Time Threads #3: From the Journal of Celestine DeLore

Celestine and Atakami

Entry 507

The House of DeLore has always produced strong women who were comfortable in the company of powerful men. My great, great grandmother Alsatia  DeLore was a soldier in the Black Dagger Corps during the Great Clan War. And in the early years of consolidation when the Alliance used death squads to subdue pockets of continued resistance, she was known as "Black Kali, the Kiss of Death". She was merciless in pursuit of order among the Families. Some called her a "monster" because she recognized that children can grow up to be surprisingly relentless agents of vengeance. Therefore, the liquidation of entire families can be a necessary action to pre-empt endless revenge killings. People need to believe in the efficacy of a well placed threat. They need to whole heartedly embrace the suggestion of consequences is a step away from the fact of consequences. This connection can be achieved only after the suggestion has been linked to the memory of vividly painful events. Then, (predictably) dread, sorrow, fear and horror will claw at the raw tissue of the soul with sickening purpose . Alsatia De Lore handed down this truth of governance to my maternal ancestors. And I, Celestine DeLore, the youngest woman in our clan to serve as 1st Councilor,  will heed her counsel and stand ready to act for the good of the Union.

Entry 676

I don't believe in love. I believe in passion. I believe in delirium. And I especially believe in the political usefulness of targeted sex. As my great, great ancestor said, Between the yoni and the gun lies the pulse of humanity.  Some have secretly derided me as carnivorous, that is an exaggeration. Yes, I have seduced and subdued my way into the Collegium. What of it? Scores have done the same. Through guile, the tactical application of force, and strategic couplings I have leaped over my seniors to rotate into the 1st Councilor's Chair.  I have taken the oath and I will protect the interests of the House and Clan DeLore; and I will defend the Union of the Families at all costs.  My yoni is willing and my gun is loaded.

Entry 1070

The Director of Public Safety met with the Collegium today. He is convinced of the accuracy of a piece of classified intel regarding an initiative brewing in the Order of the Crescent, the clandestine section of the Priory. The Minister believes that the search for the Founder's Archive by the Order could prove to be a profound security threat to the Regime; though he is uncharacteristically vague when pressed to suggest the exact nature of this threat. He has requested authorization to initiate intensified penetration operations by the Directorate's Office of Internal Affairs, our secret police. I wanted to laugh out loud, but I held my tongue.  The Minister sees conspiracies around every corner and in every toilet. My sources speak a very different tale about a growing internal riff within the Cenobite Movement over sexual abuses perpetrated by Abbot.

The Abbot is a cagey little fraud, but a very cunning leader of a quasi religious movement that is strangely popular with the clans.  He pretends to seek spiritual truths, but his dark predilections are less tightly contained.  My sources whisper about bloody sheets and cries of terror from nubile postulants under assault from the Abbot's unbridled pedophilia. Incredibly, the girls injuries disappear within a matter of hours, and so too the mental trauma associated with the attacks. Anal tearing gone! Vaginal abrasions healed! And all memories of the incidents erased. The Abbot is free to repeat his assaults without recriminations, regrets or culpability.  Before and after vu images were smuggled out of the Priory and delivered to my office. When I privately suggested to the Minister that it might be more advantageous to his inquiries if he helped to intensify divisions within the Movement he dismissed my sources at best as rumormongers or worse, coconspirators in a calculated disinformation campaign.  If  the Directorate  prematurely shows it's hand it could precipitate a purge within the Priory that would destroy any ongoing operations. He went on to say, if a real power struggle is afoot for the Office of Abbot  let it proceed so we can more actively identify winners and losers.  We should otherwise wait and see if this is merely scattered discontent or incipient rebellion.  Meanwhile, he insists our collective interests lie in ferreting out the aims and progress of the pursuit of the Founder's Archive.

 Why is the Minister interested in pursuing this children's tale about the Founder's Archive?  Next he'll have us looking for the Sentinel, the ghost who lives among us. The Founder who remained and waits till the day of our greatest need,  when he will emerge to open the Archive and lead us back to the stars. Utter nonsense.

 A question occurs to me: What if the Minister is an embedded agent for the Priory? That would explain our reluctance to really penetrate the movement. It also explains why most of the Directorate's operations against the Cenobites become compromised almost before they get started.  My sources say the Priory has been successfully sowing suspision in the Directorate leading to internal purges in the for years. Every time an effective adversary of the Priory ascends to leadership positions within the Directorate he or she is inevitably purged, demoted or sent chasing rumors in toothless operations. Who stands to gain from our intelligence gathering paralysis? 

Time Threads #2: The Apparition

The last days of apprenticeship were fraught with disturbing visions for Siobhan Metalahwaggon. The Coming of Age Dream was only the beginning.

At night, she dreamed of an alien humanoid woman.  She had a penetrating stare with piercing purple eyes.. Yet Siobhan did not feel threatened by her. She was a striking creature: purple skin, a generous mouth, dark purple shoulder length hair. She had a powerful athletic physique. Her upper body was well defined without being grotesque. She stood close to seven feet tall, an incredible physical specimen. She clearly was not from the neighborhood. .

