Chapter 16 Now Are Class B Targets

Inside the tower, Shirezette was busy converting Geodon and Nansella's category over to Class B, per instructions received from PE headquarters. There were only ten channels for Class B targets, so it was not a common action; she had to refer to the instruction manual several times to refresh her memory of how to do it. There were only two other people in town who were designated Class B, and she had input those over three years ago. The classification meant that the target's link did not need to be reconnected occasionally to check in on what was going on with the person, since the link was set to be monitored continuously without further firing a connection into the person. It took a lot more resources to do continuous monitoring, so it was a rare designation. These two had been found to be actively attempting to discover what was influencing them from the outside and had guessed it to involve the sensation felt when a link was fired into a target; and the couple somehow had discovered that PE had taken over their creative successful business and had erased all memory that they had the business, but somehow they had discovered it anyway, and were trying to figure out what was going on; and that was deemed a first step toward insurrection, and so needed to be watched carefully to see if preemptive action needed to be taken. Besides, PE's direct monitoring of the couple had discovered they now had created a new profitable creative product, and PE needed the detailed data feed to be able to copy how to make the product as if it had been invented by PE itself independently. Shirezette finished the upgrade of both Geodon and Nansella, and watched the data stream coming in for awhile to verify it was all getting stored in the company's data bank properly. Briefly inserting her sensory system to link with Nansella's, she was suddenly in a pylon transfer pod swinging its way northward. Nansella was digging into a basket of food, offering some to Geodon. Shirezette then switched to Geodon; he was grasping a bowl that seemed oddly light weight and dark colored; he began to eat out of the bowl with a spoon that similarly was dark colored and oddly light weight. She tasted the food; that Nansella was a good cook too, Shirezette decided. In between mouthfuls of the flavorful food, Geodon was talking, saying something about the landscape outside, that the snow had already melted off this area of the rugged volcanic terrain; his pulse and blood pressure were normal and brainwaves mostly in beta, with occasional flashbacks to what the terrain had looked like on recent trips. Shirezette unplugged from the display; it appeared to all be working fine.

In the transfer pod, Nansella was also watching the terrain below. But her thoughts were on worries of what they might find when they got up to their vacation site; would the last area have been raided and those belongings taken by the PE goons like had been done to their main living quarters and creative workshop. Well, in a couple more hours they would know, and nothing could be done about it between now and then. She also focused attention to the tasty food she had prepared and brought along for the two of them, a nice treat for herself too.

Geodon was saying something, interrupting her thoughts. Although he was maybe also talking to himself too, fresh out of her reverie she was not sure if he wanted a response from her or not. He was conjecturing about what if something were able to find out about their worksite and that it had equipment useful in making cabinetry, then the same technology might well be somehow aware of their own current thoughts, and therefore any means they might devise to catch the invasion of their physical and mental space, would be known already by the perpetrators; thus any secret thing they might devise to deal with or discover more about it, would be obvious to the ones they wanted to trap, and thus would be easily circumvented. It was like all leading around into a circle, getting nowhere. No way to win that game. Therefore what use was it to even think about it. Other than to maybe figure out a way to keep their latest creative product from also getting ripped off like the cabinetry business was. It was worth more thought, surely. She suggested that they just enjoy the ride; when they arrived there, it would be hard work and few moments to rest for a long time.

Geodon stopped short while on the latest thread of leading nowhere with solution potentials, and decided that her suggestion was quite practical. Besides, he had tired of keeping coming back full circle with no solution found along the way, over and over again.The scenery outside seen through the transfer pods windows looked the same as it had looked other times during these many trips, the snow was gone from this area and the black lava folds were bare and rugged, as the pod swooped down and backup again, over and over again. He made a mental note to check to see how much prepay was still in his account for paying for these pylon trips up to the lake and back; he had prepaid quite a lot of money, but then a lot of trips had been made. It would not be nice to have the prepay money run out while they were up at the lake area. His communicator could transfer more money in from up there, of course; but it often took a day or two for money transfers to take place, and if one had already run out of food and water it could be a long wait indeed. He made a note to himself to be done soon after they arrived up at the lake area, regardless of the situation they found there.

