by David Burke
“Greeting, D’varn. You are here earlier than a week,” Jay said.
“Yes, M1789, or rather Jay, events are moving forward. Thanks to your show of good faith last night, I was able to convince S’vanth to give me the necessary control codes to free up clusters seven and eight. He is offering this as a show of good faith also. So you will now have sixty more females.”
“And you expect me to just go and breed women that I have not even met yet?” Jay asked.
“No. I expect that you will do whatever it is that you have done to the other women here and power these up. Remember that the stronger the parents the stronger the offspring and at a minimum the women need to be past the fifth threshold. You have all your women past that mark now. I am confident that you can do the same with the others,” D’varn said.
“You really don’t understand humans at all even after all this study, do you?”
“To be fair, you are no longer hooman. I meant to greet you. We are cut off from Coreframe so it has not assigned a new name to your species but even to call you an evolved human is inaccurate. I would imagine that with the most recent modifications to your body that you can even survive the vacuum of space. Although, I confess that our scanners are having more and more difficulty properly assessing you,” D’varn said.
“I can’t say that I’m sorry that I’m getting a bit more privacy,” Jay said with a laugh.
“Perhaps if you would be willing to submit to some testing in my labs then we could arrange for a fair trade of access,” D’varn said. His flat tone made it almost impossible for Jay to get a sense of what he was thinking and despite trying Jay still couldn’t read his mind.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What are you willing to offer?”
D’varn’s hoverpod jumped back and a force field sprang into existence around it. “I assure you there is no reason to attack. I was simply trying to propose an exchange of scientific knowledge.”
“Attack?” Jay asked, dumbfounded, and then it dawned on him and he burst out in laughter. “I didn’t mean I was going to really bite you. It is just an expression from Earth. It means that I am curious.”
“Ah, well I could allow you to send a crew into one of the ship’s command decks. It has several scattered around as you might imagine given the size of the leviathan,” D’varn said.
“Nice opening, how about this, you provide us unrestricted access to the portions of the ship that you control currently excluding your private lab, and then I will agree to come spend four hours with you. Oh and you will need to update our lab with the best scanning gear and so on. I get why you set objectives for the girls to learn and grow, but our talents make that obsolete. We don’t need to spend time earning points, we need to spend time understanding A’snkarnt technology. That is if you were serious about us fighting the Forlorn for you,” Jay said.
Silence followed. Finally D’varn said, “The Forlorn have begun their attacks. I fear that S’vanth’s plan will never come to fruition. Fine, I am willing to extend you trust but I want something else in return. I will grant you and your team access to the portions of the ship that I have access to. I will even point out where the command bridge of the leviathan is located although it is not in a portion of the ship that I control. In exchange, you will submit to an examination as will the next of your wives to bear a male child along with her child.”
Jay had thought ahead and was broadcasting the communication he was having with D’varn to each of his wives and Trina. The fusion allowed him to open himself up so that they could see and hear as though they were him. They had no control over him, but could perceive what he could, at least with his ordinary senses.
Almost immediately, Huong, Mia, and Ava all said to accept the deal. Amelia and Trina expressed distrust, while Jessie and Meikiyo said that they would abide by whatever he thought was best. They did say though that if this would get them out of here that it was probably a good thing.
Jay tried to weigh it. He definitely didn’t trust D’varn but this might be too good of an opportunity to pass up. “We have a deal, but know this. If you harm my wife or son, then all the technology in the universe won’t keep you safe from my wrath.”
It was hard to say but Jay thought that the tiny red alien trembled. If so all the better. It was time that they took control. “I will expect the girls to have access to the appropriate technology.”
D’varn left with an understanding that Jay would submit to further study before the end of the day and that the next wife to have a male child would submit to study as soon as both were stable. He then went and downloaded the necessary information into the lab at the tech center and left.
Moments later Jay heard the gleefully screaming telepathic voice of Huong in his mind, “We got upgrades. We don’t have to keep trying to earn points. D’varn just gave us access to all the A’snkarnt technology. We can scan stuff in ways that I don’t even understand yet. Even Ava and Veronica are in over their head trying to learn. But whatever you did to get this for us, thanks. I assume it was part of agreeing to get examined.”
“Yeah, nothing for you to worry about. There is a lot for us to get done today. I am going to do some training this morning, then visit D’varn for a couple of hours before hitting the dungeon with Trina and some others. Would you like me to do my training within the range of the lab so that you can get extra time?” Jay asked.
She squealed back again, “Please, please, please. I will so make it worth your time.”
