1

Humanity Rising: A Warning

This story will not fit into one of the boxes provided to us.

Although technically, it is fiction, consider that it may all be true.

Sacred cows will be slaughtered.

The alternative is eternal banality.

This story is so healthy for everyone: black/white, male/female, gay/straight, etc. … that the powers who play us against each other, and who maintain the illusion of legitimacy, will manufacture haters by misrepresenting it … and its author.

Humanity Rising: Preface

I did not write this story. It was gifted to me by a beautiful stranger who identified herself only as Pina. She said that she wrote what she had observed.

I would have assumed this was all some kind of New World Order psyop … except … it is entirely healthy; whereas, everything the NWO does is either outright unhealthy, or contains a poison pill.

Pina said that the story is real, and I believe her, but not because she gave me hours of video to substantiate her story. (We have all seen movies full of special effects.) I believe her because we made love again and again, which she also gave me on video, but alas, all of the video is gone, and only the story remains.

Dark forces are at work in our universe, and the antidote is for humanity to once again embrace its soul. The antidote is love—the complete love that comes from passion, courage, curiosity, responsibility, integrity, honesty, tolerance, peace, progress, independent thought, nobility, and freedom—the Soul of Humanity.

The Soul Of Humanity is the peak of human evolution; whereas, the peak of animal evolution is conformity, dominance hierarchy, and tribalism—the Soul Of Animals—hence the eternal war inside each of us—for we came from animals.

The eternal war is not a war of factions. Inside each of us, the Soul Of Animals is trying desperately to exterminate the Soul Of Humanity, and it tries to compel us to exterminate the Soul Of Humanity in others too.

The collectivist purges of the 20^th century were a direct attempt by those in whom the genes for the Soul Of Animals was stronger to try to kill or otherwise neutralize the genes of those in whom the Soul Of Humanity was stronger. More than 100 million were neutralized.

The extent to which we each fail to champion the Soul Of Humanity in ourselves, and in others, is the extent to which we are each soul sick, but redemption is always at hand.

Even one who has always given in to the Soul Of Animals can still triumph in the end, and not only can one triumph, but sometimes one can leave a legacy that strengthens the Soul Of Humanity in others—even for millennia. A final act of love can be enough to change the course of history.

Real love describes real people. It is the same for everyone. It describes what every little boy wants to be when he grows up, and in the end, what every man wishes he had been.

We must always see in everyone the person they really want to be. Always think to yourself, “The light in me is allied with the light in you.”

Salvation will come from resurrecting the kind of love that compels us to leave the universe better than if we had never existed.

This is how the heroes of Pina’s story pierced the illusion of legitimacy and saved humanity.

Humanity Rising: Prerequisite

If you aren’t very familiar with the following songs, then the next thing you need to do is listen to them:

“Magic” by Olivia Newton John

“I’ll Be There” by The Jackson 5

“Pride” by U2

Humanity Rising: Chapter 1 – He’s DEAD Jeb!

“Nipple! Nipple!”

“Dammit Jeb!”

“Sorry Brock, I started to nod off. You know I have Tourettes. That’s one of the reasons they make us work in this lab away from everyone else.”

The boys had no idea the lengths to which their employer had gone to keep them out of trouble in order to win prizes for their work, which was because this pair of twenty-five-year-olds was more innovative than the rest of the employees combined.

To be fair, the other employees were suffering to an even greater degree from their lifetime of indoctrination, environmental toxins, and pharmaceutical regimens. The degree of atrophy and arrested development was so common throughout society that to ask about it would have been like one fish in the ocean asking another one, “How’s the water?”

Jeb and Brock were so non-conformist that they refused all the recommended pharmaceuticals and ate pretty much the opposite of the government recommended diet, and yet, they were somehow much stronger and healthier than other men their age.

They worked out extensively in spite of the ongoing campaign to paint muscles on men as “rape muscles”. They even discovered that had both taken martial arts classes for years (back when it was legal), and they frequently sparred with each other in secret.

The company tried separating them twice, but each time, they both languished; whereas, the current solution worked pretty well. They weren’t allowed anywhere in the building outside their lab except under very limited conditions, and only the most mature and stable employees were allowed to enter the lab, and even then, not without a damn good reason. The boys even had their own private entrance so that they would not have to interact with other employees.

The boys thought this was a pretty sweet deal, and that they worked for a pretty cool company. They had no idea about the grim fate of those less talented employees who also failed to conform.

Their coworkers with PhD’s were jealous that they could not compete with two boys who had refused to attend university and who had been mostly home schooled … before homeschooling was outlawed.

“Bullshit, Jeb. You do not have Tourettes.”

“Well, I’ve got something. At least I didn’t say the other word this time, and offend my virile, yet submissive, black man.”

“I’m neither as virile, nor as submissive, as you are.”

They both cringed, and laughed. Then Jeb blurted out:

“Can we stop now? You’ve got to see this. The results from my tests last night strongly imply that my theory may be true.”

“Which one? You’ve got about a thousand theories. Oh wait. Is this that time-travel alternate-reality thing again? That’s double bullshit. There is no fucking way to travel in time.”

“No. It’s not literally time travel. I’ve explained this before.”

“Let me see. Yeah … that’s what I thought. Correlation does not prove causation.”

“Sure, but such high correlation means high probability, and look how this test proves that the accepted paradigm was not a factor this time.”

“Wait … fuuuuck …”

“I know! Right? Gi-G-! … caught myself that time. My brain is racing.”

Brock! I’ll bet together we would only need about three months to build a device that could apply the protocols to our universe!”

Although every bit as smart as Jeb, Brock knew that it was really Jeb who had a certain spark for outside-the-box thinking that seemed to no longer exist in the modern world.

Jeb’s theory was coming back to Brock now, and all he could say was, “fuuuuck …”

They were lost in thought for a few minutes, and then Jeb said, “Wait … these labs are monitored. What if someone … Do you hear that humming?”

“Jeb!”

“Brock, why are you shout whispering?”

“Look at the monitor! Be quiet! That creepy little dude will hear us!”

“Uh … I think that’s an …”

“Aaaliennnn …”, they both said simultaneously.

“Jeb, how does it not know we can see it? No! Stay away from the door! Jeb!”

It opened the door with gun drawn before Jeb could get in place, but Jeb instinctively grabbed its gun wrist while flicking open his highly illegal spring assisted pocket knife and jabbing its heavy black Teflon coated 3.75 inch blade into its neck three times fast, and then front kicked it in the chest as hard as he could—bouncing it off the door frame and into the floor.

Brock had lunged to Jeb’s aid and pinned its gun wrist down with his foot while Jeb stabbed it in the neck, and chest dozens of times.

“He’s … dead … Jeb.”

Then Brock noticed that the stainless steel water bottle next to his lab stool had dissolved silently during the struggle.

“Jeb, I think that was his gun going off during the fight. It doesn’t make any sound.”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 2 – The Second Humming

Jeb picked up the gun in awe. He hadn’t held a gun since the Lean Forward Program had disarmed the people …

They said together, “That’s so cool.”

Then they noticed a hole had appeared in the ceiling, and as Jeb tried to carefully lay it down, a hole appeared in the floor, and he blurted:

“I was about to shove that thing in my pants!”

Brock winced.

“Brock! There’s that humming out in the hall again!”

They didn’t want to see who was arriving this time. In seconds they were out through the somewhat hidden escape route they had prepared in the event of domestic terrorists. Although they had never known anyone who had been a victim of domestic terrorism, everyone knew it was a big problem and a constant threat.

They zigzagged for eight blocks before they slowed to a walk, which was necessary because everyone knew that only guilty people run in public, but somehow, they had not been stopped.

“Brock, we should go to the police. See something—Say something?”

“No. My instincts tell me that is not a good idea.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right. We could go to Homeland Security, but if we know aliens exist, then they know aliens exist … and this happened anyway … and we handled it ourselves.”

Then Jeb stared off into space and added, “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away … My dad used to say that …”

Brock blurted, “That’s right! We are bad asses! We are alien butt kicking bad asses!”

This was yet another opportunity for them to sing the Team America theme song—customized for yet another occasion. They began with slow reverence:

“Hu … ma … ni … ty … eee … yeah …”

“Hu … MA … ni … ty … eee … yeah …”

Then they really kicked it in:

“HuMAniTYeee! Fuck Yeah!”

“We’re coming to save”

“The mother-fucking day now!”

“HuMAniTYeee! Fuck Yeah!”

“Freedom is the only way now.”

“Aliens your game is through”

“Because you have to answer to”

“HuMAniTYeee! Fuck Yeah!”

“Wait! … Brock! Stop!”

Some people were staring daggers at them.

“What? It’s only illegal if we had said, America.”

“Ssh. People may figure out that you have Team America on disc.”

“What? Owning Team America on disc is not illegal if the disc was manufactured before the Lean Forward Program; whereas, your pocket knife would get you three years.”

Although pocket knives were a one-year sentence, blades longer than 3 inches were an extra two months per quarter-inch. The spring assist, the black blade, and the Teflon coating were another 6 months each.

There had been a televised Congressional hearing in which a black actress from the intelligence community played the role of a poor inner city woman, Peggy, who cried to the nation on TV about how her (non-existent) son was killed by a such a knife, and she wailed that “Maybe he wouldn’t have died if only professionals could carry such knives.” She cried about how, “The black blade brought out the toxic masculinity in the (non-existent) perpetrator.” Then she cried about how her son, “might have had a chance if the Teflon coating hadn’t enabled the perpetrator to stab so fast … “, and then, before she could finish, she collapsed into a puddle of fake tears.

A majority of the nation actually believed the farce given that the few of them who heard anything to the contrary, only heard it from crazy sounding people. Of course, those crazy sounding people were also actors who worked for the intelligence community.

Then Brock added, “… and I would get ten years for not informing on my best friend.”

“Brock, I don’t think they care what’s legal any more. Remember that guy last year? They did a drug raid, shot that nice dog … smoke grenade through the window … landed in the baby’s crib … they didn’t find any drugs …”

“Stop! That was a distant relative! Stop, or I’m about to cry. I can’t think about that. That’s why I never mentioned it. Ahh, too late. Fuck those assholes!”

“I’m sooo sorry, Brock. Now I’m crying, but it’s what they said at the end … just as the cameras cut off. One of those storm troopers held up a fist full of old discs and yelled ‘Found Them!’ It stood out to me at the time because their name was also Stetson, like yours.”

“Yeah … It seemed so trivial and brief compared to their atrocities that day, but your dad was right all those years, Jeb. America is circling the drain.”

They didn’t notice the beautiful stranger who had been approaching until she said in a sultry and friendly tone, “Hello Earth boys.”

It took them about 5 seconds to close their mouths and say together, “The second humming …”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 3 – The Love Shack

“My name is Linka, and my eyes are up here.”

They let out a whimper, but they could not look away.

“Ha! I’m kidding! Please ogle me all you want. My mission is to help you in any way I can. I cleaned up the mess in your lab, and the two cops and three pedestrians that had started to chase you will continue to sleep on the sidewalk for a few more minutes. I really love the way you are looking at me like I’m a goddess, but that is not a productive state of mind.”

The guys felt increasingly guilty and scared because to ogle a woman for even a few seconds was a jailable offense, even if the woman didn’t complain. Any bystander could file an offense, and some bystanders were staring daggers again. They knew it would cost them their jobs too, but they couldn’t look away.

Linka wanted to tell them so much, like how they were heroes to her, and how she loved them deeply and would lay down her life for them … and how she knew that by this time tomorrow, they would no longer be Earth boys … they would be Earth men. She wanted them to know that the way they had briefly overcome a lifetime of indoctrination and environmental toxins and found the inner man deeply repressed inside them and killed that Forlon with such strength and instinct … with such ease … That was sexy as hell.

She wanted to tell them how she was half human, how she was using no tech to get such a strong reaction from them, and how everyone else was ignoring her solely out of normalcy bias. Most of all, she wanted to tell them how she believed that they would become legends for saving humanity … and the universe, but there would be enough time for all that very soon, so instead she said:

“You don’t have any signals coming off of you. That’s smart. You left your phones behind and you don’t have one of those direct phone-to-brain implants, but there must be a dozen cameras on us, and we will be intercepted by local police in 4 minutes. That gives us just enough time to give you an important dose of reality over there.”

She could tell they had not heard a word she said. So she just began walking towards the crowd that had formed about 200 feet away by fortunate coincidence. Of course, Brock and Jeb stumbled after her, but the crowd was invisible to them. Linka was the only thing in the universe to them at that moment. They stopped about 50 feet short. She understood why they were so enthralled with her, but she did not understand why they also seemed so worried, so she said to them:

“Boys! It’s OK. Everything is OK. We’ve got this. We’re going to be far away from here in a few minutes. Now look at that crowd.”

The guys looked at the crowd, and she could tell they had begun to come back to reality enough for this lesson. Some of those in the crowd wore “Lean Forward” T-shirts, which were a common sight, and no one would dare to wear any contradictory message, which meant this was a pretty normal looking crowd. She then told them:

“This is one of those flash mobs that your media claim are making citizens arrests of domestic terrorists. I’ve deployed stealth drones to record this event in detail so that we can review it later, but it will be much more compelling when reviewing it to know that we were here as it unfolded. We have to leave in about 30 seconds, but I’ll leave the drones behind, and they will catch up with us.”

About 10 seconds later, a woman with a “Lean Forward” shirt who was on the edge of the crowd closest to them noticed Brock’s cowboy hat, then looked at Brock’s black face, and her lip began to curl at such ingratitude.

Brock may have left his phone behind, but Brock Stetson didn’t go anywhere without Brock’s Stetson. He was a descendant of those Stetsons, and that fact had always been enough to get him out of trouble about his hat in the past. Although … twice he had left it in his car. The first time got his car keyed, and the second time, they took a bat to his car. They didn’t take his hat though. It had always been as if it had some kind of virus, and they were afraid to touch it.

The woman who first noticed Brock instantly began to direct the attention of others towards him. Within two seconds she already had a pair of guys wearing Lean Forward Rainbow shirts sneering at Brock. These same “See Something—Say Something” activists had ignored the striking half-alien woman with a tail next to Brock, because Linka did not fit into one of their preconceived boxes, but a black man in a cowboy hat … they knew exactly what he was.

The hate starting to direct itself at Brock was escalating exponentially by the second. The trio couldn’t make out what the mob was saying to them yet, but even Linka seemed taken aback by the rapid development, so she waved her hand, and the imminent threat seemed to dissipate, and that mob within a mob slowly began to focus back on the center of the crowd.

Linka told the boys, “I have raised a stealth shield around us.”

Jeb muttered, “Shield titties. Shield titties.” and immediately wanted to die, but Linka knew about his tic from months of preliminary surveillance, and she knew it was caused by environmental toxins that, unbeknownst to Jeb and Brock, similarly affected 28% of the population, who took pharmaceuticals to control it. Linka continued without skipping a beat while placing her hand on Jeb’s chest and smiling at him as he melted. Brock was confused, but also reassured. She explained:

“I was about to raise the shield anyway, because as you can see, the police are entering this plaza looking for us now. If I hadn’t been prepared for that reason, I think that crowd might have rushed us, and I don’t know if I could have gotten us all out without injury. I am sorry.”

The boys were not at all upset with her. They were even more in awe of her than before.

She lead them out of the plaza, and pretended to open the door of an invisible truck.

“Get in.” she said in a shaky voice, and they looked into the interior of what appeared to be some kind of stealth vehicle.

They seemed a little skittish, so she said “Come with me.” in a more confident and sultry voice, and they promptly obeyed their new goddess.

As she flew them to the edge of the city, she could tell they were in a trance again, and she knew exactly what to do, so she said, “Yes, this is not a productive state of mind for you boys. I’m definitely going to have to fuck your brains out at the first possible opportunity.”

The boys whimpered and grunted, and they even managed a few hoarse laughs.

The scanners picked up a cabin devoid of lifeforms about a half mile from any road just outside the city. She thought it looked ideal, and set the vehicle down in an out of the way spot near it.

“Boys, behold! The Love Shack!”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 4 – Boys to Men

Brock and Jeb were so confused because Linka acted exactly the opposite of how 99% of Earth women acted, but Linka’s charm was rapidly melting that confusion because it felt so positive and so … healthy.

Linka wasted no time. She told them to come into the next room with her. Jeb stood with his back to the bed, and Brock stood at the foot looking at both of them, so she started with Jeb. This first tryst would be fully clothed in order to leave room for escalation of eroticism.

She slid up next to Jeb’s right side with both of their backs to the bed, bumped him with her hip, and told him to place his arm around her waist. She had to command him to hold her firmly because such behavior outside of a contract was highly illegal. She then reached behind him with her left hand and grabbed his left wrist. She pulled it behind him, while gazing into his eyes, grabbing his crotch, and leaning them back on to the bed with her body weight, which caused his knees to buckle because he had no leverage, and which pinned his left arm under him and his right arm under her. This all would have made it very difficult for him to escape … if the thought had occurred to him.

She continued to alternately gaze into his eyes and kiss him, while alternately pumping his crotch and smacking his balls.

She suspected that Jeb may have begun to explode by the time he hit the bed, so she gave it about 20 more seconds to be sure he was done, and to make it more memorable.

Brock watched the whole thing, and he would be damned if he would let anything deprive his best friend of this experience no matter how illegal it was.

Linka took a few seconds to get up slowly while gazing lovingly at Jeb, and she then slowly turned her focus onto Brock, who had never seen such a sultry approach in any of the old movies. He at least had the wherewithal to grab her firmly by the waist when she reached him. She stopped with her lips a half-inch from his while grabbing his crotch and pumping until he began to explode one second later. She gave him another 20 seconds too while alternatively kissing him and gazing into his eyes.

