Time Threads #14: The Craving

        Siobhan experienced a rushing, exquisite upwelling of raw desire from her pubes to her breasts. Matsuka looked into the hunger building in Siobhan, and became afraid of what she saw. Siobhan's body began to exude a musk that was heavy with the smell of sex, a wildly attractive scent that filled the room. Siobhan's right hand gently caressed her labia. A glistening drop of secretion clung to her finger. She raised it to eye level, and curiously examined it before extending her tongue, to further distill its chemistry.

"Siobhan, stop!" Matsuka exclaimed. Siobhan's gaze settled on her with a

lascivious smile. Matsuka's pulse quickened. They faced each other. Matsuka became unsure of what was happening but she did not want to stop . Breathing heavily she raised a leg and locked it around Siobhan's hip. Siobhan abruptly took a handful of Matsuka's luxuriant hair, and brought her face down to hers.  At first, their lips only slid against each other. Then, Siobhan began to devour her in a deep kiss; her tongue searching, darting, probing with calculated purpose. Matsuka moaned as her eyes rolled up into her sockets. Siobhan's free hand found a breast and kneaded it with strong fingers that gradually entwined around an erect nipple. Matsuka gasped. Siobhan's grip on Matsuka's hair loosened as she drew her down to the floor; her hand abandoning the blemished breast to glide effortlessly across her torso, and settle against her clitoris; Siobhan's fingers delicately circled and stroked. Matsuka released a plaintive cry.

       Abruptly, a deep, compelling serenity rapidly eclipsed the impulses of her raging desire. The single-minded urgency to devour and subdue dissipated. Some unspoken presence quarantined the Craving in a part of her brain where the clawing became little more than an annoyance. Another anxious moan made Siobhan aware of Matsuka trying to bring herself to climax. Siobhan fell back onto her haunches.

 Zana-7 remained detached. She appeared to be deep in a trance. Siobhan steadied herself and stood up.

Matsuka brought her thighs to her stomach and swayed from side to side trying to contain the rolling gush of pleasure welling up, over and over again.

Siobhan kneeled next to her mother and placed both hands inches above Matsuka's head. She closed her eyes and slowly inhaled. She held it a few moments, then just as slowly released it; repeating the sequence several times until Matsuka synchronized her breathing to It. Her eyes rolled back into position. She swallowed heavily and looked around searching the room to get her bearings. Finally, she caught the figure of Siobhan rising to her full height.

Wearily, Matsuka reached for Siobhan's outstretched hand. Slowly, she got up on unsteady feet, and slid into a nearby chair at the desk. The room was spinning as she laid her disheveled head between the delicate web of her hands.

   Siobhan sensed Matsuka's confusion. ‘Did she just try to seduce her daughter?’ She was ready to give herself over to unrelenting passion. Siobhan quickly sought to cut it off.

"No, I am to blame, not you!. I was in the Craving's grip and nothing mattered, except the need to be satisfied.  I am so very sorry I forced you into such raw, carnal energy. It still rattles the cage Zana-7 helped me to lock it in, but I cannot contain it for long. Eventually, I will succumb to it." Siobhan turned to Zana-7 with a grateful smile, " I am truly in your debt, sister."

A muffled rocking shook the bunker as one of the monitors winked out. From a different POV the monitors showed a pitch battle between two defensive droids and the last gunslinger droid.  Zana-7 glanced up at the melee playing out on the remaining screens.

"Your defenders will fall. We need to leave this place unnoticed. Reinforcements may not be far behind!”  Quietly, Matsuka began to weep.

    Siobhan knelt down on one knee next to Matsuka. She stroked her beautiful black hair, and quietly said, "I remember being in your womb. They induced labor to force me out." Adding, conspiratorially into her ear. "I think I was getting too comfortable."

Matsuka turned to Siobhan and smiled. Several moments passed before she could speak.

"The moment you were born, the Order's med techs rushed you away to be cleaned and measured. I wasn't sure you were even alive. I didn't hear you cry, right away.  I asked an attendant when I could "see my baby"? He just stared at me. No wonder he was confused. No one thought of you as my baby. You were always his baby. His great Progeny Project. I was just the 16 year old surrogate."

