There were like ten people in the bubble. We had to huddle up in the smallest one all together to preserve our burnables and to economize on the extra body heat. We did one large meal a day for some period of time. But all in all we didn't have much to do, but to wait out the winter storm. Fortunately for us we had built our bubbles to have a rocket heater, with large earth heat storage and radiators we affixed it to a sterling engine that charged our energy stores while we burned fuel at a high rate, and trickled in some power as long as it was warm. So we were able to keep most of our devices charged even in this somewhat sticky situation. We were in this settlement out in the middle of nowhere, and no one would have a chance in hell of getting to us in this storm, so if things went south we were on our own. But things were just kinda comphy for a while. The bubble we were in was plastic and had a ceiling height of about 15 meters Omg all media is evil. Like I guess I knew that, but I didn't know how pervasive it is and how fucking fucked I truly am. Holy shit this is what my fucking existence has been reduced to at this place and time. Just some fucking ink on a page, or different colored light. Oh my fucking god. It's terrible. I don't want to exist this way. Crying now like a bitch and snot coming out of my pathetic gross nose. Holy shit I'm useless. I'm like so totally useless and I hate this place. I watched the music video for bad by michael jackson today for like the first time and it's just hitting me how ya, he is bad. He's actually an avatar of the devil in that video. And then the lines of reasoning from there just spiral. Earth: while MJ is clearly bad, in doing the video in this way he is demonstrating to us what is and is not good. Ya, sure. I can see that too. I'm so tired now. Like I just have been drained of mana. Overcome with the desire to sleep but I need to fight through it. I don't know how far down this will take me if I go through with it. I'm always so scared of losing every thing that I have. And it's not like I have much This all sucks. I'm going to delete it once I open my damn eyes. How do you know that the keys haven't moved out from under your fingers? I guess I don't know. But normally that kind of shit only happens in dreams. Is this not a dream? When I open my eyes am I to expect a completely different but coherent text? And if that's the case what do I do with that information? Is there any way to make a change like that stick? How am I supposed to change? The text she saw was the same as she intended it to be while writing with her eyes closed, in almost a trance like state. Strange even how accurate the text was. Normally there would be instances of misspelled word or fumbled key strokes. Maybe a place where the fingers were a row to the left or to the right, thus making the text look like random gibberish, but repairable gibberish. But this time it was seamless. It was like the thoughts themselves just needed to pass through a somewhat slower interface. Not that the speed of thought was so much faster when it came to the lexical part of things. This translation went from raw memory impulses to weird phonemes, like literal sounds, which then needed to be translated to their lexical symbolic representation. That then needed to be translated to 3d position data and a set of movement instructions. The local information for the hand simulacrum as well as a simulacrum of the input device were referenced to calculate the proper movement data. All these various small tasks were happening somewhere in meatspace but for that moment in the trance it was completely transparent. Woke up with a start. What a strange dream. But the dream must have had some kind of meaning. I mean it was cold. And being in such close quarters with all these other people. Menacing dark aura huddled in the far corner covered with blankets, others around the hearth laughing, playing board games. The psp was recharging, thankfully we had power. My phone was charged so I had spent time just watching videos on the local backup. We had enough storage to get the full channel history of about one hundred or so channels along with every video with more than a million views. It's not everything by any stretch of the imagination but it covered a lot. Each person in the group picked which channels they wanted backed up since we had to haul the data in on foot most of the time. Our network data was pretty limited even on a good day so having a local... Fucking why am I talking about this shit while not actually doing anything. Sucks. Ok so problem: we have a shit ton of data, and expect to have more. We don't have an easy way to manage this data. On the human level we need some way of making the data manageable. Cooking becomes a metaphor for software functions. Chop chop The laptop chewed down on the hands of this assailant. Sharp teeth protruding jagged polygons from the edges of the screen Holy fucking shit. I didn't have time to move it happened so fast, but now that I notice I'm standing back from my chair holding two stumps of arms each end bleeding profusely. Holy shit I'm actually going to fucking die now. And apparently that's a thing that laptops can do? Still the facts were clear. I was losing a lot of blood and my stumps where hands had been were showing no signs of just stopping the flow. Choose to just let it happen man. That's all you gotta do. And you'll be able to meet her. Blood loss was seriously getting to him