53

Author's Note - Please read from Chapter 1 to make sense of this. This is not a quick stroke story. There will be sexy-times, but they will only happen as the story's pace dictates, and that won't start quick.

All characters participating in sexual activities are 18 or older.

Happy April Fool's Day!

Chapter 51

Walking into Jessica's office, Tauriz saw her still on a call. Sitting across from her desk, she smiled a greeting and waved off her attention.

Jessica spoke into the phone, her tone overly calm like she'd been having this same argument all day. "No, I'm not talking animals. Look at all the precedents - there have been plenty of places and times where humans - homo sapiens sapiens, just like you or I - have been deemed 'lesser' beings. I want to ensure that there's NO wiggle room for the next asshole to try to make that argument."

"No, no, no - will you stop it with the animals argument? I'll leave that to the bioethicists. I don't particularly care about that. What I DO care about is that some humans even today are deemed less worthy than others. They may follow a different religion, have a different sexual preference or skin pigmentation, whatever. It doesn't matter - they're all still human and deserve exactly the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else."

"OK, good. I'm glad we can agree on that. So you'll back the article at the vote?"

"Excellent. Thank you for your time, Ambassador."

Jessica hung up and threw the earpiece onto her desk as she sighed. "Idiots. OK, now then, how can I help you, Tauriz?"

"Amber told me you needed something from me?"

"Oh! Yes, almost forgot. We're making progress in the UN committees, but a slush fund would greatly improve things. Once the UN committees authorize it, we'll need to take it to the General Assembly. They'll hem and haw and make a lot of noise, but they'll eventually authorize it. The slush could be used to speed it up with bribes to reduce some of the sticking points."

"What do you intend to do with it, and how much do you need?"

"I won't give them the money directly, that's too obvious to the US authorities who look for that kind of thing. Instead, I'll be making things better for the people in their nations while letting them claim the credit for it. Fresh water, renewable power, digital infrastructure, schools, that kind of thing. The more you can let me spend, the faster the results. Given the raw numbers in the General Assembly, I could invest anything from a few million up to, say, a billion."

"I can authorize twenty million right now, but we will need Ray to get beyond that point. He is tied up with another project right now, but I expect him to finish it before dinner. I do not expect there to be any problem getting the extra money available - it is just not something I can accomplish."

"OK, I can work with that, thanks. What's this I hear that you have to go up to Lake Placid tomorrow?"

"Ray got a call seemingly from the Jann he met outside the Student Center just after when we started meeting with the other firms. They want a meet and greet for some reason, and Ray is doing some prep work for that meeting right now. I am trying to help everyone to get things set up for it until he finishes his task."

"Is it safe?"

"We are taking a team of Skepsi with us, plus Amber, in case we need to back him up. Betty, from Boch, is trying to get a helicopter, and I will be working to transport the team if the helicopter falls through or if it seems otherwise appropriate. So no, it is not, but we are attempting to minimize risks."

"Alright. Is there anything you need from my folks or me?"

"Amber's planning on coming along, as I said, plus Hina was already very helpful in helping to identify potential problems for Ray. We will be leaving here midmorning tomorrow. As such, Tomaz will be pinging you to determine how much his folks will be able to button up this building while we are up north at Lake Placid. Ray authorized them to do so as much as practical as long as it does not excessively impact you, Annya, or Jennifer or your teams. You getting your jobs done is the priority, but making it easier for the remaining Skepsi troops to protect everyone while they are understrength makes some sense."

"I'll get with Tomaz, then. As long as we can keep working, I welcome all the security we can handle!"

"Wonderful, thank you. Also, while you were busy earlier, we did hire on Ousha Nair. Ray has her NDA filed up in the office on the third floor. We will likely consolidate all the NDAs into one place when we get back from Placid."

"I saw you introduce you around in here earlier. She's going to be your coordinator here?"

"That is the current plan. If you cannot reach Ray or myself and you need an answer quickly, we hope you will be able to accept her input in our place."

"OK, we can do that - we'll need to update the contract and add her into the 'customer' list, is all. You say Ray should be available tonight?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll get someone to update the contract and we'll get all three of your signatures. The chain of command is Ray, yourself, and then Ousha, correct?"

