TenNewChapters

Rasmus Nielsen Ten New Chapters (Last updated March 5 th 2007) Foreword I don't claim to be anything more than an amateur writer. Skill takes practice, and I hope I'm get better as I go. One of the great things about fiction is that it does not claim that what it describes is the truth. That is not to say that some pieces of fiction may not be describing actual events, or have some truth to them, in that the writer may this way get air for things he or she can not otherwise say openly. But it don't have to be. And it usually don't claim to be. This inherent flexibility of the general genre of fiction also makes it a great playground for all sorts of wild experiments. A writer has to write. And if he can get something to eat too it would be nice. My stories are for children of all ages (doesn't one have to be big kid to enjoy reading fiction? Or writing it for that matter), so you might dress me up as a robber, or call me a rapist of young minds, or paint me a mustache. It still won't stick for that reason. I may not be in control of whatever my reader gets out of my writings. All I can do is do my best, and correct whatever mishaps I think I might have caused, as I get aware of them. And then by the way apologize in advance for whatever unintended misunderstandings and/or discomfort may result of my writings. Defending myself and my beliefs is one thing. That doesn't mean I can't at least try to clean up my language best I can, as I am learning the techniques. Because in the end that's the best I or anyone can do. 1 After The Outbreak I am sitting here, writing in the dim light of evening. "The end is near" reads a graffiti. At the time it was written there noone took it serious. How ironic. Now, after all that has passed I decide to write it all down. Don't know who is ever gonna read it. If the next generation will learn to read at all. Or even have any reason to learn it. But I'm gonna write it all down here anyway. Perhaps one day I can use it as stories to read to the kids by the campfire. To begin with it had seemed like nothing but a regular flu. Until people started dying. On the first day nine people differnt places, mainly in Europe and North America had been rushed to hospital. Their fever had reached dangerous levels and they started getting cramps and went into a comatose condition. Few hours after that they died. All in the course of three days after the onset of the first flu like symptoms. Due to the wide scatter of the cases noone saw a connection at first. On the second day little over a hundred more people were hospitalized, scattered around the world, and the first had begun dying. But they were still being perceived and treated as individual cases. Not until the third day did it become clear that a deadly pandemic was at hand, and story hit the newsmedia. During that day close to a thousand new cases had emerged and the pandemic had claimed the first hundred and eight fatalities. That was when the story hit the news media. The public was urged to stay indoors till further notice, and it was urged that anyone who had experienced flu like symptoms anytime recently should report to hospital immediately. During the fourth day more than nine thousand people had been hospitalized, and approximately a thousand died. And the number of hospitalized and deceased continued to grow exponentially at a terrifying rate, while still noone could say where the epidemic had originated. All that could be said was that the investigation into the whereabouts of the first dozen of patients to be brought in placed them all in either of the major international airports in Europe or North America on the same day about two and a half weeks before the onset of the first flu symptoms. With a latency that long the chances were that mostly the entire population on planet earth had already been infected by then. And given that there were so far no known examples of survivors, which appeared to signify a mortality rate of a hundred percent, the prognosis was grim. People were again urged to stay indoors and avoid any contact. During the fifth day a hundred thousand people worldwide had now fallen ill, and close to ten thousand had already died. So far no known treatment had shown any effect against the disease. But in midst the doomsday atmosphere a glimpse of hope emerged as a hospital in china could report of a case of recovery. A patient who had been hospitalized on two days earlier had made it through the fever and his condition stabilized. Throughout the next day eleven more recoveries were reported from hospitals around the world. Still a million people had fallen ill and ten thousand had died, which made for a careful first estimate of a survival rate of a mere 0,01 percent. So when the pandemic had passed only about six hundred thousand people worldwide could be expected to have survived. Here in Denmark these numbers meant only about five hundred. All this time I was confined to my appartment in Bagsvaerd, with not much else to do than watching the news. I had covered the letter slot and the slids around the door with plastic to make it as air tight as possible. Ever since I lost my job I haven't been outside the appartment much, and figured that there might actually be a fair chance I had avoided being infected at all. Foreseeing that water might become a problem I had filled all the empty cola bottles in my kitchen with water. As for food I had bread and a bit of meat and chees in therefrigerator, apart from some canned food in the closet. The streets outside were unusually quiet, with no traffic but an occational ambulance or army vehicle passing by outside. The danish television broadcasts ended on the nineth day, along with the electricity and the running water. Last report before that the number of infected were a hundred thousand. And estimated one billion worldwide. That same day I heard something at the door. A girl who had fallen ill had sat down outside the door. Partly because I felt bad for her, and partly because I longed for any kind of social contact, I sat down in the hall and talked with her until she drifted away. I sat there for awhile grieving this stranger that I knew only so briefly. Then I got the idea that if I could substract a bit of blood from her then I could make a vaccine from it. Somehow that made me feel like her death would not have been in vain then. So I went to the kitchen and got a clear plastic garbage sack and a couple of regular plastic bags. Then I took a sharp knife and mounted it on a long stick with a piece of string. I put the home made spear in the sack, along with a glass jar with a screw lid, so that the knife end of the spear was pointing out from the opening of the sack. Finally I put on a pair of protective plastic gloves. When I got back out in the hall I taped the open end of the plastic sack to the door around the mail slot, making sure it was as air tight as it could be; thus making an improvised airlock. Then