Prelude - Nim
Nim was giddy with excitement, balling his fists as he observed the human woman through the reality matrix's observation tether, as she was deeply engrossed in her research.
Mumbling to himself “yes, yes, yes, you're so close! Come on, put it together, make the connections! Come on!”
With an exasperated sigh, the human threw herself back in her chair and blew a loud, frustrated raspberry while staring at the high domed ceiling. Blinded by the artificial daylight glow the room exuded, she shut her eyes and relaxed.
Enjoying the gentle warming light, and slight breeze that caressed her skin. Expected nature sounds faded out of the silence so seamlessly unobtrusive, appearing fractions of a second before she realized that she was recalling the memory of a perfect summer's day. As her mind spun through the associated memories, the room accommodated her unconscious desire for a change of scenery and distraction from the mind-bending loops her research threw at her.
“NOOO!” screaming with his hands pulling at his disheveled mop of purple hair, Nim looked at the frustrating human woman with wide bulging eyes and a slack jaw.
“Don’t stop now, please don’t take another break!” He desperately whined, hoping that the human wouldn't switch to another of her endless other projects.
13 years, 13 long, slow, boring years of researching irrelevant things and working on mundane scientific discoveries. That's how long she took before restarting this project.
Feeling as though he wanted to throw up as he considered how close she was and that she might discard it all in one of her fits of flimsy shifts of interests. The stress was too much for Nim, when had he ever felt this much anxiety? He needed a break, no, a vacation, checking himself, he clearly felt that he was long overdue an insanity purge.
“Argh” Swearing and kicking the air in sheer frustration, he stomped in circles around the oblivious human.
Tears started to well up in his eyes, as he slumped to his knees, how many more times could he endure watching yet another of these humans fall short, after getting the right ideas. This one was so close, he had been watching this one for so long, how many years had it been now, at least two hundred.
Suddenly, violently, slapping himself in the face, his expression changed to that of mad determination.
“Pull yourself together Nim, we don't give up, never, never give up” frantically talking to himself in what objectively could be call a self-induced psychosis, ignoring the fact that he quite frequently gave up.
Glancing at the stupid human genius that was now calmly humming to herself while relaxing, blissfully unaware of how close she was to understanding reality itself. Nim calmly collected himself, corrected his hair, and positioned himself of to the side, patiently watching the woman, hoping that she wouldn't give up and preferably returned to this research topic immediately.
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Chapter 1 - Venabili Sol
Abby, or Venabili Caius Sol, which her science fiction loving mother named her, enjoyed the sensation of the soft artificial grass that the room had grown around her. Focusing on letting her feelings frustration ebb, imagining negative thoughts as a layer of ash covering her body and being swept away by the breeze, each touch of the grass, helping to pick up and carry the weight of emotions.
She visualized all her feelings and thoughts being spread out over the large area of grass around her, imagining the grass glistening with a thin layer of transparent sludgy liquid emotions.
As the warm nourishing sunlight hit the blades of grass, the grass and light worked together and cleaned the sludge, renewing it and transforming it to a clear sparkling healthy-looking liquid.
She imagined herself being that liquid, spread out, free and renewed, full of life and potential. With the power of her will, she commanded her spread out being to evaporate into glowing sparkling particles, that slowly rose above the grass, beginning to flow back into her body. Filling her with life, with potential, with power.
Abby opened her eyes, took a deep breath, and with a knowing confident smile, spoke. ‘I know I am close, don't worry, have patience... I'll get there, soon.’ she slowly stood up and looked around the half spherical room, turning a full circle while whispering;
“Are you watching? I bet that to you, all my other work and obligations would seem like a waste of time... “
Stopping her 360-degree spinning and monolog to any hypothetical watchers, as she faced the exit of her chambers. She focused on one of her other perceived identities and adapted her posture, expression, and core values to those of what she had decided to be optimal as a leader and strode out of the room. Just before she summoned the door, she momentarily let herself fall back into that of the playful, young, and carefree scientist that she was so fond of and spoke;
“After all, what is the point of it all, if we don’t nurture and maintain what we care about. “
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Relaxing from the initial shock of being seen and addressed, Nim felt relieved as the sane and logical parts of his mind reminded him of the utter impossibility of that the human could see him, after all, they were for all intents and purposes in not in each other's actual presence.
Still, the momentary thought that this infant life form would have the ability to see outside of her own reality, to see him observing her from an immeasurable abstract distance in both space and time was insanity, she was of course guessing, speaking to some hypothetical being that might be observing.
Yet the immovable confidence with which she spoke with, those brilliant unshaking eyes momentarily meeting his, felt like being gazed upon by one of those all-knowing godlike existences, he would know, after all, he had met some of them.
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Julia was patiently waiting in the hallway that led to the Archon Sol’s chambers. Trying to distract herself from the nervousness that she always felt before interacting with their leader and her progenitor, she concentrated on her ethereal presence that was compiling her continuous monitoring of the Terrans’ attempts at spying on them. Their ill-conceived secret space endeavors would be almost humorous if they weren’t such a serious threat to her kind’s continued peace and quiet.
She needed to keep a delicate balance between not overestimating their capacity to cooperate with each other, presenting a unified threat, all the while she also couldn't allow herself to underestimate their capabilities and tendency for random illogical actions. Currently, it seems that they believe to have found something of interest on one of Jupiter's moons, Ganymede, if her calculations were correct, snickering with her physical presence, she pulled a majority back into herself, and focused more on her emotions in lieu of her now approaching mother.