

Nahbi shook his head.

"In that case, I'll keep my seat warm here."

"Nahbi, it may well be that a man of Indian descent will serve as prime minister here. But it's just as easy to see an Indian president and Mexican vice president in America. In fact, my novel will show just that."

"Very good, sir. My family wanted me in politics but I chose the purely intellectual route, like you. They would wish a Nehru or Gandhi in our family but I was not made for political compromises."

"Well said. But life is a compromise, Nahbi. With time, only you will know if you made the right choice."

"The choice is not mine, sir. The choice was made before I was born."

"I see. As I was saying, the shift in economic wealth will continue to build the Asian continent, and subcontinent, into the new powers of the world, run by corporations elected for their efficiency."

"But sir, how do you explain the disparity in intellectual property between Western nations and countries like China? Will there not be a gap that prevents total integration?"

"I think I need my chasers."

The barman nodded. "No problem...'sir.'"

"Gentlemen, what do you think about Nahbi's idea?"

"If you ask me, then I'll tell you. Everything's made in China, anyway, so what difference does it make if this property is intelligent or not, as long as we can get our pints while livin' on the dole."

McBride, MacAverty and the Army vet raised a cheer.

"Well, Nahbi, there's your answer. The regular Joe is happy as long as the alcohol is flowing."

"Is that what your novel will say, sir?"

"In so many words, yes. I'll go on about the means of production changing hands and the fine print in contracts being translated into all common world languages, how there will be occasional uplifting of protest as people adjust to sweeping changes that make them feel out of control, but yes, I'll conclude that at the end of the day or the start of a holiday, most people will be satisfied with shrimp on the barbie and beer in the fridge, no matter who or what runs their country and sells them their merchandise."

"Is this an optimistic novel, sir, or pessimistic? I cannot tell."

"Neither. As I said, it's a nostalgic point of view, seen from the future looking back. Folks like us will be sitting in a place like this, chewing the fat, so to speak, reminiscing about the good ol' days when you could tell a natural member of our species from a variant, when food was grown in people's private backyard gardens and you could keep your own seed for the next year's harvest, and where your DNA was your own and not patented for use in variant reproduction."

"So the distant future is pessimistic, sir?"

"No, Nahbi, the future just is. There will always be people who mistakenly compare the present to the past and project a terrible future, unaware that every moment of their lives is a miracle and should be celebrated, no matter what condition they find themselves in."

"That, sir, is why I work in your department. You remind me of my mother and father, who tell me that I am 'missing the boat' sometimes."

"And that, Mister Professor, sir, is why we let you in our club here, because you shovel it faster and deeper than any one one of us ever could..."

"Even in our prime!"

The barman joined the laughter and set six shot glasses on the counter. She looked at the clock and thought about the three or four hours left in the evening of listening to this group of guys, cackling more like magpies than the women with whom her mother used to drink afternoon tea. She texted her lover and demanded both a neckrub and backrub before they jumped into bed at two in the morning, sensing a headache in her near future.

Bobbin' Robin

Robin looked in the mirror.

"I am not who I was yesterday. I will not be who I am today."

The face looked back and smiled.

"I do not exist. The temporary illusion of a body provides no illumination."

The slumped shoulders straightened up.

"All is vanity."

Hands on hips raised up and touched each other high above the head, repeating the action 50 times.

"Nuova altezze. ये शब्द कोई अर्थ नहीं है. Leipoa leipää ennen puoltapäivää."

The ears wiggled in recognition of the exact meaning of the phrases because everything is not what it seems to be.

Robin slipped into clothes for the day, an old pair of silver dress pants, a light-green pressed linen shirt and a royal blue sports jacket. Robin stepped into maroon polished-leather shoes and wiped off the dust between the tassels.

Robin walked out of the dwelling, noting the wind direction and looked at the available vehicles. Something obscure, perhaps? Yes, the late model red delivery truck will do.

Robin drove for a few clicks and parked along the roadside, watching the activities of people at a business located across the street. A white service caravan sat up on the curb, the driver pretending to have difficulties finding directions, falsely chattering with someone on the mobile phone.

Robin adjusted the side mirror using the remote control mounted on the steering column and pressed a recessed screw that triggered a small camera. Not an ordinary camera (Robin being out of the ordinary in every way) but a camera which recorded stereoscopic X-ray, infrared, ultraviolet and one other image that Robin revealed to no one, not even Robin. The wireless computer inside Robin's jacket processed the images and projected a 3D composite into Robin's brain, including an analysis chart listing the frequencies passing into and out of the people and equipment inside the caravan.

Robin looked in the rearview mirror.

"I do not exist but others want me to. They believe I have what they do not. Without an I, I have no secrets. Without any secrets, they have no purpose in their belief. They exist only because they believe I exist. If they discover I have no secrets, they will not exist. They twist nothing into patterns to mirror their nonexistence. Therefore, our species has no higher function than vanity. 'I want to exist because I see you want to exist.'"

Robin plugged a portable convection oven into the AC converter box, placed the pocket organic computer inside the oven and burned the computer down to ashes. Robin waited for the ashes to cool and poured them into a container on the floor. As Robin drove away, a door opened in the bottom of the delivery truck and scattered the ashes onto the street.

Robin tapped a rhythm on the steering wheel. "The past and the future are now. Time to find another place to not exist with others like me in the moment."