I steered the spear out through the mail slot, feeling my way till I found the dead girl outside the door and could make a cut. After pulling the spear back into the sack I managed to untie the string, placing the knife with the blood sample in the jar, and screwing the lid on inside the sack. Then I squeezed the jar through the clear plastic of the sack, put the plastic bag over the punctured end, and sealed it tight with tape. Back in the kitchen I screwed the lid off the jar and filled it with water from one of the bottles. There had only been a couple drops of blood on the knife, but I wasn't sure how much I needed to thin it. If I used too much water the solution might be too thin to have any effect. But if I didn't thin it enough the infection would be too concentrated, and I would risk getting the disease and die. I considered again wether it was worth the risk at all, but decided that since I eventually had to leave the appartment and would then be likely to be exposed to the infection anyway, I had to try. I tossed the used knife out the kitchen window and took a clean sharp knife from the drawer. Dipped it in the solution and made a fine cut on the shouldet. From that point on all there was to do was wait for two and a half weeks and see what would happen. According to the rate of the development the whole thing would be over by the eleventh day. Strictly speaking I knew I ought to wait for the effect of the vaccine to show. But I also knew I would be running out of food and water long before then, and besides I figured there would not be any great chance of me running into anyone anytime soon, infected or not. So I decided to stay indoors till the fourteenth. In the meantime I starte packing. Carefully considering what to take along. On one hand I didn't want to be carrying too much. But on the other hand I wanted to be well prepared. So when I left the appartment on the fourteenth it was with a backpack containing a sweater and long underwear for cold weather, plus a set of clean clothes for changing. In addition I had packed a box of matches, a pocket knife, a compas, two small towels, a piece of soap and a toothbrush, and a map of Sealand, plus finally the rest of the couple of cans of canned food that were left in the cupboard. Anticipating that I would need more carrying space I chose the work jacket and pants because of its many pockets. Besides it also had the benefit of being wind- and watertight and having a hood so it can function as a raincoat. Apart from these considerations regarding what to wear and what things to take along I had not given much thought to what to do or where to go once I got out of the apartment. For all eventualities I took my keys with me so I could get back in if I found there was something from the appartment I absolutely needed to go back for. I took one last look around the appartment, then turned and walked out the door and down the stairs to the parking lot outside. The sensation of the fresh air brushing against my face and filling my loungs was almost extatically refreshing. Not just because of the weeks I had spent indoors, but even more so as the air pollution I had grown acustomed to in the city had begun to take off just a bit since the trafic and the factories had not been up and running for four or five days now. I started heading towards copenhagen, asuming that would statistically be the best place to look for other survivors. About halfways to copenhagen I met two women. The first one, Porter, migt at first sight come across as a bit peculiar with perhaps a bit of a coleric streak and an occational taste for trouble. But sweet enough though, and fun to be with. The other one, Lucerna, was mostly silent, but as I should find out she could, hard pressed, ocationally be persuaded to speak out. Travelling along the desolate road through the suburbs that day was a truely bizar experience. The roads as I knew them; normally packed with people and cars that time of day were now completely desolate. The noise of trafic that had become so familiar over the course of years had now given way to a dead like silence, only interrupted by a kakophony of birds. Further adding to the absurdity of the scenery an out of place sound setting, like in a movie where they had mistakenly put the wrong background music to the images. But it was a delightful three and a half hour walk. The weather was implicable and the fresh air was tantalizing. A few scattered clouds were drifting lazily by and the sun was slowly climbing the deep blue sky above, plesantly warming my body. A feeling of freedom and happpines came over me as I sucked in the impression, finding myself in the middle of the world around me. A new world with a new sky above me and a new ground underneath my feet. A new beginning... 2 Survivors About a kilometer and a half from the town hall square of Copenhagen a car turned a corner and continued in the direction out of the city, towards us. It slowed down. Behind the steering wheel was a busty redhead with the words "Someone please have sex with my mom!" printed over her breasts on her t-shirt. She rolled down the window and presented herself as Lone. The man with her, Andrus, came out and shook my hand, and we talked for awhile. They had been driving around in Copenhagen for two days without meeting other survivors. So they had decided to expand their search. Being an isle, Amager, East of Copenhagen, had seemed a good place to start, although after half a day they had met noone there. So with Amager out of the way they had then been searching the area north, south, and west of Copenhagen; circling outwards from the city centre, in as much as the road map allowed. Before they went they agreed to meet with me two days from then at the Round Tower. Food and drink was not any immediate problem, as the warehouses was fillled to the brim. And although the coolers had not been on for a long time and the frosen goods and the meat and dairy products were not exactly what they had been then, there was still lots of canned foods, chocolate, biscuits, dry bread and other durable foods. We even found long term durable milk. Though we knew both that we could not stand staying in the cramp streets of the city forever, so we found a map of Sealand to direct us to the nearest piece of nature around. That would be the forests around Furesoe lake north west of copenhagen. When the others arrived we would suggest going there. And so the next couple of days while we were waiting for our randezvous with Andrus and Lone, walking around the empty streets, were pretty relaxed. Even the weather was pretty nice. So we spent some time relaxing in some deck chairs. I had this refraint in my head. "Do you know that song," I asked; "the stanza goes: You'll remain dumb and outside no matter how, until you understand that it's absolutely on purpose they make us feel like that... You know that song?" "It sounds familiar," replied Lucerna. "It's a good