|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- FOREMAN ITTENER PIER--CUP 27--"GODLIKE LIKE ME" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Foreman Ittener Pier  ||  -------> (Cup SRfi027, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Damn if Lunatether isn't full of surprises! Our first night in Deep Violt, Jr. (as we dubbed the place, ha ha) I was joking with her about running out of money, even though we had a bunch of gold left. She smiled and told me coyly how getting more gold would be no problem. I asked her why, and she blushed as she told me she had a matter handler that had once been within her. One of her potential daughters. Ludrashay's sister. All she needed to do was activate it and WHAM, we got a Stormbolthouse again. She even said she'd been talking to Litrainlace, as the embryonic Stormbolthouse was named. Scary. "But," I said, "if you weave her, then how can she time travel?" "She can't. Not on a tock hound. And I don't know any other way." "Huh. So what--all of your names start with L?" "That's the way everything was set up. Yes. All the names are L-starting." "Hmm." I said, nodding. Lunatether and I had a little suite of living quarters, and there were two other suites. Carroll took one for himself, and Bandelion was satisfied with her own little corner of the warehouse. It was an interesting time period we were in. The new generation rejecting tradition in a big way. Cool art, cool music, much conflict. I felt kind of bad with my smug, knowing attitude about all of it. There was such... an innocence in everyone here. Huh. I thought about my home often. Shit, I could have been back to Engiondofer Castle by now, if not for this idiotic quest. I'd have reconnoitered with Overwhelm, and had someone take me back. I'd be back in the castle, weathering the fallout of my abandonment. The press and the people would want answers. If I told them the truth, the big story would be that I flipped out. Lost my mind. No good. So I'd have to come up with some elaborate lie. A lie that would make me look good. If this building is true--if Deep Violt C can take you anywhere, the first place I'll go is home. Man, with the power I have--the power I can acquire from my supernatural connections--jeez, I could take over the world and then some. Take over many worlds. Conquest. In my genes. Feels good. Deep Violt, Jr. was a really cool place. The living quarters me and Lunatether were in were really well-designed and well-lit. Comfortable. I knew we'd be making love soon. And I felt horrible that all I could think of was Hilltop Jone Rallity. Lunatether had the body, but she didn't have the spark. I wanted to fuck Hilltop in Hilltop's body. Not Lunatether. But I feathered my nest with this foolishness, no sense breaking the poor machine's heart. How goddamn stupid, the whole thing. You'd think I could be happy with great sex every night. Yeah, Lunatether was real good. Maybe too good. She just went right at it. All the moves were right, but there was no texture to it. She was flat. I feel sorry to say that, but it's the truth. It's what I'm experiencing every night now. Deep Violt C. It can take me right back to Hilltop. Yup. It can take me away from Lunatether. She can go to a me who loves her fully, a me who never thinks of the real Hilltop. Damn, but I know I could make love to the real Hilltop so good now--I was getting to know her body and her sexual response so well. I could break her wall of ice. And I swore to myself I would. Right at that moment Lunatether walked in, and I felt sick at myself. Real bad. But I hid it. Taking Deep Violt C to another Deep Violt--yeah. To anywhere, Carroll said. Could it realize anything you could imagine? Maybe, but my time with Overwhelm taught me a lot about "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it"--I knew that a person's experience of something was based on both his position and his surroundings. If you're stuck in a boring little job in a boring little place, it won't take much to thrill you. Godlike like me, you need a lot more. And if ya Deep Violt yerself, ferget it. Yer screwed. Doing it with Lunatether I forgot about a lot. I could get lost in her. Like getting lost in the corridors of her when she was a Stormbolthouse. To think, I never knew of her longings for me, and there I was, inside of her, fucking android bodies she controlled. Insensitive? How was I to know a machine could have feelings. Or--is she truly still an automaton, just programmed to act like she has feelings? An image of a person in a movie can seem to have feelings, but it's just film and light and screen. It's programmed. Was Lunatether aware? She seemed to be. But she also seemed like a machine. Oh, just let go, bury myself in her, hide from the painful presence of Hilltop Jone Rallity in my soul. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----