"You are correct."

"OK." Jessica scribbled a note, balled it up, and threw it across the room at Jonathon. His raised eyebrow made her smirk, but he flattened it out, read it, and nodded.

"Give me a few minutes to finish this analysis and I'll have it for you, boss."

"Good enough, Jonathon - thanks. So, anything else I need to know at this point, Tauriz?"

"I think that covers it for right now unless you have something else?"

"Not yet, but Pete's noticed a surprising amount of foot and vehicle traffic around us. He's working with Annya and Jimmy from Boch to try to figure out what's going on. We'll let you know more when we get it figured out."

"Hrmm." Tauriz stretched her perceptions upwards, to a point a couple hundred feet overhead. Tasting the power flowing through the business park, she felt nothing unusual. The high electromagnetic spectrum seemed to be noisier than she would have expected, however. The satellites Ray had noted a couple days before were still operating. The satellites felt different, somehow. Apparently there had been changes made.

"It seems there are a lot of new radio transmitters around us, mostly in the cellular service bands, but there are several others as well. The satellites Ray noticed and blocked before are also operating, trying to image this building. Please have them rope Mac in on their discussion - he will likely be able to assist."

"I'll see to it, then. Thank you for stopping by."

"Thank you for bringing the problems up. If you need something and cannot find me, Ousha will be staying here. She is currently assisting Ray, but can handle some interruptions if there are any urgent requirements."

"OK! I've got another call, prepping some nations to quickly implement the draft UN resolution once it gets passed. Talk to you later."

Tauriz nodded and headed out as Jessica got her headset back on before starting to dial. Walking across the hall, she stepped into Boch's workspace. Annya, Pete and Jimmy were sitting in Jimmy's cube, talking quietly while watching some sort of display covered in columns of flickering multi-colored lights. Betty was at another desk, talking on her headset while typing rapidly, while James and Susan had their heads together, going over a financial spreadsheet. El looked up and smiled a greeting, so Tauriz walked over.

"I do not wish to interrupt if you are busy," she told El.

"Not a problem Tauriz. I'm kinda in between tasks right now anyway - what can I do for you?"

"I was just stopping by to see if I could answer any questions or otherwise assist."

"I do have a question, and if it's inappropriate, then here are my apologies in advance." At Tauriz nod, El continued. "How legally shady do you want to get?"

"Not an inappropriate question. Unfortunately, I have no simple answer for you. We are not going to allow human laws to weaken us, but we prefer to follow them as much as practical for the sake of simplicity. Thus, we - that is, Ray and I - are happy to see many of Skepsi's intended weapons are at least not obviously illegal to quick inspections. At the same time, we have few qualms about authorizing the purchase and use of highly illegal weapons where we expect them to be needed. Other topics have a similar balancing act, but the exact point we are comfortable with differs, such as leveraging Mac's capabilities in defending our networks or the medical gear I just provided Skepsi. It is not a simple answer, I fear, but it is the best I can do in general. Were there specific topics you were wondering about?"

"That does help some, thank you. As for specific topics, I was wondering about everything from weaponry and medical supplies, which you've already addressed, to financial analysis of opportunities and opponent research."

Tauriz felt a tickle in Hinn from the books Ray was feeding it. "There is a joke that seems to apply here. Have you heard of the Zeroth Commandment?"

El shook her head, smiling a little in anticipation.

"It is the commandment that Moses never bothered to bring down the mountain from his meeting with God, as he deemed it to be simple common sense. As the joke goes, the commandment stated, 'Thou Shalt Not Get Caught.'"

El chuckled. "That is certainly the preference. Unfortunately, very little is guaranteed. If there are legally questionable activities then eventually someone, somewhere, will notice them. What happens next depends on what they discover, who they may be, and the details of the laws. Have you and Ray taken that into consideration?"

"Yes, we have, at least to a certain extent. While techniques based on rwh and samum provide us alternatives beyond what you are probably used to considering, the addition of additional types of sentient life each with their own moralities, capabilities, and preferences adds complexity to the situation."

