The Essence of Existence (open to all)

[The Union of Tinis]

They descended the stairs until they neared the boarder.

"Wait here," said Ryuqi, taking the last couple steps.

Lipner was half expecting his badge to start screaming once more as Ryuqi carefully prodded the barrier.

"Its solid, at first touch."

Lipner nodded. "It could be the radiation pressure. If there's something strange going on with the light at the interface, it could be physically forcing off a light touch, but something stronger may be able to penetrate it."

"I'm... not sure if that would be a good idea. I don't really want to be stuck a few hours in the past if this decides to revert back to the present."

Lipner quickly padded his pants and produced a cell phone. "Here, try to force this through."

It took a little effort, but the phone began to slide through the interface, or seemed to. Both watched carefully as half the phone disappeared, literally, through the interface. Ryuqi then attempted to pull it out and with a seemingly equal immense effort managed to reconstitute the phone.

"Has anything you've ever encountered been so strange?" asked Ryuqi.

"Well it might explain how the lady whom walked up these stairs and promptly didn't enter our time period. I... I don't think we can enter the past through this, but the past can reach us... but only if via particles that travel at the speed of light."

"And maybe your phone disappearing means there's some place else in our time line. Or perhaps its just the real space in this time line below. And..." Ryuqi paused. Lipner almost panicked, fearing another shut down of the only friendly person this far beneath the streets of the city. "And, I think the barrier just grew slightly."

"Oh. Hmm..." Lipner shrugged. "Well I guess its time to do the drastic thing before it eats us all." He slipped down the last couple steps and stepped bluntly on the barrier. In moments he began to sink. Ryuqi grabbed him and began pulling him back up.

"Are you insane?"

Lipner nodded. "Perhaps. But I now know the barrier gives one a tingly feeling at the interface. My toes seem quite operable though. And..." he steps back onto the step above the barrier. "Are quite intact. Though it would of been nice to know where they were."

At that moment the strangely lit vision of the past vanished and once again there was an empty stairwell below. The two looked at each other. Their curiosity suddenly overwhelming, they both began down the stairs.

Once more on Zed level, they began to move through the halls looking for anything that might tip them off as to where the butterfly project was being performed.

As luck would have it, the first sign of it they encountered was a cat in a lab coat drinking some coffee. He seemed fairly unaware of the two as they turned the corner and almost ran into them before looking up for a pad of paper.

"Hey... who are you?" he asked.

"I'm giving my friend here a tour, but we're a bit lost," says Lipner rather quickly. "Could you tell me where we are?"

"I don't think you should be here."

"Alright, I guess that alarm blast earlier was a good indication of that," mentions Ryuqi.

"Alarm blast..." the technician seems suddenly lost in thought. "Oh, right. That was a clear out sound. Possible dangerous radiation and all that."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure there was some radiation. In fact my badge here went crazy and I thought I was going to die."

The tech looked at Lipner's badge. "You must be really lost. That's an accelerator division badge. You shouldn't be anywhere near here. I'm sorry, but I gotta report you."

"Sure?" asked Lipner moments before punching the cat. The second punch had the feline on the floor.

"Was that necessary... actually it probably was," said Ryuqi as Lipner grabbed the cat's access card.

"I'm a little concerned that this guy didn't know, or seem to concerned about the radiation."

"That was a little... odd."

"Nothing to tie him up with though. I guess we'll have to hope he doesn't wake up soon. Or..." Lipner pulls of the techs shirt and ties it around the cats left leg. "I could make it look like he had some sort of episode, thus it would be understandable some of his stuff is missing." Lipner also removed the tech's wallet, pulling out his meal card and a picture of a kitten. He placed the picture of the kitten on the cats nose. The meal card he ended up ditching under a bucket in the next hall.

A hallway later they found their first useful sign. Besides the usual section 5-b, subsection 12 signs and the like, this one had an arrow and a 'equipment delivery this way'. Following the sign and deciding it was best to duck around the corner, they both realized they were almost there. That corner they hid behind shielded them from the gaze a five armed security guards.

"Well, know where to go from here?" asked Lipner.

"We want to get beyond that door. I know a way."

-----

"So sir, the fragment test seems to have gone off without any hitches," said Desmon as he and Cameron watched the removal of a shard of heaven stone be removed from the odd mound of flesh atop the PDS equipment over a closed circuit tv. "Energy output was a little less than desired. But that radiation burst at the start did seem to indicate something was happening. Between you and me I'm glad you picked this section as the control room. But even then for those three seconds we may have all received half our allowed dosage for the year. It might be advisable that after the next test, if it bursts like that again, that we switch out the crews in sections three and four."

"Would the burst have to do with perhaps the fact that we were using a shard and not a full stone?" asked Omz.

"Perhaps. But it didn't appear in any models. Of course, our models could be wrong as this is the first test we've been able to do with these things with anything biological."

"Its times like this I really wish we'd gone with the willing volunteer instead. Would of been so much easier to do."

Desmond nodded. "But as we've seen just now, possibly very deadly for the volunteer. Hence why the ethics panel asked us not to pursue it."

"Yeah yeah. So, how long till the full test?"

"Just a few minutes sir. As you see here, they're moving the the shard out for testing. They'll have the full stone inserted in about three minutes."

----

The information preserved in the praxisphere was coming in handy. Lipner and Ryuqi had managed to find their way around the guards and were peaking through a window in a door.

Ryuqi said, "I think we can sneak through here. There's a lot of equipment in there, and if we're careful we can slide behind that bundle of cables and pipes and get a good view without drawing to much notice."

"Yeah, I just hope this isn't a one way door. If they turned that thing on again and the radiation levels start going up, I don't want to be stuck in there."

"I'll peak my head in and test the door and if its a one way we abort, ok?"

"Ok."

The door was not a one way and they slipped in and behind the vine like cables that fed data and power to the PDS systems. They were actually above most of the equipment and had a perfect view of the activities.

There were a series of walkways and platforms around the sides of the large room, of which Ryuqi and Lipner now stood on the highest of them. Elsewhere was almost entirely filled with equipment and other equipment supporting that equipment and cables and tubes supporting the supporting equipment. There was also an extendable gantry that was presently directed near the center of the technological mass below.

In the middle there was flurry of activities as more techs, all of whom seemed to be wearing aprons were working on something just off the gantry. The two observer's eyes moved about the room, trying to get a feel of what's going on. Lipner's eyes fell upon a dragonness on one of the platforms who looked very out of place wearing a simple robe set as opposed to the more technically minded outfits of the others. What more, Lipner could identify this individual.

"Look there," he whispered. "She's Untol. If I recall she was a big shot in the 5th house before the Union."

"You think she might be Izixs' hand here?"

Lipner shrugged.

The techs removed finally the shard of heaven stone. Lipner couldn't make it out, but Ryuqi could see them carrying off the very small sliver of material. As they left the observers got a good view of the odd creature the stone fragment had been attached to. It was quite literally a large undulating mound of flesh with no decreeable internal body structure but it did have some fleshy extensions that seemed to disappear into the mechanisms below it.

Moments later a new group appeared. The were moving a cart with a glass box atop it. Much easier to see than the shard, the full heaven stone was quite present.

Untols raised her hand and the techs stopped. She glanced around for a few moments, then closed her eyes. She opened them in the same instant she leaped from the platform. Mid leap she drew from under her robes a slightly rusty bit of metal that no one had the time presently to recognize as a mechanical sword before it was extended over the odd interface creature. Several darts pinged off the parallel blades.

Everyone looked up to the corner of the room the darts had come from. Buried in the cables on ceiling was visible a figure.

"I had to at least try."

With a smile, Untols replied. "I thought I smelled someone in here. Please sir, don't make me remove you."

"Actually... I'd like to see you try," replied Izixs, who had emerged a bit from the cables and was hanging upside down, holding his own mechanical sword.

"I must warn you then then that you should look into my eyes."

Izixs chuckled. "I see them. I know you have been doing some reading of some things that I was convinced wouldn't be as accessible as they seem to have become lately. I must blame Epshrin for lifting one of the security locks without telling me for all that though. But he's not here for me to harass. But you are. And you are helping Omzi do something that neither of you really understand."

"First Speaker. I beg of you, do not make me have to harm you in order to remove you from a restricted area flush with radiation."

"I wasn't here when your alarm went off. A for a few moments from what I saw in the cameras, neither were most of you. But that's beyond the point Untolsi. But in other news, I'd recommend you perform the ritual of cessation and leave behind the negative infection the ritual of battle brought you. It will soon consume your actions... like it did to us. Remember? We nearly slaughtered thousands due to what you are using right now."

"Oh crap," mutters Lipner. "You think we're going to see Untols go psycho and kill Izixs?"

"Maybe."

"No," replied Untols. "I will not give it up. I must protect this process. Good sirs, please insert the heaven stone. I'll make sure he doesn't interfere."

Izixs laughed, and did so loudly. "You idiot. You're not in control are you? Then I have no choice. I here by enact law one of the Union of Tinis."

Ryuqi found this law easily remotely and fairly quickly. The law basically grants the former head of the fifth house the ability to execute or harm until incapacitated any member of the fifth house who fought against the other houses who the leader of the fifth house deems dangerous to the citizens or people of Tinis. A little harsh yes, but apparently made law for a reason.

"Is that so?" said Untols as the techs began moving the cart the last few feet and next to Untols.

Untols leaped at the other dragon whom opted to fall and thus avoid the leap. Lipner and Ryuqi watched as Untols did her best to corner Izixs and keep him away from the heaven stone or the creature.

"Are we... just supposed to watch?" asks Ryuqi after a few more moments. "He didn't mention anything about someone like Untols being here."

"He certainly didn't."

The heaven stone was quickly placed into the creature at that instant.

"I guess we must do something then," said Ryuqi. "Even if it means we don't fare so well personally from it."

"Doing what's right is always a pain sometimes. But Izixs there seems okay with that pain... uh..."

Lipner then noticed that neither dragon had laid a blade or claw on the other despite there seemingly perfect duel around the periphery of the room. His moment of realization was cut short as lights and sounds began to appear from everywhere. The technicians literally ran from the room as if they hadn't expected such to happen.

"More interlopers!" yelled Untols as she noticed the two on the high platform. As Ryuqi attempted to react, primarily to block Lipner from her, she let forth a stream of electricity from her maw which struck the platform.

A separate blast of electricity struck the creature in the middle of the room, blasting it apart.

[miokalia]

The electricity didn't delay Ryuqi's defensive abilities for long.
Lipner wasn't really sure which surface would give her less current were Untols to release another charge on the platform. Ryuqi seemed to fare well under such conditions, but then again, she was also really starting to heat up, and become more defensive.

With a single, smooth shake of her tail, a series of vents opened along it. From her mouth extended a tube.
Ryuqi had never killed anyone with her mouth-mount cannon before, she had never actually caused anyone severe injury from it beyond mild burns. But with Lipner's life endanger, as well as Izixs' (as she saw it), combined with a lack of concern for damaging the surroundings: She set her diminished, vestigial energy weapon to a very wide beam.

Ryuqi was unresponsive to all of Lipner's panicked concerns.
The systems which enabled organic thought were shut-down as a defensive measure. Ryuqi was for a minute, a completely different person as she fired a beam of white-hot particulate matter towards Untol, who suspected initially that the change in Ryuqi's appearence was due to electrical damage.

Despite the light-show, it was not a leathal shot. The fall actually caused about as much, if not a bit more injury than Ryuqi's defensive system.

The second target, which Ryuqi was prepared to fire at next after unlocking her legs... would have been her last. As a second discharge of that amount of power would kill her. With her normal mind suspended, she had no sense of danger to herself.

Foretunately, she saw that someone else had already taken out the organic interface to the heaven stone. But that wasn't enough to end the defensive mode.

Lipner, for a moment assuming it was over, thought Ryuqi's pause was as a result of coming back to normal.
But she didn't respond to anything Lipner said. In fact, she appeared to totally ignore that Lipner was suggesting that she not intervene with the fight between Izixs and Untol. But in this very primitive, pseudo-sentient defensive state, Ryuqi knew only the difference between non-combatants, allies and enemies.

Untol, was now more interested in fighting Izixs. Since this was now a matter of honor, now that the Butterfly Project was ruined.