now. He tried putting the stumps into the crooks of his arms and tightly holding both stumps in position like the most saintly divine humbled man on the earth praying so hard he smashed his hands apart while folding them so hard. To stop the bleeding it'd take more than that he knew. But. Here was the thing. He didn't have hands. He couldn't pinch off the blood vessels. He considered briefly using his mouth to clamp down on one stump but he'd still have to manage the other one. No dice. Clamping as hard as possible he considered what he might do? On whom could he press this concern of his life. The next room over the wife and kid are sleeping. "You really are pathetic" the voice like this small cute strawberry hit him in the back of the head, like a lead car weight. He spun his head around to see sitting in front of the laptop floating in the air were two... Fairies? Something like a fairy at least. Two of them like just chilling. Think like tinkerbell vibes. So, these fairy things be looking at me, and like I guess the one on the right was the one who just called me pathetic. She had this firebrand vibe and was glaring at me. The one on the left was like this sunken dark emo girl, who was just looking down, like fuck what sort of fucking problem do I have to deal with this time. "PA THE TIC" she emphasized each syllable pointing both with her foot and finger on each one. Um I'm sorry but who the fuck are you? "You don't even recognize your own fucking hands?" clearly exasperated. "He... Wouldn't recognize us now cuz we look different, remember?" the goth chick kinda under her breath. The firebrand just kinda stood there puzzled for a bit like the thought never even occurred to her. Um that's well and good but as you can see I think I'm dyeing? "Come here!" the red girl shouted. Obediently obeying. "Now hold out your stumps. This is going to hurt." What are you going to She cut him off with fire coming from each of her hands cauterizing the stumps like cooked meat. OUGH FUCK SHIT "Ya I told you it would hurt" He danced around the room like a crazy man. Shaking the limbs getting blood just about everywhere. Some splashed on the pair. "What the fuck! calm down. Ruined my only fucking outfit" red trailed off folding her arms and stamping her foot. Black wiped some of the blood from off her face then tasted it. "Umai" "Why are you so weird?" "You gotta try it before you call me weird, here" black wiped another taste of blood onto her finger and held it out for red to taste. Red looked at her for a moment then decided to aquiesse to the demand. She was mocking something she knew nothing about after all. She stuck the tiny finger in her mouth. "UMAI" "See" "I didn't think there could be anything that tasted that good!" red's whole body lit up I was still dancing around the room like a retard getting blood everywhere. All the movement ripped the cauterized portion of flesh so the bleeding was just as bad as it had been before. "You know what I think we should do?" black to red who was watching with a bit of a smile on her face. "What's that?" "I say we let him die, then eat him." Red pondered for a moment. "Ok. I never liked this guy for our master anyway. Well writing is better than just laying on the bed doing nothing right? At least we can get something done. Don't like the story of how your hands betray you? Does it hurt just a little too much? Why didn't you go to the other room to get help? Laying on the ground now. Stumps still bleeding and was that charred flesh I smelled? Where'd that come from? I... I think I just want to die instead of to go see them in this state. The word "Pathetic" echoed in my head. The fuck am I supposed to do just open the door with my stumps and walk into them sleeping and give my child the worst image they will ever see. Great. Just great. Ya, see this death is being done nobly. So, how to make it better? Is this really how you want to spend the last moments of your life? You want to spend it trying to make the horrible nightmare of finding you dead in the next room blood on the walls your hands removed and stumps burnt, probably shit leaking out of your ass, and definetly a puddle of piss. You want to spend your last moments making that scene better, rather than live out a nightmare scene of being woken in the middle of the night by your dying father blood shooting out of his stumps. What did the yakuza do to you daddy? Yakuza? Ya didn't you go to see them after dinner. - she's already tying a bandage around the limb tight like a torniquet. How much blood did you loose? Are you light headed? Have any memory loss? Memory loss. Ya. That must be it. Where am I? I'm in a dome in the middle of winter, surrounded by 9 other people we sleep together to save the warmth. We eat together because it's economical. Once the winter storms calm down and we can safely go back to our own domes then I'll finally be at peace. Hey you should join in on the fun! It was Amanda. She lived in the dome next to mine with her 2 roommates Maru, and Asuka. That's maru the girl from Valkyrie drive on the ps vita, and asuka like eva. These three were soul bonders. Honestly a lot of fun to talk to. Amanda had yet to find her true self because according to her so many lines speak to her. I have no idea what she means. For some reason with her I can't help myself but allow her to dictate my actions. It's like all my decision making ability disappears. Ok? What are you all doing? We're playing hanafuda and talking What more to