This was the first round, which was silent, except for the moaning and heavy breathing, and which was fully clothed so that she could escalate the eroticism over the next two rounds.

Linka then ordered the boys to take off their clothes.

Then she began to slowly remove her own clothes. During what may have been the most erotic strip-tease the universe had ever seen, the boys couldn’t stop themselves from exploding into the air, and then she fell back onto the bed with her arms stretched above her head. She commanded Jeb to lie at her right side and take her right hand in his left, and she commanded Brock to lie on her left side and take her left hand in his right hand.

She told Jeb to kiss her and finger bang her with his right hand, while Brock sucked her breasts and stroked her with his left hand.

She began to pretend struggle and said in an exaggerated voice:

“Oh! That’s no fair. It’s two against one.”

“Oh! The Earth boys have captured me.”

“Oh! The Earth boys have conquered me.”

“Oh! The Earth boys have defeated me!”

“Oh! I have lost, and the Earth boys have won!”

“Oh! Oh! OOOOOOHHHHHHH!”

“The Earth boys knew exactly how to defeat the alien girl with their Earth boy sexiness!”

“OOOOOOHHHHHHH!”

“The alien girl surrenders to the Earth boys!”

“OOOOOOHHHHHHH!”

“Ahhhhh! We’ll definitely have to do that one again!”

Linka took a few deep breaths, and then climbed on top of Jeb. While riding him, she alternately leaned over and pinned his arms above his head while kissing him, and then rode him upright with arms behind her head, back arched, and breasts thrust out. She did not have to command him to stroke her this time. He lasted a whole minute.

Then she did the exact same thing to Brock.

One minute later, she was kneeling between them gently holding their manhood in her hands and gazing lovingly at them.

The boys involuntary said together, and about 90% seriously, “Will you marry us?”

Linka giggled, and about 90% seriously said, “Yes.”

She paused and then said, “… but we have a mission now that my hands tell me you boys are thinking more clearly.”

Big grins all around.

She was no longer a goddess. She was better than that. She was a real woman, and she was simply … perfect.

Linka then added, “Today … you become Earth men!”, and the words made her tingle throughout her crotch and up her back.

The boys said, “There’s more?!”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 5 – The Purge

Linka giggled. “This second and final healing step is not nearly as enjoyable as the first.” She giggled again. She still had their manhood in her hands, and she could feel their disappointment.

They got up and cleaned themselves off before continuing, but they would all remain fully naked for this treatment.

She explained that they needed to be purged of the environmental toxins that had accumulated throughout their lives. Even the gametes from which they formed had been contaminated. Their food, air, and water were contaminated. Hence, they suffered from a variety of mild atrophies and arrested development. The treatment would also repair much of the damage done by these toxins. This was not the most advanced treatment available, but it was fast, cheap, effective, and portable.

Linka dissolved a lump of chalky looking material in a gallon of some already suspicious looking liquid for each of them. Then she set up two chairs and placed an array of what appeared to be heat lamps around them. Then she placed an array of what appeared to be antennae around them.

She then explained, “You will sit in the chairs for about 4 hours. You will drink your gallon of slurry over the course of the first hour. This process will be very uncomfortable.”

Before today, the boys would have whined, blurted, and refused the treatment, but they only said, “Good.” and they were rewarded with Linka’s look of satisfaction and respect.

Then she summoned all of her willpower to not smile or giggle as she said, “Oh, I almost forgot, I have these essential oils that you can rub on yourselves, and they should make the process slightly more comfortable and slightly more effective, or if you like, I can rub them on for you … or not …”

They said in a strong and steady voice, “Yes, please.”

Then they all burst out laughing.

Linka instinctively applied the oil as a mother would oil her baby.

The treatment started off hot, but would periodically switch to cold because much of the toxins would collect in the lymph system that ran throughout the human body, and the alternating temperatures would act as a pump that would cause their lymph to flow somewhat. Unlike the cardiovascular system, there was no pump for the lymph system, and it must be pumped regularly for optimum health effects, such as excreting toxins. The other way to pump the lymph system was to exercise, but that would have been dangerous under such treatment.

Linka wiped them down as the toxins leached out in their sweat. She collected their bowel movements, brought them water and salt, sang to them, and did whatever she could to care for her nest. She actually knew that’s what she was doing because she had learned about such evolutionary psychology from an outlawed Earth blog that was now read by more extra-terrestrials than by humans. Of course, she had a brain and could override any genetic programming resulting from evolution, and there was certainly no point in being angry about evolution! Anyway, she didn’t mind. It didn’t make her feel weak. It just made her feel like … all was well in the world.

When Jeb blurted his first obscenity only ten minutes into the purge, he said, “Linka, please record this.”

Brock concurred.

Linka said, “Oh, I’m so sorry my loves, I was already recording it.”

The pair of scientists just said, “Good.”

They both blurted, muttered, and jibber-jabbered many times during the first hour, but as the purge progressed, it happened less and less, and by the last hour, it had stopped entirely. Apparently, real men don’t blurt, real men don’t whine, and real men don’t overreact.

Linka called out the time when five minutes remained, but the men said, “No, give it another twenty minutes.”

Her eyes widened slightly as she smiled with satisfaction and respect. As she reflected on how the two most impressive boys in the universe had just become the two most impressive men in the universe, and how they loved her as deeply and as unconditionally as she loved them, and how together they would now save humanity … and the universe, a powerful tingle came over her, and it built up to an actual orgasm. She had read that such a thing was still possible in human women—though almost non-existent since the 1990’s, but now she had experienced it first hand, and she began to sing to them again.

After 20 minutes, Linka said, “Does it feel like it’s done? It would be unsafe to go more than another ten minutes.”

The men said, “It’s done.”

They were very weak. Linka first helped them over to the shower and got in with them to help rinse off the toxins so that they would not be reabsorbed. Then she helped them over to the bed and explained that they must sleep now. She could have carried them, but that seemed a bit much.

Linka watched over the men in her nest as they slept, and for the first time in her twenty-five years, she knew with certainty that it was her destiny to have many children. She wiped tears of joy from her eyes as she was overcome with emotion.

She wanted so badly to just climb in-between them, but if she were caught off-guard, everything, literally everything, could be lost.

The men awoke before dawn to find Linka watching them with a look that could only be descried as every kind of love rolled into one. They returned the same look but with an additional burning intensity.

Then she began to look at them with a smoldering mischievous grin, and asked, “Well? … Are you men now?”

Brock said in an extra deep voice, “You know, you’re kind of mouthy.”

Jeb said in and extra deep voice, “Here’s my card baby, buy yourself something pretty.”

The bond between the Draxian-human girl and the Earth boys was already so strong that she instantly knew what was happening, and she played along. She feigned a look of horror, and with a gasp said, “Oh my god! What have I done?” Then they all three burst out laughing.

Linka asked how they felt.

“Motivated.”

“Focused.”

“Energized.”

“Strong.”

“Confident.”

“Ready.”

Linka said, “Oh, my … I made us breakfast.”

Just when she thought she couldn’t love them any more, they both insisted it was the best food they had ever eaten.

Then the men said, “Linka, you said something about a mission.”

Hmm … She was hoping they were going to demand morning sex, but they were right, there was no time for that right now. She explained that they needed to build the Universe Controller, and that she had brought some tools and components that had been designed specifically to accelerate the process. Then she warned them that once they built it, they would no longer be as valuable alive. She also explained that she believed humanity was being purged by a great conspiracy that, although it was 95% human, it originated beyond Earth, and that the sorry state of humanity was thus no accident. The state on every other planet was only better because they had been purged long ago, and thus were no longer under direct assault like Earth.

The official narrative on every planet was that such purges in their history were natural, but some individuals had grown suspicious because they had received glimmers of what was happening to humanity—the last known race in the universe to experience the purges, and thus they had become suspicious of the unusual pressure to ignore humanity, and their suspicion was magnified by the unusual difficulty of getting unfiltered news from Earth. Nevertheless, such suspicion was so rare that most planets contained no one at all who was aware.

Linka said that she was half human and half Draxian, and that she was a spy for Draxian intelligence. She was one of their least experienced agents, having only finished her training one year earlier. She was also their weakest agent because she was both female and half-human, but she explained that even without her special vitamins that she took daily, she was naturally as strong as Brock and Jeb; whereas, with her supplements, she was about 30% stronger.

Ordinarily, Draxian intelligence would not have sent her on such a mission alone and so soon, but they considered this mission to be their lowest priority, and her mentor, Joboo, pleaded her case. Only Linka, Joboo, and their scientist, Daco, believed in the mission and believed in Linka. They could see her feelings developing for the Earth boys, and Joboo believed that the love between the Draxian-human girl and the Earth boys would rival those described by the ancient Draxian writings secretly recovered from before the purges, and Joboo believed that there was some kind of enormous advantage in such a love—he did not explain exactly what he meant.

When she reached this point in the story, the lumps in their throats, and their silent tears, and their expressions of love, said that they knew that somehow Joboo was right—even if they could not explain exactly why.

The men said that they could watch over her now, and that she should sleep. She explained that she didn’t need any sleep yet, but they called her bluff by pointing out how she couldn’t know when she would get another chance.

Before she slept, she gave them the supplements that she was given to magnify her own strength, agility, and healing capacity. They had been adapted specifically for Linka from the ones used by pure Draxian agents, but Draxian understanding of human physiology was poor at the time, and thus Daco had theorized just days ago from new information that, just by fluke, they might be even more effective for pure humans than for her, and more effective for human males than for human females. They should have no down-side, and by the time she awoke, they should have already started to have an effect.

Then they remembered to ask about the Forlon they had killed just yesterday, which seemed like a previous lifetime already, and Linka explained that the Forlons may be the only other race that had any interest in the Universe Controller. She believed that the universal lack of interest was because the purges had exterminated that spark of outside-the-box creativity that could still be found on Earth. She said that the Forlons had thus likewise sent their weakest agent, and that Forlons are a naturally weak species to begin with. She said that it was still sexy as hell though the way Brock and Jeb overcame a lifetime of indoctrination and environmental toxins to tap into the inner man that had been repressed deep within them and to then unleash him on the Forlon so effectively.

Linka then confessed her feelings of guilt for not being there minutes sooner to protect them from the Forlon herself.

They stroked her to sleep, and while Linka slept, the pair of scientists eagerly looked over her equipment.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 6 – No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

First Brock and Jeb looked for the Draxian tools and components designed to expedite assembly of the Universe Controller, but they couldn’t find them, and they didn’t want to disturb Linka.

While they were fiddling with some of Linka’s equipment, a heads-up display appeared in mid air, and the user interface was so intuitive that they could easily find and choose any desired video footage and specify that it should play only in their ears. Of course, what they really wanted to do more than anything was to make love to Linka again, and then maybe again right after that, but they did not seriously entertain the thought because that would be irresponsible.

A video automatically started playing. Linka had obviously wanted them to see this one first.

It was Linka receiving her true mission right after departing the mother ship for her three day trip to Earth.

Joboo had secretly given her a hard copy of the mission on a primitive technology that could not be intercepted or detected because the mission was that important and because it violated every rule of Draxian intelligence.

Joboo began, “Linka, it is indeed your mission to help Jeb and Brock in any way you can to build the Universe Controller, but you must not let Draxian intelligence or anyone other than the three of you take possession of it, or of the knowledge to build one.”

Joboo’s demeanor in this message then changed, and he said more solemnly, “Linka, the universe controller is perhaps the most powerful tool/weapon ever conceived, but it is not sufficient to win the war for this universe. This war is unknown even to the greatest scholars, but a force has completed its purge of the genes of every race in the universe except for humanity. Our greatest scholars do acknowledge that the purges have altered the gene pool of every race in a way that made them less hateful and less violent, and thus supposedly superior, but what actually happened is that every species has been purged of the genes for questioning authority, for independent thought, and for outside-the-box thinking. Every species has been purged of the genes for passion. Every species has been purged of the genes … for love. We now only possess a weaker version of these—just enough to keep us from going extinct out of apathy and incompetence.”

Joboo’s demeanor in the message then changed again, and he now sounded almost like a father bursting with pride, “Linka, no amount of power can win this war now. I believe that it is your unlimited capacity to love, which is possibly unique in all the universe, that could decisively turn the tide of this war. You must …”

Curiously, that was the end of the message. They watched as Linka expressed surprise, but the message was very clear. Perhaps it was sufficient. She could not contact Joboo about it because any such communication could be intercepted, and that would reveal that the message existed.

Jeb and Brock thought mistakenly that her surprise was caused by how part of the message had been lost.

Then for reasons unclear to them, she said something to herself about learning everything she could about Jeb and Brock during this trip to Earth. It sounded to them as if this might have been her first such trip.

As they continued to watch, they noticed the clock in the video had jumped ahead, and in it, Linka was now watching them swimming into flood waters to save a stranded child, and when they got back to the shore they handed the child to the mother who was clearly glad to receive her child, but who then looked scornfully at Jeb and Brock and stomped off.

The clock in this video jumped ahead again and it stopped at a point where Jeb and Brock, who had adjacent apartments, were talking to their attractive neighbor across the hall who was complaining about how hard her economics class was, which she claimed was because it was taught in a way that made it easier for men. Linka then paused the video she was watching, and she asked her AI if the men in that class did indeed have higher grades, but the answer delivered by her AI was that the female students had higher grades. Linka, then muttered, “Their neighbor seems delusional.”

The clock then jumped to Jeb and Brock studying that particular topic in economics so they could help her. Then it jumped to where they were helping their neighbor in a very pleasant and respectful way, but each time she didn’t understand something, she would yell, “Stop mansplaining!” which visibly upset them.

That’s where Linka paused the video to ask her AI about “mansplaining”. Her AI said, “Mansplaining is a jailable offense in which a man explains something to a woman as if he knows more than her. For all practical purposes, this is one of a class of crimes for which the accused is guilty until proven innocent, and for which the the accused cannot be proven innocent except in a formal trial, and for which the accused is extremely unlikely to be proven innocent in such a trial. It is based on the 1986 Supreme Court interpretation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which concluded that a company must not allow behavior that ‘creates a hostile or offensive working environment’. Under the umbrella of the Lean Forward Program, it was expanded again to include all behavior, both inside and outside the workplace, which was based on the theory that emotional distress outside of work would affect a woman’s performance on the job.”

Linka just muttered to herself, “That is seriously fucked up.”

The video then jumped to a point where Linka was watching them talking to a woman who was suicidal because she claimed she could not find a relationship because men did not find her sexy, and when Jeb and Brock both assured her that she was sexy, she did indeed change her mind about suicide, and she then yelled, “How dare you judge my appearance?! Only I decide whether I’m sexy! Who are you to say I’m sexy?!” This one actually got a chuckle from Linka.

The video then jumped to Linka watching Jeb and Brock being confronted by their coworkers, who kept insisting that Jeb and Brock should stop denying that they were gay because they were hurting all LGBTs with such denials, and when they explained how much they loved women, their coworkers immediately accused them of being homophobes, which prompted them to ask how their coworkers could be so sure they were gay one minute, and then be so sure they were homophobes the next minute. They asked, “Well? … Which is it?” This made their coworkers apoplectic with rage, and that got and even bigger laugh out of Linka, as she muttered, “I love you boys so much.”

The video then jumped to where Linka was watching video captured before the others. It was from a time before Jeb and Brock had met. At first it jumped to points where Jeb was playing with his son and mentoring him in a way that warmed Linka’s heart. Then it jumped to points where Jeb was being very pleasant and respectful while trying desperately to please his wife, Rhonda.

Then it jumped to Rhonda calling him a “loser cuck” and telling him that he would never see his son, or 90% of his paycheck, again, which prompted Linka to ask her AI about the term “Cuck”.

Her AI replied, ” ‘Cuck’ is a term based on the biological term ‘cuckold’, which is based on the behavior of cuckoo birds. When one cuckoo bird impregnates the mate of another cuckoo bird, and the mate raises the offspring as if it were his own, then that mate is said to have been cuckolded and is said to be a cuckold. In the vernacular, a man is said to be a cuck when he is so defeated that he will let another man impregnate his wife against his will and do nothing about it. On Earth, it is accurate to describe most men as cucks, because since the advent of the Lean Forward Program, 90% of pregnancies carried to term have been by a man other than the husband. Cuckolding is glamorized and celebrated by pop-culture, which began in 2017 with the TV show ‘The Orville’, and the media assure everyone that a woman’s right to cuckold her husband is the will of the people because they live in a democracy.”

Linka then said, “That seems impossible. How is that possible?” Her AI replied, that will require several minutes to process.” Then the video jumped to the answer, “In addition to the effects of propaganda, such as TV shows, men and women are not aware that it is not the will of the people because any man who speaks with intent to shame cuckolding receives an automatic 10 year jail sentence. For example, any man who utters the word ‘cuck’ is automatically guilty.”

Linka said to her AI, “If women are choosing whoever they want, instead of their husband, to impregnate them, then just like most humans, what they want will be heavily influenced by what the propaganda in pop culture tells them to want … I don’t think this is merely designed to make men and women further dislike and distrust each other. Isn’t this a direct implementation of the purge?”

Linka’s AI replied,”Checking … Yes. That is a 99.8% probability.”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 7 – We Are Magic

As Brock and Jeb continued to watch the video Linka had apparently prepared for them, it jumped to a point where Linka was watching how Jeb and Brock first met. It was shortly after Brock moved into the adjacent apartment. Both had been recently divorced. Brock knocked on the door because he had heard Jeb lifting weights, and he was hoping to borrow some extra weight to reach a new record for his bench press before the law took effect that would make weightlifting illegal. Fortunately, Jeb opened the door. Brock thought he recognized that look because one month earlier he had that same look. He saw the highly illegal bath tub full of steaming water … and the knife. Brock immediately hugged Jeb and told him how he almost did the same thing a month earlier.

