The Labors of Jasper Episode 08
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The Labors Of Jasper, Episode 22 free porn video
20Jas0022, The Labors of Jasper
Episode 22; 3420 words
The quarantine trailer was exactly as Jas remembered it. She looked
around. "No other customers, huh?"
"None that lived."
"I hope you're joking."
"Me, too. Now, explain again, using small words. Why did you go to the
Moon? Why did you open a rip there?"
"You guys made me promise not to open a rip on this world."
"And breaking your word is bad. But genocide is okay?"
"Do you understand what it's like to have demons?"
"They can't make you do anything you don't consent to."
"Bull cock. Once you have demons, they have control."
"So, your defense is that you were controlled by demons."
"Look, I had a choice. Their world, or ours."
"And who told you that?"
"Demons. But the Red Chancellor confirmed it, pretty much."
"We reviewed your Mem2. We disagree."
"Infesting the game world was a stop-gap. The demons demanded - and got -
a human-claimed world."
"Oz."
"Yes. I'm told that counts."
"We can fight our own wars, Jasper."
"Are we seriously going to revisit everything I explained on the blimp?
You have my Mem2, all the AV files I saved."
"You know, you're a serious candidate for mindwipe, Jasper."
"Am I talking to a person or an AI?"
"Does it matter?"
If it was an AI, Jas could influence it from here. Maybe.
"We are a concordance of minds. Some of them are fully organic."
Maybe not.
Jas said, "Fine. Mindwipe me. It was a shitty ride, anyway. Are you
sending Missy home? She didn't open rips on any world. She didn't murder
two copies of the chancellor."
"Melissa will go home. You accomplished that much, Jasper."
Jas smiled briefly. "Give her the gold, please. Tell her to split it with
Steve and Sheena."
The talking head on the screen said, "We are surprised you're not blaming
this on Princess Yara."
"She paid the price. Talk about mindwipe? I think Yara is wiped from this
body. I can't wake her. I can't even find her anymore."
"The copy in Good Tom?"
"Is fully corrupted. Whatever is in there isn't Yara and it isn't Good
Tom, either. It's both. Which makes her dangerous. And motivated."
"Your old body?"
"I haven't heard from them."
"You have powerful advocates, Jasper. Mindwipe is deferred. If you need
to travel the branes, call us."
"I think I'm done with that."
"There's a war, Jasper. The fey are asking for our help. They claim to
want fresh eyes looking at old physics problems. More specifically, they
want thirteen billion soldiers."
"Cannon fodder."
"Better that some of us die on their worlds rather than ours. Defending
in depth. We're going to push the Hive back. Recover worlds. At the
least, we'll delay them from taking this world."
"Unless they do an Inchon end-around. Are we recovering worlds or
destroying them? I saw what the Tsurgi did, trying to save themselves
from the Hive."
"The Calen and the Tsurgi need allies."
"And you trust them? Has anyone talked to the Hive? Tried to negotiate? I
saw a world with hive and non-hive life. Living together."
"You want to join the Hive, Jasper? Submit to the group mind?"
"It's not on my play list."
"They don't negotiate with food, Jasper. They farm it. Ranch it. We would
be cattle. Or obedient slaves and soldiers."
"And who told you this?" Jas asked. "The Greens? The Reds?"
"A civilization far older than theirs."
"Demons."
"Dragons."
They let Jas keep her pet. In forty days of quarantine, Spidey grew
almost a kilo.
And Jas now had a baby bump. Flutters. She could feel an occasional kick.
She spent time in quarantine working with Team 5, developing new spells,
refining old ones, and trying to reverse-engineer Calen engineering and
code. Jas worked with people from all parts of the Sol system. Mars,
Luna, L4, and five continents on Earth Prime.
She improved the spells that produced pure water but had trouble making
palatable salt from tap water. She asked for tubs of lake water and
Bureau 13 actually moved the van to a dock by Wolf Run. They piped
'natural' water in, along with all its bioactives and pollutants.
Victory. She figured out how to make good-tasting salt - from the water
in Wolf Run, anyway. She also figured out how to screen out the smallest
grit and microbes, including some nanites.
Jas discovered she could make a powerful bleach from city water. Fluorine
ions and chlorine ions.
Team 5 studied the shotgun that Melissa brought back. They 'discovered' a
new explosive, and a nanite-mediated phase of metallic hydrogen.
They studied the detergent she'd brought back. Nanite-improved washing
soap. Jas recoded it for UV-reactive nanites and started selling it
locally.
Sales were slow at first, but soon picked up.
The war against the Bugs became a rediscovered Bollywood trope. It
displaced zombie-killers. Old classics, like Starship Trooper, revived.