life is there than gambling and talking? For some reason you have the perfect image of what she would look like as an anime character in that moment, but don't know what show it was from. Amanda probably should take up smoking you think as you reply. Hmm. Maybe I will. Great. Now I need to interact with more people. That fuckin sucks. I mean how will I be able to handle the task of even conveying through linear medium an interaction where multiple parrallel conversations are happening at once. How to process being present in that situation. Yo welcome to the land of the living. How are you doing? You decide for no reason at all to be honest about it, like the question wasn't just a pleasantry but rather something to which a real answer could be given and was expected. Um not good. Actually kinda bad. Oh shit!? I'm sorry to hear that. Wanna talk about it? Ok. I guess being couped up is making me a bit crazy. Like normally I have like so much space since I'm in that one dome myself. And I know it's like not anyone's fault and we are all dealing with the same problem. But you all probably know I'm not much of a people person. Ya that sucks. But I feel like you aren't seeing the whole picture. See this situation sucks for us too. Normally we wouldn't be gambling over hanafuda matches. We'd be fucking. There was a kinda silence that hung in the air. Wellll... Someone else said in reply. You aren't wrong, exactly. The three soul bonders looked at each other with a smattering of embarrassment and defiance, except amanda who said, ya probably. Why aren't we having an orgy then? Why is that not a thing that happened yet? Oh? Did he finally consent to the orgy? ORGY Everyone stripped off their clothes and started fucking like crazy. It was madness. Everyone came like 30 times. And fell asleep in a big pile of naked people. It was hot. You shoulda been there. Picking myself off the tangled mass of bodies. Well, it seems it wasn't a dream at least. Had I really gotten pegged by Jaden while giving oral to amanda while asuka gave me head? Damn, that really did happen. The naked forms around were proof positive. It smelled like sex. A mix of semen, sweat, and vaginal fluids wafted through the dome. Well that's one thing we didn't think of, how the fuck were we going to bathe any time soon? I guess we'll all get used to smelling like sex for a while. There's just no story here ya, know? It's like ok so what? They spend some time all locked up in a small plastic bubble. I'm not going to subject these people to some evil mystery. Like what zombies suddenly appear outside the dome. Omg guise ders zombies autsaid Golly gee willikers! you're right. It just doesn't jive. I considered putting on some clothes, but. It was actually kinda nice in the dome. Our passion filled break from reality had increased the warmth a bit. Or maybe I'm just lazy? Fuck clothes. I've already had the genitals of nearly every person in this room in my mouth, so who gives a shit if I decide to stay naked. The hearth was getting cool. We liked to keep the fire going most of the time, because we did have energy concerns. The main battery would be fine even if we stopped generating power at least over the course of a day or so. But better to have the fire going. Checking the ps vita it was charged. That was good. Grabbing some fuel for the fire. I set to work. Unfortunately my hands don't produce magic fire, the kind which might be used to cauterize a severed stump of a hand. But we have some still burning embers, and some fine kindling. Before long the fire is going and the sucking whoosh from the rocket heater can be heard through out the bubble. Jae blinked. Well that was a nice shit. Fuck these cosmic demons always coming for me. Well they love to eat my shit. They just can't get enough of it really. They are like these rabid animals. They'd fucking knife each other in the back to get their hands on it. But to me it's just shit. Really quite honestly shit. And like I'm not going to be cutting my own shit. That's an absurdity. It's frankly quite dumb. I mean first of all, it'd be gross as shit. Literally because it's shit we are talking about. You want to stick your hands in my filthy shit, that's fine. Go do you man. But me...? Ugh the smell of it even as removed as I am from it, is just revolting. It's like I want to vomit just thinking about it. So no. She flung the small crystal like objects from her space window. They entered the swirling ripples of space and time at dilatation factors 5000C that is outside the vortex was relatively 5000 times smaller from the perspective of the ship. The ship could likewise be perceived at the same ratio, 5000 times larger. Generally such a discrepancy is not a problem, Since the ship is so much smaller than the universe. what jae knew was that they were moving at one C the speed of light, which meant that anything thrown from the ship would attempt to resolve itself as something from her perspective massively more huge, and stretched across the entirety of the distance in time it took to resolve that discrepancy. Her shit was shit at this. Most of the time, it'd be like you throw your shit out, and out pops interstellar dust, or chains of galaxies, or crystal entities. Things that were somehow a reflection of the person whose shit it was. They could almost be perceived like children in some sense. But her shit? No such thing. Or maybe it was? The point is that it was so bad at resolving the discrepancy between spatial dilation that