It wasn't certain if Ryuqi intended to kill Untol in order to defend Izixs (and Lipner). But the last discharge proved to be more draining than it would seem. Combined with the freeze-up from earlier and the subsequent forced-reboot, the fatigue and stress of all these things finally proved to be too much, and before she could leap down to get between Untol and Izixs, she falled over.
She didn't fall off the platform, but her snout hung out over the edge of it. Once again, she was unresponsive. Appeared totally absent of power, much like the previous freeze, only this time, her arms and legs were not locked up. The solenoids which lock up moving parts to protect the mechanisms didn't engage.
Lipner seemed to think that she was dead.

[The Union of Tinis]

Untols sprung up after the fall moments before Izixs would of thrust his sword through her abdomen. Injured but alive, she was mobile once again.

"Untols, you lack imagination still I see. You can't go half way with the ritual if you're going to be fired upon."

"Shut up!" Untols glanced up and saw Ryuqi's collapse. "That thing will not be disrupting my deconstruction! See!"

"Deconstruction indeed," yelled Izixs moving to attack once more.

Lipner was above half panicked. After trying a few things, he figured the best option would be to try to pull Ryuqi from the room in hopes that he could figure out some sort of resuscitation without the threat of a electrical blasts or being otherwise attacked by the duelists. This move wasn't working very well of course, with Lipner not being excessively fit.

Izixs noticed a change in Untols battle methods. She had give up control to it. Her attacks became more exact and powerful.

"Lipner!" he yelled. "Get her out of here if you can!"

"I'm trying!"

Very well, Izixs thought, lets see what she left...

With an opportunity suddenly apparent, Untols dived towards where the interface creature had been and grabbed the heaven stone from the blasted gore. She looked up and grinned at the other dragon.

"You can not stop it Izixs," her body said deflecting a few strikes from the First Speaker. "I will achieve my goal. I will interface the stone with the device one way or another. But first you and the interlopers die."

The stone flared to life as she dug it into her hands. Her blade spun around viciously as she struck it towards Izixs. Izixs wasn't where she expected though.

"I don't think so," he said moments before beheading her. The stone and her body fell to the metal grating.

Izixs glanced up towards the upper platform as the guards appeared through the side doors and aimed their guns towards the First Speaker. Izixs looked at them and smiled.

[miokalia]

Lipner assumed that Ryuqi's collapse was due to exhaustion of energy. Since if it was Untols' electrical burst that did her in, it would have happened instantly. Although, there was definately a change in her behaviour after, she was still capable of operating.
Lipner was barely able to drag Ryuqi a few feet over to a few locked cabinets and, using her free-hinging arm as a hammer, tried to break into them in hopes of finding some way to connect Ryuqi to an outlet. Even if it wasn't particularly safe.
She eventually broke into one. She found a less-than-ideal item for the job. A reel of 12-gauge uninsulated wire. She would have to make sure the wires stay apart, and at one point, she would have to complete the circuit by making contact with a live, uninsulated wire. It was far from ideal.
Upon making contact, Lipner was only seperated from the live wire by a pair of plastic-handled tools found in the box. She lept away as it arced across the outlet. Ryuqi's limbs then locked up as they should. A small sucess, but the releif was short-lived. As when Lipner turned around, he was staring down the barrel of a gun.
Security had arrived.
Lipner was pushed up against a wall and quickly frisked. Then his shirt was removed and he found himself pushed against the floor with his hands behind his back. Lipner was certain this was only confusion. Necessary precautions being taken because he was in a suspicious place.
One of them nonchalantly removed Lipner's handiwork with the compromised power cable by pulling it out of the sockets with the end of a gun. It shorted and came loose with a few pops and little bit of burnt plastic.
Perhaps it was enough, Ryuqi was illuminated again, but not standing. She seemed to be alive again, but not moving anything except the 4 small lenses in each eye. Despite her immobility, two security guards were standing on her back, pointing both of their guns at the same spot of her midesction.



----



Doron walked into the lab that evening alone. He thought it strange that the door was unlocked, and the lights left off.
The only thing that really concerned Doron was the security of the paxisphere. Were it to be stolen he knew it cause Sparhow's spouse to show a very different side of himself than usual to the people here.
He entered the room, half expecting a combination of the usual shock that he is greeted with when he meets new people, and a few rounds that he would expect when he meets new people who are also armed and jumpy.
He was slightly releived to find that the larcenists peered back at him with glowing yellow rectangle eyes, had a light-grey glossy finish and were of similar shape to himself.
"Well, I suppose this can't be too good.", said Doron. Observing that one of them held the sphere in some kind of cloth, Doron knew that there was some serious concern about this business back in Dorigan.
"Atnotro or MRZF?", asked Doron who himself had been involved in similar dealings.
"NCAB", replied one of them.

"Oh", Doron quickly shifted, realizing that this was perhaps less clandestine of an operation than he thought. He finished, "You don't look like the sort."

"I'm afraid we will need to move our item to a safer place. That is all.", said the other.

Doron knew that Yamatoes never divulged information they weren't instructed to divulge. They simply did what they were told. It was a safe bet that the butterfly project was what prompted this.

As the two started towards the door, Doron closed it, which caused the two to stop.

"You two certainly have the behaviour down, but you're missing a few critical details. 1. Yamatoes all have approximately the same voice. 2. Yamatoes would speak to other dinosaurians in Kohtohkhan by default. 3. You aren't leaning forward enough and you didn't threaten me with your weapons when I closed this door.", said Doron.

"We are not fitted with mouth-mount weapons. Is it necessary for me to explain manufacturing differences?", said one of them a little more monotone than usual.

Doron stepped forward and said, "Then allow me to adjust your posture".
He pressed down on one of the "unit's" snouts until finally, there was a slumping-sound coming from inside it, followed by a sharp movement of the tail and the feet shifting weight to the toes.
Doron pushed harder and the "unit" fell right over on it's nose.
The Paxisphere hit the ground and the other made a run for the door.
Doron lept from his position and struck the other "unit" in the back, bringing him down to the floor as well.
The door was locked, and Doron stuck the two in a corner.
He called Kam and told him to get over right away.
Doron's current concern now was to get the Paxisphere out of there.

Out the windows, he saw that there was indeed, a black car. Tell-tale sign of espionage. It wouldn't be long before there would be more TIPS agents making there way up to the lab. This was supposed to be a quiet operation.

Kam walked up to the building and was stopped by the one of agents standing outside the door.
That moment, as one of the more armed agents emerged from the vehicle, a small, bright red car which had been made to look sportier with the addition of a spoiler, airdam and painted-on stripes and flames came hurdling into the back of the black sedan. Airbags deployed in both cars.
Kam took the opportunity to make a run for it a place some calls. The driver of the red car seemed to be somewhat confrontational.
Upon seeing the weapon, he backed down and, suspecting road-rage, quickly dialed the emergency number on a cell phone and started yelling that they had a gun.
Needless to say, the remaining two agents were quite occupied.
Now there was only one left.
Doron took the sphere and made a call to the consulate. No doubt the call would be monitored.
He left the two others in the room. What was most important was to get the sphere out.



----



The university consulate was a minor office and a lot closer than the embassy. It was good enough.
Even though Doron couldn't be detained because of diplomatic immunity, loosing the sphere was far more his concern.

There was no doubt that the car accident was staged by the Unnamable Organization. Something to buy him time and give him a way out. This is as he suspected, however there was something going on and he was not aware of the extent of it.

The consulate was full of activity. Upon entering, Doron was greeted with a flurry of activity which ended up whisking the sphere over to a female raptor's desk who immediately began placing calls.
There were a few of the glossy Yamato units too. This was serious.

An explanation eventually came to him after he finally made enough distracting noises while leaning over the raptor's desk.

"Ryuqi Kohdat may have been killed. She had unauthorized access to a device somewhere and she may have been killed by something or someone there being operated against the authorization of the first speaker. And long story-short we have reason to beleive that a rogue element in the government here may be seeking a coup. So we have to get this, and you back to Dorigan.", she finally said.

"What about the others?", asked Doron.

"We are concerned that they may have been detained.", said the raptor.

"What the hell do they expect to get out of them?", asked Doron.

"How should I know? All I know is they are lower on the intelligence liability ladder. You are very high on it.", she said.

Doron hit the desk loudly. He then said,
"I want Andertol himself to promise me that they will be returned to us, unharmed, with the threat of military intervention!"

"We don't know everything about what's happening right now. Our first priority right now is to protect sensitive assets which if misused, can inflict casualties.", she said, "Now normally I'd tell you to go sit the f**k down, but Andertol wanted to hear from you once you and the ball were in safe custody."

She lifted a handset from a phone sitting on the desk. The raptor had a headset and was immediately caught up in another conversation.

Doron took the handset and said very quickly, "You have me, you have the sphere, now save some f***ing lives: get Kiyake and Diiy the hell out of here."

"I'm officially putting your equasion/exploratory program on hold until we can account for all participants. We're going to have Kiyake and Diiy back using whatever means necessary, short of killing people, within 24 hours.", said Andertol in a somewhat unexpectedly controlled tone.

"I'm surprized you aren't more angry about this. You don't sound as concerned.", replied Doron.

"I'm F***ing pissed. It's just that we don't know what's going on completely yet. Izixs has yet to respond to our queries into what we think is the use of a distruptive device which caused a plane crash.
Which is highly unlike him. We know a little through Ryuqi, but CA has reported to us that she is unresponsive and may be dead at this time. Because of the unchecked recent audacity of TIPS and their apparent discovery of the importance and location of the Paxisphere, coupled with the Izixs' lack of response, along with the fact we've been suspicious of the leadership of TIPS for quite a while now... we're concerned that there is a possibility this may be a coup.
It may not be. I don't know what's going on here really. If it is, we do of course have emergency plans on how to deal with it. Our priorities being minimizing casualties and arms leakage.", said Andertol.

"I couldn't imagine there being a real massive sucessful coup here. These aren't the kinds of people to loose their sense of basic morality as soon as order is distrupted for a week.
But... I'm concerned about the ball's safety in this consulate. I mean... this is just a house converted into an office.", asked Doron.

"It's not like we can't track that ball. I think you know why, you're the physicist here.
Remember, this is probably not a coup.", said Andertol.


Another black car, as well as a police car were pulled up outside the consulate. It was them again, no doubt.
They couldn't enter the premises, but they could wait and keep them away from the airport.

Regardless, Doron was a little surprized to see one of the Yamato units lower it's foot anchors, open it's vents, extend it's mouth-mount cannon and standby to fire towards the front of the house, facing outward to the vehicles parked in front. They were preparing to shoot their way out... or perhaps defend from an attack.

Things were getting serious.

[The Union of Tinis]

Relieved that the guards hadn't shot Lipner and Ryuqi on sight, Izixs found himself smiling at the guards with their guns pointed towards him. He noticed a captain among their ranks whom appeared to be in his 30s at least and certainly the oldest among those who had Izixs in their sights. Izixs choose to address him.

"Hello, Captain yes?"

"Drop the sword now!" he yelled.

"I will only do so once I am sure of their safety and my own."

"Drop the weapon!" he yelled again.

"You know that if I do as you ask I am defenseless. Yes, I am in that state. If there was any sort of intelligence in the heads of your superiors up stairs they would of informed you of the possibility of me being here. Or at the very least you would of heard about the last battle of the civil war and how that went."

There was no response.

"If I drop this sword I will be defenseless. Unlike Untols here I understand the true resonance of it now. You shoot at me, and you will miss and your weapons destroyed. Save the army some bullets and guns please."

"Sir! Put down the sword!" yelled the captain again.

"Put down your weapon captain," said a voice from behind the guards. "Everyone, put down your weapons. That's an order." They didn't move. "That's an order!"

A few of the guards near the voice glanced over and were soon putting down their weapons.

Walking onto the platform in a deep blue suit was an iguana. "I said, put down your weapons. This authority has been delegated to me by the Supreme Commander during the review, so please don't make me repeat myself as such would likely result in the court martial of any whom did not."

The guards, all army soldiers, began to lower their weapons. The Big Chief had spoken.

"Izixs," she went on. "That include you."

"Very well commander," he said after all the others had placed their guns on the ground. Izixs placed the mechanical sword at his feet.