point. Yah. I suppose there are those who make openings and those who make closures." - "How do you mean?" I asked. "Well," she said. "It's a bit dificult to explain, but..." - "Try me," I replied. "Well," she continud: "All those myths about what the powers in our lives are and how they are supposed to act: If you do not realize that those myths were made up by people, and those people had particular agendas then you risk placing your 'spirits' - your cognitive and perceptual processes - in the hands of the myth-makers and at the mercy of their agendas... But the truth of the matter is that in the end the spirits are a function of our metabiology, and serve to keep us alive and well." - "Oh?" I asked. "And what do you believe are their agendas then?" "Well, of course there are as many agendas as there are, at least deliberate, myth-makers. But as far as I can tell from my studies of modern myths hollywood movies, etc. - a typicalt agenda disturbingly often seem to be ensuring their own offspring the optimal advantage - by giving the offspring of the consumer of the myth the most possible disadvantage. Typically by atempting to trick his or her reproductive reflex into subliminally believing that his or her potential offspring is 'evil', or 'alien', or 'smelly', or 'Bob', or otherwise 'flawed' and should not be given a chance." - "Interesting conspiracy theory," I replied. "Then, if, hypothetically of course, we asumed for a moment that was right, then how could one protect oneself against that kind of mind-tricks?" - "If you find you have fallen victim of such mind-tricks then you first and formost need to become aware of the manipulations so you can relate to them rationally." - "How so?" I asked. "Break the spell by contradicting the lie: Know that your offspring, as well as my offspring, are NOT inherently evil manipulators, mass murderers, or degenerates, in spite of what anyone tries to tell us." - "Cab you give some examples?" I asked. "Sure," she replied. Take for example the standard 'That-or-that group is sexually preferred' formula: That's a standard procedure aimed at building aggression against a particular group, while at the same time making the reader or listener feel sexually inadequate. Note also that it may function as a self fulfilling exclamation, as it also instructs the reader or listener in what kind of sexual partners is 'supposed' to be preferable. Of course this general outline can be given in many different variations: Personally I first encountered this trick given the following sentence: 'Of course it can be difficult for a white male to find a female when there are so many other, much more beautiful skin tones to choose from...' - Another widespread mindfucking trick is adressing the unborn offspring-to-be. Such as for example this sentence sent to a memorial blog against honour killings I had a couple of years back: It said: "Shadow of the son. The smell of flowers. You." This type of trick is more advanced, as the naming of the potential "son"-to-be aim at causing such a cognitive/linguistic category to be established. That way the formula atempts to confuse the linguistic interpretation of future incomming sentences, and generally mess up the sexual reflex, by atempting to thus cause these cognitive processes to divide between conflicting interpretations. - Negative reinforcers - particularly fear - is another way of atempting to disrupt the sexual reflex: In particular references to fecies is or to the bodily function of fecation - since this reflex is part of the so called "fight-or-flight" potential. An example of this is could be the words of the more or less anonymous sms sent to me around the same time; on march 28th 2006: It simply consisted of the words: "Those who believe that sex is the best thing in the world have never tried needing to shit real bad!" Of course whenever I hear or receive such examples I usually make sure to keep them for my collection. Anyways, the way to mend whatever damages may have been caused by such manipulations is always to come to terms with how they are intended to work. That way they can no longer influence the mental processes as hidden, subconscious modules, but can be dealt with consciously. Of course there are many other types of mind-fucking procedures. And a lot of them are based on principles more in the range of the superstitious. But the ones I just mentioned are, I think, the most commonly used formulae atempting to disrupt the sexual reflex. "I see," I said. "But if we hypothetically suppose that it actually work, then don't you think it's a bit risky letting people know this? I mean; if I realize how these tricks work then what is to keep me from using them against others?" She looked at me and shrugged. "If you try it then pray that whome ever you try it on hasn't been taking lessons from me! - And if someone tries such formulae on you then make it public and explain publically how they work, like I have explained it to you." "I see," I said. After awhile she smiled and said: "You're ok, kid!" she said. "There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with your kids. And there is nothing wrong with your grand kids," she said. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise!". I nodded. "You may be right about at least that. Of my own time as a child in kindergarden I can't remember as much as one single incident of any of the children there acting cruel. Thoughtlessly perhaps. But never cruel. Quite the contrary: As I remember we kids were always keen to help each other out with learning to cope with the world around us. Cruelty was something I don't think I ever encountered before we got to school and learned it from the grown-ups. Somtimes it could seem to me like this mentality of cruelty has somehow resulted as some kind of perverted mis- or overinterpretation of Darwin, to the point where some people have adopted it as in some scewed way 'aesthetically' required of evolutionary and economic theories?!" She noded. We both fell quiet and leaned back in the deck chairs, looking at clouds drifting by. A cluster of clouds slowly drifting by one moment looking like a couple of kids dancing, changing shapes ever so slowly till they looked the next moment like like two dogs barking at each other. A moment later again they had dissipated so their remains just looking like fishes in a pond. 3 The Fire In Round Tower As we aproache the round tower for the randezvous with Andrus and Lone, we met a man in a black leather jacket, with a kid. The man introduced himself as Alexis, and the child as Ofeliz. They had settled in the tower with cardboard boxes and crates to sit on, warming themselves by a small bonfire. Their hope was of maybe being able to spot other survivors from the top. But some dead guy who had apparently layed himself down to die in there was blocking the way. Lone and Andrus arrived soon after, as Alexis and Vagn had gotten themselves into an argument, and I