it created this veil of very weird space. At first it was like, well shit flying through here is harder now, then it was impossible to fly anywhere I had shit before. Then they mandated she shit in a very well ordered method, so it all was in one place. That was ages ago now. Eventually some fucking disgusting asshole discovered it was possible to do crazy software shenanigans with stuff built in the weird space my shit created. Once that went mainstream it was a landgrab for her shit. Fucking disgusting. Before these fucks were like these tiny specks on random ass worlds, but now they were like this crazy paparazzi. They always have people watching my location because they never know when I'll need to take a shit and they want to have the first fuckin taste of it. "NOT TODAY SISTER" some weird bug man just landed on the front of her space ship. She moved the projections on the front glass like window which was large and open allowing the people inside to see space moving in all it's splendor. And there was a bug on that window. The compression of space and time made it so if you were very close to the ship the latent gasses of deep space combined in such a way to make breathing possible. It's why the specific compression values are used, so it's not like a cosmic coincidence. Fuck. The additional mass of the ship also provided a kind of gravity, especially on the front of the ship, and it counteracted the shear forces on the sides of the ship, so walking around out there, was not only possible but likely now that he was actually, ON, the ship. She gestured with a hand and with practiced motion she took the step from inside to outside the ship. She had a small garden and walk ways on the surface so it was a nice place to go on walks or play games, or masturbate with all creation watching. She had all her favorite things on board and she was set up with plenty of energy reserves the core of her ship powered by twin black holes and she even had the needed tech to generate additional black holes whenever she felt like. Her shit had bought her quite a nice ship, and an eternity with all her favorite things. "But I don't have a favorite paparazzi member" "Papawhat?" the gross man fumbling with some kind of thing at his wrist. This guy must have been one of those that were flung out at her. A mostly suicidal leap from the natural space into the intense maelstrom created by her ship. It was technically possible to survive the jump. Space suits burned apart and your flesh might get ripped apart but only if the identity at ones core was stable could the jump be made between spaces safely enough. Ones own force of will resolving the quantum instabilities such that no harm is done through the changing continuity spaces. She'd never had to attempt such a crazy thing, but having had the thought now considered if she should resolve the Checkov's gun of the idea immediately by flinging herself into the void. No that'd'n't solve anything. "Are you so sure you don't have a favorite paparazzi member?" The man stood floating in the air dressed in this gaudy robe that went down to his feet. "God damn it not you again" "Yes it is I. Since our last meeting 14 days ago I have not rested until I could be by your side once more" "Please just stop" "And now that this man has successfully penetrated your bubble with that tracking device intact I am here even tho you haven't dropped out of warp for 14 days straight." "I wouldn't need to stay in warp so much if you people would leave me alone otherwise. All you bitches just want my shit, well there's some back there. Have fun." she gestured with her hands and two tonfa materialized, one in each hand. "But first I'm going to beat the shit out of you for invading my ship." She jumped at the gross man swinging the tonfa around and cracking the man soundly on the head. He was out. Then with another gesture she picked the man up with some blue glowing light and flung him from the ship into the chaotic vortex. His sub atomic particles scattered across the space between 4 galaxies. The man had dropped the tracking device. Higher level technology was a felony to throw out into the vortex. But bodies were generally fine, since actually doing any kind of investigation was basically impossible. Sure you had a giant blown up picture of that person for a few moments after they are thrown. But that picture is spread out over a huge distance made of tiny particles, that all start traveling in every direction at once. In a few minutes it's nothing but a chaotic whisp of ship wash. Technology on the other hand left structures in the space traveled. The higher the technology the more intricate the structures. Giant strips of metals and crystal, that could easily damage other ships flying near by at a later time. She looked at the man. "Please don't destroy that. We can be together you and i. You'll see I'm perfect for you." She crushed the transmitter and he disappeared. Just a projection of course. This guy had been pestering her for a while. Always showing up to anything she decided to go to. She had stopped by a new world to get some of their food chits for her ship. She had heard good things about a few of the dishes and wanted to add them to her ships memory. It wasn't possible to download these chits because these chits used the most effective data storage possible, actual food components of the dish. Instead of relying on a software representation of the genetic sequences needed it scanned some 5000 samples of