"The infiltrators will not be harmed First Speaker. Though I may wonder how they got in here, I do know that they are protected for the time being as possible whistle blowers, and at the very least as witnesses to what's gone on here. That said, Lipner at least will have to be taken into custody. The malych will be held and Miokalia informed of the holding, and informed of the situation. We'll negotiate what's going on there when its time.

Delbrook walked right up to Izixs and stared him in the eyes. "Now, tell me, what the hell were you thinking trying to take out a project like this? Personally? You of all people should be smarter than that. More experienced than that. Perhaps we give you more benefit of the doubt that we should. What insanity possessed you to come here and cut off your cousins head is beyond me. And what's worse, we've had three radiation bursts from this section in the last hour, so there's a chance this device is about to irradiate us all. So you can bet I'm not happy to be here myself First Speaker."

Izixs was suddenly very concerned. "There was one gamma ray pulse. Not three."

"Oh, you think so? First Speaker, by rule thirty five I am placing you under house arrest. You will be returned to the spire and the chamber assembled. You will give statements to the full chamber as will I about this whole thing as is the law. And then they will either vote to release you from house arrest or else to continue it for some length of time, you probably know how long, while they consider impeaching you for the crime of murder."

"Get the security video ready big chief," was Izixs only reply before he was lead out.

The law was in fact quite clear. If a law enforcement officer found any elected member of the chamber likely to have committed murder or other similarly heinous crime, be it a speaker, or First Speaker, they would be brought before the chamber immediately for an initial judgement.

-----

To: [e-mail]
From: Office of Commander Delbrook <[e-mail]>
CC: <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
Subject: Apologies

First off, my sincerest apologies for the events of the last two hours. On behalf of the government of the Union of Tinis, I beg understanding at this time and wish to inform you of the time line of events and the status of things.

3:00 pm - The council known as Advanced Parts marked a formal request for the use of a pattern computation device at The Tower and the process began for their experiments to go underway.

6:38 - The scientists Lipner and Ryuqi were spotted at the North Arx particle accelerator complex

Approximatly 6:45 - Izixs enters The Tower

7:03 - First Gamma ray burst puts the Tower on high alert. Unusual 'light show' is viewed by personnel in some parts of the complex

7:10 - Break in occurs at the office where your visiting scientists were working.

7:17 - Second and third Gamma ray bursts and cessation of unusual effects.

7:25 - During experiment change over, Izixs assaults the experiment. Lipner and Ryuqi are believed to have been observers to this. Some equipment was damaged and one individual killed in the melee. Ryuqi was believed harmed but how or why is not presently known however any video evidence collected by internal security cameras will be made available shortly.

7:28 - Police arrive at the scene of the office of Dr. Kam. Some arrests are made.

7:27 - Lipner, Izixs, and Ryuqi were taken into my custody.

7:29 - Cameron Omz, the head of the project involved in all this was taken into custody on suspicion of conspiracy. I ordered Advanced Parts shut down and decommissioned.


The current status of things is thus.

Advanced Parts is shut down.
Cameron Omz is in custody, possible charge of conspiracy, and others pending.
Dr. Lipner is in custody, possible charges being researched.
Ryuqi is in custody and presently awaiting hand over to representatives of Miokalia. Present condition is unknown but presumed incapacitated. Analysts believe Ryuqi is alive due to presence of anomalous currents, body lock up, and other indicators.
First Speaker Izixs is en route to the Arx Spire where he will face his peers in the chamber of speakers for his possible murder of a citizen of Tinis. There is a chance he won't face impeachment and full charges if he can demonstrate using the evidence that law 1.0.0 of Tinis was properly invoked (I'm sure you can find the full text of the law).
The individual who was killed shall not have their name released until next of kin are contacted.
The individuals arrested at the office of Dr. Kam shall be processed and their names after such. If they are members of Tinisian intelligence and found not in the right, do know the federal prosecutors will pursue the highest punishments available.

I would also like it to be known that I've declined to pursue espionage charges against the one known as Ryuqi as I do not believe she was intending to hurt Tinis or to steal state secrets, but operating for the benefit of all people in her actions. However, after she is returned to you, I would request that my officers be allowed to question her in the event that she is willing to speak with them and to act as a witness, also if she is willing, in judicial proceedings.

The police vehicles in from of the consolate will not inteferre with your people or attempt to enter the consolate. I have instructed them however to prevent any suspicious persons from entering unchallenged. If there is a problem with them though, and act outside these orders, and more importantly, violate the premissis, you are allowed and encouraged to defend yourselves as need be. We are in the midst of a full review of military structure to eliminate rouge elements and infiltraitors. At this time I've been given authority by the supreme commander to direct any and all police and members of policing or related units to conduct this review, thus a violation of my orders even by TIPS agents shall constitute a high crime, thus if those on your doorstep ignore my orders, I won't mind them being harmed.

I hope we can sort this mess out quickly and completely.


-Commander Delbrook
Head of Police
Union of Tinis

----

"I don't care where she is," yelled Delbrook into the phone moments after she sent the e-mail. "Get Yerzok's smelly tail over here and make sure she clears out those TIPS yahoos from the consolate area." Delbrook had ordered the police officers there, but hadn't been able to actually raise the other cars there directly. And they didn't seem too keen on talking with the officers there.

[miokalia]

To: Office of Commander Delbrook <[e-mail]>
From: Secretariat of State Andertol <[e-mail]>
CC: <[e-mail]>,<[e-mail]>,<[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: apologies


The arrest and prompt release of Kiyake Seetik and Dr. Lecithin Diiy is tolerated. Be aware the Justice Apparat here has declared that they will not comply with any extradition requests on these individuals related to the occourances. However, they will be permitted to testify in your procedings.
The C.A. has requested the immediate return of Ryuqi Kohdat,
as according to our constitution, we do not directly extradite our citizens to foreign governments unless they have been tried and convicted by a court of our own Justice Apparat. Additionally because Ryuqi is an Objective Witness we require her return for our own investigation pertaining to the crash-landing of Hexakka flight 12 and it's relation to the incident in Arx.

The C.A. has issued a Ward Visa for Dr. Lipner, and requests that charges against him be suspended and he be allowed to travel here, as Dr. Lipner is also a witness in the aforementioned investigation.

Now, hopefully this won't need to get to the point where threats have to be made. But we would greatly appreciate it if you didn't prosecute any of the members of the System Equasion Team, Tinisian or Foreign alike. Perhaps to you Dr. Lipner and Ryuqi's presence in the restricted area was a technical violation of security protocols, to us: it fairly certainly appears to be a valiant attempt to determine the nature of a dangerous, unannounced testing of a weapon most of your government didn't even know it had. A weapon test which our NCAB has determined to be the cause of a civillian plane crash-landing which killed 4 and injured 40.

We will probably be willing to share the alpha-catch from Ryuqi, a video, audio and sensory stream of exceptional quality and accuracy with your investigations.



-Secretariat of State Hiyke Andertol


-----


"As I understand it, Doron had some trouble getting out of the consolate with the ball...
... Well I'm glad there was no confrontation...
It is unsettling that we had to use that... tactic... to make it safe for him to leave the building...

... that is evidence enough to cause us suspicion...

I don't know what her intentions are, but she doesn't seem to be on our side for certain...

... I don't think she realizes the consequences of actually taking that ball from us...

It's not like we can't track it.

...maybe for ransom? That's too naive for someone running an intelligence service...

...I suspect it was an attempt at a coup. The ball is an asset, like the folios.

...

Yeah, but that's not so much of a big deal... because it's safer underneath Ellias than it is anywhere else.
That makes three countries that have copies of it.",
said Phong in a long teletext phone conversation with Blinn.
He finished up,

"Since the Genius of Pargalo is now in the ball... somewhat...

I can't help but wonder...

...

...

...But then what?

...

... For some reason, I have to agree. Doing that would be simultaneously both great and devastating. Great because of the knowledge and the addiition of a powerful new organic thought system to our species but... devastating because we will loose any and all sense of purpose because of it...

We would have no reason to exist..."



-----



Doron arrived in Dorigan eventually, along with the ball. Kiyake and Diiy were finally able to return to their homes, but not for the reason they had hoped. U.Dorigan seemed to be very interested in continuing the system equasion program, and had already issued a request that the Tinisian team be brought there until things cleared up north.

[The Union of Tinis]

"Its about time Julia, now are your agents going to behave?"

"If my information is correct, the gate group did agree to submit to your cops."

"That doesn't explain why they got there first. Or who was breaking into that lab."

"All of it was quite legal by the word of the law. Technology acquisition from Union citizens and Union facilities is allowed. So what if the letter of request was lost in the mail. Not my problem."

----

Ryuqi was returned to the consulate while Doron was in transit. Escorted by internal affairs officers and Commander Delbrook herself, the crate containing Ryuqi was placed just inside the boundaries of the. There was also two Tinisian robotics engineers, one of whom handed a paper to the brown dragon receiving the box.

Reading the paper, the dragon commented, "Well that's a relief. Could certainly be worse. Thank you for the care you've given her. Commander Delbrook I presume?" she said turning to the iguana. "I'm Ulich Szapa."

"Yes, I think I've heard of you."

"Any decision on Lipner and the other scientists?"

"I've spoken with the federal prosecutor. So far there's only evidence for charges to be brought against Lipner, and they have been. Breaking into a high security military complex and all. A worse fate almost befell your citizen here. She should thank her lucky moon that the state department requested she not be charged with espionage as all the real damage was done by someone else, except a possible shot against Untols. But that was apparently in self defense so easy to slide."

"I would wish the same deference your government gave Ryuqi was extended to Lipner, but I understand that the state department can't exactly treat him differently as they really can't effect internal matters like that."

"You are right. But I can. The charges could easily be dropped if Cameron Omz is seen as a bigger case. We could do plea bargin, whistle blower injunction against it all, or a few other tricks could be pulled. If I was Lipner, I would of been there too. Now if you'll excuse us, we really need to be going. I have some TIPS agents to fry and a council to dismantle."

Delbrook started off, then looked back a moment later, "Channel five will have the best coverage of the chamber today."

-----

"Let the chamber come to order," began Speaker Dac, a member of the upper chamber, and the most senior of the seven member group. "We are gathered here to consider the possible impeachment and removal of the First Speaker. The incident prompting this hearing is thus. Yesterday the First Speaker was witness as having entered the Tower military complex, destroying and damaging equipment, and the killing of one person. It is this last act that is among the crimes fit for impeachment as stated in the rules of this chamber and allowed for in the constitution. The chair recognizes Speaker Dizmulak."

The wolf speaker from the Butin area smiled as he began, "I move that the chamber debate the resolution of impeachment brought fourth by the speaker from Arx."

"Is there a second?"

"Seconded," came a voice from the Socialist party.

"The motion is seconded and passed. Debate shall begin immediately. The chair recognizes the First Speaker."

"Thank you," began Izixs as he took the podium in from of the chair's. "I would like to thank you all for coming and thus making the need for a roll call vote unnecessary. And I would like to thank the media crews for not blocking the aisles and the sergeant at arms for not barring my police escort from the chamber so I could be here to speak in my defense."

Izixs paused and looked around the chamber. Everyone was very somber still.

"At this time I would like to describe the series of events that have transpired that have brought us to this point. First off, many years ago, the leader of the fifth house created a mode of thinking through mathematics unseen before. She, the lady Genius, created the system equation. To defend her house in the odd system created in Pargalo, she used her knowledge and her technique to create a method of battle, among other things, to become able enough to defeat opponents in battle. At the beginning of the Union, I used this same technique to end the civil war and along with a select few, including Untols, and some people who were very close to me. We used these techniques to disarm and rend impotent the armies of the other four houses, despite being incredibly out numbered.

"After that day, and during the early days of the Union, persons and leaders from the other houses were intent on preventing such a use of this ability ever again. Thus the passage of the first law of Tinis, granting the First Speaker the ability to execute on the spot any person who knew of this technique and who was intent on using it for the detriment of the Union and who was in the process of doing so.

"I hope to as you might expect, show in the rest of my statement here, that Untols was intent on doing just that, and by the time that I dealt the finishing blow, that she was already in the state.

