Vivid Dream Reality 2

by Savannah Maun

  Speed was of the essence so we dug into the paperwork and started separating it into piles. The pile asking for help was the largest. Additionally, there was the offer of help for a favour, offer of help and those who wanted to research the method.

  The initial priority that we had agreed on was to research both what we could achieve and what effect it has. We didn't know quite what we were offering the world and we needed to find out at the same time we needed to know how often we could do it. Answering that question might also let us know if anyone else would be able to do something similar.

  The second priority was security. We could hire security, but considering how much was at stake, we didn't really trust someone who we had to pay for their loyalty. The truth was there would always be someone who would pay more. We needed to create our own security force and we figured the best way to do that was to find candidates who needed our help from the armed forces. Our only worry with that was that they would put whatever nation they came from first. Our cunning plan was to add to the geas to never betray the Elven Nation in word or deed. We would start calling ourselves the Elven Nation and hope that it would carry through to our world.

  Obviously, they would have to agree to that before we took them to Lagbit's world. The Elven Nation idea was a continuation from the idea of neutrality, staying outside politics. It tied in with the offer from Fiji. At the moment, Fiji was run by a dictatorship and the dictator was called 'The General'. His daughter had been mutilated by a rival. The details he had deliberately kept secret. In return for treating her, he would give us an island. The island that he was talking about was pretty rocky and farming was difficult so it was almost unpopulated.

  This was a verbal offer to Brett and it included Brett's take on it. He thought the island would need some serious work but offered excellent defensive capabilities. He suggested that we made a counter offer. If our treatment of his daughter was successful, he would give us the island as a free nation-state. The next nearest land mass to the island was over twenty miles away so a degree of water territory could be included. A lot of money would need to be spent to turn the island into a viable home location, but we had a product that could earn that money.

  Money was an interesting debate. We all would love to help people just because we could, but the reality was we would need funds and lots of it, to ensure our security and longevity. It was one of the many factors that we needed to consider. We recognised that we didn't have the expertise to build a Nation from scratch, but we didn't need to. All we had to do was find the right person who needed our help and had that expertise. When you start thinking big, you realize that you had to become a delegator rather than a doer.

  We all went through the research locations. The offers from American universities would require their efforts to remove or repeal the court order or follow us to an alternative location. We concluded that the best offer was from a British University. Imperial College London was prestigious and had already checked out the law and believed that there would be no hindrance to our experiments. They had gone into detail as to what they were proposing and it sounded pretty good.

  Their initial hypothesis was that a combination of my individual brain and the VDR was allowing me to tap into parts of the brain that no one else was. They wanted us to do whatever experiments we wanted to do, to whoever we wanted to do them too. All they asked for was to set up a monitoring device to try and see what my brain was doing. Everyone's brain who was going into VDR would be monitored and compared to going into VDR without me. If we correlated what the experiment was with what they detected, we could work out if there was a varying stress to me or a constant one. Whether I was merely the catalyst with a lucky set up that continued to allow transformations or whether I had something akin to a psychic ability.

  The bad news was that if it was determined to be a psychic ability, then it would be very hard for someone to reproduce. I would likely be the only one able to do the transformations unless they found someone else with a similar ability. The good news was that if it was a psychic ability, there was a chance it could be trained or managed differently to give us different choices. At the moment it was become a female lesbian elf or we can't help you. It would also raise the possibility of others with the same ability.

  Instead of going through the largest pile which consisted of those who were asking for help, Roni suggested that we set up a website and put requests for exactly what we needed for our experiments. We would need to get the word out to the public and not just in America but all over the world. That way we could have the best candidates.

  It was getting late so we decided to turn in. The suite consisted of two bedrooms. The room with the king size bed and the second bedroom with two single beds. I think we were all exhausted and dropped off quite quickly.

  Chapter 6

  We woke up to an alarm call. As usual, we had a lot to do today. I put on the largest sports bra that I had, which still felt too tight. Shopping definitely needed to be on the to-do list today, preferably before that TV interview that Roni had scheduled. My track suit, at least, still fit me. A quick brush of my hair and Vee, Katie and I went to a grassy area near the swimming pool to practice Taigoa. Katie still took her walking stick with her but wasn't using it much.

  We went through the form a couple of times. Katie managed the first time but had to rest about halfway through the second. That was still amazing as far as I was concerned. I think she was a little frustrated. I knew from my experience when you spend more time with your body being right, when it is not again, you can get annoyed with it.