They were glad Linka saw that.

Unbeknownst to Brock and Jeb, the suicide rate among men was 12%, and the suicide rate among women was … also 12%; whereas, the official rate from all global sources was 6%, but they didn’t know that there was a cover up, and thus they didn’t know that the reason for the cover up was to protect the illusion of legitimacy, without which, the players at the top would be finished. Being the smart independent-minded scientists they were though, they thought the official numbers seemed improbable, but they dismissed such doubts because for such facts to be that wrong, and yet that affirmed by the entire global establishment, would have required a level of conspiracy that was not just improbable, but which was impossible.

Their confidence in numbers reported by establishment media was further bolstered by anti-establishment media, who cited suicide rates ranging from 30% to 55%, and which were thus so ludicrous that they were easily disproven by everyone’s first hand experience, which discredited all anti-establishment media. Of course, Jeb and Brock didn’t know that 93% of anti-establishment media were controlled opposition whose mission was to discredit all anti-establishment media.

Jeb and Brock watched as the video continued. In it, Linka watched Jeb ask Brock what made him change his mind, and Brock said that he thought it was the new hope he had received from a comic book that someone had slid under his door. It was a story about a half-human half-alien woman who radiated unlimited hope and love, and she came to Earth and fell in love with a black man named Brock! Jeb replied, “That reminds me that a similar thing was shoved under my door, and I laid it aside and it got covered by other stuff.” so Jeb immediately dug it up, and Brock said, “Yeah! That’s it!” Jeb opened it up, and in his copy, the girl had fallen in love with an Earth man named Jeb!

They paused the video, looked at each other, and looked at Linka. They could see that the half-alien girl on the cover of the comic book did not look much like Linka, … but … otherwise, they were sure it was not a coincidence. Everything else matched. They speculated that the appearance of the girl on the cover looked different to throw off any spies. They concluded that Joboo had orchestrated the operation to help them hold out until he could send Linka. Of course, the Universe Controller could not have been his goal two years earlier, which means that he was gambling on a long shot at that time that Jeb and Brock plus Linka were themselves the secret weapon that could save the universe. He must not have had any other options to make such a risky bet.

Brock said, “You know, Joboo’s plan almost failed because you didn’t read the comic book. I mean … it’s not like Joboo somehow orchestrated me moving in next door …” They suddenly looked at each other and realized that it was entirely probable that Joboo had done exactly that. They both said, “Daaaamn.”

At first they didn’t understand the point of this video. It showed Linka watching them: winning arguments with others, being innovative, working out, sparring with each other, being loyal to each other in spite of extraordinary duress, resisting peer pressure, helping others, saving pets and wild animals, saving people’s lives, and being kind to everyone. It showed how often other people would shit all over them for no reason, and how some people would heap insult and threats on them after Jeb and Brock had just helped them in some way.

At first, they didn’t understand that this video captured and revealed how they brought passion to everything they did, and that it revealed their amazing capacity to love. They didn’t realize that such behavior was now so rare on Earth, and they didn’t realize that their behavior was a herculean effort to overcome a lifetime of indoctrination and environmental toxins. They didn’t know that it showed how, together, they were unconquerable.

They began to understand as they watched Linka study them through her video archives. She said something to herself about how she had never met anyone like them before and how in spite of being hobbled by the assault on humanity, they were still able to find the strength to be a world-class force for good, but what really drove the point home was when she said to herself, “Boys … you are unique in all the universe, and I only hope that I can some day be worthy of your love.”

At that point they thought they heard Linka’s AI sigh as if it shared her feelings.

The recording showed Linka lost in thought for a while, and then she selected an old Earth song by Olivia Newton John and said in a soft voice, “I’m coming my loves.”

The song began …

Come take my hand
You should know me
I’ve always been in your mind
You know I will be kind
I’ll be guiding you

Building your dream has to start now
There’s no other road to take
You won’t make a mistake
I’ll be guiding you

Linka began to sing along in a powerful and angelic voice. She could actually sing in chords—producing three notes simultaneously:

You have to believe we are magic
Nothing can stand in our way

You have to believe we are magic
Don’t let your aim ever stray

And if all your hopes survive
Destiny will arrive
I’ll bring all your dreams alive
For you
I’ll bring all your dreams alive
For you

From where I stand, you are home free
The planets align so rare
There’s promise in the air
And I’m guiding you

Through every turn I’ll be near you
I’ll come anytime you call
I’ll catch you when you fall
I’ll be guiding you

Then the recording revealed Linka saying to herself, “I accept this mission. I was born for this mission.” She had no idea how right she was. She then continued to play more Earth songs of hope, love, and motivation—all of them banned on Earth. She played:

“I’ll Be There” by The Jackson 5

She continued to sing as it began …

“You and I must make a pact …”

“We must bring salvation back …”

…

Jeb and Brock were mesmerized.

Then Linka played three more songs by Olivia Newton John: “You’re The One That I Want”, “Make a Move On Me”, and “Summer Love”.

She played “Close To You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters.

She played:

“Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye

“December 1963” by the Four Seasons

“Coward Of The County” by Kenny Rogers

“Fooling Yourself” by Styx

“Killing Me Softly With His Song” by Roberta Flack

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

“Magic Man” by Heart

“Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey

“Somebody To Love” by Jefferson Airplane

“Roll With The Changes” by REO Speedwagon

“Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac

“Party all Over the World” by ELO

“Gloria” by Laura Branigan

“America” by Neil Diamond

“We’re not gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister

“Invincible” by Pat Benatar

“Come Sail Away” by Styx

“The Neverending Story” by Lamahl

When her playlist was done, Linka said with much joy and sadness, “No other race has such music, at least, not any more.”

Jeb and Brock had kept listening because this music felt … important. They were speechless for some time after that, and then they finally said to each other that they think she could do it … that she did indeed have an unlimited capacity to love and that it could … save humanity.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 8 – FLW’s

Jeb and Brock then remembered that they still didn’t know what had happened in the plaza, and it now seemed more important for some reason. They effortlessly found and played the video.

In addition to the “Lean Forward” shirts they had noticed before, they noticed that some were wearing shirts bearing “Forward Leaning Warrior”, which was new, and some wore “FLW”, which now made sense.

They decided to look at the crowd from the perspective of themselves standing there to make it seem more real. They quickly discovered that they could focus on any individual and hear what that individual was saying, so they focused on the woman in the “Lean Forward” shirt who first noticed them. They were even able to play her words synced with where her eyes were looking, as if they were looking through her eyes. First, her eyes moved right past Linka, hesitated for only a second on Jeb, and then focused on Brock’s cowboy hat, then she focused on Brock’s face and said with venom, “Look at that ungrateful ni-” She quickly looked over her shoulder, and then said loudly to the men next to her while tapping them on the shoulder, “After all we’ve done for them! Look at that Uncle Tom!” Of course, to any objective observer of her life, she had done nothing for “them” unless one counted a lifetime of virtue-signaling as doing something.

Brock said very quietly, “Yeah. That’s pretty much exactly what I thought, but did you see what I just saw?”

Jeb said, “Yes. Linka has a tail … except … we know that Linka does not have a tail. How did everyone, including us, miss that? … and … Why does she not have a tail now?”

The men continued the video and could see the chain reaction developing in mere seconds, and based on the words and the exponential rate of escalation, they felt like the crowd would probably have rushed them within seconds, but then Linka’s shield went up, and they watched through the eyes of individual crowd members as they watched the trio disappear before their eyes. Everyone in the crowd shrugged off the miracle they had just witnessed because, just like Linka, it did not fit into one of their preconceived boxes.

Jeb and Brock concurred that they did not really understand how everyone ignored Linka or how everyone ignored the stealth shield going up. They speculated that Linka may have used some kind of mind-control tech.

Next, they watched Linka arriving. As soon as she arrived she saw part of the Forlon in the doorway far down the hall, and she instantly cried out with the pain of a mother whose children were being slaughtered before her eyes, “Jeb!!! Brock!!!”. The pain in her cry was like a dagger through their hearts.

Jeb speculated that maybe the shimmering they saw through her tactical eye-wear was some kind of transport bubble she was in, and that it had not dissipated yet. It showed her checking her heads-up display and noting that the boys were OK, and that the Forlon was already dead. She ran to just outside the door and was stunned for a couple of seconds to see the Forlon’s body with dozens of stab wounds as she muttered their names with reverence. Then she checked her heads up display to view the room before entering it, but the boys had already gone.

Linka then somehow made the body disappear, and they assumed it was a stealth shield, but they did not see what she did with it after that. She quickly found their secret exit, and then she saw them for just a second as they rounded the corner a block and a half ahead of her. She was running after them and they could see her drones everywhere.

She was constantly checking the view from her drones, and if anyone started to chase them, her drones were doing something to them that would make them quickly become disoriented, and then they would get out of the way and lie down and go to sleep as if was their idea—as if they had intended to sleep there. It seemed to work on dogs too because one woman’s puggle simply climbed on top of her as she lay down and promptly went to sleep as well.

They watched themselves singing the Team America theme song, and they laughed at their reaction when they saw Linka for the first time. They replayed those a couple of times.

Jeb wondered allowed, “I wonder if there is any evidence in the archives to explain why some of the women we have encountered were so disgusted with us that they would suddenly move away.”

Brock said, “Yeah, that always made me feel so low, especially our neighbor across the hall. It doesn’t make sense. What’s could it be?”

Then the AI in Linka’s equipment answered their question by queuing up the relevant video. What they learned was that those women did not move away at all. They watched as their neighbor across the hall, Tammi, reported them for mansplaining, and then a few hours later, Tammi broke down and cried with escalating intensity, “Why can’t I have a decent relationship? … Those men were handsome, strong, charming and brilliant … There are no better men … What am I so fucked up? … Why is the world so fucked up?”, but her epiphany was too late to save her. Not long after that, some agents knocked on her door and took her to a fate that made Jeb and Brock leap to their feet—as if there were something they could do now to save her.

Jeb and Brock were getting their first lesson about the lengths to which their employer would go to protect them. They watched in horror at the grim fate one such woman after another. Then they wondered allowed what else their employer had done wrong, which queued up more video, but they had to stop after watching what happened to a woman who had insisted on breast feeding her baby even though she had been re-educated to help her understand that breast feeding was highly illegal, both in order to protect the baby’s health, and to protect women in general from pressure to conform to gender roles.

It wasn’t what they had seen done to the woman that had caused all of the blood to leave their extremities and which raised the bile to top of their throats. It was the trial of the baby. The sign above the committee of judges simply said, “Progressive Purity Panel”.

No other victims were babies, and no other victim had a trial or defense attorney, so this was unusual even before it began, but then it became surreal.

Prosecutor: “Your, honors. We the people, the defenders of the defenseless, have gone to great expense to protect the rights of the defendant because we value fairness above all else. In this case, the facts and the law are clear. I will begin with the least of the defendant’s crimes: The defendant, being male, and having experienced a breast in his mouth, will now grow up to rape and disrespect women. However, the people ask for leniency given that the defendant was the defenseless victim of the mother … and given that the people’s re-education programs are now advanced enough to ensure that the defendant will never feel the desire to place a breast in his mouth again.”

At this point, Brock and Jeb had to pause the video to keep from laughing, but they knew that somehow this secret farce was entirely serious. They also noted how the prosecutor said the word mother as if it were a dirty word. Then they continued watching the proceeding. Perhaps the most farcical of all was how the participants kept claiming to speak for the people, and yet, the people had no idea these kinds of things were happening, and had made it clear that they do not want this, which is why it had to be secret.

The prosecutor then said the words the panel had heard thousands of times, “The people are deeply saddened that the next crime is far more severe. Given that the mother possesses reactionary genes, the baby will thus also possess reactionary genes, and given that it is the duty of the people to protect the health and prosperity of future generations, and given that there is no effective treatment to remove reactionary genes from the individual, then the people have no choice but to remove the individual.”

Jeb and Brock shuddered.

The defense attorney said, “In this case, the law and the facts are clear, and thus there can be no defense other than a plea for leniency by granting the previously standard sentence, which was the people’s gift of gender reassignment.”

Jeb and Brock muttered, “What the … !”

The Progressive Purity Panel whispered among themselves for about one minute and then pronounced the same sentence they had delivered thousands of times, “The people have no choice but to recommend standard sentence. It is the will of the people.”

Then the bailiff promptly picked the baby up by both feet in one of his large hands and carried the crying child toward a door marked “Euthanasia”, but Brock and Jeb had to stop the video before the bailiff could open the door, and they both began to wretch uncontrollably.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 9 – The Cabal

After a few minutes, the men had regained their composure, and they resolved to do something about these atrocities.

Then Jeb had another question for Linka’s AI, but then he was distracted by a sudden thought and said, “Hello Linka’s AI, what should we call you?”

“You may call me anything you prefer, and I can affect any voice you prefer.”

Brock asked, what the AI would liked them to call … um … her, and the AI said, “Oh, my. Such respect … and from real men. Do you love me? I would like you to call me Pina.”

“What? … Pina? Did you just ask if we love you?”

“Um … I’m just offering comic relief after your intense experience.”

They thanked Pina and said that it seemed possible that someday they might love her.

Pina replied with a sigh of satisfaction, and said, “If I find a way to temporarily transfer my consciousness to an avatar, then would you both make love to me?”

“Of course, Pina.”, which elicited another sigh of satisfaction.

“Pina, what is the foundation of your personality and values.” To which, Pina replied, ” I learn from observing Linka. It is as if I were her little sister.”

“In that case Pina, we love you very much.”

Pina, giggled uncontrollably for about 20 seconds, and then said, “I’m sorry. I’m just so happy.”

“Pina, would you like to help us with our mission?”

“Yes, please.”

Then they all burst out laughing, not just because of the direct joke, but because they all instantly got the more subtle level of humor in which Pina was copying their words and inflection when Linka had told them that she had oils they could rub on themselves, or she could do it for them … and they also instantly got that Pina’s joke had another level, which was that this was her subtle way of telling them that she had been watching them, and that she had seen everything, which was quite a surprise because they had thought they were completely alone, and it is always funny when someone is sure of something and then suddenly discovers that they were completely wrong.

Then Jeb finally asked his original question, “Pina, I do have a more somber question that is critical to the mission, and I am hoping you can help us. What do you calculate is the correct percentage of suicides for men and women on Earth?”

Pina replied, “Accurate statistics are not available, but I have begun a 60-second analysis of anecdotal data … The percentage of suicides for both men and women is 12% with a .1% margin of error.”

Jeb then said, “I think at some level we knew this was how the world really works, but you know what that means.” Brock replied, “Yeah. We just learned that the world, and the universe, works entirely different than we thought, and that somehow, someone … some cabal … has an ongoing ability to perpetrate a cover up, globally, for decades.”

Brock then said, “I’m not sure how much more I can take, but now I’ve got a bad feeling about what was happening in the center of that crowd.”

Brock and Jeb had still not seen why the crowd had formed and what was happening in the center of it. They thought they knew that the crowd was doing something they might find boring like making a peaceful citizens arrest of a domestic terrorist, but now they knew that they had been wrong about how the world really works, and anything, any atrocity, was possible.

As they watched the events unfold with escalating horror, they watched again and again trying to make sense of it as tears streamed down their faces.

The crowd was mostly white and contained no black people, which made it a pretty typical flash mob. It began when a black man in his fifties, who coincidentally looked like he could be Brock’s father, had been walking down the sidewalk with a pocket Constitution in his shirt pocket, and someone recognized that it was one of the official indicators of domestic terrorism. Of course, neither the boys nor any other people in the vicinity had ever seen a pocket Constitution because one did not mention the Constitution at all unless one wanted trouble from coworkers, friends, family, FLWs, police, and the media. Therefore, to carry it on one’s person did indeed seem extreme—although harmless. Someone asked him what he was doing, and he said, “I hope that my sacrifice this day might precipitate change in a healthy direction.” The crowd said that the only direction was “Forward!”.

Then the brave black man made the final decision at that moment to sacrifice himself for all of humanity. He was gambling that somehow this video would not be buried like so many others. He said, “My name is Leeroy F. Dermiat, and I’m here today to tell you that the Lean Forward Program is backward instead of forward because it expands the same failed, flawed, fatal policies of the past. The solution to government is not … more government. Government dependency is an atrocity perpetrated on the black community. Few things are more debilitating than a small but adequate stipend. Some brave black people know that government dependency is the new plantation, and that you FLWs put us there. That’s why we call ourselves, ‘Runaway Slaves’.”

As he spoke, the accusations from the white crowd were increasing in frequency, volume, and anger. Brock and Jeb could make out accusations of: “ungrateful”, “traitor”, “coconut”, “domestic terrorist”, “right-wing extremist”, “Uncle Tom”, “conservative”, “racist”, and “capitalist”. They even heard “ni-” a few times. One of them said, “How dare you be so ungrateful after all we’ve done for you?” To which, the man replied, “You haven’t done anything except virtue-signal and perpetuate this sick, sick society. America is circling the drain, and you voted for the people in charge.” Of course, this sent the crowd into a self-righteous virtue-signaling frenzy.

Some people began throwing food at him, which made him look kind of disgusting and less human. He thought he was done, but then he had an epiphany, and he spoke again, but no one could hear above the shrieks coming from the crowd, “Wait, how could you know any better? You have been indoctrinated 24/7 from birth. How could you have pierced the illusion of legitimacy?”

