Tales of the Vuduri_Year Five

by Michael Brachman

  “If you were connected to MASAL right at the end then you know the truth,” Rome said resolutely. “Even if you were to achieve godhood, you would be all alone. You would be rejected by the community of gods because of the vile method by which you achieved it. You were never organic. In fact, you are only an echo of a construct, a robot. You have no business ascending to a place where only life belongs.”

  The Sipre did not answer. Instead, he grew even larger. In the ethereal world, more lightning flashed across his cloak, swirling around the area of his head. “That is the goal of all life!”

  “But you are not alive,” Rome said. “You only think you are. You are nothing but a shadow of a computer. The people here are the ones who should decide their fate.”

  Rei was about to speak when he felt a presence behind him. He turned his earthly body around and saw Bonnie coming toward him. In the ethereal world, a yellow, rippling spirit was emerging. Clearly she had injected herself with MASAL’s prosthetic PPT transceivers. Her earthly body smiled and nodded at Rei. In the ethereal world, she glanced up and could see the figure of the Sipre looming before her. She looked past it. She held out her arms and her yellow spirit formed tendrils pointing upward.

  “My babies,” her spirit whispered longingly.

  Suddenly, so many tiny black wisps rushed forward. In the real world, Rei saw children, some small, some large running toward them. “Mommy,” said some. “Mea,” said others. In the ethereal world, Rei saw the yellow spirit reach forward to embrace them. The tiny black spirits gathered around her and as they touched her, they changed from black to yellow. Rei could feel the love radiating back and forth. It warmed his earthly body and his spirit to bask in the glow of such affection.

  “I will not allow this,” cried out the Sipre as it grew ever larger, threatening to fill the ethereal sky. The stranger drew his titanic arms downward so quickly, he formed an ethereal gale. The spiritual wind pushed Rome back momentarily but then she recovered. She launched into action. She expanded her red spirit, trying to approximate the size of the Sipre and somehow corral it. She reached for him but even the slightest touch was toxic. Wherever Rome’s tendrils touched the black flame of the Sipre, it invaded her inner self, changing each red strand to black, like a cancer invading a body. The last time she had defeated an Overmind, it was with logic and strategic withdrawal. Neither of those methods would work here. This battle dictated brute force.

  To the casual observer, you would never know a titanic battle was taking place. But Rome was putting her psychic life on the line. Let's see who is stronger.

  Entry 5-326: November 22, 2017

  Rei's Impossible Choice

  Yesterday, Rome was expanding her spirit, trying to corral the berserk MASAL's Sipre or shadow. How a single person's will could take on the accumulated power of an entire people seemed fairly aggressive. Merely touching the Sipre's spirit was toxic. Rome's red ethereal presence turned to black each time there was contact. Let's see if Rome can take the Sipre down:

  Rome retaliated with renewed vigor. In the real world, her body grunted with effort. She was able to drive it back some but not enough. She pushed with all of her spiritual might. The Sipre resisted. Almost immediately, her strength began to waver.

  Seeing this, Rei entered the fray. In the ethereal world, he reached out with his blue spirit and intertwined his tendrils with those of his wife. It was a supremely intimate act and Rei knew only two souls whose bond was as deep as theirs would be capable of such an action. For anyone else, it would have been treated as an assault. Where the blue and red met, the color changed to a rich violet shade. It was the color of their love. As his spirit comingled with hers, he could feel the Sipre trying to draw Rome in, to take over her mind. He realized her years of being in the Overmind had betrayed her. Her will was losing its grip. Her real world body screamed out in pain.

  “You leave her alone!” Rei shouted out loud. His anger extended to his ethereal self, growing it ever wider until it matched then exceeded the size of the Sipre. It wrapped around the evil one until it encased the Sipre as if Rei was using a net. Contact with the Sipre meant nothing to him. He was immune to its poisonous presence.

  Rei’s blue tendrils contracted and quickly compressed the spirit of the Sipre into the palm of his other-worldly self. In the real world, he could see his hands grasping Rome’s. In the ethereal world, the thrashing, twisting black spirit tried to escape but was unable to. It was slippery but Rei was up to the task.

  “Enough!” announced a real voice. Rei looked up and saw Sussen coming toward them, a plasma gun grasped in her hand. In the ethereal world, her spirit was emerald green, snaking toward them. It rippled and flashed with green sparkles.

  “No!” Reema shouted, moving forward. “Sussen, stay where you are. The Sipre must be stopped.”

  “I am sorry, Ombare. I follow orders. They need to be killed. Now!” Sussen raised her hand, taking dead aim at Rei’s chest.

  Rei was left in an impossible position. If he let go, the Sipre would escape and envelop his wife and take her away forever. If he did not, Sussen would shoot him. His spirit felt strong. Maybe it was tied into his soul. He thought to himself that if his body died, his spirit could still save Rome. He wrapped his physical arms around her to shield her and awaited the deadly blow.

