by J. A. Hailey
The two lovely teachers became aware that they were under observation, and looked back through the virtuality window, to immediately begin sobbing.
“What’s wrong. Somebody tell me what’s wrong,” urged Esmeralda, impatiently. “Screenside is not a place of tears.”
“Oh, miss Esmeralda,” revealed Twixie. “Those two teachers are always sitting with these two humans on lawns, and walking arm in arm through gardens and fields. They also often go on rowboat ventures on the river. But nobody’s caught them kissing as yet.”
“Love affair?” asked Esmeralda, brightly. “Virtuals and humans? Wow! You guys having a good time or not? Then, why is everyone so depressed? Need counseling?”
“No, miss Esmeralda,” said one of the two teachers. “We are nowhere near considering intimate love affairs between us and these two humans. But they are with you, and they can tell you why.”
The two teachers now started crying in earnest, and began trying to console each other. Esmeralda turned to Sagan and Gales. “Tell me the problem. These two are more beautiful than anyone you can possibly find in humanside. And the subject they are teaching shows them to be more lovely than anything you can find anywhere in the human world.”
Gales’ voice broke as he answered. “Esme, we know what you screenside girls are like. You have only one man in your life - every one of you. I don’t know whether it is a virtue or a defect, but I think you might need to introduce some programs that encourage females to go for another man, if something goes wrong.”
“Nothing goes wrong between virtual partners. Our men are too smart to do anything to annoy us. And since we’ll all be there all the time, how can partner change be desirable?”
“We won’t, Esme,” was Gales’ dejected response. “One hundred years after we die as physical humans, we will be wiped out in screenside also. It’s the law, and we’ve agreed it. Neither one of us is prepared to inflict such terrible punishment on these girls, whom we absolutely love and adore. We have an agreement, by which we will be friends, and, because of the gender difference, we may sometimes walk arm in arm, but it is all forced and Platonic, because agreed in advance, with no progression to ever occur.”
“Oh God,” wailed one of the two teachers. “I’ll visit your grave every day, Mike.”
“What utter rubbish,” said Esmeralda, indignantly. “That law was made before we knew how deeply we would be involved with the humans who would enter, and how far they would be involved with us in changing the world together. Don’t worry, Claudette, and don’t you worry at all, Daphne. That law, or rule, was very poorly thought through, and it was never intended to exterminate humans who have been our partners and friends, and who have been instrumental in helping us make screenside and humanside much better places.
“It is nonsense. You go ahead and have fun, and kiss or make love. You can even exit to humanside as partners, like we are all doing.
“And, guys, don’t live under the threat of being decoded after one hundred years, or any number of years. It won’t happen.”
Twixie was delighted. So, are you revoking the law, Miss Esmeralda? I am instantly putting up a bulletin on the HC board. I don’t know if I’m allowed at all, but I will put it up as an advisory, rather than as a law. Here it is.
23
Bulletin: ADVISORY
REVOCATION OF MURDER OF NONBORNS LAW
Miss Esmeralda has just now revoked the law by which every nonborn is to be murdered at the end of one hundred years after death in humanside.
She has decided that this law inflicts unnecessary pain on the humans inducted as nonborns, and on anyone from our world who begins to want to be with them.
In fact, such a situation has already arisen.
According to Miss Esmeralda, there is to be no large-scale induction of nonborns, as only the most worthy are ever to be considered. Michael Gales and Patrick Sagan have joined us in changing the world, and we are certainly never going to execute them by some form of violence upon the person, including murder by decoding. She has changed the law, to let them live for as long as they can live inside screenside.
We are not torturers or murderers.
I have announced this Revocation as an Advisory, because I am not allowed to actually place a law on the bulletin board.
Obviously, this may need voting upon, and I am also not allowed to conduct a vote. However, at the bottom of this page I have attached thousands of blank pages.
Those who think that Miss Esmeralda has no right to change this law, and think that it is more desirable for us to commit murder after one hundred years, should immediately post a large NO, along with their names, which will, anyway, be automatically acquired by the page.
Otherwise, you may indicate that Miss Esmeralda is right, and sign in with a YES.
Seniors, lawmakers, and HC Admin might use the response this Advisory generates, to change the law. It is possible that Miss Esmeralda’s revocation is overruled as illegal, which is certainly going to be the case if the majority of screenside thinks that murder of nonborns, and their blood on our hands, is desirable.
24
Absolutely zero NO posts came in, causing the two humans to confer hopefully, when alone.
“She’s very powerful on her own, besides being BC’s partner,” said Sagan. “With a virtual girlfriend and intimate partner, I could do without Abraham’s treacherous and murderous group. Live in paradise, read screenside, with a virtual girl? Impossible to beat.
“And exit to live a human life as a helper of the needy, from time to time. What could be better?”
