Sexual Awakening
Lance finally took his eyes off the pages. He was entranced by the excitement of it all. Nothing exciting ever seemed to happen to him. It seemed his life was filled with nothing but intellectual conquest.
His heart throbbed with thoughts of nuclear bombs, war, Mullinarians and interstellar travel. He pondered how such a thrilling universe could turn into such a boring one and if the humans or even the Mullinarians realised how fortunate they were.
He reaches for his exoset, places it on his head and inserts the cable into the connection in the rear of his head. He is one again connected to the array. He decides to do a scan of what has happened since he was last connected.
Through a myriad of headline he subconsciously selects the headline “Oscillations getting longer due to increased energy capture”.
The concept of an oscillation is based on the old concept of measuring the length of time it took a planet to orbit its star. However it is different to previous Eras in the past because there are no stars to orbit. It refers to the period when the power is turned on over the planet Europeous. Night refers to when the power is greatly reduced. The cyborg population enters capsules which freeze their bodies, entering them into a cryonic state.
A three dimensional video by the Europeous Energy Corporation plays before Lance’s eyes –
It begins by explaining that Europeous consumes a vast amount of energy when it is fully operational and then continues… However, the Universe unlike in the past when civilization could naturally evolve has no natural energy source. Therefore it is necessary to almost completely shut Europeous down & let it recharge its batteries through a process called “Void Energy Capture”. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. However, as every Europeousian knows the void of space is not completely empty. Phantom quantum particles of matter and antimatter come in and out of existence countless times every split second. Even though individually their effect is negligible, it was the gravity that they created which drove dark energy that led to the lifeless universe that currently exists.
In “Void Energy Capture”, through the use of advanced physics, spectrum quantum electro entanglement we separate the matter & the anti matter components. The matter component is changed to energy through fusion while the anti matter is flung into the vast void of the Universe.
Naturally, this method of generating energy is extremely slow. Each “oscillation” lasts 5 trillion years. Of course, in a largely frozen empty Universe time has almost become a conceptual idea.
However, the Europeous Energy Corporation is delighted to inform its customers that each oscillation is becoming 2% longer.
Lance is fascinated and ponders how they could be making such huge energy gains with each oscillation. He has heard about the Europeous Energy Corporation previously. They only the employ the best & the brightest, that they’re employees tend to be quirky even by Europeousian standards and that they are zealous in their zeal about energy production.
Lance is then startled by a mail message from Zoe 452. It flashes before his eyes on the exoset. It simply reads “meet me at 45847 423865 354 6:24”. He is intrigued. It is unusual for him to receive a message but it is exceptional for him to receive a personal message sent only to him. Normally, it would be a global message set to every citizen of Europeous.
The first three numbers relate to a set of coordinates on Europeous. Never before has another human requested to meet him at a certain location. The idea was both absurd & perplexing. Instant communication through the exoset made one’s location irrelevant. However, Lance’s curiosity is sparked.
He runs a search for Zoe 452 through his database. It turns out that she is in his class “Beginning of Interstellar War & its Consequences in the First Period”. Maybe she wishes to discuss the book he is reading. This would be troublesome for Lance as he would like to let the story unfold rather than hear about the ending from a third party.
He decides to look up her picture on cosmicface. It has a photo of every ci-human on Europeous, constantly updated each time the exoset is activated. She is a tall female with the telltale clear complexion of a cyborg with brown hair protruding from her exoset.
A strange quiver goes through his spine as the thought goes through him that she is almost as pretty as Lucy.
In order to calm himself he accessed the advanced physics course on his exoset to keep his mind occupied. The thought of the meeting had completely gone out of his mind, replaced by quantum dynamics when a message displayed in front of him – “Time for Meeting – Do you wish to automatically transport or cancel?”
With trepidation his mind selected the option of automatic transportation.
Startled, he found himself in another person’s cell. It looked almost identical to his, except that the cryonic capsule and chair were in the opposite part of the room to his.
Zoe 452 was sitting in her capsule and directed him to sit on the chair beside her, which he did.
Feeling awkward he enquired why his presence had been requested.
“It is something I hacked into,” she said in a monotone voice while looking vacuously at a bare wall. She then continued, “And I wish to discuss it with someone.”
Hacking was a serious offence and Lance pondered what to say. In the end, his natural curiosity won out and he nervously enquired about what she had found.
“I will send the file through to your exoset”.
Lanced accessed the file and then played it. He was startled. Before him in a 3-D holograph, there were two naked middle aged bodies, in a capsule rocking back and forth against each other.
After just few seconds, he stopped the program.
“Where did you get this?” he asked incredulously.
She replied that she had hacked into the main public server and had found many other similar occurrences. It was the ancient form of human reproduction and seemed to be a pleasurable experience.
“And why did you show this to me?”
“Because I thought we could try to do it”, she said in the same monotone voice, except this time looking straight into Lance’s eyes.
Lance could feel his heart pounding and knew he was breaking out into a cold sweat. His mouth seemed to be jammed closed and he could feel himself trembling.
Unsure what to do, he panicked and did an instant transport back to his own cell.
After a while he could feel himself returning to normal. He went over what happened again and again in his mind. He felt himself getting aroused thinking about the naked woman he had seen and wondered would Zoe 452 really have gone through with it. Would he have been able to go through with it?
For hours these thoughts ran continuously through his mind. He resolved that he would learn more about this ancient form of human reproduction and seize the next opportunity if one ever arose.
In order to get his mind off what had happened he decided to return to reading about Malthus` exploits.
Mark's Writing Corner 