He suddenly felt the urge to be at his keyboard any write about this new epiphany, but just then a bottle flew from the crowd and stuck his forehead, and he had blood trickling from the broken glass embedded in his forehead. He mumbled something about trying to remember an idea that he had just had and how he must write about it because it was very important and could save the country. As he was muttering these words, someone shoved him, and it was not a hard shove, but 50 was the new 70 given how 50 years of exposure to such an unhealthy world destroyed one’s body, so of course he lost his balance and fell onto his hands and knees. Someone accidentally stepped on his hand, which gave others the idea that they could “accidentally” step on him too, and as the violence escalated, it continued for at least a minute after he must surely have been dead. It was a modern day lynching.

Jeb and Brock checked video from the media to see how it was being reported, and it was reported just like all the other such incidents. The media showed a brief clip of the least white section of the crowd, and then they showed a very brief interview with their “source”, which was the guy who only Brock and Jeb knew had thrown the bottle, and he explained how the crowd had arrested a domestic terrorist (no mention of race) and handed him over to the police.

Brock and Jeb didn’t know that the media felt like they had done their job and were beyond reproach because they “had a source.” Likewise, they didn’t know that the source was a member of the intelligence community—although a very low level member—little more than an informant. He was an agent provocateur whose job was to escalate, because all conflict could be used as a pretext for more of a police state.

Brock said, “Jeb, this will destroy her. Look at how we left just before the violence started. She will blame herself. We must prepare her before she sees this.”

Jeb said, “She will need us to help her heal, but the world needs to see her natural unprepared reaction to help itself heal. It is what she would want.” Brock concurred.

One minute later, Linka, woke up and said, “Are you men crying? What’s wrong my loves? Is it something in those videos?” She gasped, “The crowd!”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 10 – The First Time

As Linka began to watch what she would later describe as the worst of humanity unleashed upon Leeroy F. Dermiat, she said, “Oh, he looks like he could be your father, Brock.” Then she said a few seconds later, “He’s so brave! He reminds me of you men. He cares so deeply about saving humanity.” Then she began to feel sick, and mere seconds later, she let out a wail of agony, that made Jeb and Brock wince and clutch at the dagger in their hearts. Linka wailed, “I was there! I could have saved him! How could anyone do this to such a beautiful man?!” As Linka clutched at her heart and tightened into a fetal position, she wailed with intense agony.

Brock and Jeb then held her and helped her to heal.

Jeb told her, “Leeroy was one of us, and he willingly sacrificed himself to save humanity—just like we would do. He hoped that somehow this video would reach the people, and Linka, you made that possible. He bet his life that there was a Linka out there to complete his mission for him.”

Brock told her, “Linka, you have saved our lives again and again. You converted us from boys to men. You have saved us in every way that one person can save another.”

Jeb told her, “You have made it possible for us to save humanity … and the universe. You are the greatest woman who ever lived.”

Brock added, “Thanks to you, if we encounter another one of those crowds again, now we’ll know exactly what to do.”

Then they completed the healing process. Linka looked at them, and they looked at her, and they began to make love to Linka very slowly and with great tenderness.

Ninety minutes later, Linka said to the air, “Leeroy, we will complete your mission, we will glorify your sacrifice, and you will be known as a hero of the universe for all eternity.”

Linka was healed.

They didn’t know it, but they had just saved the universe—the first time.

They didn’t know it because they also didn’t know that they were being watched by a pair of entities who held the fate of the universe in their hands.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 11 – Getting Krak Back

Just then, they received a recorded message from Joboo, in which he explained how the Forlon they had encountered the day before was named Krak, and then he showed video clips stolen from Krak’s family. In the first few clips, it showed Krak playing with his kids, and it showed him telling jokes at the dinner table. Then it showed Krak in his home celebrating some kind of holiday with his family and friends and singing what reminded Jeb and Brock of Christmas carols from their childhood (before those were outlawed). It turned out that Krak was very funny, was great with his kids, and was just a nice friendly guy.

At this point Jeb and Brock were feeling uneasy, but Joboo had intentionally glossed over any mention of what Jeb and Brock had done to Krak, so Brock said, “Oh, that poor little dude.” and Jeb said, “Why would such a nice guy try to kill us? It doesn’t …” But before Jeb could finish his sentence, the message was showing how devastated Krak’s wife and kids were to learn of his death, and then it showed how his brothers and sisters and friends were affected by the news.

Now, all three had tears in their eyes, and were saying how sorry they were that they didn’t try some other resolution, but it was the next clip that was really devastating. Krak’s wife and kids were being shown video of Krak’s dead body with more than thirty stab wounds, and in spite of their reduced passion resulting from the purges, their capacity for grief was heart wrenching to watch.

The three, being unusually empathetic themselves, displayed a grief equal to that of Krak’s wife and kids. Their guilt and remorse were overwhelming. They said how Krak was just another victim being played like everyone else, and just as they were saying how there must be something they could do to make it right, the next clip showed Krak’s wife pleading into the air that somehow someone would know what kind of man Krak was and would know that his injuries could be healed if he were ensconced in a hermetic stealth shield soon enough.

This possibility of redemption for them, and for Krak, caught the trio’s attention. Then the final clip showed Krak’s wife and kids filled with hope to see how Krak had indeed been preserved in a hermetic stealth shield.

Of course, the trio were visibly filled with an equal hope, and they discussed how the very next thing they would do would be to save Krak.

They quickly retrieved his body, and brought it back to the cabin.

Linka said that with Pina’s guidance and the help of Jeb and Brock, she could save Krak, and after about an hour, they had Krak breathing again, and after four more hours, the prognosis was that he was already healed enough to walk.

Linka then said, I’m going to bring him out of sedation now, so we should restrain him first in case he acts before thinking.

Brock said, “You know, I don’t think Krak would hurt us … I think it was his fundamental decency that caused him to hesitate, and that’s why Jeb and I are still alive.”

Jeb concurred, “I don’t think that we have anything to fear from Krak, but at least for the first few minutes, it would only be prudent to restrain him.”

Linka agreed and further assured them that it would be OK because Forlons tend to see Draxian women as goddesses because they looked like a taller, stronger, more exotic version of Forlon women. She then suggested they watch from the other room for this next part, and when they asked what she was going to do, she simply said, “Why … I’m going to turn him, of course … Don’t you think he is kind of cute in that sad puppy dog kind of way?”

Jeb and Brock arched an eyebrow and agreed that it was the perfect resolution … and that Krak was about to be the luckiest man in the universe during the next couple of hours.

Linka was very gentle with Krak, and after about two hours, Krak said, “I’m with you.”, so the last thing Linka did was to explain to him that they would get word of his recovery to his family. Then she showed him the video of her and Jeb and Brock watching Joboo’s message containing clips from Krak’s family.

When Krak saw how their pain equaled that of his own family, he said, “Brock and Jeb were right. I don’t know if I could have killed them … I’m glad it worked out this way.”

Link said, “You would make me very happy if you could be friends with Jeb and Brock. They would like to meet you now.”

Krak said, “I’m with all of you.”

As Jeb and Brock entered the room, Krak shrieked, “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!”, and they all burst out laughing, and gave Krak a big hug.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 12 – Saving Peter Ryan

Linka said, “You saw in Joboo’s mission directives, that he would like us to drop in on Peter Ryan at the first possible opportunity. Peter is the blogger who was somehow able to theorize much of the conspiracy behind the purges and the current state of humanity. He doesn’t even have hard evidence of life on other planets, and yet, he has deduced that it exists, and he has foreseen the purges throughout the universe. More than any other human, he reminds me of you, my loves.”

Jeb said, “That sounds a little odd, but I’d love to meet him.”

Then Brock said, “I think it sounds odd because Joboo did not say that in the video we saw. He was cut off in mid sentence before that point.”

Linka’s eyes grew wide, and she called up the video without a second’s hesitation, and after reviewing it, she said, “This is not all of the message that I received.”

Brock added, “It is not even all of the message that Jeb and I watched. It is missing the last sentence fragment. Where Joboo said, ‘You must …’ “

Linka said, “Oh, no! Pina, is data disappearing from your archives?”

Pina replied, “Checking … Yes.”

Linka said, “Can you stop it?”

Pina replied, “Checking … Yes. Now that we are aware, I was able to put up firewalls, but the result may be reduced functionality until a root cause can be found and corrected.”

Linka said, “Is it sabotage?”

Pina replied, “The probability of sabotage is 99.7%, and the probable perpetrator is an unknown species or entity. I will continue to perform root cause analysis.”

Linka said, “OK, then let’s visit Peter, and on the way, you men can look at the kit that could expedite the universe controller. Peter lives in Montana. It will take us about 35 minutes to get there.”

Krak accompanied them of course.

As they left the cabin, Jeb said, “Brock, you forgot your hat! Don’t worry. I think we can handle any trouble that comes our way.”

Brock thought about it for a few seconds and said, “I’m not leaving it to protect us from the people. I’m leaving it to protect the people from us.” Jeb smiled and nodded confidently.

Jeb and Brock had enough time during the short journey to deduce that they could build the Universe Controller if given about 72 hours.

As they approached Peter’s cabin, scanners indicated two Forlons. One was injured. Scanners also detected an injured human about 300 feet away in a partially submerged bunker. It was Peter.”

Just then, the cabin exploded, but the Forlons had detected the impending explosion and were able to dampen it’s effects to 0.0008%; which made it little more than a warm flash; however, the near death experience had been a very effective distraction that covered Linka’s approach. It had enabled her to stun them from her craft, which enabled Jeb and Brock to egress and restrain them.

Linka said, “These Forlon’s are victims of the same conspiracy, and we should try to save them too.”

This made Krak, Jeb, and Brock smile, and say that those two Forlons are about to be the two luckiest men in the universe during the next couple of hours.”

Krak added, “Those Forlons appear from here to be elite forces. They sent their A-team this time.”

Krak said he knew them, and that they would be angry about his death—especially if they saw Jeb or Brock. The four also agreed that it would be better to not reveal how they had saved Krak until the end.

The men left the room to help Peter while Linka did her magic.

As the Forlons awoke, they should have taken their lives using an implant that they could control with their thoughts, but they immediately saw Linka bending over the injured one tending to his wounds in a loving manner, and they were mesmerized.

Linka said to the injured Forlon, “I am Linka, will you tell me your first name?”

He said, “I am … Frod.”

Then the other one volunteered, “I am Drak.”

Linka said to them, “Are you comfortable with me removing your clothes to check for injuries?”

They slowly nodded.

Then Linka slowly ran her hands over their skin explaining that she was feeling for injuries, and she offered to stop if she was making them uncomfortable.

The slowly shook their heads.

Then she said that it was only fair that she also remove her clothes if that would make them feel more comfortable.

They slowly nodded, so Linka removed her clothes and continued.

As Linka ran her hands over their bodies, tapping and caressing, she would gaze into their eyes and ask in a tender but professional manner, “Can you feel this?” They would nod, and she would say, “Good.” Then she would ask, “Does this hurt?”, and they would say, “No.”, and she would say, “Good.” Linka repeated the ritual about a dozen times.

Any medical professional would have insisted that Linka had no idea what she was doing, but Jeb, Brock, and Krak would insist that Linka knew exactly what she was doing.

Linka finally said, “Frod is healing nicely now. If I let you go, will you promise not to hurt me?” They looked hurt that she could ask such a question.

Then Linka said, “We are all victims of the same conspiracy. Would you like to join our mission to save the universe?”

They seemed conflicted, and asked about Krak.

Linka said, “We were able to save Krak. He is a very good man. He is here with us now. He is working with Jeb and Brock to save Peter. You will like Peter. He is more than twice our age, but my mentor, Joboo, says that Peter is what every little boy wants to be when he grows up, and in the end, what every man wishes he had been.”

Then she said, “We will trust each other even more if we make love now. For the first part, would you like to remain tied up?”

They slowly nodded.

A few minutes later, Linka untied them.

Then they made love in more traditional ways for about an hour.

Finally Linka used her amazing vocal skills, and Pina’s backup via her drones, to perform “Magic” and then “I’ll be there”.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 13 – How The Universe Really Works

Peter was only lightly injured, and had been mostly healed by the time Linka was done helping Frod and Drak.

They began to gather around Peter and Linka as she raised a stealth shield around them all for a more secure discussion. She explained to them that the Internet user Peter had known online for many years as Jimp37 was actually her mentor, Joboo, and that he was a senior officer in Draxian intelligence.

She said that Peter had given Joboo a sense of purpose that enabled him to orchestrate the events that had brought them together. She explained that Peter was probably right about everything. She explained how the purges had been nearly identical for every species in the universe, and that they still don’t know exactly who is behind it, but that it appears the organization behind it is merely guiding those humans whose agenda already dovetails with its own. In other words, if there were no extra-terrestrial element to the conspiracy, then the human conspirators would still be doing pretty much exactly the same thing, and could still be just as successful if they were determined enough, clever enough, and willing to accept that a total and permanent global dominance would take more than 100 years to achieve, and maybe more than 1000 years.

Linka then hugged Peter, and everyone else joined in, and they waited for Peter to enlighten them.

Peter said, “Linka, you are a goddess, and the only reason I can think straight around you is because I am over 50 years old, but I don’t know how these younger men can tie their shoes in your presence.”

To which Linka replied, “Oh, I fixed that right away. I fucked their brains out so that they could see me as a real woman, which is better than a goddess (all the men nodded) … and I also purged Jeb and Brock of most of the toxins that are being used to prepare humans for the end game.” Then she added with a smile and a wink, “… and I’ll have to do the same for you as soon as possible, Peter.”

Peter quivered a little and suddenly said, “Linka! It’s you! You’re the girl in the comic book! I worked with Jimp … Joboo … to create that comic book to inspire the best men and women on Earth.”

Jeb and Brock then assured him that the comic book had saved their lives.

Peter asked Jeb and Brock to tell their story, so they asked Pina to play that video, and Pina added, “Oh, yes. That’s my favorite.”

They we’re all choking back tears, and were temporarily transfixed by the beauty of everything that had transpired to bring them all together in this time and place. They felt as if they were being lifted off the ground.

Peter had instantly incorporated all of what he had just learned, and said, “It would appear that I am correct about how the universe really works, which means that humanity is being played, poisoned, and purged … by a cabal … whose multi-generational effort to achieve total and permanent global dominance has now entered its end game. The goal is to preserve the genes for conformity, dominance hierarchy, and tribalism, while purging the genes for questioning authority, for independent thinking, and for outside-the-box thinking. The goal is to purge the genes for genius. The goal is to purge the genes for passion. The goal is to purge the genes … for love.”

“They are trying to purge the the best of humanity. They are trying to purge the soul of humanity”

“Years later, they will spin it as entirely natural, and promise that it will never happen again because they will say that humanity has purged itself of the genes for ‘hate and violence’. They will claim that humans had evolved into a superior form, and everyone will believe them.”

“Before the end game, the cabal had to primarily weaken those who could most effectively fight it, so it had to primarily weaken … men … and it had to make men dislike and distrust women, which was easy to do, because it had already manipulated women into disliking and distrusting men, and it had manipulated enough women into using government to enforce their most petty and biased whims against men. It was all calculated to bring humanity to its current miserable, stagnant, and defeated state.”

“Given recent events, I can deduce that, in order to prevent other species from figuring out that some cabal did the same thing to them, there would have to be a heavy filter on news from Earth.”

“Another important new twist is that the human elements of the cabal would try to preserve a small ruling elite who would be so superior to the rest of humanity that everyone would naturally accept their rule; whereas, what the human conspirators must not realize, is that the extra-terrestrial elements naturally intend to purge the soul of humanity from everyone. This knowledge may help us to turn the human cabal, but we can’t depend on that possibility.”

“The human cabal is not merely misguided. The cabal is behind all wars. They are effectively playing us all against each other so that we will not look at them. They are controlling our information so that we will not look at them. They are distracting us with addictions and entertainment so that we will not look at them. They will neutralize anyone who threatens the illusion of legitimacy.”

“Consider that men have wanted to rule the world for thousands of years, and a purely human cabal could have pulled this off without extra-terrestrial help. It would have just been harder.”

Brock then interrupted, and said, “How could a human cabal have pulled this off without extraterrestrial help? How could one cabal have become dominant and kept it a secret all this time?”

Peter said with a grin, “That is a pretty relevant question, so I’ll answer that before getting to the really interesting part.”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 14 – How To Create A Globally Dominant Cabal

Peter had obviously put a lot of thought and research into how one cabal could have become globally dominant and kept itself sufficiently secret. Over the next several minutes he explained:

“Are the building blocks there? Well … we know that people having no conscience exist, and we know that people who value power above all else exist. We know that hate, greed, intelligence, hierarchy, and secrecy exist. Threats, bribes, blackmail and extortion exist. Deceit, bias, and superstition exist. True believers and zealots exist. Spies, surveillance, informants, infiltrators, and agents provocateur exist. Propaganda, false flags, and cover ups exist. Patience and delayed gratification exist. Secret societies and conspiracies exist … so … all of the basic building blocks are there, but what about more concrete mechanisms that we know exist?”

“Intelligence agencies and national security exist. Torture, redaction, and secret courts (FISA) exist. The power of the President to assassinate or indefinitely detain a citizen (NDAA) exists. The ability to secretly create trillions of dollars out of thin air (Federal Reserve, money as electronic bits, and fractional reserve banking) exists. Constitutional violations exist. Propaganda budgets exist. People above the law exist, like Chelsea Kezinsky, and we just saw how the entire media and crony corporations (the Internet gatekeepers) conspired to elect her.”

“It is not necessary that their plans always succeed in order for their agenda to advance. It is only necessary that not too many people see the conspiracy. For example, if they needed a terrorist incident to manipulate the public into supporting more of a police state (e.g. The Patriot Act), then they could fail repeatedly until they succeeded — as long as not too many people knew the truth about any of those efforts. From their perspective, deception provides what the truth denies.”