   "When I was 14, the Abbot ordered me remanded to your care for training in the mental disciplines.  I only had a limited understanding of what that meant. I had no difficulty probing minds, undetected, or filtering out the noise of human thoughts. The Abbot’s true motives for sending me away was more for his good than mine.  His predilection for post pubescent girls, complicated his strategems and deceptions, especially his growing lust for his only daughter. The ease by which I could slip in and out of his deepest thoughts, or dissolve his most devious obstacles baffled him to distraction.

I once slipped into the dank basement of his sexual fantasies and discovered among the innumerable horrors of his obsessions, the corrupted vault of his relished assaults against you, And encased next to them the fate he planned for me.”

    Suddenly, Matsuka rose unsteadily to her feet.

"I need to say this now, while I have the courage. The Abbot has been my spiritual father, and my mentor since I was a little girl. He found me in the streets, as an orphan, with no family, and no standing. By rights, I should have been killed. He brought me into the Priory. He nurtured me, and he trained me in the principles of the Cenobic Movement. But he also kept me as his whore from the time I was ten years old until I was 17 and no longer a post pubescent girl.  He cynically called his assaults, instructions in Cenobit womanhood. The size of his tumescence was his pride and joy. He took delight in girls tears, pain and blood.. But I had unexpected physical gifts. He was fascinated and challenged by my accommodations. When I was fifteen he ritualized my status as his spiritual wife.

When the Progeny Project reached the implantation phase, the Order's effort to genetically engineer an heir demanded a surrogate to supply the egg for genetic modigication and carry the fetus to term. Naturally, it fell to me to fully serve my canonical obligations.

  My pregnancy did not diminish his ardor. He would call on me multiple times a day to pleasure him with predictable variations on felating him, and taking his deep pounding thrusts until he climaxed. When I offered him the prospect of more adventurous positions he was delighted at my initiative. I became a very creative performer. But it was particularly during his paroxysms that I also found myself dropped into the dark vault of his corrupt fantasies. He had none darker than the prospect of you  taking the enormity of him from behind. Your blood and screams will annihilate the connected worlds of the Nexus Spectrum in a cascading orgasm of cosmic destruction.

I eventually learned that I had the ability to plant seedlings of guilt and self loathing deep into the recesses of his delirium.

   Perhaps, it was because of my continuous efforts, or some greater purpose on his part, but one year after your birth, the Abbot substituted a fabricated persona for me and erased in practically everyone’s mind the fact of my former existence. I became Matsuka Iveny, the sole heir to the Iveny estates and fortune. All records of me as his spiritual wife, my surrogacy, even the Progeny Project vanished from everyone's minds."

"So, you and I and the Abbot are all that know of your ordeal and the truth?" Siobhan said, hugging her mother.

"It was a tremendous demonstration of his powers, I was a great sexual distraction, but I was no longer a post pubescent girl. The Abbot did not however, realize that my brain shrugged off most of his memory deletions. I’m still unsure if that was an oversight, or a cynical punishment for being too accomplished. The point is: he is not a god. His perversions, betrayals and pedophilia are his weakness. In time, you may be able to leverage them against him, and turn him inside out!”

Matsuka's eyes suddenly blazed with a notion that  brightened her face.

    "I just thought of a place outside of the Spectrum where the Abbot can’t find you!. Remember, in the simulator, we practiced cognitive localization, giving substance to imaginary places?  As a lark, we created Angels City. In it we constructed a carousel house on a pier built high above a vast blue ocean at the edge of the gleaming city, remember?"

"Of course, I remember. But that was a simulation we made up. Didn’t you eventually delete it?"

"I did, but all simulations have their roots in some form of reality in our unconscious. We built it together, Siobhan, just you and I. You are a Nexus Sapiens, now.  You have powers I can't begin to comprehend. If you can't find Angels City, invent it!"