"I became aware recently that someone had managed to steal a heaven stone from the land of Ciata. Though law bound me at the time from making such a theft public under the technology acquisition acts, unless of course an individual I was contacting had been given clearance. Such individuals as Kam's research team and their visitors from Miokalia, whom all had signed non disclosure agreements with regards to Tinisian advanced technology.

"When I was confronted about some aspects of the system equation, I let on to that group that Advanced Parts Council had a heaven stone. During my brief time as acting National Auditor, I even did an audit of Advanced Parts in order to slow down their research. At that time I had become aware that Advanced Parts may seek to integrate the heaven stone with an advanced Pattern Defense System computation device prototype in order to unlock its secrets and control it.

"I garnered, through my interactions with Kam's group, that there was a bigger threat than the heaven stone being unlocked. The heaven stone is capable of providing great power as well as enhancing the physical capabilities of its user, along with synchronizing that user with some of the stones internal mechanisms. This effect was often used by Ciatan nobility and high ranking persons in order to regulate body function and avoid certain mood swings or biological tendencies which would get in the way of their duties.

"It came to my attention that this synchronization combined with an inception of the system equation that was incomplete, and actually flawed, would result in disaster. The Pattern Defense System is not simply a device that can protect Tinis or the federation. It manipulate reality. That reality manipulation power combined with the heaven stone would amplify the changes made, and make them erratic, and dangerous. We all know that the national PDS extends over almost all of Tinis so a PDS has the possibility to have a long reach. Now imagine i you would, if instead of a barrier being created, random alterations were imposed on the volume inside it, or even beyond. Alterations amplified a hundred billion times by the power supply of the heaven stone and the biological interface, not just the city power grid. Such a thing would be a disaster. And it almost was.

"Before I was able to reach the place of Untols death, they managed to test the device on a shard of heaven stone. A 'proof of concept' for their interface. The damaged heaven stone was unable to provide nearly anywhere the structure, pattern, or power as the full stone would have. But it did do something. I hope to show later recordings of the events as well as data collected in various parts of the tower about the events. Some of the events observed in some areas were gamma ray bursts, and the temporary creation of a time space membrane, which I hope an expert will speak about later.

"So I paid the experiment a visit. And I arranged to make sure there were witnesses in the event that bad stuff happened. Witnesses I could trust, who had clearance to know about this stuff, and who were of sufficient moral character. So I had one of Kam's scientists and one of the visiting scientists enter the tower through a back door. A back door I must assure the viewers at home is probably now being filled with concrete.

"So they were there, they saw what was going on. As did I. I had entered the room and had hidden myself amongst the equipment moments before my witnesses arrived. I saw Untols there, quite unexpected that, guarding the experiment. I learned later that she was asked personally by the head of Advanced Parts, Cameron Omz, to assist in security. Upon the arrival of the complete heaven stone, I took my action and acted to stop the experiment.

"I fought Untols, whom was entering the altered state created by Genius. As we fought, so did I to counter this. As expected we managed to not be able to hurt each other in our groggy state. The state one is in when one has control over one's actions in this mode, and thus not completely attuned. I could not go all in and didn't need to at that point.

"Then Untols made a mistake. She choose to attack my witnesses. They survived but it gave me an opportunity to destroy the bio interface of the experiment and thus shut it down. Untols was shot by Ryuqi in self defense. Injured, she quickly went all in and lost control of her actions, becoming the technique of Genius.

"Unfortunately the technique was flawed. And through some interest experiences I found this out before this fight and was able to shore it up a bit. Now faced with a death machine intent on revenge and completing the experiment, I had no choice but to give myself up to this state, knowing at that point that if Untols did die by my sword, that I was justified, both morally and legally. I did not wish her death. But my altered state decided other wise.

"After Untols death, I returned to the groggy state. And that's when the guards arrived and I was arrested. I asked that Lipner and Ryuqi not be harmed before dropping my blade and returning full to myself. After that point, the records are clear and I need not continue with my recounting.

"I hope that the evidence presented is truthful. For if it is, I will be vindicated as I committed no crime. I acted morally and justly. And I may be justified to call upon a certain article of the constitution if need be as this may have been a threat not just to Tinis, but all of life if the experiment had continued, and thus something I could act swiftly and out side normal rules in order to prevent.

"Thank you. I yield my time to the chair."

As Izixs walked back to his seat, he watched the faces carefully. At least a good number of furs from his own party were looking a little more at ease. A few others actually looked more concerned, mainly the older members. The socialists and nationalists looked unmoved. The NPP speakers seemed almost confused in their expressions, but a few were mumbling to each other quietly with grins.

----

"...

hello? ...

... dsf

Who are you?... your protocol is scrambled...

... ball

Again, your protocol is scrambled... Please adjust...

... the ball... yes this frequency... 335dss .... 3... no...

This can't be good... who are you? Please identify...

... good it is3335ddddddd ... Do not fear, just passing through ...won't bother much

I don't understand...

... ok stand under understand ... many frequencies of pass through... building slowly through them ...just hit this one after an internal adjustment ...did not mean to intrude ...will try to find better frequency to touch ...love you goodbye!

Well that was not usual in the least! ..."

[miokalia]

NCAB Field Report Log
Technician Lead: Shuu Cuhaya
Site: S 45'16.201",E 120'1.32"


The three technicians were standing in the middle of a very green and very open area. It was somewhat pristene and the only sign of civilization there was a small road quite tucked away where it wouldn't call attention to itself.
The instrumentation was nothing to outside of the oridinary, as testing a hook point was more like a chemical strip test than anything else. Determining the exact charge was a matter of comparing the real thing to computer models and determining which one it is closest to.
"Well I can tell you right now this is above an absolute value of zero", said the tech lead, Shuu.
"This is a fog-prone area, I suspect that the fog rolling through here around 6 am probably adds no less than 0.2 to that. But I can't prove that and I don't think the computer is going to get it right on a simulation.", said another technician who carried with him the rugged notebook computer which was one of the two instruments they had.
The other instrument, Which was a camera with a 360-degree lens, was being set up on a tripod by the other technician.
It would be easy to assume the group was simply taking a 360-degree picture of the scenery just because it was pretty.
However, the camera was more specialized than that. This was a fairly hefty digital camera which featured an extremely large CCD element. It was designed to have enough resolution and most importantly, enough contrast dynamic range to capture an accurate number of the very subtle lighting distortions caused by the pucon particles rapidly changing direction (which defines the point as a 'hook')
The theory is: If pucons were to be visualized as threads going between different points in the universe, a hook would be a knot where several threads are tangled and switch direction. The size of the 'knot' would be the 'charge'. These knots are capable of moving around, but environmental things are presumed to be what causes them, therefore they tend to remain anchored to certain reletive locations.
These knots are easier to detect and locate from further away then they are up close. This is because as light travels and becomes less bright through space, there are traits of photons which become more visible that indicate not just the existence of a hook, but with proper processing: the charge and a vague 'address' of it as well.
Pucons have a tendency to alter particles, even photons. But because of the lack of mass in a photon, the alterations made to them are very subtle and are not readily apparent without close analysis which effectively means they need to be slowed down.
But when you're sitting right on top of a hook, it requires a different kind of expertise to determine anything.

After the pictures were taken, which took about 5 minutes, the team packed up and left for the next site.

The analysis of the pictures would allow for a fairly exact analysis of everything about the hook.
These were not normal pictures. While beautiful, they were also incredibly detailed and were designed to reveal the subtle differences in the speed of light that was being caused by pucons interfereing with photons. There were several pictures taken with different exposure times, since usually there would be a 'sweet spot' where the most irregularities in photon speed become most visible to the camera. This can be used to find the hook's charge with the equasion: Dn=s/Cr. Where Dn is the charge, S is the exposure time and Cr is a ratio defined by another simple equasion: Cr=Tr/Ts. Tr=1 second, Ts=length of actual second.

While the irregularities seen in the camera are not typically visible to most eyes, there are other very intrinsic things which can be detected without instrumentation. Thus the reason why the technicians had to be experts. Because sometimes, instruments don't catch something that's obvious to the experts' intuition.

The next point they examined was an old derelict playground outside of Cebyu.

"I don't think we're going to get much on the camera for this", said one of the technicians.
"Take the picture anyway, 1.3 meters over baseline please.
I think you're right but we'll do it anyway.", said the lead technician.
"Consensus?", asked the other technician after setting up the camera.

The experts grew silent and looked around. The lead technician walked around the old metal playground structures very slowly, looking almost as if he was looking for something...

A police car drove by on the highway. The officer issued a nod to the technicians and one waved back. The location was a hook after all and had to be protected at least a little. If someone were to dismantle something here it could change it or weaken it.
Thus a police car would drive by every once in a while to deter and report any structural damage.

"There is slight damage.", said the lead as he walked towards the old metal slide and looked at the top and the bottom. Both of which used to be covered with grafitti.

"No derelict playground in Miokalia has a slide without lots of graffitti on it. Rumi, I need a local opinion.", he said as he looked at the slide, seeing a residue of acrylic paint which had been diminished.

Rumi was the local expert and a grey tabby feline, someone who knew the hooks of where she had grown up better than any outsider would. Although she lived in Kolminaisus now, on the other side of the island, she was a certified expert on the hooks of the northern side of the island because that's where she used to live.
She looked at the top of the slide, then the bottom. Then she began pacing around it, looking for any chips of original or graffitti paint which should be present in the weedy sand beneath it.
"This slide was red, and it was covered in graffitti on both sides. This is bad.", she said.
"Do you think someone stripped it? Even with the coating we put on it every year?", asked the lead.
"No, the base paint was metal-based, and the graffitti would have been acrylic. They would have to use several different kinds of paint thinner", she said.
"A whole arsenal of paint thinner. I see no evidence of scraping, so I assume it was all chemical. I need to report this, hold on...", said the lead as he pulled out a cell phone and made a call.

"Oiy Dosh? Dosh, we have a problem at S44d aut-mo dot aut-34 mit by 120d-east fiver-mo dot nil...
Cebyu... A derelict playground...
We have surfacing problem...

...it could be as much as 1.1 dns of charge lost.

...I sus it to be a full arsenal of paint thinners and solvents most likely...

There is no evidence of scrapping. The object is intact.
...

...Who the hell cleans graffitti in this country?

...yes the original paint is gone too.
...

But how is that possible...

I'll keep an eye out for it."


Shuu had seen a lot of strange things inspecting hook points, as hook points seem to conveniently place themselves in places where strange things happen, or are often strange things themselves.
But a dilligently executed removal of multiple kinds of paint was something simply impossible without the chemicals also deteriorating the metal.

"Dosh says the paint had to go somewhere, as it must have been lifted clean off the slide.", said Shuu, "So now we need to look for evidence of how that was done, or at least find a just a little bit of the original paint from the slide."

The party spead out and began looking.

Rumi eventually called everyone over after a few minutes, her search took her into the wooded area on the otherside of the baseball diamond next to the playground.

Rumi was so busy looking at the ground that she nearly ran into the very thing they were looking for.

"Aw f**k yes, awesome!", said Shuu initially when he saw the paper-thin shell of the slide sitting on the ground.
The legs of the brittle slide shell had broken under the weight of the material above them, but despite it being partly a pile of paint chips, there was enough intact of the shell that the shape of the slide was visible. It was a hollow shell made of paint.

Shuu took out his cell-phone again and took a picture of it.
"That, despite being bad for the hook. Is so cool.", he said.
The other technician finally made his way over and said, "Now what the hell causes that to happen?"


----


To: <[e-mail]>
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: hook anomaly evidence

A team of technicians inspecting hooks has discovered a evidence of a serious anomaly where disruption of pucons physically removed the paint from an object and relocated it, mostly intact, to 45 feet to the southeast.
This kind of interaction is very rare and could only possibly come about as the result of a hook being dislodged by something other than conventional coaxial travel or natural occourances.
The hook has been downgraded to a charge of +1.62 as a result of the change.
We request an alpha-catch from Ryuqi Kohdat so we may attempt to ascertain more about the nature of what caused the presumed source of this nomaly, the unannounced experiment in Tinis, as she was apparently there when that happened.

[The Union of Tinis]

"Lipner?" said Kam upon seeing the cat. "Um... welcome back!"

Lipner smiled at the skunk. "Yeah, its good to be back."

"So what's the story, what in the world is going on?"

