Tesla's Stepdaughters
Page 15
Meanwhile in the south, Men lived together in enclaves in Cape Horn, Tasmania, or New Zealand. For the most part living in dormitories, they watched the world develop and change without them. Rugby became the most popular sport in the south and tacos the most common food. By the late sixties, the disease seemed to have run its course, and men began to slowly move back to the north. Those that did often became the center of polygamous marriages in countries where there were thousands of women for each man.
History
1902 Nicola Tesla invents the transmission of energy, radio and radio-vid, and wireless telephony.
1914 The Great War begins.
1916 Anton Casimir Dilger releases “the disease”, killing 60 million. The disease evolves into a plague targeting only males. Worldwide male population reaches its high of 850 million.
1917 The Great War unofficially ends.
1920 Radio-vids become popular in the United States and spread to the rest of the world.
1928 Grace Coolidge becomes the first female President of the United States.
1929 The plague, and the associated costs, drive the world into a Great Depression.
1930 Male population drops to less than 200 million.
1931 The US begins a massive program of migrating male populations to enclaves in the south.
1932 Francis Perkins is elected President of the United States, eventually serving four terms.
1935 The first successful human en vitro fertilizations.
1937 Asian countries follow the US example of sending male populations to the distant south.
1943 Nicola Tesla invents a cloning process, allowing women to vat babies. Nicola Tesla dies. The first vat babies are born.
1944 Theresa Maria Berman (Ep!phanee) is born. Ruth De Molay is born.
1945 Penny Dreadful is born.
1946 Steffie Sin is born
1948 Eleanor Roosevelt is elected the last President of the United States.
1950 Male population hits a low of 10 million worldwide. European nations begin to send their male populations south. A half hearted effort is made to move African men. Small numbers move south. Commercial electronic brains come into use in businesses and government.
1956 The Great Science War begins. The Science Council is formed.
1957 Tobacco is outlawed by the Science Council.
1959 The Great Science War ends. Buddy Holly, the last of the great male Rock and Roll stars dies.
1960 Theresa Maria Bergman moves to Los Angeles, Meets Penelope Dearborn.
1961 Bergman, Dearborn, Steffie Sin, and Betty Moore found the Ladybugs. Bergman changes her name to Ep!phanee, Moore to Betty Rocksit.
1962 The Ladybugs tour the west coast. Dearborn uses the stage name Penny Dreadful. The Ladybugs remove Betty Rocksit as drummer and hire Ruth De Molay.
1963 The Ladybugs release their first single, Peggy Sue. The Ladybugs release their first album: Intro. The Science Council begins requiring monthly contributions of male genetic material. The Science Council outlaws racial segregation.
1964 The Ladybugs first world tour. The Ladybugs appear on the Dorothy Kilgallen Show. The Ladybugs album NOW! is released.
1965 The Ladybugs second world tour. Penny Dreadful legally changes her name. The Ladybugs hold 16 simultaneous hits on the Billboard 100.
1966 The Ladybugs third and last world tour. The Ladybugs purchase Thatch Cay in the Virgin Islands. Laughing Pink releases their first album.
1967 Blessed Nobody is released. The first color radio-vids are marketed.
1968 The Ladybugs double album (The Spotted Album) is released. Ep!phanee releases her first solo album: E-Party. Penny Dreadful releases her first solo album: Never Stop Rocking. Steffie Sin releases her first solo album: Love Life Prayer
1969 Matching Tattoos is released. The Thongs release their first album.
1970 Last confirmed case of the disease. Naked is released.
1971 Ruth De Molay releases her first solo album: Left Handed Romance.
1972 Ep!phanee releases Memories of Dust
1974 Penny Dreadful releases Carpetmuncher. Rebel Girls is released.
1975 The Present
Technology
The world of the Ladybugs differs from ours due at least as much to a divergence of technology as to a divergence of history. Most technology is based on the works of Nikola Tesla, including the transmission of energy, wireless telephone, radio, and radio-vid. Steam generators produce electricity. In the United States, northern cities like New York and Chicago are under huge clouds of pollution. The mid-west is a wasteland caused by acid rain. Many smaller cities lie under large domes to protect their inhabitants. Much the same is true in northern Europe.
Giant airships or dirigibles are common in the skies, scores of times larger and many times faster than those known from our own world.