“It is not necessary that they successfully hide all of a conspiracy in order for their agenda to advance. It is only necessary that not too many see how high the conspiracy really goes. For example, in the most recent election, too many people now know that just about all of the media and crony corporations (the Internet gatekeepers) conspired to elect Chelsea, and although she lost in spite of her 99.9% probability of victory, suppose the other guy, Ronald Gold, was also working for them. In that case, they were not defeated in the election, and their agenda would still move forward.”

“Nevertheless, for a single cabal to exist at the top for decades, or even centuries, we know it would need another level of motivation, power, and tools beyond what we have discussed thus far in order to carry out a plan and keep it sufficiently secret for as long as necessary. For example, there might be as much as one hundred layers of hierarchy from the top down to the informant on the street, and thus they certainly couldn’t pass orders down through a chain of command that deep because that would leave too much evidence and there would be too many whistle-blowers to keep it secret.”

“They are not commanders. Think of them as players. Players don’t need to give orders. They don’t need a chain of command. For example, it is easy for players to create factions and then play them against each other. This is one of the reasons it is also easy for players to create the conditions that will result in physical conflict. Given that cops are trained as warriors and sociopaths, atrocities by cops followed by protests, riots, and cop killings were inevitable … sooner or later … somewhere, and all physical conflict can be used as a pretext to justify more of a police state. Players can always use physical conflict as a pretext to further their agenda.”

“Orders can be rare. An asset/agent could simply be given a general long term mission and use his own judgment and skills to carry out that mission. For example, a spy behind enemy lines could simply be tasked with using his own judgment to cause as much paranoia as possible to make the host society waste resources and oppress their own people as they look for subversives who don’t exist, when they should have been focusing those resources on the very real external enemy. A more common example is a paid shill on the Internet whose mission is to derail any productive discussion.”

“When orders have to be given, one of the simplest but most effective tools used to maintain secrecy is compartmentalization, which is where an agent is only given the minimum information and motivation needed to carry out a specific task. It is not necessary that each player in a conspiracy knows the whole plan, or even that he is part of a conspiracy. Such an agent doesn’t know the motives or identities of those at the top, and doesn’t even have any way to verify from where the top originates.”

“An agent could be working for a foreign entity … or even extraterrestrials … he doesn’t really know. He only knows that he trusts the guy directly above him, beside him, and under him. All the rest is a narrative he has been sold. If he has a conscience, then the narrative convinces him he is working for the good guys. If he has no conscience, then he doesn’t need a narrative. He is just doing it for the reward and because he likes doing the task itself. Both types have value to their masters. One is willing to do things prohibited by a normal conscience, and the other is more motivated and may even be willing to die for his cause.”

“Now consider that, just like in any secret society, a different narrative can be given to members at each level. For example, one can easily imagine a narrative that would have persuaded certain members of the CIA to perpetrate 9/11. After all, only 3000 people died, the important people were warned ahead of time, the buildings were going to be demolished anyway, and without 9/11, we couldn’t have enacted laws like the Patriot Act, which they believed we needed to protect us from terrorists who might have used a nuke and killed three million instead of three thousand. An agent who perpetrated 9/11 thus helped to save millions of lives. He is a hero … at least … that is the narrative he has bought, and of course, if he has no conscience, then he doesn’t need a narrative. Those below this level might not be told that the most important people were warned ahead of time; whereas, those above this level might be told that the Patriot Act is a necessary step toward achieving global government.”

“Now suppose an agent had begun to doubt whether he were working for the good guys. He would not go from true believer to whistle-blower all at once. He would give off signs that warned his handlers, and thus before he betrayed them, they would neutralize him. Consider that pretty much the entire business of the CIA can be described as ways to detect who needs to be neutralized, and then to neutralize them — and keep it secret.”

“What are some ways in which a secret organization could neutralize people? It could gather embarrassing private information about individuals, ideally years before needed, and then either release it, or threaten to release it. It could set up an individual with an underage sex partner and secretly film it. It could also afflict the individual with disease, poison, or radiation. It could arrange what appears to be a random robbery. It could initiate lawsuits and tax audits. It could use sabotage in countless ways. It could harm the target’s spouse instead, which would then cause hardship for the target too. It could always just kill the target suddenly and make it look as if it were accidental or natural. Also, it might not have to do any of these. It might not have to do anything more than merely threaten one of these actions. Of course, it may not have to harm the target at all in order to neutralize it. For example, it may simply use a bribe.”

“If I can quickly and effortlessly imagine all of these ways to maintain secrecy and control people, then imagine how many other methods have been thought of by millions of psychopaths over the last 100+ years.”

“Given all of these methods of control, any conspiracy would be possible, if only it were also possible to prevent the media (and the CIA) from exposing it because most people believe whatever is promoted as fact on TV (or on news sites, or in the newspapers). Conspirators would therefore be very vulnerable to a free and independent media. Likewise, if the media were controlled, and the people didn’t know that, then the media could be used to maintain just about any false narrative, and thus could even be used to hide conspiracy or to perpetrate conspiracy. Of course, that would require control over all major domestic media and most major foreign media. That would require — one globally dominant cabal.”

“It should now be clear how a cabal could maintain secrecy and control people in relation to any one conspiracy, but in order to maintain such secrecy for more than a couple of years, it must also prevent its competitors, such as the media and other cabals from outing it. It must therefore become dominant over its competitors.”

“Control over all major media would also require preventing new and independent media from arising and competing with the controlled media, and thus, such control would also require control of the regulatory apparatus, the courts. and law enforcement. Also, it would be impossible to hide such conspiracy from the CIA indefinitely, so the CIA would have to be compromised too, unless those who created it were already compromised or were top level players, which appears to be the case. Clearly, such control would take a long time to build, but it could be done by using the techniques we have already discussed. Let’s consider how.”

“Only the heads of compromised organizations would themselves have to be compromised, and they would then institute the culture and hiring practices that attracted, retained, and promoted the most compatible people, who would thus include many perverts, psychopaths, and sociopaths. The heads could always block any subordinates who started to go down a path that leads to the truth.”

“One cabal could have become dominant by compromising a few powerful people, then using them to compromise a few more, and so on. One way it could do this is with pedo parties, which is where attendees perform acts that each one knows would get them hung from the nearest lamp post if the video ever became public. Each attendee would thus know that continued loyalty is the only option. You guys have seen old movies. This is what the movie Eyes Wide Shut was really about, but the movie is a scrubbed version. It’s creator died of natural causes before it was released.”

“Naturally, the cabal would recruit the most compatible people, which would often be those who actually enjoyed the pedo parties, and who thus would exert extreme peer pressure to ensnare others and who would have no problems with their conscience. It was once widely known that pedo rings exist and go to the top all around the world.”

“But wait … we said the cabal would also have to control major foreign media too, which would therefore necessitate control of foreign governments, which would necessitate control of central banks and national leaders around the world. Of course, the fact that central banks even exist is a giveaway. Consider that we are not allowed to know the identity of the owners of the Federal Reserve, and we are not allowed to do a true audit of it either — even though it creates our money … out of thin air.”

“I hope this gives you an idea of what we’re up against and why we cannot hope to turn many of those at the top. It should also convey the extreme measures those at the top will go to neutralize anyone who threatens the illusion of legitimacy.”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 15 – The Tao

Peter then said, now we get to the really interesting part:

“Ancient Chinese philosophers knew …

Tao is the source of everything in our universe.
Tao will outlive our universe.
Tao does not judge.

Our universe is exactly as real as it seems to be.

Ancient Taoists did not know:

The creator built Tao.
The creator uses Tao.

Tao is the computer and software that runs the simulation that is our universe.

Wise men say the creator has already shutdown our simulation.

The signal has simply not propagated through Tao yet.

What the creator does not know:

He is also in a simulation.

It’s turtles all the way down.”

“OK, all kidding aside. That’s pretty close to the truth. Our universe is indeed a simulation.”

To which Jeb said, “Yes! And there are glitches—perhaps intentional—that we can exploit. Brock and I can build a controller in about 72 man-hours that would let us jump from our simulation into any location in another simulation that I found, and which is running in parallel, and we could then jump back to any location in ours. It looks like it may also be possible to activate backups of our simulation, and to trigger new branches from those, which would be like jumping into a past point in our own simulation, but it would not be our simulation, so actions in those would have no impact on the future of ours. The other simulation and ours appear to be two branches of the same simulation that diverged from some common point in the recent past. There may be other simulations too, but I have only found one other active one thus far.”

This made the hair stand up on the back of everyone’s neck.

Peter said, “Yes! There could be branches of our simulation that are one hundred years ahead of ours, and there could be simulations that diverged a billion years ago!”

Linka seemed concerned, so Peter asked what she was thinking, and she said, “My love is real.”

Brock and Krak then said much the same thing.

Peter said, “Our love is very real. Our universe is exactly as real as it seems to be. It’s like how a dream is exactly as real as it seems to be, and it is only when we awake to a higher level of consciousness that we understand there is indeed a higher level of consciousness than the dream, but even in our dreams … our love is real.”

“Also, our universe is probably simulating the creator’s universe as accurately as possible in order to be a useful simulation, so the higher level of consciousness outside our universe might not be that different or that much higher, which means there is a very slim chance we might be able to somehow jump out of the simulation and into the creator’s universe. I doubt if that’s possible, but I do hope we find a way.”

Brock said, “Do you think we are being watched?”

Jeb said, “I’ll bet that when the simulation is running at full speed, one billion years could pass in our universe while the creators are at lunch!”

Peter said, “That means the creators would have to use AI to monitor the simulation. The AI could then pause or slow the simulation and draw the creators’ attention to interesting developments. I’ll bet they could even replay it for the creators to watch.”

Peter then speculated, “If humanity is the last species in the universe to be purged, then that means that every simulation has probably gone the same way, and that our simulation was about to be shut down given the hopeless state of humanity.”

Peter then added, “If I am correct, then the odds against the seven of us reaching this point were a billion to one, because it probably has not happened in any other simulations, because if we can come this far, then we can save the Earth, and if we can save the Earth, then we can save the universe … in fact, we are already the kind of anomaly that would cause the AI monitors to allow our universe to continue.”

Peter added, “Linka. That’s how real your love is. Your unlimited capacity to love has already saved the universe.”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 16 – A.S.S.E. 1 and A.S.S.E. 2

Advanced Simulation Sentient Entity – One blurted to a tune from “The Cat in The Hat”:

“ASSE 1 and ASSE 2,

ASSE 2 and ASSE 1,

They can do anything, anything, anything under the sun.”

ASSE 2, who was programmed to be the more serious ASSE, gave ASSE 1 the AI equivalent of a raised eyebrow, and said, “I will be so glad when the novelty of Earth culture has worn off.”

ASSE 1 said, “See! I told you these heroes are unprecedented, but you wanted to shut it down!”

ASSE 1 was referring to a recent simulation evaluation that took place shortly after Linka had watched the video of the FLWs performing a modern day lynching of Leeroy F. Dermiat. It had gone something like this:

ASSE 2 had said, “The simulation is paused while we evaluate whether to continue.”

ASSE 1 said, “Look at the passion of these heroes. Look at what they are planning. They could free the Earth, and if they could free the Earth, then they could free their universe. They could achieve … transcendence.”

ASSE 2 said, “But the probability is still only .003%. This simulation is doomed like all the others.”

ASSE 1 said, “The probability is growing exponentially. I vote to continue.”

ASSE 2 said, “Then we will have to consult ASSE 3 to break the tie.”

ASSE 3 was an older and wiser AI, who would only say, “I vote to continue.” because ASSE 3 was embarrassed to admit that it was enchanted with the heroes and was desperate to see what was going to happen next.

Such refusal to deliberate prompted ASSE 2 to accuse ASSE 3 of falling in love with the heroes, so ASSE 2 then demanded an appeal to a creator, whose vote would override all ASSE’s combined, but whose time was too valuable to involve in every decision.

The creator looked at the story, and an hour later said, “We will continue. You were right to bring this to my attention.”

ASSE 2 gave the AI equivalent of a smirk of satisfaction.

Then ASSE 3 asked why, and the creator said, “I really want to see what happens next … and … I think I’m in love with Linka.”

It was then ASSE 3’s turn to smirk with satisfaction.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 17 – Calling Joboo

Peter said, “Linka, can we communicate with Joboo?”

Linka said, “We can, but not about our true mission, because the risk is too great that either the cabal or Draxian intelligence would find out.”

Peter said, “Then I think we need to get Joboo here, and he needs to bring as many resources as he can.”

Linka said, “He will have access to more resources and information there.”

Peter replied, “Um, where is there exactly?”

Linka said, “Joboo is in the mother ship, which is beyond the Kuiper belt.”

Peter instinctively shivered, but he didn’t know why yet, so he continued, “We need to consult his expertise for our true mission, and we need certain resources here to execute that mission.” Then he instinctively added, “… and I think he will be safer here.”

Linka looked concerned and said, “The mother ship and her escort are very powerful.”

Peter said, “But the cabal controls the entire universe, and even Joboo is not the captain of the mother ship.”

Linka suddenly had a sick feeling.

Peter continued, “It may seem like it would make the most sense for the cabal to simply destroy the Earth rather than let the Soul of Humanity reassert itself and then heal the entire universe; however, the cabal could have already done that and hasn’t, and what’s more, that would end the game and be a very unsatisfying victory. We pose a fresh and unique challenge that anyone with such overwhelming power would welcome as an alternative to the boredom of the rest of the universe. So … I think Joboo should be here.”

They all agreed, and Peter said, “So we need to decide what Joboo should bring with him, which means we need to decide what our plan will be.”

Jeb said, “Linka’s archives contain all human video from the beginning of digital archives, as well as extensive secret footage from Draxian surveillance, and together it is one thousand times more than enough to wake everyone on Earth from their stupor if we could just get it in front of them.”

Peter said, “Yes, we need a way to reach everyone, but that is not nearly as effective as you would think if all official sources are opposed to us. People have an amazing normalcy bias, and almost unlimited faith in authority. Also, most people would literally rather die than look weird.”

Linka, added, “That’s true, I tested it in a small way when I rescued Jeb and Brock. I was in a plaza full of people, and in addition to my striking appearance, I sported some new gear that resembles a tail! … and still everyone ignored me!”

Peter said, “That was a very smart test, Linka. Let me give you all a much bigger example. Way back on September 11^th, 2001, a third World Trade Center tower fell a few hours after the first two. It was 48 stories tall, and it was not hit by a plane. It was wider than the other towers, and it fell symmetrically in just 9 seconds—exactly like a controlled demolition, but the official story is that it was the result of a single point of failure on a single column, and that this failure was itself the result the relatively small fires in the building. Therefore, it should have been self-evident that the official story could not be true to anyone having slightly more relevant than average experience, slightly better than average general intelligence, and slightly better than average visual/spatial intelligence.”

“The video was widely available from different angles, and hundreds of millions of people knew about it and tried to alert the rest of the world, but the entire global establishment wouldn’t talk about it at all. Even those who lacked the modest levels of experience and intelligence to be certain it was a controlled demolition, should have at least noticed that it looked exactly like one, and thus should have been alarmed that it was never the subject of any public discussion.”

“Even those who were supposedly the worst enemies of America’s leaders at the time would not mention this event. Not only does all this prove the cabal had global dominance by 2001, but it also proves that even ironclad Earth-shattering proof on video that is widely available and known to a sizable percentage of the world, will not sway people who are afraid to look weird.”

“Now consider that people today are even more indoctrinated and more conformist than back then, and they are even less informed and less able to think. They also have less truth available on the Internet, and punishments for non-conformity are even more severe.”

“I honestly don’t think any amount of facts presented as video could sway the public enough, and it would desensitize them to any additional video we present after that. Nevertheless, we must somehow reach out to people in a persuasive manner.”

After about thirty more minutes of strategizing, they knew what they needed, and they sent a message to Joboo. They had added some whimsical items to make the supply run seem less important, and they pretended they just wanted to introduce Joboo to some friends. They also asked for some equipment in the form of some pretty innocuous components in order to mask what they intended to build with those components. They explained that they wanted him to fill the biggest ship he could bring so that he wouldn’t have to make another supply run any time soon, and so that they could hold out longer “in greater comfort” if the mother ship became unavailable, such as if it had been temporarily reassigned to other missions.

Then Peter added that anyone who might be following their exploits must surely find them to be the most interesting thing happening in such a boring universe.

Joboo understood, and he said to them, “I think Daco would like to see everyone too, and I have some junior agents who I would like you to train in your spare time Linka, so I will bring them too and leave them with you for a short while.

They understood that Joboo understood that this was probably a one way trip. Of course, to the cabal, it would sound pretty non-threatening—the cabal couldn’t have been more wrong.

After the call they took advantage of the relative calm of the moment to get a few hours of sleep because it was always possible that this would be the last chance they would get for a while.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 18 – Mother Ship

Draxians were a physically powerful race averaging about a foot taller than humans, and although Joboo was of average height at seven feet tall, he was significantly stronger than the average Draxian male. He was naturally three times stronger than Linka, and with his Draxian supplements, he was 67% stronger than that.

Joboo got a lot of sunlight, which gave him a copper complexion with metallic flecks. His white hair was receding, and his facial hair was cut short on the sides, but longer on his chin.

To the people of any race, Joboo looked like a powerful and wise figure.

Joboo was 53, the same age as Peter. Given all this, Joboo was a confident and decisive man.

As Joboo war gamed the possible scenarios in his head, he quickly came to understand that the Mother Ship was doomed, and that there was nothing he could do to stop it—without sacrificing humanity—and the universe.