"Well, as of now, I'm free. My lawyer convinced the district attorney that if I committed to testify at the chamber of speakers later today and Omz's trial later, that I was protected as a whistle blower. Provided one of them gets a full trial at least."

"I just heard on the news," replied Kam. "I think you got your wish. Sana just spotted on the net that the chamber voted to accept the articles of impeachment. The First Speaker's trial before them seems to be starting."

"I guess, I guess I'm free at least. Kind of too bad though."

----

The vote for the articles was the first step in the full impeachment hearing. The articles were voted on after the initial debate and allowed for a full removal of the First Speaker if a 3/4 vote was made for such.

The vote for the articles was fairly high, 318 of the 500.

----

To: Secretariat of State Andertol <[e-mail]>
From: Office of Commander Delbrook <[e-mail]>
CC: <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
Subject: More details

I've just been informed that Dr. Tilsletem V. Lipner has been released from custody on the condition that he testify in both the impeachment trial of First Speaker Izixs and in the trial of Cameron Omz, who is believed to be the primary motivator for the 'Butterfly' project. I personally suspect he and some of the scientists behind the project are likely your culprits for your downed flight. Even if he's found innocent of conspiracy charges its likely new charges will be brought in relation to that tragedy. If they are not, I'll be happy to extradite him, but I'm not exactly in charge of such things explicitly and that will have to be negotiated through the state department.

As for Dr. Kam and his group, with the exception of Lipner for the time being, they are free to come and go as they please. No charges are being brought against them, and we are presently keeping an eye on them to ensure no one tries to strike at them.

I am learning that TIPS had a light interest in the butterfly project, but only so far it would seem as acquiring new technologies and putting them to use. We've been finding some irregularities in TIPS lately and I can assure you, it won't be to long before heads will be rolling. If you don't hear about it from me, watch the March National Auditor report. Our new national auditor may be annoying as all get out, but he's actually very diligent about his work.

I also understand you're sending what amounts to a growing pile of evidence up here to support the First Speaker. If you're representative hasn't been informed yet, I believe they are scheduled for 7pm tonight to present their material.

In other but related maters, we found an interesting e-mail address that you may wish to look into: [e-mail]

Omz was conversing with this individual through several accounts. His last e-mail to this address was related to arranging a meeting. I'll be sending the details contained in that correspondence through a more secure channel.

[miokalia]

There were two presenters. The best thing that Miokalia's legal-deficient government could scrape up.
District-level Supreme Court Judge Dyiyot, a 'raptor' who had volunteered for the presentation/testimony.
And of all people, Hychakita Doron.
Though he was secondary... and was there for only a to address a minor afterthought. Just in case.


Dyiyot spoke in Tinisian for this. It was necessary to remove the possible aesthetic obstacles to the effectiveness of the presentation like: language barriers and the risk of mistranslation.


After an formal introduction, Dyiyot began the presentation of evidence.

"At 7:03 PM that day, a gamma burst put the Tower on high alert. This is according to your own logs.

In confirmation of this, I present to you, a graphical data output from QomSat 30-029, which is a research satellite jointly owned by Cal and Miokalia. This is a high-contrast gamma resonance scan. Low-contrast scans are used to detect things such as geothermal activity, deposits of extremely heavy elements and nuclear activity.

The detailed QomSat scan is triggered by a closer satellite which detects any 'gamma-flashes' indicative of the use of a nuclear weapon, nuclear accident, or just about anything which may pose a threat to our planet's environmental safety really.



The bright yellow dot is so bright, it is out-of-focus by more than 160 kilometers.
It should appear to be a pin-hole sized dot on this image, but it's magnitude is very high, and it is very concentrated.

Fortunately, it only lasted a very miniscule fraction of a second, so the radiation dose from it was infintesimal.

It seems the device released most of it's energy in another form, affecting a different energy-carrying particle.

A traffic-control satellite of ours uses a system to determine Average Radiant Pucon Charge. That is: it takes an extremely fuzzy picture of the reletive charges of coaxial hooks.

This is what the satellite was seeing seconds prior to the incident.
This is what it looks like normally.



The tiny blue dots represent large accumulations of known or strongly suspected coaxial hook points. We only manage and use ones in Miokalia.


Now this image is what the satellite saw 3 seconds after the gamma bursts.


If you could, imagine the red, orange and yellow radiating rings as a hurricane, with the rings inside the red ring as the 'eye'.
Trying to make sure all of the plane gets through coaxial during this kind of phenomena is basically like trying to fly an airplane through a hurricane. A hurricane where the winds happen to be traveling at 400 miles per hour.

As a hook diminishes in charge, it becomes harder to keep a 'grip' on it. Thus the drive system must use much more energy just to keep hold of it.
If it lets go...

Then the plane is split, part of it suddenly appears at the point which it departed, the other part appears at the point of intended arrival.
And that's 42000 feet up in the atmosphere.
The two pieces of the plane would then simply fall to the grounds of the two different planets.

The pilot of Hexakka flight 12 was forced to use an emergency system to make sure all of the plane ended up on one side or another and not split between both.
The procedure effectively destroys the drive system, but spits the whole plane out on only one side.
Whichever side they are closest to.

The flight data recorder details that the hook lost power at 14 hours into co-ax. On the plane, there is no way to directly correlate coaxial flight time with the standard time of the destination, except from comparing the in-flight time to the calculated arrival time after the plane has arrived.

Pilots have no way of communicating with any traffic control system while in coaxial flight. We haven't the slightest idea how to do that.

The point is: something very clearly happening in Arx, involving a great deal of power in high concentration: the only source of which would have to be a heaven stone used in an unconventional manner, created a ripples in the mesh of pucon threads and knots (hooks) with considerably dangerous magnitude.

And the consequences of an unannounced testing of something we didn't even imagine possible are: The crash landing of a commercial passenger coaxial aircraft.
It could have been worse, yes. A piece of the plane could have simply fell from the sky on our end. And not a single survivor falling with the other chunk of plane on the other.
It could have been so much worse if the test had been done just a few minutes earlier and if the pilot were less skilled.

And this is just about what happened. This whole thing could have been much worse.

What if a whole five heaven stones had been used in the experiment?
That would increase the amplitude of the ripple by a power of 5.
Such a thing, according to Hychakita Doron, the foremost expert on Pucons and Coaxial Devices and the physics having to do with those, which is named after him:
If that ripple were increased by a power of 5, it would cause serious structural damage to almost every molecule on this planet.
The effect would be akin to dropping the planet into a blender and setting it to pureé.

To put it simply:

Izixs did what he could to stop this.
He was fully aware of the possible consequences of the operating of an inherently uncontrollable causality device.
So he did what was right.

Had he not stopped the device, then it was going to activate again, and again. Every time would be a coin toss. Either it would just cause minor or insignificant damage to things far and wide... or it could totally annihilate this planet.

And that's not speculation. The device was going to be used again. According to Hychakita Doron's official statement: if the device had been used again, the way it was appearing to be prepared for...
there would be a 66.34% chance of the world being devastatingly altered.

66.34%...


I remind you:
This is not speculation. This is science, mathmatics and concrete evidence.
There is simply no question 'if' the device was going to be used again, to a possibly apocalyptic outcome...

The sensory recording involuntarily recorded by Ryuqi Kohdat shows very clearly exactly the sequence of events.
It shows these events in high resolution and incredible clarity."


Dyiyot unrolls a presentation screen and plays the video from Ryuqi's Alpha catch.

It plays back exactly the events of that evening. Starting from the point just before Ryuqi froze, a moment before the gamma bursts.

The display format divides the screen into four panes. One of them is from one pair of cameras in her eye panels, Another is from another set of cameras in her eye panels. A third pane depicts what seems to be a solid wireframe vectorization of the camera video, it alternates between the two eye pairs depending on context.
The last panel is usually blank, but occasionally appears to be a prompt of some sort, doing operations every once in a while on it's own.

At the point which Ryuqi freezes, one of the eye pairs goes blank, the other remains on, but drops substantially in frame rate.
Sound becomes garbled and eventually turns into a hum for about a minute or so.
Ryuqi reboots. The command line window starts doing a lot of things and then subsides. Her other eye pair turns back on and everything seems to be back to normal.

Dyiyot pauses the video and says,
"Ryuqi's freeze contributed to her system failure later on. It was not due to gamma radiation, as it happened prior.
Rather, it appears to coincide with a change in the pattern computation device. A change which emmitted something from the whole system.
Malych aren't Personal Computers, a total freeze like this is incredibly rare. A more accurate term for what happened to Ryuqi here is 'concussion'."

Dyiyot resumes the video again.

The video basically plays back everything exactly as it happened.

At the point where Ryuqi is in the room with the stone and the apparatus, Dyiyot pauses the video once again.

"At this point you may notice that there is no longer a whole lot of difference between these two eye pairs.
Ryuqi sustained enough trauma to her nanocore that the peripheral systems of it began diverting control away from the normal parts of it and diverting control to the more basic control systems.
As you can see, her use of the command-line system in this corner has increased substantially.

At this point, Ryuqi is acting like more of a machine than her usual self. Her eyes are now operating passively."

Dyiyot continues the video.

it progresses for a bit and then he pauses it again.


Zurza Maptan, a Socialist representative from Forr then asked,
"Here's something weird. Isn't that a complete heaven stone being placed there? I thought the project was for only a shard..."

Dyiyot then zoomed in on the pane, making it plenty clear that this was, indeed, a full heaven stone.

"5 times greater magnitude of energy than just a shard.", said Dyiyot.

He started the video again.

Everything unfolded just as it actually had. When Ryuqi got electrically attacked by Untols. A few of the representatives even made a slight cringe as Ryuqi appeared to have been suddenly in incredible pain. The command prompt pane flickered and vertically rolled for a moment, her vector pane simply went dark for a bit. And it looked as though the cameras in her eye panels bounced back and forth in random directions for a few seconds.
What really carried the impact though was the strange noise produced. Ryuqi didn't make quite this sound externally when it happened, but it was a sound quite akin to a canine 'yelp' followed by a wimpering screech combined with a some other digital error noise and sound skipping.

By far, the individual most impacted by this strange, but identifyable 'momento mori' was Lipner, who was sitting-in and watching the presentation.

He didn't realize that he had actually began getting a little watery in the eyes from it. He was quick to wipe them off as nonchalantly as possible.

When Ryuqi appeared to stabilize, things were very different. She wasn't technically dead, but her nanocore was completely down. It was only her basic peripheral computers controlling her now.
One of the camera pairs simply stopped moving and focusing. It looked like everything but the video signal had come unplugged.
The command line was speeding along as it now represented the entirity of her thoughts.

Ryuqi fired her weapon. It burned out every sensor in her mouth, and totally destroyed her sense of smell.

Then, after that, she began loosing power.

It was here, that she made a choice.
She chose to use the remainder of her energy to keep a single camera running, and a single computer running, even though it meant she would have to divert all power from everything else.

As a result, she shut-down completely.


Lipner left the room at approximately the same time as Izixs in the video said, "Lipner, get her out of here if you can!"

She didn't see the part where Untol lost total control of herself and attempted to engage the stone in addition to being in her already enhanced altered state.
But the representatives saw it. They saw it all.
Right up until Lipner began dragging Ryuqi away from the edge.

But, Ryuqi just continued recording mindlessly, she was no longer thinking.

In the background, Lipner's scuffling around trying to fashion together a makeshift power cable to 'jump' Ryuqi could be heard.
As could the sound of about 20 or more armed guards racing toward the room.
Lipner then managed to complete the connection between Ryuqi and the wall outlet. The final stage of it caused a bit of an arc to shoot out and burn his paw. The resultant "f*ck DAMNIT!" that Lipner said under his breath in response to the contact with the uninsulated wires coincided with Ryuqi's command prompt window turning back on.
She appeared to put herself into a lock-down mode unconsciously. She didn't even respond to the guards who were now standing on top of her.

The recording ended.


"Any questions?", asked Dyiyot.

[The Union of Tinis]

"The chair recognizes the speaker from Butin."

Speaker Dizmulak stands next to one of the minor podiums placed in the chamber to provide alternative points to address the chamber from and often used in debates. "I dare say that I have a question for the witness for the accused and that is this. I want to know what justification this foreign citizen would of had to enter the Tower, as well as why we should then believe this spontaneously placed witness's testimony, be it spoken, or in this case, in video format. What is the witness's response to this concerns?"

