Susan
The Amazing Adventures
of Sara Corel
A novel by Toomey
Mark MCLXXVI Protector
Last night, I underwent a
virtual reality out-of-body experience and took a tour of the
Cryptoaliens' Orion Manufacturing Facility. There are some 200 or so such
plants in our galaxy, but only one of them specializes in Mark MCLXXVI
Protectors (there used to be two, but there were budget cuts). Since the
sites produce a whole lot of highly dangerous pollution (including hard
x-ray radiation, gamma ray bursts and black holes), they're usually
located in out-of-the-way uninhabitable nebulae.
The basic process involves
extracting raw material from a neutron star surface and fashioning a
half-kilometer diameter sphere of very thin degenerate-crystalline iron,
like a mountain-mass soap bubble. Since the high mass at the subatomic
level produces a localized curvature of space-time, there are fewer than
360 degrees in the structure's geometry at the subatomic level, so there
is a great deal of folding that takes place which reduces the apparent
size to a scale useful for replicating ordinary corporeal entities. Since
this folding can be controlled by 'software', any possible macroscopic
form can be simulated, along with fold-changes that produce movement,
color, texture, etc.
A computation matrix is
overlaid at the Planck level. Since there are eleven spacial
dimensions at this scale, the spin orientation of sub-quark-level
particles can simulate logic gates — but rather than a merely binary
arrangement, they have states that correspond to on, off, up, down, back,
forth, top, bottom, melph, cletch and hrishtigupredlamortilkwatobrindrial
(the last orientation is rarely used). A basic operating system is
installed and the artifact is ready for shipping. Usually, several are
sent at the same time to those rare planets where the subject species are
expected to wear clothes, one artifact being necessary for each article of
apparel.
Upon arrival in the solar
system of a primitive planet such as ours, the group of Mark MCLXXVI
Protectors interfaces with the Acme Planetary Monitoring and Evaluation
package installed shortly after the planet cooled and is assigned
appropriate forms, pre-loaded with the local languages, and has a master
personality installed. A Search Committee delegated by the local
Observation and Evaluation Corps selects a suitable drop location for the
artifact(s) and turns the frozen package over to a carefully chosen native
Awakener. All traces of Cryptoalien interactions (such as flying saucers,
certain sci-fi authors and other aliens posing as professional wrestlers)
are carefully erased and withdrawn from the solar system, leaving behind
only a small Monitoring Team disguised as a rock band.
Note: The other 199-odd
nebular manufacturing plants in our galaxy produce a huge variety and
number of artifacts that share the same basic structure as the Mark
MCLXXVI Protector. By far, the most popular item produced is the Mark
MMCLXVI Promotional, which is usually configured as an action figure and
given away with Happy Meals.
Oh, and the Mark MCLXXVI
Protector known as 'Sara Corel' has a twelve-digit serial number. Just
thought you'd want to know.
Only $19.95!
© Patrick Hill, 2000 |