CORLOS
INTELLIGENCE
1.
"So that was your ulterior motive?" B'jhon asked. Ordinarily,
Corlos would induce a heart attack when an asset went rogue, and only
when an asset was involved; executions and executioners were mostly
symbolic. Methods evolve but the old lingo sticks. Dayton's
termination
order had switched from 'on,' to 'off,' then 'on,' and now 'off' again
with a suspended sentence.
2. "I always have an ulterior motive," Daniel answered with a
twinkle. He appreciated B'jhon's psionic restraint. When
Daniel pushed a button on a remote console at Corlos: Someone,
somewhere in the
Universe unknowingly experienced a paradigm shift and inherited a
completely new life.
3. B'jhon thought it was rather brilliant: The most
sophisticated machines in the Universe were safely out of sight, out of
mind, in some other time on some other world and could change
dimensions as needed. "That's why you get the big bucks!"
B'jhon said as he exited Daniel's office; a line he had heard during
his field days. "And not just any
world, either!" Daniel teased.
KILES
4. "Was
zur Hölle tun sie? Wo bist
du?" Dayton asked, "Where the hell are you?" "Ich bin hier
richtig!" Kiles answered laughing, "I'm right here!" He was using
Xanax to tease his father, much like Dayton did years earlier to get
Hitler's attention. Dayton could have threatened both of them but
had better success by threatening Xanax... sort of: Onimex and
Xanax were very protective of Kiles. "Xanax, das es die
doghouse!" Xanax stopped playing. "I have to go to work,"
Dayton defended his priorities, "You can play with Onimex," he said to
Kiles who was 3-years-old at the time.
5. Dayton kissed Kiles on the forehead, took Xanax and went to
work, where he was developing an artificial gravity platform at NASA's
Hawaiian advanced propulsion lab. "That's 'Kiles' like 'Key Lees or Hercules,' not 'Kiles'
like 'miles,'" Ireana said over the phone. Onimex created a
likeness of Xanax for Kiles to play with and Xanax enabled his
co-location. Kiles learned at a young age that they were not like
other families; that maintaining
'façade
integrity' was an imperative family oxymoron. He learned tolerance and
discretion.
6. "He's being tutored by two state-of-the-art
A.I.s," Dayton said. "Sired by the best-looking father," Ireana
injected. "And smartest mother," Dayton finished. "Greek
mythology would be envious," they both agreed. "Don't tell
everyone everything you know," Dayton admonished Kiles, "You could
attract the wrong kind of attention," Ireana added. "Onimex and
Xanax already told me," Kiles confessed, "Onimex said the cardship
inhabitants died of reversion. Were they my family too?"
Ireana and Dayton looked at each other. Kiles at 6-years-old had
probably absorbed more information than most scholars, yet could
still very much be a child.
7. "Mother couldn't do anything about that,"
Dayton consoled him. "Mother? She's not even here yet,"
Ireana said, looking at her watch as if it understood. It was
1972. The Cardship would not crash land for another 12
years. "Little Director," Ireana squatted down to comfort him,
"That hasn't happened yet. Are Onimex and Xanax confusing
you?" "No," Kiles answered, "I'm the key to Segment 3."
Ireana stood up. "They're teaching him the Ellipsis? Should
they be doing that?" she asked Dayton "They're with him
constantly," he shrugged, "They will tell him what they
know." The proverbial cat was a transdimensional cat now, sans
the bag.
8. "Segment 3, hua?" Ireana replied more tenderly.
"Yeah. I'm going back to Vejhon," Kiles asserted, "when the
Cardship gets here." Again she looked at Dayton who
formulated a thought so that she could read it, "I don't know what
they talk about when I'm not around." Kiles had the tenacity of
Kor, his father's sense of humor, his mother’s dead pan accuracy and a
world view based on mid-Elliptical A.I. philosophy that neither Dayton
nor Ireana fully understood. He was a natural athelete capable of
'toning it down' in order to blend in. All the girls chased him
for reasons that Dayton remembered very well. "I'm never letting him date," Ireana
teased, sometimes nervously.
9. His parents rarely had disagreements, but when they did, his
father would say, "So, shoot me," and Ireana would go get her
gun. Then they would kiss and the matter was settled. Kiles
was well adjusted, energetic and possessed a quantum
imagination. His
spirit was faultlessly genuine and his faith
seemed to create reality, "Emotions are like
icing," he would sometimes say. "Emotions are quantum
filters," Xanax explained later, "for holographic perception."
10. Kiles
invented a hybred
shard of psionics; revealing volumes with a single symbol. "All
information is ambient," he explained to Dayton
once, "one simply
needs to know how to access it." Kiles was
technically not psionic by a
Vejhonian standard, but he seemed aware of events before they happened
based on Elliptical insights considered toxic to
biologicals. For his 16th birthday, Ireana threw a
no-expense-barred party. While she watched the kids play in the
pool,
she asked Onimex, "I like his name, but what made you
insist?"
"It wasn't me..."
he started to explain.
11. Suddenly,
she had to flee from
role-playing-Theotians who captured her and threw her into the
pool. "You won't escape from me!"
Kiles assured her, all in good fun. Onimex
never finished his line. She dove to the bottom of the pool
where Xanax facilitated her escape to the balcony where Dayton was
filming the fun. "Where is she?" "Hey! How'd you do
that?" the kids were amazed. "I told you -- she's not Human,"
Kiles quipped. "It's OK," Dayton calmed her before she could ask,
"If you mix
the truth with a thousand lies, nobody will believe the truth."
"Is that what you told Kiles?" she asked. "He said it sounded
like foreign policy," Dayton replied, "and that we're all aliens." She thought
about it for a moment and agreed with some
hesitation.
12. Kiles’ role-playing adventures
featured the glorious Vejhonian galactic civil war; his reenactments
were disturbingly accurate, sometimes reciting dialogue from her life
on M'tro-1 long before Onimex
existed. "How
do you do that?" she asked. Kiles rolled his
eyes, "I looked!" His tone suggested that anyone could do it, and
he smartly omitted the word, "stupid!" His folks had
smacked him more than once for thinking out
loud. "It's not fair!" Kiles complained, "nobody else gets in
trouble for what they haven't done yet" "Yeah, well your thoughts
are dangerous," she said.
13. "Biologicals are not meant to skip the learning
process: No segment is," Onimex said, "All
matter is in a constant state of motion." Dayton once said,
"Ordinary truths can mask a wealth
of information."
14. "He who adheres to wisdom -- adopts the experience," Kiles
said, to condense Earth's most notable philosophies into 8 words.
"Elliptical wisdom," Onimex identified, "biologicals tend to invent
their own truths." "I have to go back to Vejhon," Kiles assured
him, "I have to clear my mom's name: This 'secret sorceress'
crap has to end." "There are 'time and space'
differentials to consider," Onimex admonished him, "you'll age slower,
for one." "Then I'll go,
do my business, and come back," he reasoned.
15. Onimex disagreed, but Kiles intended to complete his mission
'come hell or high water.' "Life through Light and Death..."
Onimex sighed.