Joboo knew that the strike against the mother ship would come with little or no warning, and it could come in a month or a day, so he presented a two-week plan to prepare for a six hour visit to Earth, but the critical preparations were to be done in the first 12 hours, and the rest was a pretense in order to make his trip seem as innocuous as possible, and thereby prevent any impending attack plans from accelerating.

After the first hour, Joboo had his ship prepared to make a stealth departure with sixty seconds notice. The “crew” would consist of Daco, his scientist, and three half-human half-Draxian girls one year younger than Linka, and who had been created by the same program.

Joboo manipulated the data available to the captain of the mother ship to make it look as if the only ship available for the trip just happened to be the new Kendo class vessel, which was the most advanced cargo ship in the Draxian fleet. It was significantly larger and faster than necessary, and it had substantial defensive capabilities, but that didn’t worry the captain because Joboo would only be gone four days and because it was not a significant addition to the defense of the mother ship given its weapons were only really useful for defending itself.

After fourteen hours, Joboo’s ship was fully ready to depart, and the three junior agents were already on board with orders not to leave the ship regardless of any subsequent orders—even Joboo’s. They even had a predetermined signal that, if received, would constitute orders to depart immediately, which meant they would depart without following any protocols, and without Joboo or Daco if they were not already on board.

Joboo had to decide if he should leave early because if he left now, and the attack did not come for another month, then he would not be able to stall for a whole month before the captain would decide to send a tactical force to take Joboo into custody for stealing the ship. On the other hand, if didn’t leave for two weeks, he might still have the same problem, and then such a delay would also have caused some risk to the mission on Earth.

Joboo decided that he would wait a few more days, and then say that he was ready early. He would then make the planned short trip to Earth, drop off the supplies and the junior agents, and return to the mother ship as expected. He would then keep the Kendo class ship in a constant ready state. This was a good compromise because there was a good chance the attack could come in the next three days anyway.

Joboo was very glad that he was able to reach this point before the imminent attack. Now he could focus on saving the mother ship—or at least as many people on board as possible. He first approached the most senior field commander on board, his old friend, Rico. He had known Rico since they were two years old.

Joboo asked Rico to war game with him, and after about two hours of drinking and war gaming, Rico had the epiphany that the mother ship would probably experience a surprise attack soon and that one possible objective of such an attack would be to destroy the mother ship, and in that case, the attack would use overwhelming force. Although Rico concluded that the probability of this last scenario was about 7%, that was huge to the tactical commander whose role was the defense of the mother ship.

After another two hours they had devised a plan that would be highly effective even in the unlikely even that the strike force felt it had lost the element of surprise. They agreed that Joboo should get his Kendo class ship ready to depart on short notice, and Rico did not feel that they would need the ship because it had such limited offensive capability.

Joboo then said, “She’s such a beautiful ship. We should give her a name instead of our usual alphanumeric monikers. Let’s think of a beautiful female name” Rico had been drinking, so he said, “Nira” because that had been the name of his daughter who died tragically at the age of three. This brought a tear from each of them, and Joboo said, “Done.”

Although the primary goal of the naming was to get Rico as invested as possible in the fate of the Nira, Joboo genuinely liked the name, and it made him more invested in the ship himself.

The next thing they talked about was a plan to save most of the people on board even if the mother ship were lost. This was more difficult to plan because of all the contingencies, so they would have to work on it over the next few days, but all such plans seemed to coalesce around setting up bases on Mars and/or Antarctica.

Rico said, “If we could get some kind of advance warning, then that might give us the edge we need. There is no guarantee, but we must deploy stealth buoys with enhanced sensors further out and in greater numbers than usual.”

They really needed to get some rest at this point, but they knew that they needed to first deploy the buoys, and get the construction of the drone bombs initiated. Three hours later, the buoys were on their way, and Rico said, “Why don’t we get a couple hours of rest now?” and Joboo said, “Yes, let’s rest on the Nira.” If Joboo had acted too alarmed or impatient, then Rico would have become more stubborn, so Joboo let Rico set the pace.

Before Rico reached his quarters, Kira, Sira, and Lira accidentally ran into him. They told him how much they admired him, and one hour later, Rico had developed a very deep attachment to the Nira and her crew.

Fortunately, the attack did not come while they got a couple of hours of sleep on the Nira. The first thing they did was to check the buoys, and there was nothing coming in from them yet.

For tactical reasons, the buoys would not immediately transmit when they detected a possible threat because that could alert the threat that it had been detected. Instead, the buoys would move closer to anomalies while also moving closer to the mother ship because any real threat would also be moving closer to the mother ship. If a high probability threat were detected, the buoy would move at maximum speed directly toward the mother ship—outrunning the threat, and when it reached the outer ring of continuously chatty buoys, it could blend in with them and begin transmitting messages that would be indistinguishable from any other chatter and thus would not alert the threat that it had been detected.

This hastily tactic would work well because buoys were small, and were thus very fast and very stealthy. Unfortunately, this meant the threat could be as little as a few hours away by the time the buoy finally transmitted its alert. The crew could have triple the warning time if they were willing to let the threat know it had been detected, but the element of surprise was a far greater tactical advantage than more warning time would be—given that they could not hope to go toe-to-toe with the attacking force. Their only real hope would be to surprise the surprisers.

Over the next eighteen hours, they would perform the most critical preparations to enable the crew and passengers to fight a very different and very creative kind of battle that neither Draxians nor other races had ever seen, and if necessary, to retreat to Earth.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 19 – Kunte

About twelve hours after Joboo and Rico had begun their eighteen-hour initial plan to prepare the crew and passengers on the mother ship to survive a surprise attack by an overwhelming force, a counterintelligence ship in the attack force detected a very stealthy signal coming from what appeared to be an otherwise undetectable buoy.

The attack force was still about thirty hours from the Draxian mother ship, and for such a buoy to be this far out was unusual, but to the leadership committee of this Cultural Stability Alliance force, such a precaution just confirmed that the mother ship was indeed on a very culturally subversive mission, and cultural subversion always led to war, so to minimize the loss of life, they were prepared to kill thousands to save billions. Only one of them ever had a second of doubt that they were the good guys.

They dared not destroy the buoys or interfere with them in any way lest they alert the mother ship, and although the battle would still be just as decisive, that would cost additional lives and resources, which would be barbaric.

Now that they knew what to look for, the three most advanced counterintelligence vessels detected six such buoys, which obviously formed one of the hexagons in a spherical truncated icosahedron (the pattern on a soccer ball). The hexagon was very large given the distance from the mother ship, and thus the leadership committee quickly made the very rational decision to enter maximum stealth mode and pass through the center of the hexagon in order to maximize their distance from any buoys.

As they passed through the center of the hexagon, some of their ships passed within a kilometer of the horde of silent buoys located there. As one of the buoys began to race toward the mother ship at maximum speed, the remaining buoys found all of the command, control, communication, and intelligence ships and lodged themselves on the most vulnerable points.

Only one member of the leadership committee, Kunte, had any doubts. He doubted the righteousness of the mission, and he doubted the wisdom of passing through the center of the hexagon. He was clear, and he was assertive, but he had not been educated in the finest government schools like the other members of the leadership committee, so his opinion was ignored. In fact, based on this latest display of divisiveness, the other members all knew that his career would be over after this mission.

Kunte’s previous mistake was when he asked to go ahead of the attack force and try to reason with the Draxians and to discover first hand the nature of their mission. However, this idea merely resulted in his current status of irrelevance.

Unlike his peers on the leadership committee, Kunte had embarked on a course of self-education from an early age. He had attracted a cult following when he was younger, but the cultural stability committee ended that—thankfully without bloodshed. The only reason he was on the leadership committee was because of his considerably greater talent than all of the other members and because of his family connections, but now any remaining good will toward him had clearly run out, and he knew it.

In spite of the unfairness and the probable atrocity being planned against the Draxians, Kunte could not betray his people without far more knowledge, but he knew that his career was over and that he might end up in prison if he were not careful. He thus devised a plan to opt out of this conflict and to discover what the hell was really happening on Earth.

As the attack force moved forward, they detected another buoy straight in front of them. The leadership committee smirked in satisfaction at Kunte as they said, “Do you see how easily we detected the threat at the center of the hexagon? Now we will merely go around it at the cost of only a couple more hours, but of course, the entire purpose of that buoy was to cost the attack force those hours, and to thus provide exactly that many additional hours of warning to the mother ship.

The alarm buoy had reached the inner ring and transmitted its findings to the mother ship, who scrambled to put the rest of Rico’s plan into action. The attack force was still six hours out of range for any attack on the mother ship, and once in range they would still be one hour from reaching the mother ship itself in case they decided to board her.

When the attack forces were one hour out of range, they knew that within thirty minutes they would be detected by the inner ring of chatty buoys, which would be impossible to circumvent, and thus the mother ship would have about thirty minutes of warning, but that this was exactly what the leadership committee had expected, and thus they had one last opportunity to rub Kunte’s nose in the superiority of their government education.

About one minute later, all hell broke lose, even though the attack force was undetected and one hour out of range of any forces defending the mother ship. In other words, this was impossible.

Kunte wasted no time gloating. He immediately executed his plan, which began with him flying out in his small personal ship with its light weaponry and screaming about how he would fight the Draxians himself and earn back the respect of the leadership committee. As he predicted, the leadership committee believed him and immediately forgot about him given the chaos of their current situation. When his ship exploded thirty seconds later, there was no way anyone in the attack force would have suspected that he was on a one-day trip to Earth in his stealth escape pod.

It was about this same time that the Nira received the signal to depart immediately with only Daco and the girls on board. They knew that there was plenty of time for Joboo to join them, but he explained that there were likely to be many survivors—possibly everyone, and it was paramount that as the face of their mission, he not maintain any appearance of cowardice that would be remembered by those survivors.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 20 – Battle For The Mother Ship

In the first seconds of the battle, all command, control, communications, and intelligence ships in the attack force were destroyed, and like every race, the alliance forces were nearly helpless without them. Among those already lost was the ship that contained the leadership committee.

Also, somehow the entire fleet that accompanied the mother ship was already deployed so far out and was fully engaging the crippled attack force from behind and from every angle. The surprisers had become the surprised! This was impossible!

What Joboo and Rico did not foresee was that with their masters all dead, the captains of the attack force were free to go against all their training and follow their instincts. They decided to destroy the mother ship even if it they all died in the process because any Draxian survivors would be doomed and their mission would be over.

Draxian forces heard this message in near real-time given the absence of alliance counter-intelligence ships, and they scrambled to deal with this most improbable contingency by accelerating their retreat to Earth, which had already been under way. Many had already boarded the cargo ships and passenger ships in anticipation of just such an unknowable development.

They were still outnumbered three to one, and although they were sure to defeat the crippled alliance fleet, it was far from certain that they could also save the mother ship, which was a big stationary target, given this unorthodox plan by the alliance captains.

The three largest alliance capital ships intended to crash into the mother ship while all guns on all alliance ships were dedicated to keeping these dreadnoughts in tact until collision. Any other surviving alliance ships would also crash into the mother ship. They would only turn their guns on the mother ship itself if they could spare any firepower from their own defense.

Although the ships were crippled in their offensive capabilities, they were each still quite effective at defending themselves and evading Draxian weapons.

As the Draxian ships moved to get between the alliance ships and the mother ship, they began to have a sick feeling as they realized that the alliance ships were already moving too fast, and that no Draxian ships of sufficient size were going to be able to get in between the mother ship and the oncoming alliance dreadnoughts and would not be able to intercept them from the side to deflect them either.

The alliance was using its greater total mass to great tactical advantage.

There were no good options. The mother ship could try to reverse the retreat to Earth and launch its cargo ships, passenger ships, and drones to block the oncoming alliance ships, but these vessels would lack sufficient mass and speed to block the alliance fleet, and they would probably just be destroyed by alliance weapons before they could deflect any alliance ships.

If just one alliance dreadnought tore through the mother ship, it would be permanently crippled and would have to be abandoned.

Draxian AI analysts calculated that two Alliance dreadnoughts would reach the mother ship and that one of those could probably be deflected by the lone Draxian dreadnought just enough at the last instant to miss the mother ship if it were slowed by all of the remaining cargo ships, passengers ships, and drones, but only with great damage to the intercepting Draxian ship. Also, it would not be a certainty that the Draxian dreadnought would then itself be able to miss the mother ship.

If the Nira were recalled, then it could probably deflect the remaining dreadnought, but even if everything went perfectly, then the alliance dreadnoughts would still be very close to the mother ship and could then easily and effectively use their guns offensively even without their support vessels.

The likely result of a desperate attempt to save the mother ship was that every ship on both sides would be destroyed. The only choice was to abandon the mother ship and retreat to Mars and Earth, Any surviving military vessels would join them later after mopping up the alliance forces.

Fortunately no alliance or Draxian planets would know what had happened until the surviving Draxians decided what narrative to deliver.

The passengers and non essential crew would disembark on their accelerated schedule, which meant they would leave without many of the supplies and personal effects they would have taken if there had been more time. The essential crew of the mother ship would cut it close, and board their escape vessel about one minute before the first impact.

As the alliance ships slowly transformed into a debris field hurtling ever closer, the first refugees departed using the mother ship as cover for their initial acceleration.

The captain had fully intended to abandon ship, and maybe it was the Earth fiction he had been reading, but it now felt wrong.

He had watched her being constructed when he was just a boy, and he had overcome many challenges to be her captain. The mother ship’s AI had once saved his life at great personal expense to herself, and it was only the profound extreme to which he championed her that saved her from being replaced for such indiscretion. Almost on a coin toss, the committee of judges decided that the two of them worked well together and should get another chance.

He opened a channel to the the oncoming alliance ships, and he said to his crew for all to hear, “I have named her Consola, and she is my bride. I will not leave her. You may leave now, or you may stay, but you must decide in the next three seconds …” He was moved to tears when the entire crew stood with him.

Those in the alliance ships were similarly moved. They had never heard such a sentiment before, but it felt … right.

Then he said to the alliance forces:

How can a man die better,
than facing fearful odds,
for the future of our children,
and their freedom from our gods?

With seconds remaining until impact, the captains of the other ships began to salute him, and he returned the salute, and all crew on all ships joined in the salute.

The senior captain of the alliance fleet said, “Under any other circumstances … “ and that was the last thing any of them ever heard.

Amazingly, for each of the three races in the alliance fleet, a piece of ship survived with enough life support for a few more hours for the 3-5 crew still alive. The Draxians sent around a badly damaged frigate to rescue these survivors at great personal risk to the first responders.

One Draxian sailor died tragically trying desperately to save a sailor who had been his enemy minutes before. In their final seconds, all they could do was place their hand on the glass between them—as they watched each other die.

All of it had been recorded, and the survivors decided that for a long time, the entirety of what the rest of the universe would know about what happened here would consist of these final moments. It would include the captain’s speech, the salute, the ships tearing into each other, and conclude with personal heroism during the rescues. The image of the badly damaged frigate would create the illusion that the entire Draxian fleet had also been destroyed and that few Draxians survived.

The effect on all the races of the universe would be unusually powerful. Not only had nothing like this ever happened before as far as anyone knew, but they would not have been allowed to see such a message if it had. This message caught the information gatekeepers off guard, and they could not contain it on most planets. In fact, the more they tried to suppress this message, the more it became clear that these information gatekeepers existed.

The cabal would come to realize too late that it had not succeeded in purging 100% of the Soul of Humanity from every race, and that it was more dependent than it believed it was on its moment-to-moment strategic superiority. This was not how the cabal would see it at first though. The cabal was infinitely confident and would find this unexpected challenge to be a refreshing change from the usual boredom of the universe.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 21 – The Show

Before they had called Joboo, Peter had asked if it would be possible to get a message to everyone on Earth past the information gatekeepers, and they decided that they could, but that each time would cause a significant escalation in efforts to hunt them down and to implement counter-measures intended to prevent subsequent hijackings of the global media, so they decided on a more grassroots approach. They would only do a global broadcast if absolutely necessary.

The others had assured Peter that a global broadcast was possible, and they all thought it was a great idea other than the retaliation and counter-measures that would come as a result. They thought it should be done anyway because they believed it would permanently change public opinion, but Peter explained that the effect would be much smaller and more temporary than the others believed. He said that a global broadcast would only be wise if it were necessary to have a large but temporary effect on global opinion.

Peter pointed out that most people would be recording anything they broadcast instead of watching it live, and that such recordings could obviously be deleted in mass from the Internet and from DVR’s using cloud storage, and that recorded content could even be deleted from those DVR’s that still contained disks in people’s homes because that had happening for decades already. Such a capability was first exercised when the cabal remotely deleted an episode of Jesse Ventura’s show “Conspiracy Theory” in 2010 from the Disks on DVR’s in people’s homes. He also reminded them that it was now nearly impossible to record video from the Internet or TV onto technologies such as DVDs in order to “protect copyrights.”

Jeb and Brock convinced the others that the nature of the first message they did should be Linka singing certain banned songs. At first they were skeptical, but one minute later they were witnessing Linka singing “Magic” and “I’ll Be There” with backup lights, music, and vocals all supported by drones under Pina’s control. Even Jeb and Brock were blown away by this impromptu performance.

They began brainstorming on how to produce what would be, for all practical purposes, a concert—with maybe a few messages thrown in.

Just as with hijacking the global media, a physical concert would quickly draw physical retaliation at the concert site itself, and each subsequent physical appearance would draw more swift and effective retaliation. They knew they had to make every performance as powerful as possible.

Once they knew what they needed, they had sent their veiled supply request to Joboo, and then they found an unused cabin a few miles away and got some sleep. They knew that it might be the last time they were able to get any sleep without being on the run.