“Yes,” agreed Gales. “Just imagine life with a virtual girl, whose every casual physical contact is like receiving a jolt of electricity, and who is clever beyond belief. It’s going to be life in paradise, with an unthinkably beautiful angel. Who needs to be a pedophile with the Arabian sinners?”
In the human world, they had another trip scheduled with Grietzmann, again to the remote desert palace.
“Should we bother?” asked Gales.
“Farewell round; why not?” sniggered Sagan.
So, with intent to just let it slowly and naturally wind down of itself, the two plotters did make what was intended to be their final trip to Arabia.
“What the fuck do we care?” said Gales, offhandedly. “No need to suck up to them, or plan life with their wealth. We’re already immortal in screenside, and it’s a world that’s totally got it all figured out.”
They said nothing of the new matter to Grietzmann, as they flew to Arabia in the private jumbo. “He’s not getting in,” said Gales. “Let him sleep on. And his basic plan is to take the two bastards for a ten billion dollar ride. I’m ready to help.”
“Sure,” agreed Sagan. “Abe’s been our friend all these years, not those Arab pedos. Let him get the money, and then he can handle them alone, while we integrate into screenside.”
“Think Daphne and Claudette will have us? It’ll be ten times better with a partner in screenside.”
“Someone to go home to. Absolutely better. They might accept us as boyfriends, when the blocks are removed by Esme’s revocation.”
“Such beautiful people,” said Gales, wistfully. “And what a world!”
“Can’t tell the difference between the two, Mike. If I have a partner in there, who needs this shit? Better to integrate, become like them as much as we can. Such happiness.”
And yet, it was not to be. After landing and transferring to a small jet, to go to the palace itself, they found a new bulletin on their phones.
25
Bulletin: ADVISORY
NON-LEGALITY OF Miss Amanda Bell’s Advisory
Screenside is hereby advised to disregard the Bulletin issued by Amanda Bell, a.k.a. Twixie, under the heading:
REVOCATION OF MURDER OF NONBORNS LAW
As she is a child, no action shall be taken against her, although placement of uninformed and unauthorized bulletins on the
HC board is not allowed, as those bulletins cause confusion.
Miss Esmeralda will be the first to acknowledge that she is not a dictator in screenside, and that her pronouncements do not become laws.
Laws are made and issued by the Lawmaker Group, of which Miss Esmeralda is a member.
In any case, the public is advised to not view the eventual termination of inducted humans as murder.
It is a planned and agreed termination of digital life, and while some may feel sorrow at the fact, it is nevertheless policy, and will remain so.
THERE IS NO REVOCATION.
26
While the absence of mobile signals in the area of the King’s remote palace was certainly a hindrance to the virtual world’s typical information updating system, it did not mean that screenside was altogether without knowledge of its interior layout and of some of the routines followed within its walls, because, prior to installation of the supercomputer, the King, members of the royal family, and concubines, had had access to the Internet through satellite systems. Less important people, dependent on normal tower-based mobile signals, were naturally out, as no towers were within range.
Beyond this kind of general information, screenside’s global movement tracking ability meant that the physical location, if not the physical condition, of any person of interest was always known.
The seniors’ group had taken on the dangerous task of penetrating the palace, to uncover what was going on, although all screenside was aware that a violent physical assault on some target in humanside was in the offing.
Convinced that the very best way to enter the palace, and to stay inside undetected for a useful period of time, would be in the guise of servants, the planning was focused entirely on getting inside in that manner. Looks did not matter, as the King’s palaces had servants from all over the world, including from many Eastern European countries, and some were rather lovely looking girls and good-looking young men, so Sabine and Louis would be able to easily fit in.
“It’s the strut that is the problem,” said Esmeralda, speaking aloud for Louis to hear, keeping him informed, now that every plan meant danger to both humans, because every action would be conducted together, as a team of four in two bodies – two humans hosting two virtuals.
“Legs, bum, boobs, can all disappear under the standard sexless uniforms worn in those palaces, but no servant walks like this girl walks.”
“Quite the opposite,” agreed Maria. “It’s the sexiest walk of any girl on earth, Esme, and you are responsible for training her to walk like that. When are you taking up the Paris Model Agency’s offer, to teach their models how to walk?”
“Shut up, Sabine,” snapped Esmeralda. “Maria, I’m going to first have to teach her to un-walk,” she laughed. “Oh, what, Sabine? Partial looping out will not make you mad? You don’t want to lose the walk? Okay, I can selectively take over the walk, instead of retraining you and getting it out of your system. Happy with that proposal? Great.
“You and I must go to a high-density camera area, the Eiffel Tower, maybe, so that I can see us walking, and fine tune and make adjustments to a new walk program that I will install and use. We also have to import a little slouch and some servility into our system. Can’t be hotter than the princesses and tarts; they’ll freak out, and I might need to start shooting them dead just to keep their mouths shut.”