The muffled shockwave of another explosion shock the bunker. Everyone looked up at  the monitors to observe the smoldering ruins of two droids burning in the blown out shell of the living room.

Matsuka swore angrily, "Those damn gunslingers have ruined my house! Let's end this before the whole island goes up!"

When the bunker door opened, a plume of smoke and dust rushed into the room. They each took deep breaths and bolted up the stairs to the residence level.

Time Threads #13: Rise of the Nexus Sapiens

       The bunker beneath Iveny House was a conventionally shaped 500 square foot space with floating view screens, recessed and mounted celling fixtures, and consoles embedded in tables to manage the island's defensive systems. Siobhan and Zana-7 gathered in front of a U shaped command and control console.  Matsuka grabbed a hand held tablet from its cradle on the wall, and rapidly began dragging and tapping the surface with her fingers. The air in the room was humid and slightly stale. Within seconds, blowers began to fill the space with fresh fragrant air. The lights brightened revealing a spartan workspace devoid of any decorative effects. Finally, the bunker door silently resealed the room.

Matsuka put the tablet on the table and faced Zana-7 with a belligerent tilt of her head.

."I want to make it clear that I don't buy this alien who fell to earth narrative. So let's drop the pretense. What do you want from my sister?"  Matsuka demanded.

"Siobhan brought me to your world when she opened a portal between our universes. As to what I want from her; it is from you that I require help. I need you to help me relocate Siobhan to a safe location outside of this timeline. If we do not accomplish this within the hour, everything and everyone on this planet will be destroyed. It is that urgent!"

"The urgency is fending off an attack on my home by Guardian Council assassination droids. We are in immanent danger because the Collegium believes we are harboring an agent provocateur. That would be you! Somehow, I doubt the fate of the world will be decided within the next sixty minutes." Matsuka looked to Siobhan. "Tell us how you managed to conceal your location while spying on Siobhan; and perhaps we can arrange sanctuary for you in the Priory. However, if you want our help you must tell us why you are here."

Matsuka placed a reassuring arm around Siobhan's waist,

"There are many parallel worlds with alternative versions of yourselves. Those worlds are part of a linked group of timelines called, the Nexus Spectrum. And within that Spectrum of thousands of timelines, only one planet produces a being with the power to bridge the Multiverse, the Nexus Sapiens. When Siobhan inadvertently created a bridge that linked two Spectra, she made a spectacular announcement to our kind, and I linked with her beacon, in a manner of speaking."

Matsuka scoffed, "We are aware of dimensional travel, but it is physically impossible for one person to do what you describe."

Siobhan looked between both women. "Are you saying I am a Nexus Sapiens?"

Zana-7 nodded. "Yes, and a very powerful one, despite your immaturity. Unfortunately, your immaturity is a deadly liability for you."

"What are you saying?" Matsuka's interrupted.

"The immaturity of her powers is a liability in the face of a stronger, second Nexus Sapiens who has lived secretly among you for generations. He is the catalyst of this attack, which will propel events that will threaten all life on this planet!"  Zana said with a dramatic wave of her hand.

Siobhan shook her head. "I don't understand. There is another Nexus Sapiens who wants to destroy the world? "

"He is a deranged man who believes you are all a mistake, a whimsy of the Founders gone wrong. Only by purging the planet of humans can the Founders original mistake be made right. He means to unravel the ecosystem of this planet and return it to its original inhospitable form; committing genocide on a global scale!"

"That's insane!"

"Yes, it is!!"

"No one man can destroy all life on this planetary with one fell swoop without thermonuclear weapons, and none exist!" Matsuka said. "Besides, it would mean his death, too. It makes no sense."

"No single Nexus Sapiens has that power. But if two Nexi merge their consciousnesses, they will create a being with almost infinite power, a Super Nexus Sapiens. Such a being has only rarely been seen in the Multiverse. Invariably, they migrate to a higher plane of existence. It is essential that Siobhan leave this timeline before the forces driving its creation become unstoppable!"