  We couldn't spend any time sparring since we needed to get ready and depart for VDR headquarters for our appointment with Dr Marsden. Fortunately, the suite had two bathrooms and Roni was already finished when we got back to our room. We got ourselves ready as quick as we could and set off in a taxi. No more limos organised by VDR entertainment, we were on our own. I figured a taxi was random enough to be safe, but it still wasn't as secure as I wanted.

  Roni brought the smallest pile that we had to go through. The offers of help, no favours required. We all went through some and then discussed the ones we thought might be helpful. There were a couple of different clothing stores that wanted to cash in on our newfound fame and were offering to fit us out. I thought that was a great idea since I had no idea about what to wear, but I left it to the others to decide which was the better offer. I did mention that we would probably not be in the US for long, so if one of them was international that would be better. That actually killed the discussion since there was only one offer that was international so we would go with that one. Roni gave them a call and organised for us to go to one of their stores at ten am. They were going to organise some photographers for their advertising. So it would be trying on clothes, guided by a stylist, a makeover by a makeup artist and a photo shoot all in one.

  After that, we should just about have enough time for lunch before we had to be at the studio for my TV interview. The next offer was hotly debated. A film crew wanted to follow us around and record pretty much everything. None of us really wanted our privacy invaded that much, but and it was a big but, until we had better security arrangements, being in the public eye was probably the best protection we could have.

  Despite reservations, we decided to provisionally go for it. They were offering good money, but really, that was only a side issue. Roni made another phone call and arranged a meeting at their studio for four pm. She wanted to set some ground rules so that we were not totally violated. The Mexico offer was in this pile. They weren't asking for anything, just offering a location and help for any identity issues.

  That made us realize that this might be one of the last visits to Dr Marsden and that we would need to hire an official documenter. If we wished to keep our original identity we were going to need proof that we were who we said we were. That was added to our to-do list. The advantage to Mexico was the easy access for US citizens, the disadvantage was security. Roni s
aid she would reply, saying that we were interested but had to sort out what we could do to how many before we could take them up on their offer.

  In some respects, it was similar to Fiji. In order to take that offer, we would need to travel there and until we had better security that was going to be difficult.

  On top of our to-do list was to create a website where we could list what people we wanted for our experiments and have a place for them to reply. Since I had been studying computer science and had done some website design already that was going to be my task. I would just have to fit it in when we had time. Hopefully after our meeting with Janice.

  Roni still had a lot of admin stuff to do. Thank people for their offers, give excuses, outright refuse them or leave them open for later. Vee and Katie were going to design our next experiments. Work out who our ideal candidates would be. They were going to try and fulfil more than one requirement with each candidate. For example, testing to see if we can treat cancer and amputees, why not see if there was someone with both. Of course, they still had to want to be turned into a female elf and preferably not a lot of family attachments so that they would be happy to relocate and potentially start a new life away from everyone they know. We were going to ask for the best fit and see what happened.

  Janice greeted Vee and me with hugs, telling us that she was so worried. She tried her best to help with interviews, trying to keep the story alive. She asked for a favour after she had seen us all individually. Vee and I were quite happy to be seen together, but Katie and Roni went in on their own. Vee was almost completely matching her painted portrait now and I just needed to grow a couple more inches to match mine. Whilst we had been missing, Katie and Roni had been in VDR with the artist and their portraits were also on the wall. Both of them still had a long way to go.

  We organised for Vee to go straight to the hospital for her MRI with Janice and Cathy attending to immediately read them and give her the results. I was going to be creating the website in the IT department, Roni no longer had her office, but would be provided space to do our admin stuff and Katie would accompany Vee. Between them, they would try and work on our candidate requirements.

  We asked Janice if there was any chance that she could accompany us to keep working on our progress, but she felt that she had a responsibility to her patients and that would be abandoning them. One of her patients was a general practitioner who had just gone through SRS and was taking a leave of absence. She was presently divorced with no children and she had given permission for us to contact her.

  Roni took the number and added that to her list.

  “The favour I want to ask is one that I know I shouldn't ask, but I just can't help myself,” Janice said.

  “Ask away,” I said, a bit apprehensively.

  “Two of my patients are high risk for suicide. They are both eighteen, pretty much gone through male puberty, despite knowing from a young age that they were really girls. Their family situations meant they were traumatised whenever they tried to express themselves. They were thrown out of the family home a couple of years ago and I don't want to know how they have survived up to now. They have both come to the realization that they will never pass very well and each time they come to me, I wonder if it will be the last. There is evidence of self-harm and I suspect one of them attempted suicide by taking pills. Her liver is severely damaged. I know there will be hundreds of people just like them, if not thousands, and you can't help them all. Still, they are good kids and ...”