  This is not the first time that Rei knew he was going to die. But he had made up his mind that his spirit would conquer the Sipre even if his body could not

  Entry 5-327: November 23, 2017

  Reema's End

  Yesterday, Rome was not quite up to the challenge of defeating MASAL's Sipre so Rei's blue spirit entered the fray. As an Essessoni, he was entirely up to the task. Unfortunately, Sussen was there with a plasma blaster. Rei couldn't let go of the Sipre because then he would lose Rome. He couldn't defend himself which meant he was going to die. His only hope was that his spirit, his soul, would live on and keep the Sipre down:

  Just as Sussen squeezed the trigger, Reema leaped in front of the blast and a good portion of her left side disappeared. Her body crumpled to the ground. Looking up, in the ethereal world, Rei could see her orange spirit flare up with pain then start to grow dim.

  “Ombare!” Sussen cried out and lowered her hand, just for a second.

  Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. With his earthly eyes, Rei looked and saw that Bonnie was holding the Beretta. She had shot Sussen in the forehead. Bonnie calmly squeezed the trigger again then yet again, shooting Sussen twice in the chest. The bullets pushed Sussen’s body backwards. In the ethereal world, Sussen’s blazing green spirit withered and quickly disappeared, even as her earthly body toppled over.

  The sinister battle with the Sipre prevented Rei from taking the time to consider what had just happened. He focused all of his attention to the ethereal world. The Sipre was still struggling but growing weaker. A glittery shape caught Rei’s attention to the left. It was the tiny pink spark hovering nearby. Feeling no ill intent, he ignored it and pressed harder, trying to ease the gnawing pressure on Rome’s soul. By will alone, he slowly extricated her and repelled the Sipre. He would not allow it to damage Rome any further. The points of contact grew fewer and fewer until finally the Sipre succumbed.

  It released its hold on Rome altogether. In the real world, Rei could see his wife panting, drained of all color. In the ethereal world, his spirit caressed hers and Rome grew stronger. In the metaphysics of this strange realm, Rome was actually drawing upon Rei’s strength. It wasn’t long until she seemed healthy and whole again. Once she had recovered, Rei was tempted to let go but he dare not. He knew that as soon as he did that, Rome would be in mortal danger again.

  Suddenly, Reema spoke up. With her dying words, the Onsira leader addressed the ethereal mass of spirits. “All of you listen,” she said. Her spiritual voice was growing weaker by the second. “MASAL never cared for us. He only cared for himself. But in the end, he recanted. He wanted us to live our own lives. The Sipre is just the distilled form of M
ASAL’s prior selfish interest. It wants what it wants and would leave us behind. We are just its eyes and fingers. We mean nothing to it. But no more. It is not fit to be in charge of our samanda. You must build your own.”

  With that, her spirit dimmed and disappeared, extinguished as the life force drained from her body for good.

  Sussen is dead. Good. Reema is dead. Not so good. Rei has the Sipre captured. This is good. But he can't let go. Not so good. How will it end?

  Entry 5-328: November 24, 2017

  The Sipre's End

  Yesterday, Sussen had tried to kill Rome but she killed Reema, her leader, instead. Bonnie Mullen took the opportunity to shoot her dead with Jack Henry's ancient Beretta. Rei had the Sipre capture and had save Rome but he dare not let go. Quite the dilemma:

  The Sipre wriggled and pushed and clawed. Only Rei’s strength was keeping in check. He realized it was because he was Essessoni he could do this. No Vuduri could survive the full venom and seething spirit of the Sipre trying to absorb them, to envelop them. They just weren’t built for it.

  “As soon as you leave, I will rise again,” the Sipre hissed to Rome. In her heart and her soul, she knew it was true.

  In the real world, Rome turned to Rei. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “We cannot let go,” she whispered. “If we do, the Sipre will ascend again. We will never be safe if it escapes.”

  “I can hold it myself,” Rei said forcefully. “It can’t beat me. You can let go. I’ll stay here. You go home. I’ll make sure you and Aason are safe forever.”

  “No,” Rome said. “I can’t leave you to such a fate. I love you too much. I’ll stay. You go.”

  “Romey,” Rei said gently, grasping her hands firmly, shaking them so that she listened to him. “You cannot. You’re Vuduri. It will take you down. Only an Essessoni can stand up to what it represents.”

  “But I can’t leave you,” Rome wailed.

  “You must,” Rei insisted. “You must go back to Deucado and raise our child.”

  Bonnie’s bright yellow spirit drifted over, placing her tendrils around Rei and Rome’s. The entire time, the little black spirits continued to stream to her, changing to yellow upon contact. Bonnie’s glowing presence grew larger and larger. She deftly inserted her tendrils beneath Rei’s. With an easy strength, she collapsed the Sipre into a tiny ball as if it was swallowed up whole.

  “You both go home and raise your child,” she said proudly. “I’ll stay here. I can handle this.”

  Rei probed her spirit. Her resolve was absolute and growing stronger by the second. There was almost no evidence that the Sipre ever existed, even though he knew it was there. Tentatively, Rei removed his hands and his tendrils. The Sipre did not reappear.

  “Rome, let go,” Rei said. Reluctantly, she let go in the ethereal world. She, too, could barely detect the Sipre’s presence as it continued to shrink away toward nothingness.