     Zana-7 slowly stepped toward Siobhan looking directly at her, "It has already begun, Iveny! I can feel the Craving building inside of her." Then turning to Matsuka she continued, "Her hormones are amplifying the sexual impulse to couple with the other Nexus. They will be inextricably drawn to each other until the Craving is satisfied, and the union of their minds begins. Meanwhile, Siobhan's condition is equivalent to that of a dangerous sexual predator.  Any person she touches will become her willing victim.  I can attempt to counteract the changes taking place in her blood chemistry, but  it will be experimental at best. I need you to talk to her, distract her while I connect to her higher functions."

"I don't trust you, alien. You pop up out of thin air like a conjurers trick, telling tales of doom couched in psycho-sexual melodrama." Matsuka countered as Siobhan stared straight ahead oblivious to their debate.

"It really is remarkable how little you change from one timeline to the next.

You  obstruct and deny the truth staring you in the face. The only way you will believe is when it grabs you by the throat. So be it, then!"

Matsuka turned to look carefully at Siobhan.

 "Yes, look closely, Iveny! She is losing herself to the Craving. She cannot resist it by force of will. But you still have a choice. You can choose to question what is happening before your eyes, or you can help me try to boost Siobhan's internal resistance to this coupling with the other Nexus? Choose now, or suffer the consequences!".

Matsuka looked at Siobhan with alarm! "What are you doing to her?"

Time Threads #12 Part 3: The End of All Things Beautiful

       The Sentinel laid a gentle hand on Dag's shoulder. "As I said earlier, it is my last chance to reset the clock of history."

Two Cenobites approached along the path from the Residence, and waited at a discreet distance. The Sentinel turned, nodded and with a reluctant smile got to his feet.

"I'm afraid our time has come to an end, my boy.  There are events in play that must be managed, not the lest of which is Matsuka's situation". Shock held Dag in place. The Sentinel placed a finger to Dag's forehead and immediately, he understood the full extent of his lover's peril.

 "Iveny House is under attack!" Dag said, shooting to his feet; not sure how he knew, but certain of its truth.

"Yes! Matsuka, Siobhan and Zana-7 are besieged by gunslingers! First Councilor Celestine is not easily deceived. She knows their execution was a performance, not to mention Zana-7's unexpected intervention. Now, her assassins are trying to complete the assignment. But they will not succeed. Brother Phillip, here" the Sentinel pointed to the Cenobite on his right. "will escort you back to your South Coast estate. Celestine will not expect you there. She will have planned for you to dash headlong to Iveny House and fall at the side of your lover. But there will be no such melodrama today. Meanwhile, Brother Michael will insure Matsuka and her party's escape from the Iveny Island. Afterwards, they will rendezvous with you there." 

               The Cenobites bowed and followed them as they started back to the Residence. As they ascended the winding marble stairs at the entrance to the reception hall Dag asked, 

"The legend speaks of 'the time of our greatest need.' Are we on the verge of that crisis?"

 The Sentinel appeared to consider an answer. Instead he said, "Brother Phillip will take you to your estates now."

Concern clouded Dag's face. "I'm afraid any transport to the island will arrive too late to save Matsuka and the others." The Sentinel's face brightened. "We have modes of transportation.  beyond your wildest dreams. So,  I suggest you close your eyes." 

             Dag looked confused as Brother Phillip cupped his hands together, then pulled them apart leaving in their wake a small ball of intense energy that quickly expanded to contain both of them. The orb of light brightened briefly, and vanished taking them with it. 

The Sentinel lingered a moment at the empty space where his protege stood. "Good bye, dear boy. Safe journey." 

Then he turned to the remaining Cenobite. " You must bring Zana-7 back to the Residence. Under no circumstances can she be allowed to travel alone with the apprentice. My meaning is clear?" 

Brother Michael bowed, and after a few moments disappeared with a burst of white light. Presently several black clad Cenobites approached the Sentinel. Silently, he simultaneously instructed each one in the details of his specific task. 