had gone to examine the dead guys briefcase. Disappointingly it contained nothing but a bunch of account sheets and old buisness meeting transscripts, and a notebook with the accountant's scribblings. The most entertaining thing on the guy was the tamagotchi he had in his pocket. "Watch out!" shouted Alexis and leapt from Andrus to Ofeliz, as the account sheets from the briefcase landed on the fire and burst into flames. The fire rapidly spread to the cardboard boxes and the pile of newspapers and wood they had piled up for fuel. We all rushed out of the tower. Andrus went to have the soot washed off him in the rain water that had gathered in the fountain next to the tower. "Where do we go from here?" asked Lone, after it was established that everybody was alright. We decided to gather as much durable foods and other necessities as we could have in the car, and head for the forests around Furesoe lake. An hour later we had the car packed with canned foods, warm clothes, rain coats, tents flashlights, matches, etc. Alexis had brought a monopoly game for entertainment, and I had found a whole case of condoms, but as it turned out the case had been standing in the sun and all the condoms were destroyed. And alas; also the monopoly game was destroyed from lying on the back seat and being sat on so it broke. "I also picked up a big fat encyclopedia," said Lucerna. "I can imagine noone gonna have any use of that anyways," I said, and so we decided to leave it. "I must insist on a can of concrete though," I said, "for you never know what might happen." "Trick or treat!" said Lone with a big grin. She had found a case full of decorative witches' wands of all colors, antlers, plastic pirate swords, and other remedies for the Fastelavn holidays. "Hey look what I found!" said Lucerna: "It's a broken kock-ring!" Andrus had found a seal cub pet robot in the gadget store by Noerreport Station, that he brought along for Ofeliz, who pretty soon lost interest in it though. Apparently she was much more interested in the tamagotchi, that kept her occupied the rest of the way to the Furesoe. 4 Fingers Solemnly Crossed On the way we picked up a guy walking along the road with two terriers. He presented himself as Vagn, and the two terriers as Lucy and Spice. He soon proved to be an argumentative, moral and filosophical mind. We got to the lake of Furesoe and made it about half a kilometer into the forest in search of a good place to set up camp, before the car stopped due to lack of gas. We had brought a "Scion" halogen garden lamp that had a solar rechargeable battery, and a battery saving setting so it could automatically turn on and off as controlled by a motion sensor. So we set up the camp around that; one tent for Alexis and Ofeliz, another one for Andrus and Lone, and the last one for Vagn and myself. But although the love between the two of them was obvious and we all had expected them to couple up much sooner, Lone had strong reservations regarding the issue of sleeping with Andrus. Not because she didn't love him, but because technically speaking there was something about a marriage to someone. And although the two of them had broken up before the outbreak technically speaking no divorce had been made official. And for some reason the vows; given that they strictly speaking had no proof that the other guy might not still be alive, bothered them both. It was in this regard we first got a demonstration of Vagns argumentative style, as he came to their aid with his lecture on moderation: "In a way it's a bit like with the 'terms and conditions' that the user has to 'accept' when he or she install some software application; filled as they are with fine print, and half a kilometer long. Noone takes it too literally of course, simply because that's impossible: If one had to read all the 'terms and conditions' of every single software application every single time then one would never have time for anything else. So in practical reality one of course just have to cross ones fingers and click 'accept'. And that's exactly what one should do with the impossible marriage vows too. In fact I would suggest that even be established as an obligatory standard that the couple solemnly cross their fingers during the vows. As an admission to human nature, as well as for good luck! - Because marriage vows have to be understood with a certain amount of moderation, if they are not to become an unbeareable and impossible straight-jacket, in which both partners end up counting the days till one can get rid of the partner. Both have to understand that I don't own you and you don't own me. The initial wild enfatuation is eventually going to wear off. After that the relationship is more of a partnership. And it has to be able to stand the inavoideable occational extramarietal fling so it does not risk turning into a toxic pool of repressed frustrations, like old water which has been standing still too long and started to rot. You can not have everything all to yourself. But if you can suffice with a reasonable portion then you may find that portion to be sweeter than you had thought. That said this is by no means meant to deminish the value and virtue of faithfulness. Nor is it meant to say that romance can not prevail or reoccur in marriage. Quite the contrary in fact; it is to say that the conditions of that posibility is so much improved if both parts in the relationship has a - moderate - degree of freedom to get his or her romantic needs met elsewhere if and when they can not be met within the partnership." After the speech Lone and Andrus went to digest what he had said by themselves. I asume they must have been persuaded by the argument, for half an hour later I found them making out under the leaf cover of a bunch of bushes a bit away. I snug away to leave them in peace. 5 Personal Development We found a place where someone had hung a swing from a branch of one of the trees. That had kept us occupied for awhile til we got tired of that and left the swing for Ofeliz to play in. Ofeliz loved it, keping Alexis occupied pushing her back and forth all day, while Andrus and Lone, having rediscovered the joys of play, took up spinning each other around by the hands till they got dizzy and tumbled around in the leaves, laughing. As we returned to the camp that evening we had been at high spirits after playing around all day, and the garden lamp had unfortunately been broken, as Alexis had accidentally sat on it. Lone, being an electronics freak, decided to fix it using components from the pet robot. But first Vagn insisted to hold a death-and- resurrection ceremony, in the form of a kind of funeral speach over the dearly departed garden lamp. Mostly so he could get a chance of airing a little lecture on personal development: "This lamp has served us well up until its tragic departure. But despair not, for soon it will have been repaired and good to light our way in the dark again. Let it be a simple lesson to us