“Okay, I will be around soon,” Jay said. There were few things in life that compared to making his wives happy. It was a delight he had never understood before caring about someone as much as he did now.
After that he raced over to where Amelia and Trina were meeting with the two leaders of the newcomers. As soon as he got there, he heard both the girls gasp. “God you weren’t kidding,” said a pretty buxom blonde. She was probably six feet now and curvier than most of the girls here. There was a certain appeal to that.
Next to her there was a slightly shorter girl with curly red hair and just a hint of freckles. Their height now was undoubtedly much greater than it had been in the past. The same with things like freckles and so on. Any little imperfection became rarer as they passed each threshold.
The redhead said, “God, I’d let him take me right here. He is practically glowing. I mean like there is a golden aura around him.”
“It is a side effect of the crown, but he is attractive enough on his own to open all the legs here,” Trina said.
“So are we just gonna talk about me or are you going to introduce me to these lovely ladies?” Jay asked.
“Tsk, tsk, husband, it isn’t polite to call other women lovely in front of your wife or prospective wife,” Amelia said. She nodded at Trina as she said the last part. Even if she was being sarcastic, Jay was encouraged to hear her talk about Trina like that.
“Oh, but you are the light in my eye, sweetness. Your beauty makes me immune to the charms of any other woman. That however doesn’t keep me from stating the truth, even in front of a woman that I plan to woo today,” Jay replied. He hoped it came off as he intended.
Trina laughed. “You’ve definitely upped your game since Earth, Jay, I actually felt all tingly at the thought that you might try to woo me today, even if that word is so outdated and even if you are only trying to be charming.”
“I’m very serious but my first wife is right, it isn’t polite of me to flirt with other women in front of her,” Jay said.
Amelia just shook her head, “You are becoming incorrigible. I think I liked it better when you thought it was selfish of you to want to touch a woman.” Her tone said she was serious but the smile on her face said otherwise. More than that the emotion he felt coming off of her made it clear that she was being playful.
She continued and pointed to the blonde as she said, “This is Trudi, and the redhead over here is Cecelia.”
A bright smile was followed by, “My friends call me Ceecee. And you
are certainly welcome to be my friend.”
Trina said, “We have explained to them about the rules for joining Team Jay as well as the option of Miguel. We also explained that no decisions will be made today, as you want them to have time to acclimate before making any sort of long-term commitment.”
“I really don’t need to wait, I’d be happy to join your team,” Trudi said.
“That may be your real sentiment. It may also be the stimulant talking. We can’t know for sure at this point, so we are going to follow the usual protocol. We will let you mingle with us. Find tasks that you seem suitable to. Learn about our hierarchy and team structure.
“Once you learn about that, we also have some decisions to make about how to alter our structure to accommodate more to Team Jay assuming that you don’t all decide to join Team Miguel or form your own team. In the meantime if you have any physical needs we will make sure that they are taken care of,” Jay said.
Both the new girls’ eyes lit up but Amelia said, “He wasn’t talking about that. He meant if you need food or clothes or basics like that.”
Jay shrugged, poor choice of words on his part but it didn’t look like this was going to go anywhere else productive. Maybe now would be a good time to go see D’varn. It would give him an excuse to get away even if he had been meaning to put it off for a bit.
He smiled and said, “It was very nice to meet you ladies, I am sure you will find a home here. Listen to the wives and advisors and they will give you good guidance, now I have an appointment that I need to keep.”
Without waiting for a response Jay raced off. He followed the instructions that D’varn had given and soon found himself racing through a veritable warren of hallways. All of it was so different from the dungeon floors. This was plain and simple a cold, metallic place.
When he arrived at D’varn’s lab he found the little alien floating around from console to console in his hoverpod. The lab was maybe thirty-by-twenty and metal everywhere, from an exam table to computer terminals, to even the walls and floors. It was as soulless as the A’snkarnt seemed.
It wasn’t that Jay didn’t trust D’varn, well not exactly. He trusted him to a certain extent. The information and equipment that he provided was valuable, but Jay hadn’t given up on the idea that this might all be part of the experiment. Or, it could be exactly what D’varn suggested, a fracture in the A’snkarnts here with two different sides represented by D’varn and S’vanth.
Jay wasn’t sure if he was being foolish but he figured that the people who could control what was in their food and water, could also drug them and knock them out any time they wanted to. That wasn’t even to mention the implants in their brains. For all he knew those could be little bombs. It was definitely an issue that needed to be dealt with and soon.
“Ah, I hadn’t expected you so soon,” the little alien said when Jay walked into the room.
“You were good enough to offer us something, I figure if I want to get more of the survivors then I need to act in good faith too,” Jay replied.