"Simple. First, it is OUR BUSINESS to at least collect intelligence on, if not stop the development of weapons of global scale destruction being put together by rogue elements of governments we trust to have better judgement. What do you expect us to do? Just ignore the fact that the lives of every living thing on this planet are in immediate danger?! And second, because we're not the ones who have anything to hide here. If there was more transparency in this project some of you here wouldn't be so surprised about the revelations we have shared with you today. Truth destroys lies when both are in the open mister speaker."

There were a few other questions of minor technical interest.

It was shortly after that Lipner was asked back in to testify before the chamber.

"The chair recognizes the scientist and expert witness doctor Tilsletem Lipner."

Lipner had had a little time to recover from before and was doing his best to smile. "Thank you honored speaker," he began.

"Friends, speakers, and observers, I come here to say that to my knowledge the recording we saw earlier is correct as far as depicting the series of events that transpired and I shall recount them, including my lapses of judgment and my failures during these events. However, I wish to offer condolences for the persons and families harmed in these events. What happened should not of happened. Tinis had no right to have a heaven stone in the first place. A secret weapons development firm should not of been given one to play with. They should not of been allowed access to an advanced pattern computation device. That advanced pattern computation device should not of been even built, as I suspect it was not built with fully moral or legal methods in mind or action. But I digress."

Lipner began to recount his view of the series of events that transpired. He even did his best to convey the emotions he was feeling at the various moments. Finally...

"Despite my panic, at that moment before the guards arrived, I felt a feeling of upmost dread. It was like that feeling we all had on the day Ropogo was hit, when we didn't know what the missiles were doing. That something terrible was about to happen.

"You see, Ryuqi recorded all but the final two acts before we were brought into the embrace of Commander Delbrook's guards. I saw them as I was not incapacitated and on the floor. I got just enough of a view to see what was going on. Those acts were thus.

"Untols grabbed the heaven stone and attempted to use it. The other action seemed totally amazing in its perfection. The First Speaker tumbled perfectly in mere moments from one side of Untols to the other in a movement I can't possibly describe. A movement that ended with the parallel mechanical blade passing through Untols neck region."

Lipner paused for a moment. Not so much for effect but because he was doing his best from breaking down. "I must... I must confess at this point that I was asked by the First Speaker to be there so I could be whistle-blower witness. And what more, before I observed these events, I was half tempted to lie when I came up here. To stretch the truth just enough. The First Speaker believes things about the work I do that seems insane to me. Impossible to the extreme. Things that I find to be very unscientific. The purist in me wanted him to be removed from office yet not jailed. Just, put somewhere where he couldn't hurt anything.

"But he was right where he needed to be so that things turned out ok.

"Thank you. If there are any questions, I will take them now."

Lipner nodded to the chair, presently the chief justice of the supreme court.

"The chair recognizes speaker Hafney of Yillow."

"Dr. Lipner, Are you to say that the final blow done by the First Speaker was because this gal Untols was about to use a heaven stone or would it be for some other reason?"

Lipner took a breath before answering. "I would say he did it for that reason primarily, but also that she had taken up arms as a duelist and was a threat to the Union for such. The heaven stone usage would of been a major threat to him personally. He could of withstood her attacks else wise as was seen. But with it, he would of been no match. Thus the motivation was likely self defense, but there was another justification in addition to such."

Another question, this time from a freshman NPP speaker from Arx. "Doctor, is it safe to say that perhaps some of what you witnessed was a hallucination brought on by an acute gamma ray burst?"

"It is incredibly unlikely. My associate Dr. Yangno may be able to tell you more concretely, but to my knowledge radiation is much more likely to kill you than to cause the release of the chemicals necessary in your brain for hallucinations. If they did get released by a burst they wouldn't be the only chemicals let loose."

[miokalia]

"I'm not sure if Dyiyot's presentation is enough.", said Phong in a quiet meeting pertaining to the case underway in Tinis, "I'm just not sure. Theirs is a different legal system than ours. One where populism, regardless of reason or proof, can determine everything.
I do not beleive we have enough of their trust for them to beleive the accuracy of Ryuqi's alpha catch.

I do not beleive Dyiyot's methods will hold up either. He has a propensity towards using alienation as a defense. I'm considering sending in Dosh, but Dosh uses another tactic which may not guarantee the First Speaker's exonoration. Dosh uses reductio-ad-absurdism.
I want guarantees. Absolutes."

"A mix of alienation and ridicule may prove to be counterproductive to our intentions. Especially when it comes from foreigners. Even more especially because it comes from non-anthropomorphic foreigners who are already slightly more difficult to relate to by that alone.

How does one combat populism?", replied Andertol.

"I have no idea. I just hope Dosh can win over enough representatives by making those who question him so frustrated they either give up, or say something completely inappropriate.", said Phong.

"If you send me, my response to a line of loaded questions would be something like: 'accuracy of information your mom! Assface.'
I don't do 'semantics'. I don't do political subtlety", said Andertol.

"You really don't want me sending you, obviously", said Phong.

"I don't want to go. If you send me, my cross-examination of the prosecution may involve filling his car with mayonaise...

I have connections and the resources. I know where to get a lot... a lot on mayonaise.", said Andertol.

"Which would only hurt our credibility with their legislature... which would undo any amount of evidence we can find. No, Hiyike, you are not allowed to be uncivilized about this.

But I do think you may be able to damage the prosecution's credibility in ways that neither Dosh or Dyiyot can.

You cannot be restrained by parliamentary rules, you bring the worst out of people. You bring them down. You reveal their weaknesses, their inadequacies... their lack of principals and values.
You reveal their dishonesty and their ambitions.

Sure, they will all be disgusted with you by the end, but they will be even more disgusted by the dishonesty of some of their peers.

You're going to make an ass out of everyone who challenges you. And in the process, you will discredit the prosecution by discrediting it's supporters.", said Phong.

"But I don't want to go.", replied Andertol.

"You're going. And you're going to be an asshole. Go be an asshole for Izixs' sake.", commanded Phong.

[The Union of Tinis]

It was after hours and a small group of Speakers was sitting in a private lounge in the lower levels of the Arx Spire.

"So Dizy, you really think what the Miokalian said was true about all that end of the world stuff?"

"Don't get me started. Despite my caucus arrangements, I'm not nearly as doom and gloom based as that Dyiyot character," replied Dizmulak. "Bad stuff probably would of happened, but not end of the world stuff. Besides, I get enough talk of imminent disasters from the Unionists."

"What about Lipner's testimony backing some of it up?" pressed on Speaker Jenrok of the Nationalists.

"He didn't explicitly back up that part of Dyiyot's speach. Just that what we saw on the recordings was the same things he saw."

"I hear they may send up more witnesses or some such," mentioned Speaker Willis of the Union Party from behind her paper. "They seem really intent on us letting the dragon off."

"I'm still puzzled by your vote to go to trial," said Jenrok to Willis.

"We wouldn't of had enough time to do a full hearing if we hadn't," replied the deer. "Death is far to complicated for a simple debate schedule."

"Well," went on Dizmulak as he sniffed at his coffee. "If they do send someone up, I'll make sure they get a proper welcome when I get a chance to question."

"Actually, you might be served by shutting up for once Dizy," blurted out Speaker Corsez, the Nationalist chamber leader. "You are vicious but you're not doing your side any favors with your rank politics. If you're going to get any moderates to vote for removal, you need to tone down the rhetoric a bit."

"He's right," added Speaker Maptan of the Socialist Party. "I'm still undecided. We all know where you stand on anything involving Izixs, and to tell you the truth, you annoy us more than convince us of anything."

"I'll second, uh, third that," says Jenrok.

"Oh look who's talking about moderation in rhetoric," grumbles Dizmulak. "Speaker Corsez, who advocated for the former first house to break off and form the Butin Republic a number of years back?"

"I believed in it then. I was young and inexperienced, just like yourself."

Dizmulak gave a half chuckle. "Odd, I though I was older than you."

"But aren't you such a fan of the phrase 'age doesn't mean maturity'? Anyway, if you want any Unionists to vote for removal, and any socialists too, and for my caucus to to support this, which I still think is political suicide but the right thing to do, then you need someone with a little more tact to take up the fight. Understand?"

"No wonder you left the Anti-Unionists..."

"No wonder you voted to change the name of the party," added Willis. "Your insults are lacking Dizy, quit trying."

"Bah."

-----

"Kam, are you going to present?" asked the rabbit Sana.

The skunk nodded. "I think so. Yeah, they got me slated after a few other presentations tomorrow. Thankfully before our flight."

"Flight yeah, good timing then."

"Might be a little close though. I'll have to leave for the airport right after I think," replied Kam.

"So what are you going to give them?" asked Sana as she put her arms around his waist.

"They sent me a copy of their presentation they had earlier, the Miokalian representative. I'm basically going in to back up their claim a bit. I'm currently conversing with Yangno and others over e-mail to get some statements to share. I'm no physicist so I can't talk about all of it."

"Uggie's going to miss us, Fran too."

"Yeah, its kind of too bad she opted to stay. I guess she's just been too freaked out by what she's seen so far."

"Don't blame her Kam, its her upbringing."

Kam shook his head. "That doesn't make her... or really my squeamishness ok. I... I gave a crack at running the full equation through the computer the day after it all went down. It some how managed it, but even with unknown constants in the extended version, I managed to slide in the major social model translations. You know what I found? Conditioning. Intentional conditioning popping up caused by the system to eventually burn us all out. Promises of enlightenment and excellence being to diverge from us as time goes on. Our work... the system equation Tinis uses is not the right one nor is it close enough to it. We need to sort out that representation and get the clean version in working order."

"That's why we accepted their invitation."

"Yeah, we'll get this sorted out."

----

Piisnotthree: Hi there!
Jergoftranquility: Hi, do I know you?
Piisnotthree: Hmm... maybe.
Jergoftranquility: Ok, who are you?
Piisnotthree: That's a good question. I guess I'm the liberated one know. Just as my father told me I was.
Jergoftranquility: That doesn't make sense.
Piisnotthree: I guess it doesn't. Did you know that there are things on this internet system that are alive? I've been watching them from a distance and they seem very strange. I think I might go say hi to one of them sometime, but they didn't seem to happy with my earlier programs.
Jergoftranquility: Again, who are you?
Piisnotthree: I... I'm trying to remember now.
Jergoftranquility: lol, you are kind of crazy. Um... is this Vic? Are you trying to play a trick on me?
Piisnotthree: Don't know Vic... wait, maybe I do. Victor Hill, 23, license number 3532 326 22251, no outstanding warrants?
Jergoftranquility: No, that's not the Vic I'm talking about. Sorry, but I'm going to have to block you now unless you tell me your name.
Piisnotthree: Asugorats was once my name. In your language it would translate out to Genius though.
<Piisnotthree has been blocked>

[miokalia]

"Pardon me, miss", said Dosh as he walked into the room featuring wood panelling. There had been some changes in the room since before. It was less ornate than the historical record now.
Dosh suppressed his minor repulsion at the fact there was cheesy wood panelling on the walls. He was a field technician for NCAB before he became a top manager there, as such he was very sensitive to some unusual things.
"miss Genius, I presume?", he asked.

"Hello... ? I've been attempting to establish contact outside. It's good to see someone finally responded.", said the skunk.

"please excuse the delay. We had to put this in a safe place.
Um... do you mind my asking something, perhaps it's cultural, but...

Is this room here an experiment in trying to create the most depressing and lethargizing environment possible?", said Dosh.

"Oh, it's not my doing. The room kind of fell apart a bit a while ago, but it hasn't happened since. There was an... episode.", replied Genius.

"Good. I was hoping so. Not that it matters in here but... I'd think someone of... your... um... caliber would have.... made.... um... it.. more.... uh...", Dosh stumbled on something as he tried to find a way to say it without possibly insulting her.

"Yeah, I know about that. Don't worry. No offense taken. This was just once the reality I was used to. It's... a bit broken here...", she began and then turned toward Dosh and said, "Seriously, this isn't anything like what Pargalonian buildings were like on the inside during my time. Not even close.", replied Genius

"Of course, I thought so. I can probably guess what caused the sudden break-down in here.