all; a picture if you will, of the life and death cycle of all nature. We know it from the process of personal development. For it is in a sense a continuous process of dying; which is to say; of changing. After a period a person has changed so that he or she is not actually the same person any more. In fact even the fysical matter of which he or she is made; every single atom of the human body, is replaced in the process of metabolism over a period of only five days. Aging, learning, is like dying in that sense. Like being continuously reborn as a new person. This was what one of the ancient greece filosophers meant when he said that one can not step into the same stream twice, for as the water is continuously replenished it is not actually the same stream at all from one time one steps into it till the next. That is also why some mystic traditions compare sex to death in a similar sense: In the interaction between two people, little by little they let small portions of themelves flow between them, as liquids between connected vessels. That is to say they are change a bit each time they interact. The more intimate the relationship the larger the portions that flow between them. A sexual relationship changes a person. Refreshes and replenishes him or her in the process of this 'metabolism' of personality." After the lecture Lone went to fix up a table on the other side of the hill, before it got too dark, so it could function as a workbech for fixing the garden lamp first thing the following day. The sky had been somewhat gray and cloudy for the past couple of days, so she hung a tarpaulin in the branches of the nearest trees over it to keep it dry in case it should start raining. 6 Construction Lone's intention of repairing the lamp should soon prove to turn into a bigger construction project, as she started debating with Vagn as he eagerly stepped up to the workbench. "Can I help?" he said enthusiastically, and dropped the tamagotchi so it broke in halves. Lone, shooed him. "Some are better suited for manual labour than other, verbally oriented beings," she said with a little smile. "Not that I don't have a verbal side myself," she hesitantly added. "Sorry," said Vagn, a bit embarrassed. Alexis left Lone and Andrus at the workbench, to push Ofeliz on the swing. "It's ok," said Lone and took off her glasses, as the space around the workbench had fallen calm again. "It's just that I get headaches if there are too many people and too much noise around me. But it helps when I take off my glasses." - "Really?" asked Vagn. "Yes. I have a theory about it, actually," replied Lone: "See, the thing is that I am near-sighted. Though my optician told me that I have exceptionally fine detail of sight. You can compare it with a camera which is out of focus - or focused like for close ups although the film is a very high grain solution." "So what does that have to do with headaches when there are noise and many people around?" asked Vagn. "Well," replied Lone: "In a way; rather than saying that short-sightednes or long-sightednes are simply flaws, you you might in stead say that some people's eyes are specialized for long-range scouting whereas other people have eyes specialized for fine detail-work." Vagn nodded. "You may have a point there. But I still don't see where you are going with it." - "I am getting to it now," said Lone. "The thing is that when I say headaches it would actually be more accurate to say that I am experiencing something more like a kind of information overflow: Like there is so much sensory input that the brain is having difficulty coping with it. Now, remember what I said about having fine detail, or 'high solution' vision: Vision like that is specialized for working with fine things up close... But when you compensate with lenses that focus to a further distance the amount of detail getting in is radically increased as compared to that of 'normal'-, or mediumvision eyes - because of the high solution - so the result is that the visual cortical areas receives much more infomation than it was built for. Which of course may be compensated for by pulling resources from other sensory systems... But if those systems - primarily the auditory cortical areas of course - are already stretched to the limit the result is information overflow... It should help then to take off my glasses so that the amount of information flowing to the visual cortical areas is reduced. And in fact that is exactly what happens. It really does help. It would seem like that which is commonly seen as an 'optical flaw' of short- or far-sighted vision should actually rather be considered to be different kinds of visual specialization." "That is a very interesting observation," nodded Vagn. "Speaking of which," said Lone: "I also found the points you made on personal development, pretty interesting. The cyclic development process you described made me think of the iterative development process used in industrial product development. For example by software developers." "Really?" said Vagn curiously. "How so?" - "Well," she explained: "Let's say we are building a new Scion, especially designed for what we need. Then we start by making a list of what we require from it..." "Great!", said Vagn. "Because actualy I was thinking that it should be so that there is a hole that can be put on a stick so it could be raised and don't have to be put on the ground." - "Fine," said Lone. That's one requirement right there. She scribbled it down on a piece of paper. "And I think it should have a soft exterior for when I bump into it at night," I suggested. "Hmm.. Unorthodox for a garden lamp, but actually not a bad idea," nodded Lone, and noted the suggestion. "And it could be remote controlled," suggested Andrus. Soon we had a short list of all the more or less realistic things we would like to build into the new Scion. "Well," said lone. "Given the requirements we have listed we can now sketch out a set of construction plans. Soon a tentative set of construction plans were done. "We need the components from the robot," said Lone, and handed a couple of screwdriver across the table. Thank you, said Miss Porter and opened the babyseal for Lone. "No problem," said Lone as she got the in-outs, transistors, diodes, and other components she needed. "Now, the next phase is to build a prototype model and see how it works out in real life. Before the end of the day Lone delivered the new Scion. Not bad, but far from perfect either, in spite of all the good suggestions and intentions. Or rather, perhaps, exactly because of the exaggerated ammount of well intended features, making it a bit clumpsy and difficult to handle. "The next phase, after the prototype has been built," said Lone, "is to list the main points of how the prototype may be modified so as to optimize it for the functioning in the concrete real life situation it's supposed to work in." "That's a bit like biological evolution too;" noted Vagn; "through