Rain beat against the wide windows of the promenade deck as the massive form of the S.S. Lady of Angels descended through the clouds. The dirigible, one of the largest in the air, had made the trip from Los Angeles to New York in just over twenty-six hours, almost two full hours ahead of schedule. In a few minutes, the mooring team would have it fastened to the ground at LaGuardia, and its passengers would be debarking. The great golden craft was one of the latest generation of airships. Massive, as if someone had turned the Empire State Building on its side and launched it through the air; Fast, propelled by six huge steam powered propellers; but unlike the other two dozen gigantic vessels at the airport, the Lady of Angels had only a few passengers—the four members of the rock band the Ladybugs, their managers, staff, and crew.
Aeroplanes are known, but have largely been replaced by the small aircraft known as the airflivvers. Airflivvers are about as wide and tall as a good-sized car though about two and a half times as long. They feature large dragonfly wings, which flap at their sides to provide lift and control. Airflivvers came into use in the early days of the Science War. Afterwards they became common for commercial use.
Communication around the world is made possible by a series of massive complexes where radio-vid, radio, telephone, and energy are all transmitted and received. Satellite communication is unheard of and spaceflight itself remains science fiction.
The Ladybugs
“The Ladybugs burst onto the world stage in 1963, the head of the female invasion with their cover of Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue. This was followed by a string of hits, most written by the band’s four members. At one point in 1965 the group held sixteen spots concurrently on Billboard’s top 100 singles chart. Releasing two to three albums a year and maintaining a grueling tour schedule kept the Ladybugs at the top, but then in 1967, weary of life on the road they moved to their studios in the Virgin Islands, where they released such cutting edge studio albums as Blessed Nobody, Platinum Dream, and the self-titled double album. Even as their last two albums were being marketed however, longstanding personality and management conflicts within the group broke it apart, and in 1970 the band split up, many believed forever. Now, five years later, hot on the heels of the Christmas release of Rebel Girls, the band makes its triumphant return to the concert stage.”
“We have confirmation that the band’s airship is now arriving at the airport. All four members are confirmed to be aboard. As everyone knows, the Ladybugs are Steffie Sin, Penny Dreadful (born Penelope Dearborn) both of Los Angeles; Ep!phanee (born Theresa Maria Bergman) of Stockholm; and Ruth De Molay, a native of the Virgin Islands. Ep!phanee and Dreadful have both released a series of successful solo albums while Sin and De Molay have released music more sporadically, the latter focusing on a successful movie career while the former has spent a great deal of time in seclusion in Switzerland.”
Ep!phanee
Born Theresa Maria Bergman, at the time of the story, Ep!phanee (pronounced Epiphany) is thirty years old. She is world renowned not only for her musical genius, but for her flamboyant stage presence as well. Easily recognizable by her bright blue hair and extensive tattoos, all
of which feature sea-life, Piffy, as she is known to her friends, is considered by many to be the greatest living songwriter. She is justly famous for her works with the Ladybugs, including the anthems Tesla’s Stepdaughters and Rotting Garden of Eden, but her greatest work may be her solo song Memories of Dust. All three are consistently listed in the top ten most influential songs of all times.
Ep!phanee is a gifted musician and plays guitar, keyboards, tambourine, and cowbell on the Ladybugs albums. She has also played keyboard, bass, and guitar as backup for many other musicians, usually using a pseudonym. She has published several books of poetry and her paintings and sculptures have been featured in major New York art expeditions.
Penny Dreadful
Penny Dreadful, originally Penelope Dearborn, was produced through the vat process, replicating her mother’s cells without male fertilization. She is a clone, or in common usage a vat baby, as she so eloquently described herself in the song I’m a Vat Baby, Baby. She is five feet eleven inches tall and while in her twenties graced the covers of many fashion magazines. Penny is famous for her large mane of red hair, though she is a natural brunette. Known for having started the body-piercing craze, she has numerous piercings, including her nostril, lower lip, and tongue. Her only tattoo, one matching Ep!phanee’s parrot fish on her shoulder, was removed.
Many consider Penny the greatest guitar player who ever lived, and she has one of the largest guitar collections in the world. She frequently plays with young up-and-coming groups and sits in on jam sessions with other musicians. She is a role model to many young musicians and to the vat baby community at large.
Though perhaps not as complex as Ep!phanee’s, Penny has written a long string of hit records, the most famous of which being Long Day on the Road, Lonely Girl, Casanova, and Walking on Mars. She enjoys reading pulp adventure novels.