Even the game world adapted.
Bug shooters replaced zombie shooters, or enhanced them. PASsport
developed and expanded the monsters in Morgana's realm. Bureau 13 worked
with Bandersnatch Games to develop Hive monsters that behaved and looked
like known bug-eyed monsters - infective and difficult to kill. Then
Bandersnatch announced it was revamping the rules for magic. Jas was
pleased to discover that the new rules conformed to what she knew about
fey magic. Bandersnatch blamed "contact with the Hive" for altering the
rules for magic in the game universe. They offered up a new class of
wizard, one who developed his or her own spells using the new rules of
magic.
Crowd sourcing magical research.
Jas stumbled on some weird science while investigating bulk space. The
rips Jas knew how to open were restricted to location. They were
dependent on the vagaries of interference patterns in eleven dimensions.
But somehow, the fey and the Hive weren't saddled with these
restrictions. They could port out from their equivalent of Fairview and
land in our Boston. Or Massover Station on the Moon. The could hijack an
existing rip, pouring armies into it from a completely different
location.
One of the math heads in Team 5 discovered that dimensional equations
with forty-two dimensions solved the problem. In theory. It also opened
up possibilities of time-travel and faster-than-light communications. But
the power expenditures ... enormous. It would require more energy than all
of human civilization had produced to date. The waste heat, alone, would
fry our planet.
There had to be a practical solution, a shortcut someplace. Team 5 turned
that problem over to Bureau 13.
Jas negotiated with Madis, the succubus tormenting Stevie. In doing so,
she discovered that everyone who dumped demons in the game essentially
renegotiated a contract with those demons.
Madis reminded Jas that the penalties for non-payment could be severe.
Consequently, Jas spent time as Reflet more often. Stevie found religion
and managed to throw Madis off for a few weeks. But then Madis appeared
in the game and Stevie had to adapt again. But she didn't have to deal
with the effects of the collar in real life.
Icky, Squick, and Squelch said hi every time Jas logged on as Reflet.
Sometimes they fucked for old times sake, but often they went adventuring
with Reflet as she explored the game world.
Jas made a pile of game money in the brothel. She discovered she could
convert game money to cash. If she became a cam girl while she played,
the exchange rate was nearly one-to-one - before they subtracted taxes.
But a regular Jo trying to cash out got a ten-to-one payout. Before
taxes.
Still, it was enough to buy an occasional pizza. Pay her storage fees. Or
have beer delivered to the quarantine trailer.
Melissa stunned Jas one morning with the announcement, "I want to have a
baby."
"I thought you swore off the little parasites."
"Seeing you get fat..." Melissa patted Jas's stomach. "And hearing that my
baby died because of a virus..."
"One that you don't have anymore." Jas sighed. "I get it."
"I'll help you raise this one."
Jas nodded. "The owner of this body could claim it at any time. And take
everything."
"From what you say, she avoids curses. I'll bet money she avoids you
until after the baby is born. Maybe until it's a teenager."
They laughed.
Jas took a bus to April City. She bought a canoe. As soon as she was out
of range of the cameras, she glamoured the canoe, rendering it nearly
invisible. She used every trick she knew to mask her approach to the
hauswood constructs in the fog on Longy Lake. She used a spy drone,
artificial life that resembled a crow, to drop Spidey in a tree just
outside the cemetery. Jas watched through Spidey's eyes. She also saw
through the crow-drone's eyes.
The crater was still smoking.
The self-powered barge was anchored just off the dock. No infrared sign
in the boathouse or the boat. None in the woods, either, except for small
animals and a few plants.
The crow dropped a T-wave pinger.
Jas observed the backscatter.
No invisible red caps or fey. Probably no demons, either.
No sign of Master Hoose.
The still-smoking crater didn't make sense. Did Orbital Command drop a
javelin there every week? Jas called her crow-drone back, and with it,
Spidey. She sent the crow and the tullabong out again to investigate the
rock pile that marked where the house originally stood.
Nothing. In three spectrums. However, T-wave backscatter discovered a
seam in the rocks that looked a bit like a door.
A tentacle disturbed the water by Jas's canoe. Jas waited. Eventually she
saw an eye. Then a face.
The Lady of the Lake rose from the waters.
"I know that sword," she said. "Who are you?"
"I'm the one you gave the sword to."
The Lady laughed quietly. "Your glamour is impressive. I thought this
canoe was a child's toy - one of those remotely operated vehicles."
Jas smiled. "I'm ready to give the sword back."
"Not ready to kill ten-thousand red princes?"
"I may have done it already."