various components as the data for reconstructing the dish. Some of the more extravagant chits had as many as a million samples and could generate countless dishes. There were also simple chits with as few as 1 sample. Like for a fruit, but even in that case generally they would have multiple samples of the fruit, each one subtlety different, so you wouldn't eat the exact same orange everyday. This guy showed up and ruined her fun. He kept hitting on her, in his extremely over the top way. When he first appeared he had a huge assortment of flowers being held behind him by his cronies, and said something like "My heart beats just for you". Well fuck I'm so god damn horney now. Why is that? I just fucking masturbated not 10 minutes ago, but my body wants more. It craves more. It's like hungery for a huge dick inside my ass. Fuck. It. She looked at the tonfa still in her hands. They were perfect for the job. She stripped off her clothes in the garden of her ship and sat down in her favorite spot, a swing under a tree, and she got to work inserting the long shaft of the tonfa into her already dripping pussy. She made a gesture with her free hand and some light started to glow on her finger tips, touching the tonfa it began to vibrate. FUCK. It feels so good. Why the fuck do anything else? It wasn't long before she felt the spasm of muscles the meant release. The flurry of hormones began to subside. Why the hell was she getting horney after getting rid of the asshole and killing that guy? Must be someone else's fault. Fuck it hit her again. Really? I just masturbated, and I still have this insatiable feeling. She pulled up some holo vid with a few quick gestures. There floating in the landscape was a peach sofa, old and torn in places and two women in the act of mutual cunilingus. 69 one might say. The resolution was enough that she could almost reach out and touch them. She loved this vid for some reason. The darker haired woman on bottom with longer black socks had this devilish look to her that was just so intoxicating. And seeing her pleasured in that way while giving pleasure. Dripping. She inserted the tonfa again, then suspended herself in the air while eye locked onto the shape of that ass. Meanwhile. Sir baron von surname stood in his bridge. His ship was nice, the front was a shared training ground but not assessable from the bridge. Instead it looked "Down" into the shared area so he could watch the training sessions. He could at the moment see 5 men gang fucking one of his finest women. He smiled to himself. She was infected with a strange disease which caused insatiable feelings of lust. As such she wanted more and more sex. Looking closer it was clear to see she was defeating these men. Three were on the ground collapsed and covered in sweat. Another 2 were getting some water clearly after much exhaustion. There were a few others waiting in the wings but who know how long they would last. She came and came and came again but still her body wanted more. It seemed she wouldn't give into her exhaustion no mater how long she went. Damn this story went a bit strange. Just a few days ago he had bested the sucubitch in sexual combat. Of course not alone. He directed a group of 4 others, while he gave instructions and operated the helm. So to speak. This gave him a boon. One he had just used on her. Magic worked on principles of memetics. Tho he wasn't physically present on her ship he was memetically there. The magic may have changed form during the transition through the chaotic space, but it would have an effect for sure. He zoomed in his display to see the front of her ship. Even tho the ship he was on was far "Behind" her ship following her wake, the specific way her ship distorted space was known, so it was possible to look for photons being scattered here and there in a certian way to reconstruct the image. There were entire fleets following her wake most of the time to keep up to date information. Sir baron von surname didn't use any of that. He was on a single ship so didn't have the array needed to gather sufficient light. No instead he had a better power. Military rank. Each of the groups doing imaging had to allow the military to use it how they saw fit for their specific mission. Most of this meant zooms on the up to the second happenings. The data was not classified so everyone would know /someone/ specifically ordered for there to be maximum low latency image recording of her masturbating on the front of her ship after having just killed someone. Perfect. It seems like it was working already. She will become over run with her feelings of lust and then she will be mine to control. Bwahahaha I hate this story so fucking much. Well maybe you should stop bleeding all over the fucking floor and stand up then! Looking down stump hands. Surprisingly not bleeding. Looks like I lost consciousness but now I was awake. I remember there being fairies. Looked at the desk, covered in blood. Wait. That's not my desk, this is the garage? And it's a table saw? It wasn't running. I looked at the floor and saw them. My hands. The table saw was covered in a splash of blood. My arms were bound I noticed. Tied off. "See we treated you nice. Didn't even wake you up to do it." coming to a realization of where I was. Right, I was going to see the yakuza this evening, and then I was coming home with stumps for hands and ... Fairies? "So now you got your excuse to not work chum. No one's gunna complain about it again." Oh right. Apparently