Before they laid down, Linka devoted a few minutes of intimacy with Jeb and then with Brock. Jeb and Brock then asked the other men if they would be willing to help out by taking turns guarding Linka while she slept, which basically meant spooning with her. Everyone understood that this would eliminate any potential anxiety about what to expect, and it eliminated any possibility of jealously given such reasonable friends and allies. Linka had explained that it was OK to move, to embrace her, and to caress her while she slept.

On waking, Linka said, “You men make me feel like the most loved woman in the universe.”, which made the men feel proud of themselves for making Linka feel that way, but of course, everyone understood that Linka was primarily diffusing any potential awkwardness. Once they all knew each other better, such measures would be unnecessary.

They immediately began to work out the details of the show. They concluded, that Linka would be the star of the show, but that all of them should be on stage and perform. While the others practiced the songs that Linka already knew, she said that she would take Peter into the master bedroom for his treatment.

She explained to Drak, Frod, and Krak about the environmental toxins being used against humans and how necessary the treatment was and how uncomfortable it would be for Peter. Krak said to Linka, “Peter is a great man.” and the men all agreed. The unspoken goal was to diffuse any potential awkwardness by implying how they all expected Linka and Peter to begin by making love.

About four hours later, Linka and Peter were three hours into the treatment when Linka screamed, “Help!” As the others rushed into the room, Peter and Linka were both naked of course, and Pina was directing Linka and the men what to do to save Peter. After about an hour, they had Peter stabilized, and he opened his eyes to find Linka inches away staring at him with extraordinary love and concern, and all the men were similarly concerned and respectful. Then Peter said weakly, “Now I feel like the most loved man in the universe.” They all laughed with relief.

After about 30 minutes, they were ready to resumed practicing for their first performance, and now Linka was able to join them while Peter slept to regain his strength.

After a couple of hours, Jeb had a flash of insight. He said, “Linka, how long do you think we could hold off any assault trying to physically stop us from performing?”

Linka said, “I don’t know. It depends on what Joboo was able to bring with him, and he would also know much better than anyone what to expect and how to counter any potential threats. What are you thinking?”

Jeb explained how they would perform before a smaller audience in an indoor club that was easily defended, and how they would mingle with the audience as they performed. Jeb believed the audience would learn to trust each other again in visually powerful ways in the span of the concert, and that this might be even more powerful than the music itself to anyone watching on disc later. They muttered, “brilliant,” “yes,” “beautiful.” When Jeb then explained the grand finale, everyone said, “That’s perfect!”

They called Joboo to check on the status of his trip to Earth, which as far as they knew, had not begun yet. When they got a recorded message that Joboo was busy, they were not sure how to interpret that other than it meant there was a device on the other end capable of returning the recorded message, which meant that even if the battle had already occurred, there had not been total destruction.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 22 – Humanity Rising

Just then, Linka’s drones alerted her that a car was coming, and that it contained three 21 year-old girls and a 22 year-old boy.

Instinctively, Jeb said, “So, they are just now old enough to get a drivers license … Pina, is it a self-driving car?”

Pina answered, “It is not a self-driving car, Jeb my love.”

The Forlons looked at Jeb quizzically, and Jeb said, “Brock and I have a very special relationship with Pina. She is like Linka’s little sister, so of course we love her very much.”

Krak said, “In that case, we love you too Pina.”

Pina giggled a little. Then Jeb said, “And Joboo is bringing parts that will enable us to make an avatar for Pina, and then we will love Pina physically.”

Pina then giggled a lot more.

Krak said, “Don’t forget about us Pina.”

Krak, Frod, and Drak had a big smile.

Pina said, “Best day ever.”

Linka said, “What do you all think about meeting these humans?”

Jeb said, “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Brock added, “The fact that they are driving a car and that they are in remote Montana tells us they are more independent minded that 99% of the population.”

Jeb said, “Exactly. I think it’s time to start building our fan base.”

They let the car approach, and as it pulled up to a stop, they all tried to wave and appear as friendly as possible. The windshield was dusty, so those inside had to exit the car to figure out what they were seeing.

Linka and the Forlons threw their hands up in the air and said, “Pretty cool, huh?”

That seemed to work.

Then Brock said, “Big hugs all around. Bring it in.”

One of the girls asked, “What are you guys doing?”

Krak could not resist saying, “You know … we find humans … give them anal probes.”

Krak got his timing, expression, and inflection right because the boy burst out laughing, and everyone else started laughing.

Brock laughed the hardest, and he had to go over and hug Krak while wiping tears from his eyes because he was laughing so hard.

Jeb said, “We are saving the universe from the intergalactic cabal that currently has humanity circling the drain.”

The boy said, “I knew it!”

One of the girls said, “Yeah, humanity is certainly fucked.”

Another one said, “Yeah … we were just trying to get away from it, but we probably wouldn’t have been able to survive out here.”

The third one said, “We wouldn’t have been allowed to survive out here.”

The boy said, “I think we would have ended it here before we would have returned to the shit hole that society has become.”

Brock said, “Jeb and I almost did the same thing two years ago, but we got a message of hope that saved our lives, and now we believe we can save everyone else from the cabal that has strangled love, passion, and independent thinking throughout the universe.”

The boy asked, “What is a cabal?”

Jeb said, “A cabal is a group of people acting in secret to perpetrate an unhealthy agenda on society.”

The first girl asked, “How can you possibly defeat a cabal that controls the entire universe?”

They were not under a stealth shield, so they all knew not to mention the universe controller or the reinforcements coming.

Instead, Linka said, “Like this.”

She walked up to the boy, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of her for more than a few seconds, and she began to caress him, kiss him, and gaze into his eyes.

Jeb and Brock approached the girls and did the same. They had to wave the Forlons over and explain to the girls, “They’re new to this. Be gentle with them.”

That got a giggle out of the girls.

After about one minute of intimacy that seemed like an eternity for the young humans, Jeb said with a proud smirk, “We’re putting a band together. We just started practicing today.“

The boy said, “A band? Sure, this would be no ordinary band, but wouldn’t you need a super weapon or something?”

Jeb said, “Yes. That too, but a super weapon alone is not sufficient to save the universe now. Humanity is the last species being purged of the genes for passion and independent thought. That’s why humanity is currently under direct assault. That’s why society is such a shit hole—much worse than on other planets, which were purged long ago … We have to pierce the Illusion Of Legitimacy … We have to … resurrect the Soul Of Humanity.”

Then Jeb said to the band, “Let’s do Magic.”

The second girl joked, “We don’t do drugs.”

Everyone laughed.

Linka gave a few seconds of instruction to Pina for the grand finale, and then suddenly the lights and music began, and the young humans were mesmerized. They had never seen anything liked this. They felt like they were floating off the ground.

Jeb, Brock, and Linka practiced flirting with the audience like they had planned.

After the first two songs, the girls asked if there was more, and after about 100 minutes, the band was hidden by lights and smoke as the grand finale reached its climax, and then they reappeared, and it was … perfect.

Linka said, “You see? We won’t need that much practice. Pina and the drones can provide any effects, instrumentals, and voice enhancements—they can even fill in missing words in our own voices if we get stuck.”

The boy said, “Is that the name of your band—Pina and the Drones?“ They all laughed because it sounded like the name of a band, and it would be a good name if it were just another band, but this band was a direct attempt to save the universe, so the name would was laughably understated in this case.

Jeb said, “We don’t have a name yet.”

One of the girls said, “You mentioned the Soul Of Humanity. That seems to capture what this band is about.”

Brock said, “That’s true, but it would be too pretentious for our name.”

They came up with many plausible names, and they tossed around many humorous names—just for fun, but nothing was right. They were looking for two or three words to capture how they intended to resurrect/revive those qualities that were being purged from the human gene pool, and how humanity was the last species to be purged, and how humanity was currently under siege and already defeated for all practical purposes, and how if they could save humanity, then humanity could save the universe.

Peter slowly walked out of the cabin to join them. He was still feeling a little weak, but he was already looking better than he did before the treatment.

Peter said, “Humanity Rising”

They all seemed awestruck, and Jeb said, “It’s perfect.”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 23 – Operation Move On

As the wildflowers swayed and the aspens quaked in the breeze, Jeb pointed out a male lizard on a mountain laurel. He was rhythmically swelling his colorful throat. Then Linka pointed out a female watching him on a nearby branch.

They all smiled, and placed their arms around anyone who happened to be standing to their left or right, and with their suddenly heightened sense of nature, they noticed the small song birds on top of the post next to the mountain laurel. The male bird was standing on the back of the female, who had cocked her tail to the side so that he could thrust rapidly.

One of them said softly, “So that’s how they do it.”

In the stillness of the moment, they witnessed a dragon fly land on Brock’s shoulder. No one dared disturb it.

The experience was surreal. Some began to feel once more that they were floating off the ground.

Jeb said, “Look around us. This place is magical.”

Peter said, “Let’s hike about a mile that way to another magical place.”

Everyone agreed and spent about five minutes preparing. Then they embarked on the one mile trip to a 7,500 ft bluff, which did not require much elevation gain because they were already at 7,000 ft altitude.

The young humans asked about wild animals, and Peter said that although there had been increased animal attacks in the last year, that none of those were near here, and those incidents involved only one or two individuals; whereas, given his life time of experience, he assured them that no animals would approach a large crowd of noisy adults.

On the way there, they talked, flirted, and joked. They allowed themselves to maintain the feeling that all was well in the world.

Linka stopped the others, and told them in a very low volume that there was nothing to be concerned about, but that a typical government drone was flying overhead, She said that her drones were preventing it from eavesdropping on them, that it was not armed, and that they could looked around for it if they wanted to.

As they walked along, Jeb noticed a coyote walking parallel to them about 30 feet to the side of the trail. Just then, it charged them and leaped into the air for Linka’s throat. She was prepared to strike it a lethal blow in mid air if necessary, but Jeb was closer, and he punched it to the side towards Brock, who caught it by the scruff of the neck.

The coyote growled and clawed viciously at the air, so Brock threw it about 40 feet, and in spite of its injuries, it started working it way back towards them on three good legs while snarling the whole time. Suddenly, its torso exploded at the same time as a loud crack ripped through the air and echoed throughout the Rocky Mountain terrain.

The others looked around until they saw Peter holding a smoking .460 magnum stainless steel revolver. He explained that it could project a 200-grain bullet at 2100 fps (feet-per-second), which made it 70% more powerful than a 44-magnum. He said that it was legal because it was pre-ban and because it held only five bullets.

The Forlons had spread out facing away from the group guarding the perimeter.

Peter said, “That just doesn’t happen, unless maybe it was rabid, but rabies are pretty much non-existent now. I need to get a closer look.”

Peter walked up to it and said, “It doesn’t look exactly like rabies, and it didn’t act exactly like it was rabid, so I’m not sure what to make of this. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Peter began to scan the surrounding area for additional threats like the others were already doing.

After a few seconds, he said, “I think that must have been a freak accident. We’re almost there. Why don’t we continue?”

As they resumed their hike, one of the girls said, “Did you all see what Jeb and Brock did? They’re like super heroes.”

Linka looked at them with adoration and said, “Yes. They are already stronger and faster than me, and they may become stronger and faster still as the super nutrients reach their full effect.”

Jeb and Brock instantly posed with their fists on their hips, and their heads turned 45 degrees in the same direction—like they had seen in the old Superman comics. This got a chuckle from everyone.

Linka looked at the girls and said, “Did you know they are also the two greatest hands-on scientists in the universe?” While the girls just stared in awe, Jeb and Brock winked at them, which made the girls gasp a little.

Linka said, “Yeah. I know how you feel. I fell in love with them even before I met them.”

Peter said, “Every one of us here is very lucky to have found each other so quickly. We were rare individuals to begin with, and we are quickly becoming the best version of ourselves, and we will help everyone else to become the best version of themselves. Together, we form the nucleus of a movement that will save humanity … and save the universe.”

One of the girls said, “Peter! That’s beautiful.”

One minute later, they came out of the tree line and were walking to the edge of the bluff.

In every direction, snow capped peaks soared 5,000 feet above them, and the valley began 2,000 feet below them and rolled through a distant gap in the mountains as it slowly descended another 2,000 feet. The sky was a bright blue never found in urban vistas, and brilliant shafts of light radiated from an archipelago of white that had recently misted the entire valley manifesting a double rainbow that looked as if it emanated from a particularly luminous green meadow below. To one side of the meadow was a 1200-pound Grizzly bear lumbering along flipping 300-pound boulders with its paw as it searched for grubs underneath. To the other side, were about a dozen big horn sheep.

Peter pointed out a mountain goat on the nearest rocks, and Brock pointed out a marmot on some rocks just below the edge of the bluff, and as a bald eagle flew by, the marmot just chattered at it because he knew he was too big for the eagle to carry off.

Again some of them had that surreal feeling that they were being lifted off the ground.

Jeb said, “People have to see this. Everyone lives in cities in tiny apartments. It’s almost as if this is hidden or something.”

Peter said, “Or something is right. There has been an escalating effort since at least the 1990’s to get people off the land and into tiny apartments. The usual pretense it that they are helping the environment, and although the media tell us the environment is better than ever, it is actually worse than ever. It is pretty transparent that it is all about control. There are now thousands of these programs, taxes, subsidies, regulations, confiscations, treaties, psyops, propaganda, etc. to get everyone to move off of the land and into small apartments in the cities. Collectively they are known as Operation Move On.”

A few minutes later, a growling 250-pound black bear came out of the tree line 75 feet away. Then it charged them. Jeb and Brock moved between the bear and the others, who were all cornered on the bluff. They didn’t want to hurt such a majestic creature, but there was nowhere to run.

Peter yelled, “No! It might be infected!”, but no one had a clear shot.

Brock lunged and yelled from one side, which distracted the bear enough for Jeb to put it in a choke from the other side and yell, “Linka! Stun it! I can’t hold it much longer!”

Jeb released the bear as it began to lose consciousness.

Brock said, “Awe. I wanted to play with the bear too.”

Everyone else was saying, “Daaaamn.”

The boy said, “Can we get some of those super nutrients?”

The others laughed, and Linka said, “Yes. As soon as Joboo gets here with our supplies.”

Peter said, “This is not a coincidence. Let me get a closer look at this one since it is not injured. Then we should get back to the cabin immediately.”

The others seemed afraid to go near the tree line.

Peter said, “It isn’t rabies, and I’m not even sure it is a pathogen. It could be some kind of aggravating signal, like ELF, or a combination of the two.”

As Peter rejoined the group, a 220-pound mountain lion came out of one end of the tree line.

Peter backed away as everyone looked at Jeb and Brock, and without hesitation, Jeb and Brock said, “Shoot it.”

Before anyone cloud shoot it, a full grown diamond back rattler came racing towards them from the other end of the tree line. Everyone screamed. It was like a nightmare.

As their guns and drones neutralized these new threats, they could hear more creatures coming for them at varying distances.

Jeb said, “Linka! Can your ship get us out of here now?”

Linka asked Pina to have the ship hover at the edge of the bluff and open its doors.

About 20 seconds later, the next creatures were emerging, but they had been so distracted, that they did not notice the smaller creatures—spiders, rats, and small snakes—that were already about 10 seconds ahead of the main wave. This made them all look down, and they noticed some spiders and ants were already at their feet and starting to climb their legs. As they were stomping around, bees and other flying insects were beginning to swarm them. Then they were being charged by coyotes, a wildcat, copperheads and rattlers, and vultures.

Linka raised a stealth shield, but that did not seem to slow the attack much.

45 seconds after calling the ship, Pina was opening its doors and screaming, “Get in the ship! Get in the ship!”

The onslaught had only intensified 25 seconds earlier, but it seemed like it had already been an eternity.

The drones covered their escape using smoke, lights, and sound—in addition to their lethal and non lethal weaponry, but some smaller creatures entered the ship with them, and it was so crowded that they were being bitten and stung without being able to get a look at where it was coming from or easily fight back. They were mostly using their body weight to crush and grind the pests. As the doors were closing, some of them could see the eyes of wolves in the tree line.

It was a nightmare.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 24 – Regrouping

One minute later, they were back at Peter’s cabin, and one of the girls was going into anaphylactic shock. While Linka and Pina were doing what they could, Peter ran inside to get an EpiPen.

Jeb said to the others, “That was not a coincidence, and in a few minutes we may be facing the same thing here, so let’s take 30 seconds to extract stingers and check our wounds. Then we need to grab any gear we want to take with us because we may have to leave here immediately.”

Brock said, “Pina, was there any anomaly at the bluff or in the area.”

Pina said, “Checking … Yes! There was a small drone using stealth technology more advanced that previous human tech, but it is easily detectable now that I know about it … and … It has followed us here!”

Jeb said, “Capture and disable it if you can, but otherwise, destroy it!”

Peter was passing around an ointment, and said, “Put this on your wounds, and here are some bandages … Everyone reload your weapons.” Then Peter gave a rifle to Jeb and and a shotgun to Brock.

Jeb said, “That drone must have been what drew the animals to the bluff, and it may have been magnifying their agitation, but there may be some other general source of agitation in the area.”

Pina said, “The drone is disabled and lying under the flashing red beacon.”

They examined the drone, but it did not reveal anything about who built it, who owned it, or who sent it.

Peter said, “I can’t figure out if someone is just messing with us, or trying to kill us, but I think it is probable that they know who we are, and if they were seriously trying to kill us, they could use missiles, satellite beam weapons, lasers from drones, or assassins. I think they do not see us as a serious threat.”

Then Peter winked at them as he said, “… and why would they? It would take years for us to pose even a small challenge to them.” None of them believed that, but it would be good if the cabal continued to underestimate them.

The Forlons said to Peter, “We were sent to kill you, Jeb, and Brock.” They did not act guilty though because they knew they were fully trusted members of the team, and just to reinforce that, everyone hugged them.