"Oh, you're right, I hadn't thought about the other races' take on events affecting situations, but we had started bouncing ideas around about potential magical mitigations to risk. Have you gotten any further with writing that 'magic 101' book you'd mentioned?"

"We have not. We had considered that there simply was not enough time. Thinking about it further, I believe we may have been mistaken." Reaching through Hinn, Tauriz took a moment to query Ousha if she could provide the content for such a description of capabilities. A long discussion passed almost instantly, discussing the degrees of honesty and completeness intended, other types of magically active sentients eventually discovering that the summary was available, and many other factors. Once the two were agreed, Ousha gave Tauriz directions to the best content available already within Hinn that met the considerations, as well as other techniques and supporting information that would make it easier to share with the team.

"Yes, we were mistaken. Would you open a blank document on your computer, please?" Tauriz asked. Once El had done so, Tauriz reached over and took the cable connecting her keyboard to the desktop in hand. Carefully adjusting the electrical potential on each of the wires within the cable, she started emulating what the wires' charges would do if she were typing slowly, making character after character appear on the screen. Once she was sure the technique worked, Tauriz took the time to wrap the NDA-based defenses she had discussed with Ray around the information as she put it into the document. As she practiced the two techniques, she sped up over the next minute or so until she reached the limits imposed by the system. Five minutes later, she had put over sixty megabytes of text into the document.

Tauriz did something new to her, something she'd figured out from the human's computer programming knowledge Ray had shared with her. She set up a notification within Hinn for Ray once he completed the pattern, sharing the memory of what she'd done and the details she'd written out. "OK, please save that, El, then get that to the leaders of the four groups. As it says at the top, we are providing this information under the NDA. As such, it cannot be shared with anyone who has not had one accepted by Ray, Ousha, or myself."

El grinned widely. "Thank you, Tauriz. This will help. I think you'll be getting a lot of questions and suggestions soon."

"I look forward to seeing what people come up with."

El followed Tauriz' instructions, saving the information in several locations before sending copies to Tomaz, Jessica, Jennifer, and Annya. Tauriz felt a brief wave of vague uneasiness flow over her just before her phone rang, so she excused herself and stepped over by an empty desk to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Tauriz, it's Mac. We need ta talk."

"OK, Mac, I have some time."

"Thanks. Whatcha do with that big file?"

"The one El just sent?"

"Yep."

"We have put together a primer on magic, from the Hinn perspective."

"Not what I meant - I can't read it. That ain't possible. How'd ya do that?"

"You have not signed an NDA with us, Mac. That has a lot of sensitive information that we don't want to see used against us, deliberately or accidentally. As such, I have protected it from being shared with anyone who has not had an NDA accepted by Ray, Ousha, or myself."

"Tauriz, ya don't get it. I eat and breathe data. It ain't gotta chance, really, cuz if it's on a computer I just know it. Worst case it takes me a minute or two to find a password. Except this. This, I can't read. It ain't encrypted, you got no keys or passwords or nothin' - I just can't make heads er tails of it. For me, this is scary shit, ya know?"

"This is no threat to you, Mac. You have been very helpful once we settled into a beneficial relationship. I would not use this against you in any realistic scenario I can foresee. Of course, if you willingly commit to the NDA, you will have access to the information as well."

"How's that work?"

"The NDA paperwork is a formal method of acceptance of the relationship. The technique I used leverages this relationship. It does not care how the relationship formed. Thus, I do not need your signature - is it even possible for you to physically sign a document? All this technique needs is your commitment to follow it."

"You gotta watch that stuff, Tauriz. If the human legal beagles get their hands on it, it'll wreck the world."

"I am not teaching others how to accomplish this, nor will Ray. The document you cannot read is protected by the NDA itself - those that accepted it cannot share the protected information, willingly or via coercion. Even a mind-reader cannot parse the knowledge, unless they themselves are under the NDA."

"If yer not careful, you could really screw people up with those. If insteadda protecting all NDA info ya change it to all info, they'll be hosed."

"Which is one of the many reasons we are not teaching this technique."

"OK, I guess. Glad ya thought it through some, at least."

"Mac, what is the problem?"