my worker condition protest ruffled a few feathers, I was labeled as just a lazy person and then someone sent the yakuza. Well. Shit. Now I don't have hands. What the fuck am I supposed to do without fucking hands. Looking at the hands on the floor. The men left. They didn't need to say anything else. They didn't need to explain themselves or beat me unnecessarily. They did what they were hired to do. That's all. I got up. I wonder if I could risk going to the hospital. Shit... That's probably just what they want. Once I'm there I'll be interviewed by media and my cause will be made to look retarded. No the only right move is to press on even with the injuries. I wonder if I know anyone who's into Cyberbionics? The call was answered. This dude was like a wizard. Maybe literally. He did all kinds of hacky shit and recently had gotten hard into bio engineering. He was already excellent at electronics and so this guy seemed like the right one to call. "Hey. So I got a kind of big problem" "Ya? Like your silly protest getting hot water or what?" "My hands got cut off" "Holy shit man. That's fucked!" "Ya. Well I was thinking maybe you wanna go mad scientist on me? Some way to reattach the parts?" "You are serious right now? Fuck let me think" he looked around his room. Some way to preserve the hands while doing all the other shit. Plenty of everything for this? Yes. It looks like this will work. "Alright. Well if you are serious then time is an enemy. Put your hands on ice. In a insulated container or something, and get your ass over here. I got shit to do." My daughter drove us over and came with me inside. We didn't talk other than her asking it hurt. It was several days before anything really started. At this point the groups probably thought they got to me, and killed my nerve. On the forth day he needed my arms. He attached some wires and hosing to various parts connecting my nerves to some electronics and then attaching a round cap like enclosure. This dude had all this shit sized specifically for me. Drawn up in 3d software then printed out of titanium in a 3d printer. The smoothness of it was uncanny, most people these days added a procedural texture of some kind to their prints to give it a kind of subsurface roughness. Like a matte finish. But not this dude. It was like perfect curves and mirror finish. Each stub got one, and once on it was very securely held in place. Then came the hands. Several days later he called me in he had my hands attached to a similar collar. The dismembered hands looked... Relatively healthy. Considering. "So how do i" "Just bring the right stump to the right hand" I did and as I did the right hand reoriented itself and attached to the stub with a click. Suddenly a rush of cold entered my arm. "Shit that's cold" "Oh ya, fluid in the hand's blood vessels. It's perfectly harmless. Try to move your fingers." I did and they seemed to move correctly. "Well it looks like your nerves are setup close enough to the standard for this model to work. I had a few other models I could try instead. Now your other hand." I brought my stub close to the other hand and it likewise connected with a click. I moved my fingers just a bit numb probably from the cold? Or was it the memory model. A light flashed on the side of the hub separating my hand from arm. "Ok it looks like this one does have a problem. I might have got some nerves crossed as well. Shit happens." "Wait what?" "It's no big deal the memory models can handle a few crossed neurons. Lets try this one" The light blinked a few times then I could feel sensation in my hand flare up brightly. Moving my fingers they seemed to move correctly but with more force than normal. "Alright that seems good." "Wow, this is incredible." "Ya. Out did myself. This uses some pretty secret level technology by the way. Like plutocrat immortality secret" "Ya. Thanks" "Oh ya, one more thing. You can detach the hands like this. He intersected his fingers palms facing away and pushed his arms out. I tried it, and felt the hinges on both hubs unlatch at the same time and my hands fell to the table. "Shit." I said as they fell down. Then hit the table with a soft thud. "Ouch" my hand hurt. I went rub the nonexistent hand and remembered I didn't have hands attached, but the hands on the table were mimicking the motions I intended for them to be making. I opened and closed my fist. The hand on the table open and closed. "Holy. Shit." "YA man, isn't that shit wild? I was thinking about the interface and realized if I went drive by wire all kinds of shit was possible. Of course we are using some military grade encryption for this, and it won't accept new pairings. Additionally the interface I'm using can be shut off by a hardware switch right here." he flipped the switched on each hand, locking out the low-level wireless access he had been using to push updates. I tried getting my hands to balance on the tips of the fingers. It was slow going. Does this story ever go anywhere? It doesn't feel like it. It's like a chain of beginnings. Our consciousness becoming aware of that structure seeks to find some kind of way of resolving the pattern. Realizes that this too was always part of the very same pattern. Wonders at the mysteries, and considers the idea of potentially more layers to the pattern that are yet un discovered but more and more over time they become predictable. And then the pattern is all there ever was. And all there'll ever be. The pattern is us, and we are it. .