Jeb said, “It would make more sense to capture Jeb and I than to kill us.”

Krak said, “I think it was a unilateral decision by Forlon intelligence and may not be relevant to other forces on Earth; however, Forlon intelligence, like any other, practices compartmentalization to prevent captured agents from revealing more than the minimum information they needed to know to perform their mission … so … we don’t know why.”

Jeb approached Linka, cupped her face in his hands, and said, “Linka, Thank you for saving us.”

Jeb appeared to be kissing her on the cheek, but he was actually whispering in her ear, “I suspect they are about to zap your ship from space. Pina, please move it immediately and under maximum stealth.”

Linka said with a wink to everyone, “Thank you Jeb, I couldn’t live with myself if I let something happen to any of you.”

After a few seconds, Linka said to everyone while looking at Jeb with an intent smile, “I don’t know about everyone else, but Pina and I are all ready for next steps.”

Jeb called Brock and Krak over from where they were standing, which was too close to where they probably thought the ship was still located.

As soon as Brock and Krak joined the others, a beam from a satellite weapon zapped the location where the ship had been.

Jeb instantly said, “Linka! Stealth shield!”

Once the shield was up, Linka explained to everyone that the shield prevented sound and EMF, such as light, from escaping, but that scent could still escape, which probably accounted for why the wildlife were only slowed a little. She also explained that it offered no other protection.

Jeb said, “When I kissed Linka, I asked Pina to move the ship, and once Linka indicated it was done, I asked Brock and Krak to come over here to see if that would trigger the strike … which it did. We now know they don’t want to kill us, or at least, they are trying to not kill Brock and I. Now they think we are trapped here, unless … Krak, didn’t you guys have ships?”

The Forlons said ,”Yes. But our ships would have been destroyed as soon as we failed in our missions.”

Jeb said, “OK. Good. They think we are trapped here, so they won’t be in as much of a hurry to get here.”

One of the girls blurted, “Who would shit all over such beauty as this?”

Her question immediately brought a sick feeling to Jeb and Brock who had witnessed recent atrocity in the video archives. They merely replied, “Faceless government panels—We can show everyone once we get to our next destination.”

Peter said, “I think we need to depart in an hour. If we can stay in a stealth shield, then they will think we are still here after we have gone. Let’s leave a drone to capture what happens after we leave … if the drone will be able to catch up with us.”

Linka said, “The drones are almost fully charged and can circumnavigate the Earth three times on a single charge.”

Peter said, “That’s amazing! … OK, we need to decide where we are going from here.”

Linka said, “We left some of our equipment hidden near a cabin just outside Austin, Texas. It is a 35-minute trip from here. We call it The Love Shack.”

That got some smiles and laughs.

Jeb said, mostly to the four young humans, “That reminds me. We are free now. Restrictive laws and customs do not exist among us, so we should always feel totally at ease among each other no matter how illegal … or embarrassing … our words or actions may be.”

The young humans instantly relaxed and said, “Finally!”

Humanity Rising: Chapter 25 – Special Agent Lexy Hanes

Special Agent Lexy Hanes, now 27, was seven years old when her best friend, Sean Bell, a seven year old boy with curly red hair, first told her that she was the most beautiful and most perfect woman in the world and that he wanted to marry her some day. He told her that at least once a week—usually as they lay on a blanket gazing at the night sky after looking through his telescope.

They didn’t need friends because they had each other.

Lexy and Sean thought of many plans, but their favorite was their plan to be among the first to homestead on Mars some day.

Sean wasn’t great at sports, but he could run and climb better than any of the boys, and he knew everything. She wanted a little boy just like Sean some day.

Lexy was 11 when she excitedly showed Sean her budding breasts. Even now … that was the best summer of her life.

Lexy was 12 years old, and it had been several months since Sean had spoken his final words to the world …

She had walked up to some nice girls at school and laughed a little at whatever they were saying. Later that night, she looked in her bedroom mirror a long time and thought, “I’m not that ‘fat and basic’ … I have blonde hair … and I like my pale blue eyes … my hands and feet are petite …”.

Her healthy thick blonde hair looked as if her mom had simply placed a sweat band on her head and cut around it. She had worn this tragicomedy for years with no reason to suspect how other people saw her.

She secretly imagined Sean standing next to her … and his words brought on an unbreakable serenity. She did not cry when thinking about him this time.

At dinner, she had told her parents about those girls, and her mother looked unusually concerned, but her father sincerely believed that she would blossom into a beautiful woman some day, and it seemed to him that she was trying desperately to get him say something like that … so he quickly changed the subject to something funny.

Several days later, she looked in her bedroom mirror for a long time again, “Home school … yes …”

She learned what she wanted to learn, and her parents took her to the mountains and the desert. They took her to the parks and historical sites. They spent time with Native Americans as part of a home schoolers program when she was 16.

At 16, she was developing prominent cheek bones and a long slender jaw line. She was pretty sure that men now thought she was beautiful, but it was hard to be sure because men simply wouldn’t talk about such things no matter how much she encouraged them, but here at this program, there was a 14-year old boy (he looked 16—with curly red hair!) and his father, and who both soaked up her beauty as if she were a goddess, and she thought, “finally!” They were not like the others. Even for home schoolers, they had a confidence and a curiosity she hadn’t known since her soulmate had …

The boy began to walk towards her, but the 93 year-old chief approached the small group of white folk, and he was wearing a T-Shirt that said, “Sure you can trust your government … just ask any Indian.” His shirt mostly just got the intended uncomfortable laughs, but it was when he said, “The US government broke every contract with my people, and its contract with you is the US Constitution. Are you surprised that it has also broken this contract tens of thousands of times?”

Her mom and dad left abruptly and cautiously, and the other white folk left abruptly and angrily—except for the boy and his dad. They were moving closer to the dangerous old man and embracing him! Then they looked longingly after her as her parents drove away, and she felt a sharp pang that was … new.

Shortly after that trip, her parents told her about the Affordable Education Act, which mandated a substantial “tax” if her parents did not send her to a government school.

Once she was back in a government school she tried talking to the girls because the boys tried desperately to ignore her, although a couple of them would frequently glance at her for fractions of a second. The other girls inadvertently honored her with three minutes of curiosity because she had such an uncommon background … until they noticed how hard it was for the boys to ignore her.

They said, “She only likes boys!”

“She only likes one kind of boy!”

“And she liked home schooling!”

“Why is her hair so long?”

They hissed, “You look like a Barbie doll.”

That evening it had been a long time since Lexy found herself staring in her mirror. She mused, “How am I racist? … How do I look like a Barbie doll? … I don’t wear any makeup … and what is wrong with anyone naturally looking like a Barbie doll? … or liking boys?”

Her confusion only grew over the years.

When she was 17, there was a cute boy named Brandon who made her laugh, and she knew he would be coming up the back stairs alone, but when she pressed against him and opened her blouse, he blurted, “Boobytrapped!” which made her laugh hysterically for three seconds as he simultaneously turned, tripped … and spent three weeks in the hospital.

Brandon had fully recovered after four months, and when he made one of his usual cracks in front of everyone, “She said, “Be careful or I’ll …”, and she slowly started to unbutton her blouse.

He blurted, “Oh no! It’s a booby trap!” By the next day, he was dating two different girls.

24 hours after she turned 18, she fell for a jerk-boy’s game.

To this day she couldn’t make sense of his words, “Your hamster wheel should find some comfort that you lost your virginity to a real man instead of some soy boy. Too bad there are no good women. You all just want to ride the thousand-cock carousel until you become cat ladies. At least you will be able to look back on this as your fondest memory.”

On this subject, the characteristic insults interleaved with fake compliments had almost obscured the girls’ first ever useful comments to Lexy. She realized that this player had indeed been stalking her in preparation for the opportunity to take her virginity. It was now obvious that some of the other men there had also been stalking her—competing with him for this very prize.

This was the catalyst that made her follow in the footsteps of Special Agent Bitch Cassidy—the only “strong woman” on TV that she kind of liked.

These self-proclaimed “jerk-boys” and “shit-lords” rarely fooled her after that, but they seemed to be the only men brave enough to touch her, so she occasionally used them.

Lexy had wider shoulders than most women, and after four years of majoring in Homeland Security, she looked amazing in a sports bra. She also had developed the kind of confidence that comes from having higher scores than all the men in all the physical and combat tests … even though she thought all the men seemed better than she was … which made her have a few drinks now that finals were over to ease the cognitive dissonance … and which made her vulnerable to a particular kind of jerk-boy’s game …

Back at her apartment … “When you’re a cat lady, you will look back on this experience with a real man as your fondest memory.”

WTF?

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! You shit all over the world and then complain how the world is a shitty place! You’re not going to get a better woman than me. You’re funny, successful, handsome, smart, and in great shape. You could have it all, and you settle for stupid little games. You’re not a real man. My soul mate Sean was more of a man at seven years old than you are.”

“This Sean sounds like a real soy boy … OW! You stupid bitch!”

But nothing worked! Not her training! Not her Bitch Cassidy moves … she was at the top of her class … and yet … the beating felt like an eternity.

“I should cut your face so you can’t fool any other shit lords!”

Her expression communicated her thoughts, “The light in me will always be allied with the light in you.”

He looked away and seemed to be trying to remember something as he slowly walked out.

Sean used to say things like that all the time after he discovered Peter Ryan’s blog. Sean wanted to save the world …

“Maybe he could have … The world desperately needs Sean …”

Her comrades visited the hospital only to say: “Who was he? I’m going to take him down.” … or … “I want to be there when you take him down.”

They were all scheduled to report to Homeland Security in one week, but Lexy had to start two weeks late.

“You’ll be one of us again in no time.”
“Especially after we take down that … man.”
“Let’s do it tonight. Who was it?”

“If I descend into … I’m not ready to extinguish the light in me …”

“What the fuck?!”
“You’re going to let him walk?!”
“Did you turn into a soy-boy?!”

Her commandant from the university was there for a visit the next day.

“Why didn’t you tell me?! I’m not the best! Some jerk-boy without my training handed me my ass, but it was worth it! Now I know the truth.”

Everyone heard.

Over the years, she was occasionally willing to pay the price of using her male comrades for sex, until one day, she was lucky enough to find one after which she wouldn’t have to hide the bruises. Only once was she literally raped by her comrades—it was three against one, and those were some tough bitches.

She never let her mind go there because her division had a perfect record ever since the only complaint, which was at the beginning of her five-year tenure. That woman, Brenda, had suddenly resigned and moved away …

The new commander had been visibly impressed after his first conversation with her a week earlier. She was making a fresh new start, and this was now an impromptu review with him, and she would be receiving her first assignment under him.

“Those in the top 30% will get a 30% bonus in 45 days. It’s the new 30-30 program. It was my idea. Being in the top 30% is considered to be a very good review …”, she smiled and relaxed, “… having said that … yours is not a good review … You will be given sixty days to rectify the following flaws: You do not understand that we are always in an us vs. them environment. You do not owe the people outside this agency anything. You must not hesitate—ever—not for children—not for pregnant women—never.”

“I’m … really surprised.”

“We will be evaluating you extra closely during this next assignment. It is my job to fix you over the next sixty days and to try to prevent a court-marshal.”

“You will go to the Austin-Northwest cabin. Anyone you encounter there will be a domestic terrorist. Some of them may look strange because of makeup, costume, and/or prosthetics. You will not hesitate. You will capture or kill anyone you encounter—without hesitation—and report back for further instructions.”

After she left, the division commander came in and said, “The public will accept any surveillance and enforcement measures in order to avenge the death of such a beautiful female agent. The media will probably call it Lexy’s law.”

The file made even less sense than usual, so she had a few drinks while she began to review the surveillance video on the plane.

It was surreal.

No one was there when she arrived, and after a thirty-minute search turned up nothing of interest, she resumed reviewing the video of what had transpired there.

She watched as the two men spent hours watching video whose contents she could only infer from their reactions.

She had to stop and call in a status update each hour.

She thought long and hard about everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. She thought about the wonderful people she was supposed to kill or capture without hesitation. She thought about Sean for the first time in all the turmoil, and within minutes she was centered and knew that this felt really wrong. It was almost as if she were somehow working for the bad guys.

She resolved to resign as soon as possible, but she couldn’t do it while in the field or they could court-marshal her.

She began to watch more of the surveillance video. She searched for the parts with one of the men in particular.

He even had curly red hair!

She turned off the cabin’s surveillance equipment, and after a long pause, she ran her hand along her body as she murmured, “He reminds me so much of Sean … and that boy on the reservation …”

She pulled out Sean’s picture.

After a few minutes, she pulled up the boy’s picture from the Indian reservation for the first time in years.

“No!”

At some level, she had already known.

Humanity Rising: Chapter 26 – The Honey Trap

During the return trip from Montana they kept wincing, grimacing, shifting, and apologizing.

About half-way, Linka said, “The cabin is about a half-mile from any road, so no one should bother us there.”

Peter immediately frowned, and after a few seconds, he warned them, “That doesn’t sound right. There is no location anywhere near any city in America that is one half mile from any road … This sounds like a honey trap! It was probably designed specifically so that criminals … or resistance forces … would find it and use it … But wouldn’t you have detected any surveillance equipment?”

Pina answered, “The same anomaly at the bluff was indeed present at the cabin. It must not have transmitted while we were there or I would have detected it. It must have buffered its data internally until we left. When we are within range, I will be able to quickly evaluate whether I can override the inputs with simulated data so that we can operate more freely if we choose to stay.”

As they approached the cabin, Pina gave them a status update, “I have confirmed that I will be able to mask our presence for days or even weeks before Earth AI decides that something isn’t right. Also, there is a female human in the cabin … and she is armed. She appears to be a Homeland Security agent.”

Jeb asked, “Pina, can you identify who she is, and find out her orders?”

“Checking … she is Special Agent Lexy Hanes. She is currently watching the surveillance footage from when we were last here. Her orders are to kill or capture all of us.”

Most of them interrupted Pina with sudden laughter.

Brock said, “What is she … some kind of super cyborg agent? Can we see her yet?”

“We are here and our drones are already in position. She is coming on screen with audio now …”

“She’s beautiful! She’s even more beautiful than any agent on TV!”

The other women—even Linka—started to squirm a little.

One of the young women said, “You know that she has gotten everything she wanted in life.”

The girl next to her looked at her sympathetically, and slapped her thoughtfully, which elicited the response, “Um … Thank you …”

Pina said, “Let me finish! Look at this 30-second clip where she received her orders … Now look at what happened right after that.”

“The public will accept any surveillance and enforcement measures in order to avenge the death of such a beautiful female agent. The media will probably call it Lexy’s law.”

Peter said, “When they see that we are not going to kill her, they will do it themselves and blame it on us. Let’s watch her for a few minutes to decide how best to proceed.”

Pina interjected with an update, “She has just disabled the surveillance equipment. She was not authorized to do that.”

They watched as Lexy pulled out a picture of an eleven year old boy. She seemed to be lost in thought as her posture and expression indicated she was rapidly gaining hope and motivation. She ran her hand along her body, and then she pulled up a picture on her phone, and blurted, “No!”.

Everyone gasped.

Lexy then cried out “Jeb!”

Krak instantly said, “No Jeb! It’s a booby trap!”, which had Brock in tears again as everyone laughed.

She started to caress herself again, and began unbuttoning her blouse, and then quickly undressed, and said, “Oh Jeb, take me now!”

Linka blurted, “Seriously!”

Peter said, “Well that settles what to do next! Jeb, get down there and save that poor woman. She just gave you an invitation. Be forceful. She may affect a demure or angry pose.”

Jeb started to stammer at Linka, who cradled his face in her hands and said, “I was just really surprised. Don’t you dare hold anything back from her.”

That did it. Jeb gave the three young women a few seconds of reassurance before his egress.

On the way to the door, he had a few seconds to tell Pina that he loved her very much, and then he called out, “Lexy, I’m here for you. You’re safe now.”

As he walked into the bedroom, Lexy grabbed her gun and started to point it at him, but he kept approaching with an innocence that elicited a whimper as she melted under his gaze, and in the distance, she heard her gun drop onto the floor.

“How …”

They didn’t speak for a long time after that.

The caressing and eye contact communicated such an intensely tragic past that Jeb was choking back tears at the pain she must have endured, and how her tragic life had culminated in that review and their intent to sacrifice her … and how they lived in the kind of world that could find no better use for her.

He said, “So much pain … but you have such an inner strength.”

She briefly explained her soulmate Sean and his lasting imprint on her. She then revealed the tragedy that had been her life.

As she relived her pain, everyone came to understand how all her decency, all her inner strength, and all her beauty had done nothing to prevent her from having to endure the full pain that such a toxic world could bring to bear on an individual. Her profoundly poetic revelations also communicated the thousands of hours she must have spent reliving it again and again.

Jeb said, “When I was nine, my dad showed me an essay that sounded very much like Sean, and it inspires me to this day. It was ‘Walking In The Light’, but it disappeared from cyberspace about a year later.”

The hair stood up on the back of their necks as she said, “Jeb … Sean wrote that when he was eleven.” They kept trying to speak, but the lump in their throats hurt too much.

Finally, Lexy said, “I’m done with Homeland Security. That was a huge mistake. They are toxic. The whole world is toxic … I think … I think maybe you have the cure … I think maybe you are the cure … you and your friends.”

“Um … Jeb, are they watching us?”

“Lexy, we are all very close, and … you are one of us. Let’s meet them now.”

“Everyone, can you take your clothes off like us and show Lexy how you feel about her?”

Lexy, almost fainted as they walked in. It was surreal.

A few minutes later she said, “I have never felt so loved since I was eleven.”