Time Threads #12 Part 2: The Sentinel's Gambit

   
"It begins with the advent of the Founders, mysterious extraterrestrial with the power to manipulate time and space. They used their gifts to terraform an arid, unbreathable planet, and turn it into the paradise we enjoy today. We, the Progeny, their decedents watched in wonder as they built a utopian commonwealth. We were bound together as one family, and we prospered for generations.

A time came when the Founders yearned to return to the stars; but, before they departed they wanted to ensure their legacy would endure till the Families were ready to follow them out into the cosmos..  To that end, they inscribed the sources of their power into a series of advanced equations which they placed in an impenetrable repository, the 'Archive'.  The Founders designated one of their own race to be Protector of the Archive. Over time he became known simply as, the Sentinel. He hid the Founder's Archive in an inaccessible place; where it would rest undisturbed until the time of our greatest need. Only then, would we be worthy to interpret the Archive's contents and claim our birthright, mastery of the stars."

       The Minister applauded, "Very well told, Dag. So, do you think the Order seeks the Archive for its fabled power to transform us into gods?"

Dag shrugged. "They'd be fools to try. It doesn't exist. Have you convinced the Abbot of its whereabouts with some tantalizing bits of disinformation?  You're not above pulling a dirty trick like that, you old fox."

The Minister eased himself into a bench hewn from two blocks of red marble and laughed, "My boy, the Archive's location has never been a mystery to me. The Founders equations are all up here" he said tapping his silver mane.

 "I am the Founder's Archive! You see, over the centuries,  I have assumed and discarded countless personas: occasionally playing multiple roles at the same time; such as the Prior General of the Cenobites, or now as the Director of Public Safety, and later as the Abbot of the Order of the Crescent. They're all characters I use in the game of guarding the Families survival."

Dag's bright expression had imploded. The Minister took little notice and gazed wistfully at the trees.

"I was given a mandate to protect the Progeny from misusing the gifts of the Archive and protecting them from outside harm. My greatest failure was not an external threat, but an internal one, the Families themselves. During the Great Clan Wars, two-fifths of the Progeny were lost in fifteen bloody years of ceaseless conflict. I won't dignify my neglect with excuses. The simple fact is I allowed the Families to devour themselves in a pointless exercise of cruelty because I swore an oath not to interfere in your politics."

Dag sat awe struck. "Who are you?"

      The Minister's eyes softened as they returned to Dag's face  "I'm a very old fairy tale trying to turn the tide of history."

 "But the Sentinel is a legend; a fable we made up to help us face the angst of existence in an uncaring Universe."

The old man appeared not to hear him. "The Sentinel is real. I am many things, but I am not infallible. I thought I could hand pick the Clans who would lead the Families back to the stars. But all I did was set the groundwork for genocide, followed by a corrupt government of decadent oligarchs.  So, I began to act against my oath, and I intervened directly in your post war affairs.  I began by insuring the establishment of the Office of Public Safety, to prevent insurgents from reigniting fratricide. Later, I began the Cenobite Movement among dissident academics and aesthetes who sought the sciences of the mind as a pathway to reunion with the Founders. Later, I taught them to refine their cognitive energy to influence members of the Collegium. Eventually, it became chic to have a Cenobite consultant attached to the staff of each member of the Guardian Council. Some Cenobites were tasked with becoming  intimate with members of the elite."

      Dag nodded, "I see, Celestine and her lover, for example. So, just to be clear. The rivalry between the Priory and the Directorate has been a charade from the beginning?"

"Yes, I deeply regret the deception. But it was necessary to keep the Collegium from focusing its collective paranoia on Directorate activities. Consequently, we needed to maintain the illusion that the Priory was an adversary worthy of our attention. Again, your efforts were crucial in keeping the deception plausible. I am grateful." Dag suppressed his anger at this confession of betrayals, and focused on what the Sentinel was not telling him.

"A third piece remains unaccounted for, the Order of the Crescent. What is its role in your drama of shadows?"

