'Zaratorio: The Story Continues' is a political parable dedicated in general to everyone who believes in #PeaceinUkraine and who says #NoToWar. More specifically, it is written in support of the brave and generous women and men of Medecins Sans Fro...
I thought I ought to update our readers regarding the new setup at the SISP. It has taken about a month, in the sense that the Professor set the internal climate/day/night controls of the Institute "house" on a twenty-four cycle when we transported to "KyivTwo", and thirty of those cycles have now gone by.
So you could say that we have been here a month, but in terms of meaningful chronology, it's very difficult to explain what the date is, or even what place this is.
But that's geography, rather than chronology!
If you can be kind enough to let me backtrack, I will try to explain what has happened.
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Shortly after Melissa and Sehzula returned from medieval Manchuria, we had further contact with the entity who calls herself Arianrhod. We don't really know if she IS the ancient Celtic goddess of time, but she certainly has some quite amazing powers.
She acted upon Mark Smith's idea of a time island and a time causeway, and helped us to escape from "KyivOne" a few hours before the events of February 24th 2022. The old site of the Institute is now a very solid holograph; but in "reality" the house is an empty shell marked with a large CLOSED sign.
Both our (fairly rare) snail mail and our (very frequent) electronic communications are being redirected to the Hecate-Völva Institute. Some of it will take a very long time to get to Miami ...
Are you following so far?
KyivTwo is a kind of holographic version of the modern city existing outside conventional time and space and "inhabited" by short "clips" of peaceful Ukrainian life. The sky and the horizons are provided by a kind of supernatural planetarium created by Arianrhod.
But there are downsides. If you go to our favourite café, you won't meet the real Capa - she is with us! - and shopping is generally impossible. Fortunately, Admiral Rosanna Pathway sent us some up-dated replicator technology, just before we left, so we can use almost any kind of matter to supply ourselves.
What's more, we can enter the time vortex in about fifty percent of the possible instances.
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Yes, I could have written 'half the time', but would that make any sense?
An EVM projection from KyivTwo will normally send an SISP operative into the year 2020, but they have to use a new piece of kit created by the Holopaths ("the TimeBooster") to get away from "Now-Time" pretty quickly and head towards their intended destination, in case they accidentally meet themselves. A TimeBooster has been installed as part of the ECM as well, and I imagine that this will become the preferred mode of time transport going forward. Although we can only enter the time vortex on certain occasions, we can still monitor it in some detail, and our unter-space communications with Admiral Pathway indicate that our chrono-data is fairly reliable. At least, it seems to correspond with hers!!
So far, we have yet to launch a real mission from our new base. We are assuming that Inga and Zaratorio probably don't know what has happened to us; that Rod and Devana have relocated to somewhere in Eastern Siberia (there are some chrono-traces that suggest this) because of the Russian invasion, and that Circe is too far away to worry one way or another. Admiral Pathway thought it was prudent not to communicate anything about KyivTwo to the Odgans and the Pseudo-Vanir; after all they are still technically at war with twenty-fifth century Terra, even if there is a lull in hostilities.
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I hope that covers most of "the bases".
Two real problems that the Institute faces since the move here are overcrowding and boredom. Everyone is having to make do in the accommodation block, because we can't go home to our own flats anymore, although the Professor has created some additional holographic floors, including one that performs much the same function as "the holodeck" in a certain well-known American Sci-Fi franchise.
And I expect that you would also like to know if the SISP-ites have any time left over to follow the ways of Cupid?
Of course you would!
Let me see ... I am still seeing Paulina, Jenny is dating Lauren on "odd nights" and playing holographic pool with Anton on "even nights", Capa has befriended Sehzula and Melissa and they play a lot of poker with Samantha. That sounds quite complicated, but as they tend to use the night club programme on the "holo-floor" while I spend most of my (limited) free time in the pool room, I have yet to figure out precisely who is dating whom!
Of course the Holopaths don't really need any free time - they can just close themselves down for a while - but Holopath One has decided that she wants to become a singer-songwriter, and is trying to get an audition at the night club. Catherine has been giving her some lessons! Meanwhile, Mark Smith works behind the bar to keep himself occupied; not quite sure how Brenda feels about this, although given that Harnii can no longer attend "virtual school", her mum has her hands full being both a full-time mother and a school teacher.
And of course everything here is overseen by our great mother figure, Professor Amber Jessop. It seems most unlikely that the time vortex will remain so quiet for much longer. So I am quite sure we will be enjoying/enduring some truly impossible adventures very, very soon!
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