Steffie Sin
Most Ladybugs fans think of Steffie Sin as the bass player. On tour that is her usual position. In the studio however, she is a major force playing a wide range of instruments and writing some of the group’s most important songs such as Fall Asleep My Love, Beneath the Denim, Blue Science, and My Immortal Love.
Steffie Sin is skilled on practically any instrument one can name, playing guitar almost as well as Penny Dreadful and playing the drums better than Ruth De Molay. On Ladybugs songs as well as her solo albums, she played guitar, keyboard, bass, drums, trumpet, saxophone, sitar, flute, and harmonica. After leaving the Ladybugs in 1970, she produced relatively few albums but wrote and directed both an opera and a symphony. She is the youngest of the four Ladybugs.
Ruth De Molay
Ruth De Molay is a native of the Virgin Islands, as is her mother. Her father was a British national. She has dark brown skin and black hair usually worn in dreadlocks. She was hired by the other three Ladybugs to fill the drummer slot after Betty Rocksit was removed from the group. An excellent drummer, Ruth excels at few other instruments. Though she has written a number of songs, her one great hit was her first: The Science War Song. Ruth is well known as the nice Ladybug.
Ladybugs Albums and Songs
Intro (1963)
The introductory album of the Ladybugs was entitled Intro, and was released in early 1963. It featured four Buddy Holly covers and premiered titles by Ep!phanee and Penny Dreadful.
1. She’s My Dream (Ep!phanee) # 1 on the singles chart.
Ep!phanee: lead vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: backing vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: backing vocals, bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
2. I’m Feeling Fine (Penny Dreadful)
Ep!phanee: backing vocals, guitar, harmonica. Penny Dreadful: lead vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: backing vocals, bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
3. Peggy Sue (Buddy Holly) First #1 on the singles chart.
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
4. Drink to Me (Ep!phanee)
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
5. (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care (Buddy Holly)
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
6. Love’s Made You a Fool (Buddy Holly)
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
7. Heartbeat (Buddy Holly)
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
8. Meet me Tonight (Penny Dreadful) #2 on the singles chart.
Ep!phanee: tambourine. Penny Dreadful: vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
9. Squeeze Me (Ep!phanee)
Ep!phanee: guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: vocals, bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
10. Betty Ann (Ep!phanee)
Ep!phanee: lead vocals, guitar, harmonica. Penny Dreadful: backing vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: backing vocals, bass. Ruth De Molay: backing vocals, drums.
11. Put on the Brakes (Penny Dreadful)
Ep!phanee: piano. Penny Dreadful: vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
12. Darkness Hides Your Face (Ep!phanee) #16 on the singles chart.
Ep!phanee: vocals, piano. Penny Dreadful: vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
Alone (1963)
Alone (the title is sometimes listed as The Ladybugs Alone) was a quick follow up to Intro. Ep!phanee’s My Man and Penny’s I’m All Alone were new tracks, but the rest of the album consisted of songs originally recorded and then rejected for Intro.
1. My Man (Ep!phanee) #1 on the singles chart.
Ep!phanee: lead vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: backing vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: backing vocals,bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
2. Maybe Baby (Buddy Holly)
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
3. Oh Boy (Buddy Holly)
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
4. Taking Chances (Penny Dreadful)
Ep!phanee: backing vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: lead vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: backing vocals, bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
5. I’m Gonna Love You Too (Buddy Holly)
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
6. Lying Awake at Night Alone (Ep!phanee)
Ep!phanee: guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: vocals, bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
7. Words of Love (Buddy Holly) #1 on the singles chart.
Ep!phanee: vocals, guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
8. The Dance (Ep!phanee)
Ep!phanee: guitar. Penny Dreadful: guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: vocals, drums.
9. Regret (Penny Dreadful) #23 on the singles chart.
Ep!phanee: guitar. Penny Dreadful: vocals. Steffie Sinn: vocals. Ruth De Molay: drums. Others: bass.
10. Enough Enough (Penny Dreadful)
Ep!phanee: piano. Penny Dreadful: vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
11. Reminding Me (Penny Dreadful)
Ep!phanee: piano. Penny Dreadful: vocals, guitar. Steffie Sinn: bass. Ruth De Molay: drums.
12. Sad Days Happy Days (Ep!phanee)