Suddenly. the alien dream was replaced by an encounter with Siobhan’s identical twin (even though she was an only child). When they looked upon each other they experienced a pulsing, erotic warmth that began in the chest and settled in the sex. Siobhan 2 reached to caress Siobhan and their hands met mid gesture, skin to skin; touch to touch; the tension climaxing in a passionate kiss that left her wet and breathlessly awake. The heat of the encounter dissipated leaving Siobhan confused and embarrassed.  

                           When Siobhan met with her mentor, Matsuka she skipped any mention of the alien woman or the erotic self-encounter. Instead, she sought counsel about the falling woman. Matsuka had programmed the SLEDD to simulate an imaginary location, a carousel house on a pier overlooking a beautiful bay at the edge of a sparkling city. They materialized under Observation Mode so that the local computer generated people would ignore them. After listening to the details of the dream Matsuka explained that the falling woman could be a manifestation of the precognitive aspects of their training. Matsuka prompted Siobhan to remember any other dreams of this nature.Reluctantly, she shared the alien, and the sexual embrace dreams. Matsuka assured her that the Sphere apparition and the dreams were all connected. A woman of unknown origins would become associated with Siobhan in the very near future! 

Time Threads #1: The Coming of Age Dream

In the final months of her apprenticeship, Siobhan had a prophetic dream that all apprentices must experience before embarking on their first solo time sail. It is called, The Coming of Age Dream, and everyone anticipates its arrival. Yet Siobhan was reluctant to relate the dream to her mentor. Dark images filled her with foreboding. Was her dream a portend of torture or death? Did it represent irrevocable disaster? Thinking about the dream only confused her. Finally, the anguish of silence became so overwhelming that Siobhan told Matsuka her dream. This is what she revealed:
"It is twilight at the edge of an empty landscape. I am a giantess, perhaps 12 feet tall, maybe more. I wade through the middle of a small river that opens to a vast lake. I can see another tributary emptying into the same lake. A great flood has washed away everything in its wake. There are no signs of human activity; no animals, birds, trees or flora. Patches of lichen begin to emerge from the clay. Suddenly out of the haze of the adjoining tributary float a line of four large paintings. They are portraits of girls who are either related to me, or perhaps they are me. The paintings sail in a self propelled flotilla of objects pitched slightly skyward as if drawing power from the dimming twilight. I am riveted in place as the floating salon presents its offerings:
The first painting shows the face of a demurely smiling girl surrounded by a corona of flower fragments and machine parts.
In close pursuit is the second painting: A woman throws up her hands in terror. I cannot see what torments her. She is dwarfed by the imposing shadows of two towering highways. Her eyes bulge in horror. Arching above the scene are neon letters that read, "See the Light!"
In the third painting a woman is tied face down to a rack. Her feet are untethered.  Long cuts from a lash mark her back and buttocks. She raises her head and twists her body to see the face of her tormentor. A half human creature prepares to strike again. Two impassive men look on; one is a shaman, and the other is a costumed superhero.
In the distance emerging through the haze is the fourth painting, a towering vertical panel depicting fragments of heroic women's heads bathed in rays of light from a stigmatic ebony hand.
I turn away from the paintings frightened and confused by what they might mean.  I discover a solitary canvas remains beached face up on the banks of the river. Its point of view looks down on the head of a girl's face emerging like exhaust from a motor vehicle moving very fast through a wash of rain water on asphalt. Her three quarter profile is turned towards the green patina of a bronze water nymph. Its hands are locked behind its up tilted head. The arch of its body is provocative, an invitation. Its smile anticipates a moment of total abandon. A warning punctuates the bottom of the composition in large red letters, "DANGER!" "

Time Threads: Temporal Mechanics

Human beings use only 10 to 15% of their total brain capacity. In the Academy, the super secret program to teach space/time projection through mental energy amplified by a Space/Time SLEDD (Super Luminal Energy Displacement Device. more than 98% of the brain's higher functions are used to project chronal energy. Training the mind to harness the complex forces of  space/time is an ability that does not come naturally.; Sub-cortical nano implants are required to turbo boost higher brain functions.to assist the quantum processors surgically implanted into the cerebral cortex.   . Enhanced psychokinetic abilities e.g. targeting objects without physical coordinates, or acquiring target accuracy by imagining the correct destination; or hyper-telekinesis, moving objects forward into the time stream and retrieving it like a mind controlled boomerang were major abilities necessary to advance to proficient and be allowed to make a solo run.. Advanced training also had martial components:  temporal jujitsu, the ability to throw an opponent anywhere in space/ time; alter reality in a subject’s mind, form a force field and reshape matter as a tactical defensive or offensive weapon.. Take together the full array of capabilities was collectively known as Temporal Mechanics.

                           The rubric to demonstrate mastery of Temporal Mechanics  was the ability to draw a perfect sphere of energy using only one’s mind; expand it and teleport yourself safely into the near future. Then, return within seconds holding an object pre-placed at the destination. It was a skill that required deep concentration. Siobhan found the early hours before dawn to be her optimal time to practice.  No one in her class of five had achieved the ability to draw the sphere without assistance from a SLEDD. 

          Once training was complete, the Office of Manufacturing and Distribution Assessments (OMDA) sanctioned commercial espionage through established  timelines. OMDA was an obscure and very secret department technically under the 1^st Councilor of the Guardian Council, but  administered by the Office of Internal Affairs, the secret police. .No one in the 1st Councilor's office had the vaguest inkling of the agency's existence or if they did where it could be found.