"Ah. Who is more evil? Person Y presses the red button when she knows it
will kill the innocent along with the guilty. Person N made the red
button. Installed it. Locked Person Y in a room with nothing but the red
button and three demons whose sole purpose was to torment her until she
pressed the red button."
"If I had accepted my fate - her fate - I would be living the life
Melissa escaped. And two worlds would not have fallen to the Hive."
"Dubious. Those demons manipulated a queen into betraying her daughter
and her world. They manipulated a fierce opponent - Princess Yara - into
escaping to this world so she could-" the Lady of the Lake paused,
"-press the red button. She passed the curse to you, which is also an
evil act. You saved this world, Jasbinder. You may yet save others."
"Not feeling heroic at the moment."
The Lady snorted. "Does the multiverse care? The Hive has consumed a
fifth of the known worlds. Yesterday, this world was not ready to repel
the Hive. Tomorrow, if we are given the gift of tomorrow, this world may
be ready enough."
"Do histories converge?"
"Eh?"
"I'm looking at the equations for bulk space. Translations back to my
home reality - there's always two solutions, a plus and a minus. Rips
open in plus space, but I can't find a reason we can't travel to negative
space. Other solutions imply time travel. Plus or minus time. Or
paratime. It only makes sense if the many worlds diverge but also
converge. That solves problems with the second law of thermodynamics,
too."
"Speak English, please."
Jas explained it again, in Tsurgi.
"Oh. In six short months, you've opened questions I haven't considered in
centuries. Yes, I think they do converge. I could never prove it, though.
Causality works both ways. That implies that each moment could have two
histories."
"Forty-two histories."
"Any number. Remember that quantum states embrace ambiguity across all
the branes. An infinite number of histories."
"And yet, most of us remember a single history."
"Do we? Even a world where that is true could have more than one path to
that moment."
"Is Master Hoose home?"
"He's off saving Morgana and the princess. If they can be saved."
"He can be in two places at once."
"He has a copy in a secure location. I don't know where."
"The red caps?"
"I am pleased to report they removed themselves from this world."
"Where did they go?"
"A world with food. Eat or be eaten."
Jas chuckled quietly. "Parkland? Dino World?"
The lady nodded.
"Who else knows where they went?"
"They left word for you with me. Don't be shy. Bring that child around."
The Lady nodded towards Jas's belly.
"How will I find them?"
The Lady laughed. "Magic. Keep the sword. You may need it." She
disappeared beneath the waves.
Jas stayed on the self-propelled barge and continued her research. Her
tullabong monster got bigger. Her belly got huge.
She practiced her combat archery and sword fighting. In the Spring, she
attended a combined SCA-Golden Horde weapontake with Stevie, Sheena,
Melissa, and Melissa's boyfriend. Jas had mixed feelings, seeing Melissa
with another man.
They wouldn't let Jas fight in any of the mock battles, but they did let
her participate in archery events. She also did demos.
Jas brought one of those steel plates they used to cover holes on roads.
In a demo, she put a dragon-killer arrow through that steel plate.
She sold forty bows that day. Then she found out that, in some states
that bow was illegal. The ratio, holding pull to effective pull, was too
small.
She altered the specs on her fabblet. The next generation of bows would
conform to the law.
Everyone who came by her booth met Spidey, along with an RT crow and a
miniature chevaline. When asked if Spidey was artificial life, she told
people, "It eats the same things the crow eats."
Tarhee Smallbend stopped by her stall. Jas couldn't place his costume. It
wasn't Golden Horde but it also wasn't the livery of any SCA 'kingdom'
she knew.
Tarhee said, "Pony rides, soap for sale, an impressive bow. Girly has
become quite the entrepreneur."
"Money pays the rent."
Tarhee pet her tullabong. It trilled as he stroked it. He said, "What are
you going to feed this little girl when she gets big?"
"Jersey gators. Zangar's dog. You know what that is?"
"I've seen 'em. Surprised the Bureau lets you keep her."
"That's twice you called it a girl."
"Because it is. Spots, eh? Male juvies are plain. By the time a male
beastie is this big, it learns to be cryptic. Camouflage. The world is
not kind to male tugatugs."
"One tugatong, two tugatug. There is no 's' in tugatug."
Tarhee spoke in Calen. "You murder my language, I'll murder yours."
Oh.
Jas smoothed her skirt. "Are you here to buy soap?"
"The queen inquires of the health of her grandchild."
"Huh. I don't suppose I can tell her to sod off gracefully."
Tarhee smiled. The gap-tooth smile and the prison tats. Glamour.
Jas had never noticed before. How had Yara missed that? Jas measured her
words. "Not her grandchild. The genetics don't track."