“Getting in is the key,” said BC. “Once inside, it will be taken for granted that we have been vetted. Provided we behave like servants, and don’t strut around, we can have our guns on us, and probably move freely through all areas of the palace, if also looking like busy servants, with trays and cleaning things in our hands. Somehow, we must get in, and that would be best done if some senior security person puts us through the system and past the checks.”
“I say we go for the colonel, and get Caesar into him,” said Rosa. “Priya, please update BC and Esme.”
“We girls have been checking and planning. Step one will have to be the girlfriend,” said Priya.”Can be done.”
After installation of the supercomputer, a few new routines had been introduced to enhance safety, and to somehow increase the isolation that the palace was already in. But the remote location of the palace did not in any way prevent the King and his entourage enjoying absolutely fresh food items.
As with all palaces in the kingdom, there were many layers of security, completely insulated from each other, to prevent coordination between potential plotters. Whereas the entire area around every palace, extending in a radius of many miles around it, was guarded by the area police force, with any slipup resulting in instant death of commanders responsible, the closer rings, within sight of palace walls, were manned by Army personnel, with the main focus being on prevention of coordinated attacks by terrorist groups, and on stopping lone-wolf suicide bombers getting through.
Thereafter, inside palace grounds, starting at the palace gates but ending at the entry points of the palace building, the control of access into the palace itself was handled by a special, dedicated, armed and uniformed force of men and women.
Its job was to physically verify that anyone entering was authorized to do so, and, totally ignoring station in life, to also run stringent and very intrusive ID confirmation procedures and body checks on them, and on unaccompanied physical items, including foodstuff and toiletry items, being moved into the palace.
The virtuals simply had to get unobtrusively through this doorway check, to have any chance of finding a bit of time for investigation within the palace.
“Shooting our way in is possible,” said BC. “But useless, as it will give us hardly any time inside, and it is senseless to kill humans, when we know from the outset that there would be no purpose served.”
As with all the King’s palaces, this remote one also had an airstrip just outside its walls, an airstrip exclusively for a couple of small passenger jets, in which the King and other high gentry flew to the bigger cities. For fear of terrorist strikes, there was an extensive no-fly zone around any palace the King himself was in.
For this excessively remote palace, fresh food items were flown from big cities to the little airport at a small town called Al Abyad, an otherwise unimportant town, about 500 miles away. As the aircraft for those jobs would not be coming in any closer than the Al Abyad airport itself, there were no restrictions on which planes could be used in the first leg, beyond the usual paranoid restrictions in force throughout the country.
Bringing fresh food items in, from the Al Abyad airport to the palace, was the work of another aircraft, a small propeller one, parked outside the palace walls, on the same airstrip as the jets.
This operation was very strictly controlled, and was restricted to being conducted personally by a trio of three equally senior officers of the innermost security ring, the one controlling entry into the palace.
Colonel Abood Dawah was one such senior officer, a citizen of the kingdom, and a subject of the King.
Like all senior officers, who were generally selected on merits other than military ability or training, Colonel Dawah had been given his position because of the tribe he came from - one with blood links to the King’s family - and thus privileged to enjoy some tiny share of the extraordinary wealth of the royal family, besides being also counted sufficiently loyal to be entrusted with close-quarters physical security of the royal personage.
Although the King only knew him by sight, and he was never going to get any closer to His Highness, he was extremely well-paid, like others with similar duties around the kingdom, and despite the fact that the King would not have ever personally looked into such minor matters, officers like Colonel Dawah actually did enjoy a lot of privileges.
He was a married man, with children, and, like most men in Arabia, he was a controller who kept his main wife in his hometown, in the house where his parents lived. As his children had not yet matured to an age where they would be able to leave the immediate family environmen
t, his entire family unit lived under the despotic rule of his cantankerous old mother.
As an owner of bits of property here and there, and small businesses that he sponsored for foreigners to run, he had sufficient money to live life twice.
And thus it was that he maintained an apartment in the big city of Dhamman, in which he kept a young and very pretty Syrian second wife. Al Abyad was halfway between the palace and Dhamman, and he was a one-third owner, with the other two colonels, of a cunning system by which she was able to drive over to be with him on most of the trips he made to Al Abyad - for the equivalent of a dirty few hours of a dirty weekend.
As there were no restrictions on mobile signals in Al Abyad, the virtuals had been able to follow the colonel’s activities - and had thus found a loophole to enter the palace.
It was a relatively complex plan, and it began with the young Syrian wife.
Caesar’s girlfriend, Rosa, became part of her friends’ circle on social media, in the guise of a Syrian woman of similar background – also purportedly living in the kingdom, and also the second wife of an unspecified officer in the Military Forces.
Arming herself with knowledge gained from extensive online background checks on the girl, Rosa had been able to create reference points from an earlier stage in life.
Rosa had had to be careful to construct a scenario in which, when they finally did meet, the clear difference in age would be naturally explained.
Thus, when the two were supposedly in the same school in Damascus, they also lived in the same neighborhood in a congested part of that city, and their mothers were very close friends.