  In the real world, Rei turned to Bonnie and looked into her eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Rei asked. “You’d be stuck here forever.”

  “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life,” Bonnie said, her earthly body smiling beatifically. “And I won’t be stuck,” In the ethereal world, joined by her little flames, her yellow spirit blazed even brighter, almost blinding in its intensity. “This is where I want to be. With my babies. After 14 centuries, I’m finally home.”

  It was enough for Rome. In the ethereal world, Rome’s red spirit and the tiny pink spark withdrew as she shut down her PPT connection. Rei shut down his connection as well. He looked at their surroundings. All of the Onsiras around them were nodding and smiling. It was a sight to behold.

  The Rome’s Revolution series has always been about redemption. Here we find Bonnie Mullen completely absolving her former existence by saving the Onsiras from the Sipre and putting them back on the path to humanity. The Onsira threat was now over. Sounds good to me.

  Entry 5-329: November 25, 2017

  The 80/20 Rule

  Everybody has heard of the 80/20 rule. That is, 80% of situations are covered by 20% of resources available. The other 80% of resources are used to cover just 20% of circumstances. What is the basis of this rule and why do I bring it up? It all has to do with the statistical chart representing the normal or more formally the Gaussian distribution of possibilities aka the Bell Curve. Here is the formal definition as defined by Wikipedia:

  In probability theory, the normal (or Gaussian) distribution is a very common continuous probability distribution. Normal distributions are important in statistics and are often used in the natural and social sciences to represent real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known. A random variable with a Gaussian distribution is said to be normally distributed and is called a normal deviate.

  The Bell Curve or Gaussian distribution looks like this:

  The reason it is called the normal distribution is because when you measure normal processes, this is normally how they lay out. And if you take enough of the curve of to account for 80% of the possibilities, you still have 20% of the remaining height to cover everything else.

  Think about flipping a coin. You'd say it was 50/50 whether it is heads or tails. But that isn't true. I saw on Wikipedia that an ordinary nickel has a 1 in 6000 chance of landing on the edge. Life is that way. When things happen, mostly they happen a certain way but sometimes they happen a different way. But if you plan for the most common occurrences and devote the majority of your resources to cover those, you won't be using the lion's share of your resources.

  So why do I bring this up? Tomorrow, I am going to write about the 20/80 rule which is all about the outliers. That is the only reason I can write science fiction is because I go beyond the "norm" to write about things that we don't encounter very often. And on Monday, you get the payoff which is about Tesla's new semi which exploits the 80/20 rule to a tee.

  So come back tomorrow and we'll talk about oddities.

  Entry 5-330: November 26, 2017

  The 20/80 Rule

  Yesterday, I was discussing the 80/20 rule. I referenced the normal distribution or Gaussian distribution or you may know it as the Bell Curve. But that just says that 20% of your resources handles 80% of the cases. However, as a science fiction writer, I am actually more interested in the 20/80 rule, that is, things outside the norm. I am talking about the space beyond the red portion:

  When I first started writing the Rome’s Revolution series, I spent an incredible amount of time making sure that everything I wrote was totally realistic and totally believable, sometimes to the detriment of the plot. In other words, it fit within the norm. However, many of the wilder things that I put in there, things that I thought people would balk at, didn't even register a blip on people's radar. I guess that's a good thing. However, it did embolden me to take things farther out from the center of the bell-shaped curve the next time.

  When I decided to write The Ark Lords, I started putting in stuff that was patently absurd, like placing a space beacon on the far side of the Moon or having Rei captured to be a sex slave. But once again, nobody balked at that. They just let it slide in the context of the story. So when I wrote Rome’s Evolution, I had no fear. I turned Rome into a telepath. I made MINIMCOM the world's greatest surgeon. I had a man stab Rei right in the chest and have it pass through, cutting off his hand. I made Rome a far off descendant of Jack Henry. I even have Rome spent time chatting with the Overmind of Earth. Nobody raised a stink.

  When the time came to write The Milk Run, I went all in. I wrote about Heaven and God and the soul and the meaning of life. I even turned Rome and Rei into immortal beings so I could continue on with their story forever, so should I choose. People seemed to like this. Nobody said, hey, that's stupid and beyond the boundaries of the norm.

  So I'll keep pushing the limits of the Gaussian curve, going farther and farther out until somebody, anybody tells me I went too far. In the immortal words of OMCOM, to six deltas and beyond!


  Entry 5-331: November 27, 2017

  Tesla's New Truck Part 1

  Two days ago, I was discussing the 80/20 rule. I referenced the normal distribution or Gaussian distribution or you may know it as the Bell Curve. Yesterday, I flipped it around and talked about the 20/80 rule with regard to writing science fiction. But today I want to go back to a potentially revolutionary invention, created by Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors called the Tesla Semi. In the most simplistic terms, it is an all-electric version of an 18-wheeler or semi. First, you need to see a picture of this new vehicle to see how cool it looks:

  There are so many elements to cover in understanding what a groundbreaking achievement this truck represents that I will have to split this article up into two pieces. Today, I will just tell you about this vehicle and tomorrow I will tell you how the 80/20 rule applies.