adaptation to the concrete situation.." - "You got a point there," replied Alexis; "Did you know for example that parots on the Galapogos islands..." - "Let's use the time constructively on building this baby, in stead of wasting it on chat," said Lone and continued where she had left of: "Now, after we have tested it thoroughly we go over the same cycle again; of modifying the plans, implementing the modifications, and testing how they work out, for as many iterations as is required until we have the optimal result. That's how iterative development process functions." And so they spent day after day building, testing, and rebuilding the Scion for the next six days, until they had a new, well functioning garden lamp ready, implementing the main points of requirement but still practically handeable, and they could finally take a day off to round off a weeks work. Relaxing, playing with it, checking its functions to their satisfaction. "Wouldn't it be cool if it had voice commands," suggested Alexis on the morning of the eighth day. "Drop it," replied the others tired. "It's just perfect as it is." 7 Drives And Ethics One day I asked Vagn about the reason for the names of his two terriers. His reply was as always a testimony to his filosophical mindset: "One of the greek filosophers once compared the human drives to a wagon with two horses: An intellectual horse which is obediant and diciplined, and an impulsive horse which is disobediant and impulsive, and thinks only of sex, and has to be tamed. To some degree, at least. Abstaining from overinterpreting the psychology of this image one might s ay that the intellectual horse keeps the wagon going in a meaningful direction, whereas the impulsive horse makes the journey interesting." - "I see," I said, and nodded "I kind of like that notion," he continued;" so I called the thoughtful one 'Lucy', as the 'light' of intellect, and the playful one 'Spice'." Somehow this balanced filosophy of moderation reflected pretty well Vagn's general atitude. Rather contrary to Miss Porter whose argumentation could often appear more impulsive and determined by a mood or a fix idea of the moment. And after Vagns lecture in connection with Lone's reservations, she had somehow managed to make an issue out of wether Lone should be allowed to love and be loved at all. Apparently it would seem that her objection was something along the line of an argument that copulation might result from love, and children might result from copulation. And for that reason, in some metaphoric sense, that would be like the not yet existing child, latenly present in-, and acting through, each of the two, performing some unspeakeable Freudian act with its own parents. Along a similar line of argument was the objection that men and women could in some metaphoric sense be considered brothers and sisters, and so all sex was in some respect to be considered somehow "incestuous". Naturally these claims were not to be taken as anything more serious than as atempts to provoke. But it had at least succeeded in as much as it had in turn resulted in some animosity from Lone, which had apparently further strengthened Porter's determination and eagerness to provoke. And so the whole issue had for a period turned into a state of mutual vendictiveness between them, where it was suddenly Lone's animosity which had become the main argument: Porter had claimed a kind of right to 'punish' Lone this way, because of the vendictiveness on Lone's part. At last the issue was formally tried in a debate held in the car, between Vagn and Lone. Vagn, defending Lone, opened with a lecture on vendictiveness versus justice: "Vengeance is a natural feeling. But rational justice can not be based solely on emotion, for in order to turn around a vicious cycle of punishment, leading to resentment, leading to vengeance, leading to more punishment, there has to be mercy. And that may come from understanding. What is hatred but the other side of the coin of love? And so also vice versa: A great hatred shows only how great a love it is which has turned its back." "Therefor," he continued; "as for the hateful person: Do not scorn and hurt him or her even more than he or she has already been hurt, but nourish in stead him or her with love and tenderness so as to extinguish his or her thirst. For it is no more and no less a thirst for vengeance than it is a thirst for the love of which he or she has been robbed." Porter: "But then how is it avoided that people should then try to steal love for other reasons than thirst, by acting cruel just because they think cruelty is rewarded? Or because some ideology urge them to do so?" Vagn: "It is avoided by seeing the difference between what is thirst and what is pretending. It is avoided by common sense: He or she who is rich in some respect yet he or she still wants more of the same of that which he or she is rich of, obviously it is not out of hunger he or she wants more of it, but it is only out of greed. And he or she who is merely following an ideological codex because it pays for him or her to do so is obviously not acting out of hunger either. Treat hunger with satiation and stupidity with education. Do not treat greed or hustling as if it was hunger, but expose those for what they are, so that their scams and codices are rendered powerless. If a hungry person steals a bread because he or she is hungry then help him or her esablish a living that he or she shall be hungry no more does not need to steal bread from you. If a person rich of bread steals a bread just because he or she can then show, as far as you can, how he or she stole it. Then give the breads he or she stole back to those he or she stole them from and prevent him or her from stealing more bread. If a person steals bread because he or she has been told to do so then prevent him or her from stealing bread again, but whomeever told, or lured, him or her to steal the bread is the actual thief, and shall be treated accordingly." Porter: "Very well then, let the punishment be a lover. Should we not punish this angry person by a love then, which is bitter like vinegar? Should we not then admit him or her a lover who is sealed off both in the upper and the lower regions, but who is so helpless that one can not with good concience break up with her? And should we not then admit him just a fling with yet another lover, far away from his or her reach, and already taken too, to frustrate his or her desires? Oh, would that not be the utmost torment on that love-hungry person? Would it not be like salt water to the thirsty? Oh would that not be the ultimate punishment?" Vagn: "No! Have you understood nothing of what I just said?! If you too are hungry for vengeance for what the angry person did out of anger then remember what he or she has already suffered that he or she is so angry. He or she has already had his or her punishment, I say. If you wish him or her to mend his or her ways then do not make him or