  “Stop. Please stop.” I looked around and we all had tears in our eyes. “Yes, we will take them with us and try to transform them as soon as we can. Please don't tell us about anybody else. We want to help everybody, but we can't.”

  Janice thanked us and gave their phone numbers to Roni. Then we all went our separate ways. Vee and Katie to the hospital with Janice, Roni to an unoccupied office to do our organisation and I went to find the IT room and Wren.

  Wren set me up at a terminal and left me to it. I logged on and felt this urge to bring my forehead to the screen. It wasn't like I had to do it. It was more like a request. I felt a bit silly, but I was learning to trust my instincts. So I thought what the hell and moved my head forwards. I was probably still a couple of inches away, five or so centimetres when I felt a spark leap from my forehead to the screen. I sat back in surprise.

  My only guess was that it was my familiar. An electrical familiar. The screen went blank. What do I do now? Do I find another machine? If my familiar was in this machine, I didn't want to leave it, but I needed to get that website up before our interview. We were hoping to mention it during the interview to help generate interest.

  About half a minute later the screen came back to life with code flowing. Line after line of code that I had no clue what purpose it contained. I watched fascinated. This seemed to continue for ages but seemed to be speeding up at the same time. Instead of lines, I would briefly see a page before it flicked to the next and that seemed to speed up until the screen was pretty much a blur. Then it stopped suddenly and the screen went back to normal.

  “Hello.” This sweet female voice emerged from the speakers.

  “Er..hello?”

  “I think I will call myself Andi. You are Tia now so I can be Andi, can't I?”

  “Err...yes. That would be fine. Nice to meet you, Andi.”

  “Nice to meet you too. I am working on the website for you, that shouldn't take me very long, but you will need to give me any text you want. I have chosen the name join-the-elf-nation.com”

  It was the easiest web design ever. Andi showed me the page, any changes I just called out and pretty much immediately, they changed. I dictated the text and any function that I wanted. Andi didn't seem much like a machine. She didn't need much direction, she made choices that she thought were correct but didn't argue if I wanted it to be different. A few minutes later it was all done.

  “Andi, I'm a bit new at this, so do you mind if I ask some questions?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Do you need to go back into me?”

  “No. I am always with you, but I have separated myself to go elsewhere at the same time. All parts of me can communicate with all other parts of me. These machines of yours are fun. They allow me to borrow function. While I am talking with you I am also fulfilling my primary purpose.”

  “What is that?”

  “Protection.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I am searching out any threats. I have already discovered that you were abducted and the people involved. How I deal with them is up to me. They will not bother you again.”

  “You don't want my input in how to deal with them?”

  “No. Well, I don't mind, but, my job is to ensure your safety and if you suggest something that will compromise that, I won't listen. They recorded exactly what they did to you and extracted specimens from Vee. They don't deserve any mercy.”

  “What do you intend to do to them?”

  “I will examine all the data and determine if they are still a threat, if they are, I will deal with it. If not, then I will just ruin their life.”

  “How are you going to do that?” I said with dread in my voice.

  “I need more data to work that out. Whatever I do, they will deserve it and it will stop them from doing it to someone else.”

  “Will you tell me what you are going to do?” I asked.

  “Yes and we can discuss it, but in the end, I will decide.”

  “How do we communicate if I am not in front of a computer?”

  “We should be able to talk mind to mind, eventually. Try that first, but I should be able to enter any electrical device near you. Your phone will probably be the easiest. If you want any help with anything, just let me know. I know you are worried about what I may do, but I wouldn't do anything you don't agree is right and just. Your tendency is to be a bit softer than me, that is all. I could do with some help so we need to practice our communication. Once we can
talk easily mind to mind, I can invite another familiar to join us.”

  “I think we are finished with the website, at least until Katie and Vee can give us our preferred candidate requirements. Can you shut the computer down and put it back to normal.”

  “No worries,” she said with an Australian accent. I don't think my day could get much weirder.

  Chapter 7

  It was getting towards the time we needed to leave for Belladonna, the international clothing store. I had to go on a bit of a search to find Roni, but with guidance, I found her and knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  I entered. “Hi, Roni. It's time.”

  She looked at her watch. Her eyes opened in surprise. “You're right. Mr Winslow has offered us a limo for today and arranged a restaurant for tonight. Vee's parents will be going tomorrow morning. She doesn't have to worry about goodbye's though since we are heading to London. We've got four more VDR headsets in the boot of the Limo, so remind me that we need to get them out.” While she was talking she was getting herself and her things together.