So, I was wondering. How much of you is in here?", said Dosh

"Enough, I suppose.", she replied, "I can't say I expected this for an afterlife. Heaven doesn't make any sense at all. I get visited by these weird people who ask me weird questions. They seem to be trying to solve a problem, but I can't tell what's going on.
You're one of those weird people by the way. The first one was Izixs, who I recognized... and then there was this contraption which seemed to be occupied by a weird entity that I could only describe as some kind of cluster consciousness. Then there is this other creature, it seems to be in-charge here. It keeps to itself mostly, but it is a very strange person, someone who is very enigmatic. Of course, then again, this isn't the natural world so perhaps I should expect such strange things here. Frankly, I'm not really alarmed at all anymore. Nothing seems to have tried to harm me... that is, if I can actually be harmed in this state.", said Genius.

"I'm afraid I may be disappointing you then. I exist in the natural world, and this isn't the afterlife in the conventional sense at least.
My name is Deuter Dosh. I have an expertise. Some would call it a gift.", said Dosh, before he could finish, Genius began,

"Yes you certainly do. The two hemispheres of your brain are totally and completely fused. If you are from the natural world as you claim, you deviate substantially from the evolutionary continuum that I was familiar with."

"You can see that?", asked Dosh.

"Well, you are observing things which require a different kind of thought that is not natural for those with divided hemispheres.
Tell me, is it your physiology or is it the way you were taught?", she asked.

"I don't know. How is it you're seeing these things? As I understand, you have never even encountered my species in the natural world, you would theoretically have no familiarity with us.", said Dosh.

"That is true. I thought you all dragged your tails on the ground and had forward-oriented eyes. But clearly, the paleontology of my era was wrong about more than just physiological details. As you are also: not all dead, it would seem...

That is unless, we're both dead and this is the afterlife...

I'm pretty sure I died, but then again, it was kind of complex and I'm not really totally sure what happened to me.

But here I am.", said Genius

"I'm not from the past, and I'm not from your planet either.", said Dosh, just slightly offended, "When we showed up on your planet, your civilization was in upheaval and very busy organizing itself. And we didn't exactly 'announce' our arrival when we did show up.
We had a little conflict of our own in a remote and somewhat isolated part of the world that nobody ever thought much about.
To put it simply, we arrived so quietly and over such a spread-out period of time, no one ever realized we weren't here the whole time.", said Dosh.

"So we've been colonized?", said Genius.

"No... well yes... but not in the way that the term implies.", said Dosh.

"Colonization is typically for two reasons, usually both of them: 1. Political autonomy and 2. resource acquisition. You came to this planet to take things from it? And/or you came here to escape something else out there. And thus may bring the wrath of whatever it is you're seeking autonomy from to this world.
I'm not sure if I like your kind.", said Genius.

"What. No. It's.... I don't know how to respond to this. Give me a minute, I need to come up with a way to refute that in a way which doesn't sound cliche...

Listen, the only reason why we were here originally was to help another species out. One which had already started a 'colony' if you will and came under attack. We are allies, so we came here to shift the balance towards their favor.

And they weren't here just to take resources. They're primary purpose here is simply to expand their knowledge. They're inorganic. That thing you described as a 'cluster consciousness' is one of them.", said Dosh.

"That explains them, but what about you?", asked Genius.

"We're here because once you stay somewhere for so long, it becomes your home. You have children there, you build communities there, and bring everything that is a mainstay with you there.
We could not resist building an extension of our civilization here.

If it makes it better: We didn't have to displace anyone to do it.", said Dosh.

"What if someone did that to your planet? Would you like it?", said Genius.

"Well, no... but our planet is only a fifth the size of yours and it is totally, and completely occupied. We use every square inch of land for something. If Dincota were to be colonized, the colonizers would have to take land from us, and displace our people to do it. There is no free space on Dincota for peacefull colonization.", said Dosh.

"Well this is our planet. Do you all just think that just because something looks empty it is? The whole of Earth belongs to the people of Earth. We have limited resources on this planet and you can't say you are a benign colony and still take these things from us.", said Genius.

"Okay, would you rather we put all the potential tectonic energy we took from your planet's mantle back? Would you rather we put all the solar energy we've collected here BACK into heating up the atmosphere. Would you prefer we put all the wind energy we collected back into wind, and the uranium and thorium the Malych mine back into irradiating the ground?

I think, based on how we've been accepted thus far, these are things the 'people of earth' don't mind sharing with us. As these are energies present in nature which normally go towards randomly destrutive or useless things.

Yeah, we mine Earth's minerals which happen to be within the borders of our 'colony'. And sure, we eat your fish, use your soil to grow our vegetables and produce (although we use a lot of hydroponics now). Yes, we use your resources but damn it:
we don't wipe them out. We practice a concept which didn't exist back in your day really. It's called sustainability.
We're interested in staying here just as much as everyone else on this planet. We're not interested in destroying it.
If anything, our practices are a positive influence on 'the people of Earth'... which by the way, that term is deceptive. You make it sound like Earth is a unified nation. Which it very much isn't. You know that.", said Dosh.

The skunk finally relaxed some, and became much more disarming.
"I apologize for my hostility. I think I've seen enough of how you think to see that you aren't what I feared you might be.

I was concerned for a bit there. I mean, hearing all this stuff about other planets and contact. I was concerned that the world I knew met with a terrible fate.

I didn't think such progressive ideas existed yet, such as sustainability. A philosophy I am familiar with through the equasion... but didn't think had been implemented. Such was only the realm of science fiction.
The last thing I remember happening in the world was a mass migration of my people to a new land to the south.

I'm under the impression that my equasion was important in the shaping a part of the world at least. Just a notion I think I got from Izixs.", she said.

"That nation your people started to the south is defined by it. They are quite progressive indeed. They do things we can't do. In fact, Tinis has some technologies which absolutely terrify us, such as the device which probably broke your room in here... and technologies that we do not understand or can control as well as they do. Such as the Pattern Defence System. Something made possible from your equasion.", said Dosh.

"So I take it some things have been proven since then. I am very curious now...
What did the 'cluster-mind' entity do with the extended equasion?

....

The danger from it is something which... I couldn't possibly predict what would happen to a mind such as hers...", asked the skunk.

"Do you mind if we move into a different room", asked Dosh, "This place is falling apart. It needs to heal."

They both went through a door and were outside on a patio.
It was a very sunny, and just slightly humid. There was a single huge weeping willow in middle of what seemed to be a back yard. tall deciduous trees were all around and a berry bush had grown along the whole length of an old ornate wooden fence along the back.

"I didn't know this was here.", said Genius.

"Yeah, I asked the ball-critter if I could bring it with me.", Dosh replied.

"It is beautiful.", she said as she sat down on an oddly curved seat, which surprized her a little.

"Ryuqi is actually currently being rebuilt. It is unclear what effect the transport of the extended equasion had on her, or if it somehow contributed to her system failure...", began Dosh, Genius then interrupted,
"System Failure? Do you mean, she perished?", she asked.

"Yes and no. She can be recovered and rebuilt, but she sustained a great deal of damage. She was defending Lipner, and exhausted all of her energy. In the end, she chose to record the duel between Izixs and Untols so the truth would be preserved, instead of continuing to run her own consciousness.", said Dosh.

"Is Izixs... is he... what happened to him?", she said anxiously.

"He was victorious. He declared the first law of the union and beheaded Untols to stop her from taking on a heaven stone, and to stop the testing of the pattern slip device.", said Dosh.

"Pattern Slip Device? Holy mother of...
What the... ", she said before looking away and then down.
"Good god, are they mad?
...
They tested it? They actually sucessfully tested it?!

...
Dare I ask what happened?", said Genius, who seemed to be totally taken back by this.

"It jostled some stuff around, forced a plane of ours to crash-land.
Technically: it produced a super-powerful shockwave of pucons, which disrupted these things called 'hooks' that we use for our long-distance travel between planets.
They're like knots made from threads which are composed of these mass-carrying particles which appear to travel faster than light, but actually don't. They have their own system of physics to deal with them... actually you outline a great deal of it in your second folio.", said Dosh.

"The only thing I can think of that even comes close to describing such a thing is... a part where I was trying to find a way around the problem of cosmic-scale events conflicting with the speed of light.... I also ...

I saw a great potential for something very frightening in another part of that, which is in the third folio.", she said.

"Well, pucons are that particle. An individual by the name of Doron discovered them, and basically invented coaxial drive, which uses these threads to make it possible to theoretically travel between any two of these hooks in the universe in a matter of hours or days.

His discoveries also caused us to discover something else.
Something perhaps as profound.", said Dosh. He then pointed to the nature in the backyard.

"The science of the intrinsic.", said Genius, "Something which I feared could be misused for unspeakable horrors.
You've been doing it all along?"

"We had no idea that it fit in with any greater of a system for all that time. We simply obeyed it absolutely.", said Dosh.

"What makes a place beautiful... trully, beautiful in a way which you simply cannot attribute to any unique, specific or definate qualities which it has. It just... is. Even if it there are elements which are actually unpleasent, or ugly... defying all reason, it still appears to be beautiful.

I do not doubt that you see what I see.", said Dosh.

"A portion of my third folio begins to close the gap between things unquantifyable and that which is quantifyable. It begins to close the gap in a very real way which I could observe.

I did think that I could be delusional. That I was simply loosing my mind as the whole thing consumed me.

These are things which do not require equipment to access. This I put in the final folio. As it was the most dangerous.
The knowledge that these things could be observed... and used with only a trained mind.
The state of being which Untols entered, and Izixs as well... that's something which I thought was too dangerous to make easily accesible. That's why I organized it as I did.

As nice as you are, I'm afraid I can't tell you any more about that.
I fear you likely don't understand just how dangerous it can be.", she said.

"I understand why it is you must stop there.

However, as you have made observation of our physiology and how far we have progressed in different areas of the equasion parallel to your own more complete one... perhaps you still wonder why it is we managed to never understand or master the 'state of being' you described... even when we had discovered that which would naturally lead towards it's discovery.", said Dosh.

Genius paused for a while and then leaned back in the oddly curved chair.
She sighed and thought for a moment.

Her expression dropped, she then said, "You are incapable of it. You can only observe, not fully utilize it. There are experiences which your kind can never feel. With every blessing comes a curse, with every power comes a price.
You can preceive it, but you can't use it.
...
Pardon me, I find it a bit odd that you have so much control, and are so comfortable in here. How is it you can do this?", she asked.

"I, like you, have a gift with some things. This is the first time I've ever been in here, and I am able to have my conscious and subconscious work together enough that I can communicate rationally with you.

Ah, but the cost is: my dreams are empty slates upon which I have too much control.", said Dosh.

"I want to see your world.", said the Skunk.

"I think you should too, I'll try to find a way.

...
Before I go, I do have a question to ask.
Where were you before you were here in the ball, after you died.
What became of you during that time?", asked Dosh.

Genius began to speak, but only broken up tones of non-language came out for a split second.
Then her mouth appeared to stretch linearly straight up and down to infinity, as the world disassembled piece by piece around him.

It was dark all around him, and the ball-entity's voice said,
"I'm sorry. But that's impossible. It is simply beyond your comprehension."

Dosh came back out of his journey, he set the ball down in the box very deliberately and said, "There is no such thing as a totally complete system equasion, we will never understand absolutely everything."

"No shit", said Piythageros Lewan, who sat on the other side of the office.

"Should I be releived?", asked Dosh as he gazed off at the weeping willow tree out the window, identical to the tree in the backyard inside the ball.

"I don't know.", said Lewan.

[miokalia]

Much to Lipner's surprize, Ryuqi was present at the airport.
Lipner's surprize and releif was understated partly because she was still reeling in lethargy from the 10 hour flight.
Upon exiting the plane, a blast of humidity and heat managed to creep between the weather cowl and the plane. Affirmation of the tilt of the planet. Somehow the pilot's stating that the temperature at Hans T. Dovoroy Airport was 88 degrees Fahrenheit didn't mean as much.
Lipner was quite pleased that the first person he recognized that he saw was Ryuqi.

"I don't suppose you call could make these trans-continental flights any faster, can you guys.", he said while almost falling over when setting down a bag.
"we can't do everything.", said Ryuqi.