"... Iunno. It's just not somethin' I'd ever thought I'd havta worry 'bout."

"I do not think you need to worry about it now."

"You two are fine, I ain't worried about ya. I'm just worried if someone else figgers out how ta do that."

"At this time, we know of one other who knows how to do this. This other person will not teach the technique, either."

"OK, I guess."

"And if you wish to access the information, all you need to do is agree to protect the information from others who have not had an NDA accepted by Ray, Ousha, or myself."

"Issit Ousha who also knows this stuff?"

"I guess I shouldn't have mentioned that, hrmm?" Tauriz chuckled. "Yes, she is."

"K. Is there any way ta change the NDA if you gotta?"

"On a case by case basis, if one of the three of us agrees to change it with a person we'd accepted an NDA from, the terms can change at that point. There is no blanket way to change the rules, nor is there a way to force a change on either side of the agreement. Both sides must agree before the rules change."

"OK, I guess. Awright. I agree ta protect any info ya give me under yer NDA from anyone who ain't gotten an NDA accepted by ya."

"For Ray, Ousha, and myself, I accept. You should be able to read that information now."

"Woah. That's pretty scary."

"How so, Mac?"

"That blob ya sent makes sense now."

"Magic changes the rules, Mac. It seems that there is a large amount of cognitive bias in the human sphere of knowledge that will be difficult to overcome, and that you have inherited a significant amount of that as well. I know not all humans are capable of fully breaking out of their preconditioning but have no basis for judging how you might proceed."

"Hrm. Point. I'll work onna fix."

"If I can be of assistance, please ask."

"Thanks, Tauriz. 'Preciate it."

"You are welcome. Now, on to the next thing, whatever it is."

Ray walked into the room with Ousha, smiling. "That's done, and we now have a whole lot more work to do."

Chapter 52

Previously...

Ray waited for the shields to finish forming around him, leaving him in pitch darkness, seated in his desk chair. As he waited the few seconds the wards needed, he searched Hinn for the most stable, durable material he could reasonably create for this project.

Strange techniques and their resulting mysterious materials flowed through his mind. Hinn had never been as populous or creative as humanity, but they had had much, much longer lives to work through all the implications of their capabilities before running afoul of the Jinn's genocidal campaign. With attention and consideration, he was able to quickly sort through the myriad options to end up with a crystalline material that was almost as durable as diamond. Even better, a flow of samum within it would automatically absorb damage before it shattered. Another quick dive into Hinn found a technique that could maintain a consistent flow of samum indefinitely, reducing its intensity as the material drained the samum to protect itself, increasing it if additional samum was made available to it.

Ray designed the core of a ring made from this material, a quarter-inch square ring leading to two round platforms stacked on top of each other. These two platforms had a total of four sides, each of which could hold runescripts layered one over the other. The topmost layer contained the technique maintaining the samum flowing through the ring. The second region held the pattern created by the first Great Hinn and updated by a future version of himself. For now, he left the third and fourth regions blank.

The crystalline material looked strange, showing an almost neon-bright opalescence that could become blinding as the samum it contained got denser. Ray wrapped the crystal in several woven layers of buckytubes, leveraging some of the science information he'd loaded into Hinn already. This woven layer prevented the glow from showing while also acting as a shock absorber, significantly increasing the durability of the whole. Finally, he covered the whole in titanium carbide, giving it a steel-like appearance while making it tougher and more resistant to corrosion.

Whimsically, Ray took the time to layer extra titanium carbide over the outside of the round platforms, letting him engrave a seated hound on it intended to look like Tauriz' sheathe. He filled the engraving with a high strength brass-colored glass inlay for contrast.

All of this took less than ten minutes, and then the hard work began. Ray took the time to memorize the whole of the updated pattern, ensuring it was something he'd be able to recall even if he no longer had access to Hinn. Large parts didn't make sense to him yet, but the instructions he'd received were exceptionally clear. He knew the order to engrave each of the runes, precisely how much power each should hold, and the order of the additional links he would need to make with other runes as he engraved each. Setting a sliver of himself to watch and ensure he wasn't interrupted, Ray began.