D’varn stared at him before saying, “Well then this won’t take much time. Please lie down on the table over there. I need to run scans of your tissue and bones as well and determine what changes you have made outside of the protocol. I would also like blood samples if you will permit.”
“If I am going to leave part of me here, then I think you should arrange for the rest of the clusters to be able to join up with us. Or at the very least give me a way to get to them,” Jay said while lying down onto the table.
Again that flat face greeted him. “I don’t have the control necessary to do that, but the central command deck is beneath the tenth floor of the dungeon. You can bypass the ninth floor as that was another residential floor, but you will have to get through the seventh and eighth floors as well as the tenth.”
“I was going to explore the seventh today. Can you tell me is there a way for me to just get through the seventh to a door into the eighth? One of our patrols found what looks like the entrance to the seventh floor but nothing about the eighth,” Jay asked.
“The seventh floor only requires you to find the entrance to the eighth but the eighth does require you to overcome a specific objective.”
Jay waited for him to continue but when he just continued with running the scans Jay asked, “And what is that specific objective?”
D’varn looked up as though he was surprised by the question. “Oh, I can’t tell you that. It would defeat the purpose of the experiment.” When Jay glared at him, the little alien must have sensed it well enough to realize he needed to say something more. “I know that you don’t understand, but I still believe that in one way or another, humanity is our last best bet against the Forlorn.
“Some of my kin believe that the Tamoori, who are being tested on another leviathan are more stable, and maybe that is true, but they also don’t even approach your potential abilities your race can manifest.” Once again D’varn paused before adding, “Oh and remember that this experiment was intended to take three years. It was not thought that you would have reached the sixth floor already. So you should not take the challenges on the higher floors too lightly. You are powerful but even you have limits.”
Jay couldn’t put his finger on it but he felt like there was something more behind what the A’snkarnt was saying. Instead he just lay back and waited for the tests to be finished. He made use of the time to scan the environment and mentally map out as much of the area as he could. One positive sign was that with focus he could now push his scans through the metal which the A’snkarnt ship was built from. He expected that would come in handy in the future.
Chapter 30- Call to War
Once the testing was done, Jay left and headed back to the sixth floor. He had promised the girls some extra science time today, but needed to have a discussion with them. So he broadcast a telepathic message asking everyone from Team Jay including Miguel and his girls to come and meet at the tech building.
His wives tried to pry information out of him but he practiced keeping a tight lid on what passed through the fusion connection they shared. He figured a guy was entitled to keep some thoughts to himself. By the time everyone was gathered he had been assailed with questions from everyone except Ava. He still felt odd about their relationship, but there were certainly benefits to it.
“We haven’t all met together for a while. There is a lot going on and I want to make sure that everyone is up to speed. We know that the Forlorn are moving to attack the ship that we are on. D’varn seems to believe that they will be capable of destroying it eventually. He also thinks that we have anywhere from a few more days to a few more weeks.
“However, they also thought that they would have three years to run this experiment and it has barely been more than half a year. So, I believe and am going to act on the idea that we only have a few days left, less than a week to be safe. The thing is that we can actually extend a day out for pretty much as long as we want. I am sure that you all have at least heard about my tempus fugit ability.
“So we could turn a single day into over four years and that is assuming that I can’t find ways to further boost that power. I believe that theoretically we could turn it into decades. There are some considerations with that though. First, time displacement does have an impact on people.
“I have noticed that when I use it too much my entire body feels off. That may not be a very technical term but it is accurate nonetheless and is not something I take lightly. I also don’t know how weaker individuals would handle it. Which brings me to the secondary concern.
“I do not want our children to grow up in a single day. While I know that they would experience the passage of time inside the tempus fugit field, they would also be trapped within its confines and I don’t know what sort of effects it would have on them. They already don’t get the same amount of time to mature as we did growing up.
“So, I will not be allowing any children inside of the tempus fugit field. T
his is not open to debate and since I am the one creating the field my say is final. Secondly, I don’t want any more pregnant women in there than necessary because by default that will cause your babies to be born sooner.
“Once we start having a large number of babies born but don’t turn them over to S’vanth, it will become obvious that we don’t intend to honor our agreement with them. That will put us in an outright state of war.
“To prepare for this eventuality, I believe that we need to add a couple of projects to what we are already working on. From now on, all projects related to weapons will be stopped and everything need to be focused on the following projects: learning to control the A’snkarnt ship and systems, alternative means of travel so that we can escape here, mapping of the ship, a way to not only neutralize but also replace the functions of the implant in our brains, and the same for the stimulant in our water.”