"Oh, but they do."
"I'm told they changed my ovaries first."
Tarhee nodded. "The same virus altered a walking ballsack known as Good
Tom." He motioned with his hands. "Before certain things fell off."
Oh, shit.
"The baby is related to royals on both sides. The poor misguided princess
thought the chancellor wouldn't throw his own daughter to the troops."
Tarhee laughed. "Not known for brains, either princess."
Jas bristled. She'd seen Yara do advanced math and coding on the fly. She
said, "Prenatal checks are good. I'm taking my vitamins."
Tarhee expressed distaste. "We have better meds. No SIDs or other
misadventure."
"Pardon if I don't jump at the chance to put my neck in a collar again."
Tarhee nodded.
"Besides, banished?" Jas made a dismissive gesture.
"To quote a certain champion, 'I did not sass the queen.'"
"Then why am I denatured? I can't collect green or red mana; I can't use
it. The simplest of spells." She snapped her fingers, deliberately
willing that there be no spark of fire.
"Protection. My cousins can't control what is not infused with mana. Even
the demons leave you be."
Not entirely. And she was infused with mana. Improved gray mana.
Which meant that ... anyone with better control could control her.
Anti-hacking spells. More work required. Jas asked, "Any word on the real
princess?"
"Feared lost. If she hies up and says boo, defend yourself. Hive
infested, likely. I'm told to offer gold. Are you a bint whose favors can
be bought?"
"I have gold. I live simply. I want for nothing."
"And yet you sell soap." He examined a bag.
"The world needs better soap."
Tarhee placed a pasocon on Jas's counter. "Open it and call. Help will
arrive. Something as simple as a distressing nightmare. Pizza delivery
for that abomination you eat. Do not hesitate."
Jas examined the pasocon with Spidey's eyes. She could see the mana and
the tracking devices.
She could duplicate them. Fox them.
Unless it was nested like Russian dolls. Spells meant for her to find,
hiding deeper ones she could not.
"I must decline your kind offer." Jas used an arrow to push the pasocon
closer to Tarhee.
"Not my offer, girl. The queen sends this gift." He placed it back in the
center of her counter.
"A Samsara? Really? It won't synch with any of my devices."
"All the better," Tarhee said. "No one wants to view your porn. Why do
you play bangers and winkie on that detestable game?"
"I like it." Jas took the phone. Damned if she was going to tell this
jerk why she played. "Please express my joy at receiving a gift from the
queen herself. Perhaps I can melt it down and make something useful."
Tarhee grunted. He tapped Jas on the forehead. "Are you certain the royal
is not here? You sound just like her."
"It's beyond my ability to wake her. No, that is not permission to try."
"Physical persuasion," he examined his nails, thick, claw-like, "is my
go-to. Don't have to wait for the mana to soak in." He grinned and Jas
was no longer certain the gap-tooth smile was glamour. "Subtlety, bah.
Brain-dipping, bah."
"Denatured. Starting to see the benefits. Thank you for explaining."
"Had you not used our magic, you would not now be denatured."
"I turned on a green pylon. I did no spells with it."
"That was enough."
"Did it work as intended?"
"Did I lose good men trying to rescue you? Yes."
Jas drew a cleansing breath. She felt the baby stir. "More blood on my
hands. I would undo that if I could."
"Do not repeat the error."
"Is the Red Chancellor well?"
"The Chancellor is short of willing bodies these days. Between you and
the tree man, he lost five copies of himself."
"Beside himself with grief?"
"Rage. A dragon. How did you kill a dragon?"
"With violence."
Tarhee chuckled. He glanced at her sword. His eyes narrowed.
Jas said, "I am certain every one of his captives would do as I did." She
pat her sword. "The ones he hasn't mindwiped."
"He is aware. He mindwipes them as a precaution now."
More blood on her hands. Jas sighed. "That's not the takeaway I was
hoping for."
Tarhee sighed. "You can't drop a ten-thousand year oak with an electric
chainsaw. If it helps, girly, the man frees every slave who fights the
Hive. Forgives their debts. Many free men and women tonight. Calen and
Narwa."
"Live long and suffer."
Tarhee looked puzzled.
"A Vulcan curse. May he live long and suffer." She held up four and a
half fingers in a V-shape.
"Vulcan. The blacksmith?"
"A planet between the first one and the Sun."
"Eh? I mistranslated that."
"Never mind. Yes, I'll take care of the baby. Except for offering my home
world to the Hive, I have no grudge against the queen. Oh. And the big
red button, but that's in the past." Jas paused. "Thank her for the
denaturing."
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