"I want to lay down and sleep... and the food on the plane tasted like sand.", he said with a bit of humor.

"We'll stop by a Heienxch on the way to my house", said Ryuqi. Lipner had heard that the University down here was going to have the visiting academics stay with the Miokalian teams in their homes, and it was probably not coincidence that Lipner was paired up with Ryuqi.

"I don't know what a Heienxch is, but I assume it means food. That's good.
Did... How did you get us paired up? Weren't you dead for a while?", asked Lipner.

"It's probably because I was dead for a while. I think someone figured that we should be put together.", she said.

Lipner's luggage barely all fit into her car. It was a small econobox of a hatchback, which seemed to be beyond just the norm, but rather the accepted standard for vehicles here.

The Heienxch turned out to be a fast food restaurant not all that unlike McDonalds in the kind of food served.

The interior was a maze though. Walls at awkward angles, patches of dark colored sections. It seemed very nice, but it was loaded with almost counter-intuitive quirks.

Lipner was almost too tired to notice but did eventually say, after ordering two fish sandwiches and a box of what was actually onion shreds, not fries, she said something about it.
After nearly running into a wall.

"I assume I must be hallucinating from sleep depravation, because that wall bows out for no apparent reason at all...
Damn these french fries have the texture and aroma of onion.", he said.

"They are onion fries. You ordered the onion fries. I don't know why.", she said.

Lipner was coming back to normal after eating and started noticing that the restaurant was highly counter-intuitive in it's layout. Although, as a result it was also more interesting and full of weird little nooks.
There was even another couple using one of these tucked-away nooks for making-out.

"Eww, making out in a fast food restaurant?", said Lipner, knowing they couldn't understand him, even if they heard him.

"We are in Dorigan's inner-loop, near the campus right now. There is no such thing as weird here.", she said.

"I assume there is a reason for the restaurant being styled like this.", he said.

"Fast food restaurants have to pay low-wage employment tax, since they contribute to people having to use welfare, they in-turn, must pay for running that welfare. BUT to make up for it, they can pay 75% less in property taxes if the structures on their property contribute positively to hook charge. Especially since we're near an airport...

Also culturally, we just like having buildings that have a lot of character to them.", explained Ryuqi.



-----



"I'm sorry, you don't seem to understand something here. Representative Dyiyot is a learned individual. He is relaying to you what science says.", replies Secretary Andertol to a couple of questions from the representatives.

Dizmulak had managed to stay quiet. He had to address Andertol at some point, but he wanted to make sure he was prepared.

"This is all politics, you know. Please tell me that Tinisians are smarter than to have the wool pulled over their eyes because a majority of representatives are bored.", continued Andertol, who had his thin arms crossed as he sat sideways in the chair. Not out of posture, but because his tail was too large for it.

"You accuse some of us for not understanding the science behind these things, are you saying that you somehow do? Even though you aren't an expert in the field?", asked Representative Maptan.

Andertol cut into the question with a caustic, yet controlled response,
"Are you saying that you all are making decisions without understanding what is going on?

That's called foolishness.
...
Could it be that impeaching the First Speaker over defending YOUR NATION is f*cking foolish?

Have you even taken a moment from political self-pleasurement to even observe what it is you are doing?

...
If you gotta impeach someone, at least do it on the grounds of that person being really freaking shitty at their job.


Something which Izixs has JUST PROVEN he is not

...
Now if he hadn't of done anything about your secret plane-f*cking machine and the crazy b*tch running it...
then maybe one could begin to question his apparent absolute devotion to the safety of this nation."

The legislature was quiet for a moment. They were not used to this much vulgarity being used so lightly. Although, no one was really complaining about it.
Andertol had one foot up on the desk and his overbite served as an aesthetic deterrant towards anyone proposing that he tone-down his language.

Although Dizmulak was prepared to call Anderol out for that. A key to his sucess would be taking this punk down a few pegs. Since his simple and ridiculing methods were bringing other pro-impeahment representatives down.

He saw that what the allosaurus was doing was not just intimidation and ridicule tactics and, cynical candor... It was precise and deliberate. The news media would be pulling sound-bites and snippets of statements and since Andertol couldn't care less about how he was portrayed in the Tinisian media... the more zings-per-challenger Andertol could score, the more pro-impeachment representatives he could make look either corrupt or foolish.

There was something that Andertol had left wide open. Something no-one had mentioned yet because they were too busy looking at his overbite.

"Secretariat Hiyke Andertol, I am formally asking you to please at least attempt to have an ounce of repect for, and decency in front of this legislative body, please.", said Representative Dizmulak

Andertol stared at the representative for a moment and then said, "And I am formally asking that you, please... just for a moment... take your insatiable appetite for political power, which has no doubt contributed to this total waste of your country's tax revenue and resources to tar and feather a leader who dares put his country before his concern about his political vulnerability... and very carefully... or forcefully (whichever suits your fancy) insert the whole damn load of pants into your rectal canal.

Because it is abundantly obvious what this really is:

Odysseus has returned to Ithaca after serving his country only to find his home full of suitors, attempting to swoop in and marry his wife and acquire his kingdom.

...
Do you really want to be first speaker anyway, Mr. Dizzy?

I mean... if you were to stab the pharoh in the back you become the new god-on-Earth right?

Then people just like you will start aiming to take you down.
Everybody wants a bite of the big cheese, Mr. Dizmulak.

You know that.


What's your platform anyway? Is it just isolationism?

It couldn't be anything that different than what you have now, in effect. I mean... what you have now is obviously popular enough that people voted for it.

Could it...

Could it be that you, and perhaps your party is... inherently in effect, basically running on a platform of political maneuvering and nepotism?

I mean, all you'd be doing is just replacing the current people with people you owe favors to.

Such is the nature of politics...

Have you stopped to think about what naming your party after a nation that 1. has recently been run by plutocrats and 2. has become a mere shell of what it once was. Have you stopped to think about what that implies...


Boy, there is a real winner of party image.

I tell you what, I'm voting for the party that brings to mind such forward-thinking words as 'desperation', 'delapidation' and 'hydrogen f*cking bomb' "


Dizmulak had a very noticible eye-twitch at this point. Nothing was sacred for Andertol. He resisted the urge to volley another argument.
The closest thing he could think of was to accuse Andertol of, himself, not being a trully elected head-of-state. He could accuse Andertol of many of the same things...
But the problem was, it didn't matter as much. Andertol wasn't elected and while he could be removed from office by popular vote, for every instance of a vulgar word he said in the hearing showing up on the news in Miokalia, he was likely to actually gain a percentage point in his approval rating simply because it was entertaining to watch.
Dizmulak sat down and dropped his argument.

He figured that Andertol's next response to whatever it was he brought up, regardless of how valid or tricky it might be, would likely involve some variation of "I know what you are, but what am I".
And he couldn't be removed until he was done for two reasons:
1. He was a foreign head of state and doing so would be very unpopular in both nations. and 2. He had yet to technically speak out-of-turn.

Then Dizmulak said something,
"Tell me why I should beleive Dyiyot's presentation. How do we know it isn't doctored. You obviously have an interest in protecting the First Speaker"

Andertol didn't waste a moment in his response,
"Because we haven't yet seen the security camera footage.
You see, we presented you with Ryuqi's alpha-catch as soon as we pulled it from her. The minute her body arrived in our possesion.
2 hours is not long enough to create realistic fake footage. It simply isn't.

You should beleive it because we didn't waste a moment it getting it to you.

We didn't have time to *doctor* it.

Now... your security footage on the other hand...

It may be sitting on a desk somewhere now for a while...

...

just sitting there, guarded perhaps only by TIPS maybe.

You know, TIPS


The same organization that sent to agents dressed up as Malych Yamatoes to try to steal the Paxisphere from the lab.


It is very likely to beleive that if your security footage shows anything different than Ryuqi's alpha-catch, it is probably due to someone not resisting the urge to alter the video recording which has been sitting somewhere for the last week[/i].

You better beleive our video because it may very likely be the Only reliable video you have."


Andertol seemed to be becoming less focussed on trying to make Dizmulak look bad. So the representative continued,

"But why should I beleive the doom and gloom predicted by Dyiyot's experts?"

Andertol had a bag with him. It was his demostration materials.
He had planned for this question it seemed, though he didn't take anything out of it yet.

He said,
"Lets say I have a canister full of Naftalene. For those of you who failed highschool science, it's a chemical. For those of you who've never tried to get high off something in your parent's garage when you are a kid, I salute you... and to inform you further: It is a combustible chemical. It is commonly known as coleman fuel."

Scientific experts agree that dropping a match into a canister of volatile, combustible fuel will cause it to combust.
There will be about a 2/3rds chance that the combustion will cause the canister to explode.

Oddly enough, knowledgable scientific experts also agree that when you f*ck with space-time, shit happens that can hurt people.
And I think, the agreement was the use of that dealie you guys had being put together without you knowing it, had a 2/3rds chance of individually f*cking many of our most beloved of biologically-necessary molecules to pieces.

Obviously, some of you have made it clear, from your lack of being moved by this 'doomspeak', that you are perhaps willing to take this chance.

So Dizmulak, would you drop a match into a canister of Naftalene? Are you saying that is a chance worth taking?

Because you sure seem to be willing to gamble with the lives of your people like that if you are.

I'll tell you who wasn't though.

Izixs wasn't willing to take a 2/3rds chance of dropping that quantum match into that space-time naftalene.

He did something about it."



Andertol's testimony was finished. He yielded the floor to Kam.



----


Ryuqi's house was 8 miles from campus.



"So everyone will likely be staying in Lego-block-looking houses, and we will be staying in a place thats in a community of houses that looks like colorfield painting. Okay.", said Lipner in response to Dorigan's 'suburbia'.

"Hokyldaryon has a large community that looks like tinker-toys, but it is expensive. And Zye city is too much of a haughty-taughty capital to have anything really very interesting in it. Everything there is expensive and generic. That's why all the cool stuff is around, not in it."

Ryuqi's was a narrow house between two other narrow houses.
It actually wasn't all that large. The way it was set up, every room had at least one north-facing window. Lipner was familiar with this practice. It seemed the people here had an obcession with natural light.

"I love the room, but, I have to say I partly expected your 'house' to be nothing but a garage.", said Lipner, setting a bag down on the bed.

"It seems we have a bit of a drive to campus. I didn't think you all had suburbs. Even though they are dense ones. This is still a free-standing house.", he said.

"Yeah, that it is."

"When do things start up again?"

"Probably whenever Kam and who ever else is coming down gets here. Not much we can do right now.

Our people are currently on hold right now because of the hearings and the investigation."

"Nice of you all to give me some time to settle-in."

"I should warn you, the house closest to your side of the house is at any given point in time, occupied by at least 7 students. I think they are feline. Their Niyapo hip-hop has a lot of bass and it carries quite far."

"I couldn't imagine it being too much a problem." he said.


Ryuqi's tour of north Dorigan was quite strange.

"This is.. was... still is, an old mall built in the 1960's. A few years ago the city started up a plan to redevelop it. But..
part of the way into demolition stage, NCAB ordered the entire project halted and declared emminent domain over the land.

As it turns out, somewhere in the delapidated old thing or the wreckage, there is a major hook used by, at that time, Connelan International Airport which used to be to the north of Dovoroy, the one you landed at.
Presently, I guess it's used by the new one now.
Of course, they can't figure out what part or single thing in the mess is the actual hook, so they just leave the whole thing there. It's cheaper just to have a heap of garbage in the middle of a city, than to try to find something you can't see in it.
Developers really hate NCAB. They do this kind of thing all the time."



"It seems like a waste. Why not just re-use the building for a new purpose?", asked Lipner.

"That is exactly what we usually do to avoid this kind of fiasco. NCAB can claim a building to have a hook, but if it is still usable and not partly destroyed, it can still be occupied.
Most of our old malls end up being converted into huge public schools, campus extensions and low-rent bazaars.", said Ryuqi.

"Can we go by a grocery store or something. I don't suppose you are used to having organic individuals staying at your house, since there was nothing but a can on salmon in your kitchen.", asked Lipner.

"Sorry. I don't ever use the kitchen. It's just there. I don't know how old that salmon is, it could very likely be older than me. I advise not consuming it", she said.

Lipner laughed a little.