her suffer even more." Porter: "But what then about my thirst for vengeance? What of the justification of which I have been robbed? Shall my thirst not be satiated then?" Vagn: "Then ask yourselves is it really vengeance you crave? Is it not justification? Would that not satiate your thirst much more than vengeance? When have you ever seen thirst of vengeance be satiated, however much you suffered? Is it not an apology? Is it not remorse?" Lone: "I give right away my apology for anything I have said that caused any harm, wether I said it in anger or out of ignorance, or wether I believed it at the time but have changed my mind, or wether it was misunderstood. And I too will gladly forgive. If only this curse is taken off me." Vagn: "However you decide to proceed is a demonstration of how you prefer this to go: If you inflict more harm it would demonstrates only that you prefer the vicious cycle of vengeance to go on. But if you forgive and forget like Lone has already said she would then it goes to show your good will. So the question is how do you prefer to present yourself? Your concrete actions now, will bear witness of your intentions." Porter: "Ok. Very well then," she said, "Let's see how it goes. I bet she can be provoked to make her misstep..." Vagn: "Did you not listen? Or are you deliberately trying to keep animosity going?" Porter thought it over for awhile and finally agreed to the truce. She opened the door for Lone. "Thank you," said Lone as she stepped out. "Yes. Let's see how it goes." Andrus and Lone walked away from the trial, and sat down to relax in the grass a bit away from there. I went walking by myself to ponder over the debate. I ended up by a small cabin not far from the camp. Little more than a shed actually. 8 Lovers The main room of the cabin was empty, with just a door at the other end of the room. I went to check it out. Behind it was just another room, smaller than the previous one. While I was in there I heard the voices of Andrus and Lone. "I don't care what they say," said Lone. "It's a stupid argument!" - Andrus' agreed. "Obviously. Children gets born. And however anyone may metaphorize about it copulation has for bilions of years been the only way that come to happen. Which demonstrate pretty conclusively that it's the natural order of things." - "Come here, baby," said Lone. I was just about to leave the smaller room when I saw through the crack of the door that Lone had untied the rope around her waist, and her frock opened, revealing the well shaped breasts underneath. I stopped, not wanting to open the door and embaress the two of them, yet strangely unable to turn away. Like spellbound I had to watch. Isn't it strange how observing others can be an act of empathy where you in some sense put yourself in their place, to the point where you forget yourself and almost fysically experience the situation through them? Lone's nipples standing erect in the cool air, I could practically feel Andrus' heartrate increase. The tingling sensation of the penis swelling, as she let the frock slide down, uncovering the dome of the belly, hovering like a landmark showing the way further downwards to under the cloth hanging loosely on the hips, revealing merely a thin, entangled brim of pubic hairs at the edge of the bushy mat covered by the frock. "Oh mama," studdered Andrus; the heart pounding and the penis aching to get out of its now much too cramp enclosure. As she took a step towards him the frock fell free of her hips and slid to the ground. Her closeness and body heat made him short of breath. She placed her fingers on the bulge in his pants, gently massaging it while her other hand opened the button holding his pants shut. Like in a trance he felt his own hands slide over her hips; up and around to her back, investigating the shapes of her buttocks and the fissure between them leading in under her and around to the moist folds of the vulva. Massaging it Her fingers massaging his penis while his were unfolding the way to the moist cave, exploring playfully at its entrance. Burrying his face in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, behind the cover of her hair, he squeezed her body close with one arm around her and the other hand crouching at her buttocks, as she guided the head of his erect organ inside her. Examining the edge of her jaw with his lips and the tip of his tounge, his legs started to give way under them, and as she lifted her feet up around him and planted them on his buttocks; opening her abdomen to let him sink in to the rod. Sitting on his lap on the ground with him burried inside her, she massaged him with her abdomen, moving in rythmic waves. Leaning backwards she pulled him with her. Crouching over her he caressed her nipples with his mouth while his abdomen pounded rhythmically. Gasping in tune with the buzzy tingling of the rod, foretelling of the comming ejaculation, spreaing upwards into the solar plexus. Building up to a roar as his legs and arms around her waist and shoulders squeezed her in a cramp, pushing him all the way up inside her, as the fluid went off in her in rythmic convulsive loads. For a while they lay on the floor of the cabin, caressing each other. At last they got up and got dressed, and left the cabin. I waited for about ten minutes before I left the room, and carefully checking to make sure they were nowhere within sight, before I snug out of the cabin and back to the camp. "So," I asked Vagn: "It appear to me we never got around to the question about sex between a brother and a sister?" "Well," replied Vagn: "Given how few survivors we are, I suppose it's going to have to be accepted if we are going to have any hope of repopulating. And although the risk of it may be slightly higher it's not true that it's anywhere near bound to result in genetic defects. Although particular family traits would of course be more likely to be amplified if it continued over several generations. Though of course if one live in a culture where any deviation from an official standard is a priori considered a defect... But there are many species of animals animals that don't seem to care. To the extend that there might be some degree of a biological basis for this taboo, it would have more to do with preserving genetic variety than with 'degeneration' from some 'tall dark stranger' or other 'arian race' ideal. I even heard that there are some who claim that it is natural for brothers and sisters to explore sexuality together. Perhaps. I wouldn't know. I never had a biological sister myself." 