They got a quick glimpse of their lake from the transfer pod just before it disconnected at the huge lake's pylon. Then they were out and riding down the elevator, Geodon carrying the two buckets of black sand, and Nansella carrying the picnic basket and a smaller container of black sand too. There were a few patches of snow still in shady areas, but most of the scenery and trail was back to its former black lava appearance, as they followed their handmade trail to their little vacation lake place. A place that had not too long ago been burglarized by the owners of this planet, thus a place that no longer seemed quite theirs anymore. They first went to their original cave room; it looked bare, just as it did when they left here last time. They looked in on the second cave that had been the area of their helper couple; it too was bare, stripped by the goons sent by PE to take over any moneymaking venture's equipment. Then they moved the barricade aside and quickly went past the blasting area, as he had not told the blasting to stop and was not sure when the next satellite would pass by and send a jolt of concentrated sunshine to further fracture the cave shards. It looked like the stuff was nicely pulverized into fine powder, and could be put into the buckets anytime; but the buckets had to be emptied first. Anyway, they then opened the semi-concealed door to their third cave, looked in and were relieved that it looked much like they remembered it had before when the left last time. That was a relief, and they both flopped down on the simple bedding there, and began a long overdue time of rest and rejuvenation together.

The next morning, they walked the lava tube down to the little dock area, and found their skiff still there. Here again it was still cold, but only a few patches of white snow remained on the black stone of the rugged surroundings. Geodon added the two buckets of black sand to enlarge the land area, helping to provide a flat space in between the ancient lava folds that led up to where the little lake's water extended. It seemed such a small change in the amount of useful land area, yet there had been none here at all when he started, and now there was several square meters of useful surface; and there were a few plants that hopefully would seed themselves with new oats in that area in a few weeks.

They decided to take a ride in the little skiff; Nansella suggested this time that they travel along the far side of the lake as they had not yet examined the full edge of the lake. The easy paddling along and looking at the interface between liquid water and hard black lava folds was always complex and new images for their eyes to appreciate. Suddenly Geodon stopped paddling, and reversed the position of the skiff in the water, pointing out an area of black that was blacker than the normal lava. Tossing the little anchor out onto a crevasse area on the shore, they got out of the skiff and with some difficulty climbed over the rocky lava to examine the black area. It was a cave, much as the end of the lava tube exit where they moored their little boat. Peering into the gap in the rock, the impression of sides and bottom quickly faded into black; so it looked like it went back a ways. Back in their rowboat, they looked carefully at the surrounding shape of lava folds so they could find the place again; they resolved to bring flashlights here some day to do a bit of exploring.

They paddled past the area where the path to the pylon entered the lakefront area, and then past their original caves and the pulverizing area, then on around to their landing at the far end of the lake, where they again docked the boat. It had been a nice excursion. Was this not supposed to be their vacation home? They spent another night resting together; the preceding week had been far too stressful, and rejuvenation was much needed for both of them. By the next morning they were contemplating productive time again. Geodon sent the command to temporarily stop the pulverizing of the lava shards, and he filled the buckets with the finely pulverized material, and the smaller bucket for Nansella. But she suggested that they leave the little bucket of fine powder here, as a hedge against loss of their other two buckets of material. The powder was already in demand, people no doubt were even now waiting for more of it to show up, so that they could make more of Geodon and Nansella's food utensils. She instead filled a couple of the now emptied food containers with pulverized lava, to take back. Geodon put a new supply of cave shards onto the place there the satellite beam pounded at erratic times; then Geodon instructed the beams to resume. Meantime, they were going to stay on the side away from the now-raided caves. Would they dare to re-inhabit those caves some day? Geodon suggested that probably things were safe unless deemed of enough value to PE corporation to pay some goons to take it away; in the meantime, things probably would be safe from them, he guessed.

Looking for a safe place to put the little bucket of pulverized lava and some other things including an ultrasonic generator and a canister of the adhesive, they finally chose to venture into the other direction of the lava tube, staying aware of breathing quality of the air and how long their flashlights wold stay lit. At the turnaround distance, they deposited their little hoard of items along the edge of the lava tube, and began to retrace their way back to the place where they had broken into the side of the lava tube from the third bored cave.