Time Threads #12 Part 1: The Minister

                    The Minister's Estate Garden

          The meeting was to be held in the estate gardens adjacent to the main residence. A null frequency pulse blocked all electromagnetic surveillance; not that anyone would  eavesdrop on the Director of Public Safety and his 1st Assistant. But some quarters of the ruling Guardian Council were nervous about the growing power of the Directorate. Under normal circumstances, briefings outside the Residence would have been voice encrypted. However, no such precautions were taken today. The ranking executives of the Office of Public Safety emerged from the reception hall, and descended a marble winding staircase to the manicured garden path below. The Director who answered to 'Minister' was a robustly built man of late middle age.  He had a full head of silver hair, and a tanned unlined face. 

                 A glorious day sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. Everything was bright and bursting with color. At the end of the path stood five massive glass columns, 45 feet high and 10 feet in diameter. Their reflective skins distorted the dazzling patterns of plants, trees and billowing clouds into slowly turning kaleidoscopes of color.

"What urgent news brings you to my humble estate?" The Minister began.

"We have completed analysis of our asset's reports from within the Priory." Dag said with a sigh of disappointment. The Minister seemed drawn to the brilliance of shimmering flora all around him

.

"And?" the Minister gently urged.

"And, I'm especially perplexed by the lack of coherence in the reports tracking the Order of the Crescent's activities. It reads like a religious tract. I hand picked the man for this assignment. It's as if they knew he was coming and immediately began handing him this tripe. I'm afraid his position has been compromised."

                For three years, the Department of Internal Affairs, Dag's section of the Directorate struggled to place an operative into the Cenobite stronghold called, the Priory.  Embedding one of his people there would have been a singular accomplishment, but once again, he failed.

The Minister stooped down to admire a dazzling row of yellow daffodils. After a few moments he rose to his full height and turned to Dag.

"Perhaps you should shift your focus away from the Priory, and towards the Order of the Crescent. How much do you really know about them?" 

"The Order of the Crescent is a sect within the Cenobite movement.  A lot of our information about them is contradictory; but we can agree on certain details. The Order surfaced four years after the emergence of the Cenobites themselves. Their leader, the Abbot is an enigma.  We don't know who he is or how he rose through the ranks. He seems to have appeared out of nowhere. The only thing we know for sure is his abiding interest in developing paranormal abilities in his members, such as, telekinesis, and mind control. The question is why?"

"Perhaps they seek to use paranormal forces to detect extraordinary objects of immense power?" The Minister said playfully.

 "If you're referring to the Founder's Archive, then we really have nothing to fear! The Founder's Archive is a fairy tale. It was my favorite bedtime story as a child."

The Minister agreed. "We all have fond childhood  memories. Why don't you refresh mine about the Founder's Archive, if you please?"

 Dag wondered what he was playing at. 

Time Threads #11: Iveny House Weapons Systems

  

 Security throughout Iveny Island was designed to quickly turn a leisure retreat into a fortress with autonomous command and control hardware wired throughout the grounds.

Each security drone carried firepower equal to that of an A647-B2

"Gunslinger" droid. Like the 'gunslinger' they had restricted access adaptive combat tactical programs. Their aeronautics included elliptical air combat techniques for dog fights, and  (like the A647-B2)  they carried repulsing shields.

      The T820 Combat Droid

       The estate's first line of defense were four bi-pedal armored artillery drones based on the standard T820 combat model. The T820C as they were called was a 12 foot, 2500lb. run-dodge-shoot killing machine.  Their swivel chest tactical lasers were lethally accurate within 500 yards at painting opponents with thermal signatures  to guide high velocity armor piercing plasma grenades. High frequency sonic cannons could dismember ground assault forces up to 100 meters.

Unfortunately, the drone's shield technology was its fatal flaw. It could not maintain integrity while simultaneously firing its own weapons.  Its shields dropped at random intervals to allow weapons discharge. But an adaptive tactical system like the type built into the  A647-B2  compensated for random shield sequencing, and re-calibrated it's weapons to fire when the T820's shields dropped. Two 'gunslinger' droids  took out all four T820C drones within the first six minutes of the assault. That left the standard T820 drones and the highly maneuverable armored flying smart droids, A1120s to stand between the invaders and Iveny House.

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