9 Homage Room One day we had been sitting on the steps to the cabin, eating our lunch. The weather had been gray and cold all day, which had gotten Ofeliz in a bit of a bad mood. On top of it all she had been so unfortunate to get a bad piece of sausage. So, in an outburst of curses and swearwords she had thrown the bad sausage at the sky. Though that didn't help of course. In stead it had started raining, and so we all moved inside. "Now see what you did!" said Vagn, who made no big secret of the fact that he had a bit of a religios streak. "Sorry about that!" he shouted at the sky, and tossed some candies into the air. Lucerna smiled. "That reminds me of that old fable about the good and the bad weather once competed about which of them gould get the jacket off a man. The bad weather tried its worst, but that only made the man button his jacket even tighter around him. But when the good weather warmed his heart, he put down his jacket of his own free will. The morale being that the good gets you further than the bad." "Yah" said vagn: "The principle of 'what you give is what you get' is worth giving a try. In fact it might be a good idea to pay our respect to the divine forces that way: Share our joys and sorrows with them, so as to stay on friendly foot with them." - "How di you mean?" said Lucerna. "Let's make this cabin into a homage room to pay our respects to the powers for good luck," he replied, and took the tarot deck out of her pocket. He leaped through it and fished out four cards. "This homage room is for paying our respect to the powers that be: The male and the female, the material and the spiritual, and their respective magic," he continued, as he placed "The Emperor" and "The Empress", and "The Priest" and "The Priestess" in each corner of the enclosure: "Here is given a share of whatever food, water, fruits, and sweets, we are having, as a token of our gratitude and respect, that the powers will also grant good things to us," he said, and proceeded in a ceremoneous voice: "With thanks for the goods we recieve!" as he gave a piece of candy to each of the powers. "May we prosper that we can share of our prosperity with you. Thank you." Porter opened the door. It stopped raining and the weather had cleared up. We went back to the camp. Although there was a bit of scepticism about the religious undertones most could agree that such a ritual might at least make some kind of psychological sence. And so, every day since then, whatever we are having, a portion of the same is given to each of the powers in the homage room: Of our meal today goes a portion to each of the powers, and of the sweets we are having for desert, goes a portion of sweets like it to each of these powers too. Only once, on the eighth day since then, the homage was forgotten. But it just so happened that a small fire broke out the same day, and the camp was flooded. And although it was agreed that it was propably coincidence noone wanted to take any chances with the offering, and remembered ever since then to pay a portion of whatever we are having to the powers in the homage room, so they may grant us good things too. 10 A New Beginning A year has passed since the outbreak. Lone has given birth to hers and Andrus' child: A healthy little new person bearing the perfect resemlance of a human being. Although still unable to speak, of course; growth and motoric skils are developing at an impressive rate. Andrus and Lone are keeping pretty much to themselves with the newborn, away from the rest of us. Recently Vagn had for awhile had us occupied by a new "divination method", as Vagn called it. The idea had sort of emerged out of a pile of paper-pieces torn out of old newspapers and advertizements: The general idea was pretty much like that of one of those fortune teller machines one may find in an amusement park: They would simply write a question on a piece of paper, then put it in the pile and pull another piece of paper for a "reply". Obviously the "replies" were mostly rather nonsensical and appeared to have nothing to do with the question at all. But that didn't discourage him. Quite the contrary he had a great time stretching his mind to the limit trying to figure out ways to interpret sentenses like "Four pork chops only 30,- krones" as replies to questions like "will the wether be nice on thurstday?" For awhile he and a couple of the others actually managed to hype themselves up over that to a point where they started to think they could actually be having "contact" with something. At some point they had gotten scared by the note they got back, so they had starting putting worried notes back in the pile. And pretty soon a rather large portion of the notes in the pile (reflecting, of course, in the frequency with which they were pulled) had been of a rather worrysome nature, which had soon had them spooked to the point where they were even worried of wearing the wrong clothes. Though the analytically minded Lone finally managed to break the spell by explaining the nature of the problem to them: "What pieces of paper are in the pile depends on what pieces of paper we have put into the pile," she said. "If we have put a note into the pile, saying 'Oh no! That sounds terrible' then there is such a note in the pile. And if we put a lot of notes like that into the pile then chances are we get a lot of notes like that back. And the other way around. It's no big mystery. The pile of papers just contain those papers we have put into it. Just like if you place sixteen stones of one colour and four stones of another colour in the sand then there are four times as many stones of the first colour. So if an overweight of that colour stones scare you then start adding stones of a different color, and after awhile the ratio will have changed. It doesn't matter what clothes we wear, or how we walk, or what our hairdo is like. Relax. Chill out." Since then they left the 'divination pile' alone to find more reasonable things to do with their time. Somehow the new situation here is much like we are finding our lost childhood again; climbing trees, playing with sticks and leaves. Of course we know our store of canned food won't last forever, and besides we are started to get tired of having the same thing all the time. So we have started practicing hunting deers with home made javelins. The other day we managed to get a beaver. That's the first good food we have had in ages, although some found it a bit revolting as we cut it open. But obviously it had to be done. Though about dusin monkey statuettes that I have been carving for the past couple of months had been piling up on the workbench table. And for some reason everybody had gathered around for the slaughter so it was pretty hard getting through. "If someone would please provide an opening for me too, to take all these carvings out of here I'd be so thankful," I said, giving the girls standing in my way a notch. Now I am sitting here in the dim light of evening, next to Lone and the newborn. Alexis and Ofeliz sits together a bit away, burried in a book. Andrus comes and Lone gets up and leaves with him. I take up the notebook and continue writing about all that happened since the outbreak while Andrus and Lone walking away towards the quiet workbench on the other side of the hill. And so here ends this story, pretty much the same place it started. It's a new beginning.