double tray ceiling IMG_2248, originally uploaded by Paul@paulhyde.com.

I woke up

and found myself stretched out on a floral pattern sofa in a large white room, looking up at a trey ceiling with light mahogany accents. I sat up and saw three windows and a closed door. The window behind the sofa showed the sun a little above the horizon, with morning mist tinged pink and gold. The window to the left gave a view of a walled garden at noon time, with clear blue sky and the sun beating down hotly. In front of me the last window presented a view of forest descending a slope down into a valley where a river ran with the sun just setting beyond the distant hills, gloaming sweeping into the hollows.....I realized that this was a very strange room, or at least it was in a very strange place.....I regarded the door with some trepidation.....

AND IN THE SKY, SHE SMILES....

AND IN THE SKY, SHE SMILES...., originally uploaded by zero g.

two years subjective

was how long it took to cruise back out from machine space to Port Martini.....the Company paid us off, and even threw in a little bonus pay for the things we had been forced to confront down there.....the scary things. I'm sure the Company made enough profit on that voyage, to kick us something extra.....so I had money in the bank for once, and I decided to just take some time off and spend a bit of it. I found a housekeeping cabin on the edge of downtown, in a canyon with a little stream of water running by the footpath, and a force-field overhead, to hold in the air. Management even had some flowers and grass here and there, and birds! Real nice. If you followed the path a ways, there was a pond, with fish. If you wanted to, you could rent a pole and try to catch a fish. I never did that, it just seems too strange....for a spaceman.

An elevator went up to the top of the canyon rim, where there was a beer-garden in a bubble on the surface, under the stars. From there you could see over to the docking zones.....watch the ships come and go, and drink a beer, eat some onion rings. Sally worked there behind the counter.... she was mostly human I guess, but not Natural enough to vote I don't think....I never really asked her about that in the three months or so I rented the cabin....it didn't seem to matter much.....we had a pretty good time for a while....

Chemical reaction

Chemical reaction, originally uploaded by gaunty.

my life as a chemical reaction

Old tree lined streets, the side streets still with some single family homes, but the broader avenues just one apartment complex after the other.....say 100 units, so 100 stressed out little families, trying damned hard to live the American dream.....but unemployment is high....maybe there are actually two families in the apartment.....maybe grandma stays with the kids while the young parents flip burgers or pour coffee.....kids run wild in the apartment playgrounds, and in the streets and parks.....the kids start to drive the hard working young moms and dads nuts....they drive the teachers nuts in the overcrowded schools.....the social workers say maybe the hyperactive youngsters could be helped by behavior modifying medications.....drugs.....chemicals.....not street drugs, but things approved by the government health services, things that make a profit for the big health industry companies.....your family doctor, or your local clinic....they get financial inducements to go along with this scheme of things....so I had meds to take when I was four years old.....in the morning, and in the evening.....some kids had different meds, and it was a trip to trade them around and see what happened.....school breakfast, school lunch, dinner out of the microwave while granny watched television.....mom and dad almost always at work, or desperate in the bars.....twenty-first century joy.....by high-school, the government meds had multiplied, and were mixed daily with weird chems cooked by skinny ugly guys who knew your older sister.....and when you got out of school and went into the Forces, then they really started pumping you full of shit....my life as a chemical reaction.....

Bugger this and Bugger that

Bugger this and Bugger that, originally uploaded by </arpy>.

going solo

the buggers are crawling around on the hull .....I can hear the scratching and clinking.....they probably think this old tub is derelict, and they are starting to tear it apart for salvage.....maybe I should just let them.....I paid extra last time in port for shielding to hide biological signature, so I guess it would be my own fault if they do tear into life support systems....but they won't get that far I don't think, 'cause I'm powering up a direct hull charge off the quantum core.....that should fry them.....but I won't really do that, I'll warn them first, just because I'm such a nice guy.....actually, they are probably already starting to feel the vibes from the charge-up.....if they are savvy buggers, they will just slough off and back to their barge, and let me be.....leave me in peace and quiet, slipping alone along the edge of the frontier, like I've been doing for decades now.....back a long time ago, I used to cruise with other persons aboard, but that always ended up in problems.....people can't seem to agree about things all of the time....or even much of the time....not enough of the time anyway......the bugger noise is starting to stop I think.....passive sensors are getting the warmth of a pile drive, they must be going to leave me alone .....buggers don't make very good company anyway, always just clawing and chewing , muttering strange things about their genetic destiny as revealed to them by God-the-Machine.....I've heard enough of that crap in my day......some humans aren't much better, going on about Natural Humanism, and the glorious golden age of the Treaty Powers which is upon us.....bullshit I say, things are just like they always were.....the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.....death might take longer to get here than it did in the olden days, but it will get here.....and taxes are carefully hidden, but they are still there nonetheless......so to get along you still have to keep a stiff upper lip and a tight asshole, unless you just say to hell with 'em all and go solo into the deep dark night between the stars......

resonance

resonance , originally uploaded by milena mihaylova.

resonance theory

down further towards the center of the galaxy, where machine culture holds sway, the cyberbrains spin webs of resonance theory.....they have figured out over millions of years that nothing is really new under the suns.....time is older than you can imagine, so a lot of the things that trouble civilization now have been around some time in the past, and have been dealt with back then one way or the other.....and these actions in the past still send subtle vibrations through the fabric of spacetime, providing clues to perceptive intelligence as to how things could turn out this time around. If you can tune in to the goings on one carrier wave over from here and now, chances are that you can pick up some vibes that might be useful in your present situation....biologicals with their "intuition" and "feelings" have often been found to be useful in this regard.....

the machines have stuck me here in the center of a vast resonance interface, flat on my back on a crystal slab, beams of psychic frequency washing through my being.....between my eyes my mind is melting.....the main frame brain wants to know what I can grasp from another place and time, on a neighboring plane of reality, as regards the peril that approaches.......