

Multivertical Man 016

The Korbent Refraction

Nick Zentor

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Two men with close historical parallels, both victims of lies, are lost within the "shadow Earth" known

as Aton 5, working hard to save themselves from a dystopian disaster and a nervous breakdown, while

sharing the knowledge they have about Multiverse theory. With the knowledge about Multiverse theory,

they both act in different ways to undo the damage done and return to the "home-parallel", aka Earth.

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"The Korbent Refraction" by Nick Zentor

Copyright: Coldpost-85, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

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To the Love I lost in the Home Parallel

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Contents

Introduction: Dreaming About the Home Parallel

Chapter One: Crossing the Par Median

Chapter Two: A Local Tour with a Memory Disk

Chapter Three: Spooks in the Night, Liars in the Light

Chapter Four: Separate Realities at a Multivertical Conjunction

Chapter Five: The Flaw in Neocon Armor Revealed

Chapter Six: Close Call on a Big Green Day

Chapter Seven: The Minutemen and the Inspector General

Chapter Eight: Message in a Bottle from a Victim of Lies

Chapter Nine: How to Stop a War in 3 Easy Steps

Chapter Ten: Tea Break Time and an Investigation Underway

Chapter Eleven: The IG, the 420, and the MVC Tube Station

Chapter Twelve: 2020 Vision: A Par Median Between the Extremes

Afterword: Dreams About the Home Parallel

Afterword: A Short History of the Aton 5 Parallel

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Introduction: Dreaming About the Home Parallel

In a close parallel "shadow" of Earth known as the Aton 5 parallel, 2 men with close parallel experiences exchanged viewpoints about Multiverse theory while one tried to save the world and the other tried to save his indisol from following a refracted path caused by an evil step-brother's lies.

Both of the men were victims of lies with similar parallel histories who worked out their problems in different ways; one sought to resolve a refraction which threatened to destroy the world reality while the other sought to resolve a much more personal issue which was driving him to the edge of insanity.

Both men were believers in Multiverse Theory and shared their knowledge with each other and the world through online media outlets like forums, websites, and ebooks, and speculated about the metaphysics underlying the theory.

Both men shared the same M-Theory, which suggested that they were transferred to the "shadow Earth" Aton 5 after accidents which occurred in late 1982, and that the Earth they were a part of at the time was only a "shadow Earth" of the "home parallel" (aka Earth).

Realizing they were both victims of lies told by evil step-brothers before the accidents in 1982, and that they were "misplaced" across the multiverse because of those lies, they both worked together, while sharing the information they had with one another, to resolve the conflict in their own different ways.

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Chapter One: Crossing the Par Median

Ron Quoren awoke from the dream and realized everything that had happened to him because of the accident in late 1982 was wrong. He stepped up from the couch in the corner and went to make some kava in the other corner of the one-room apartment, where there was a small adjoining kitchenette.

He kept thinking about the dream and was never more certain that all of his research had nailed the problem and showed him a way to counteract it, if possible. What bothered him was the fact that he had no money or resources to do anything about it. That was the real problem. The money was next to impossible to get, and the resources as well.

He sat down on the couch in the corner, set his coffee down on the side table, and turned on the small personal computer he had managed to base his office and studio work within.

He went to work on what he had discovered, recording it all in a script with the word-pad.

An hour later, he had it all there, in script; everything he needed to solve the problem caused by his step-brother's lies. In theory, if he could share this with the world, it could lead to the enlightenment experienced within the home-parallel in the 1980s.

The Aton 5 parallel was lagging behind the home-parallel. That was the theory. Aton 5 was lagging behind because of a major set-back caused by the Neoconservatives, who used the same methods as his step-brother to betray the trust of all of their ideals: they lied.

But now Ron Quoren had discovered a way to prove what liars they were and there would be no denying it. If they continued to lie humanity into wars for profit after that, under the banner of fascist capitalism, and continued to kill socialist reformers and their experiments, they would be exposed as the biggest liars humanity has ever known and they would lose all popularity with people everywhere. Nobody would vote for such big liars as the Neocons and their fascist capitalist methods.

Quoren saved the file in a back-up, on 2 different drives, and made 4 hard-copies of the document. He folded one nicely and put it in an envelope and sealed it. He wrote "SADSLDT' on it and buried it away in his safe-box. He did the same with the others, and put one of the envelopes inside the internal breast pocket of his jacket.

He planned on sharing the information with someone, at the time he just didn't know who. The fact was, he had no friends at the time and had been so busy working that he simply forgot how important it was to have contacts with humanity. He wondered who he could share it with and realized that he knew nobody personally at that time involved with anything on this level.

It was a big issue, one of the biggest, obviously too big for any one man to handle on his own.

He wondered if he should put it on a compad and realized that if the Neocons got a hold of the compad, they could find out all about what he had and he knew that wasn't the best course to take. He had to make certain the information was shared with the antiwar democrats first so that they would see the ammo they had to work for them. If the Neocons found out about it first, they might spoil it and he couldn't let that happen.

Of course, if he wanted, he could make an abbreviated, encrypted version of the document, something to jog his own memory, and carry that in an ebook file on a compad, along with his other ebooks. That was a good idea, because he had to have something he could share in an e-file, with others, in the 21st century of the computer age.

He went to work on the abbreviated version and put the word-document on his compad with the ebooks he had stored there.

He took note in his journal of the discovery and his plans.

"I awoke this morning with a pocketful of keys to various parallels, and I think I may have localized some kind of potential Par Median which might actually help to resolve the problem with the Korbent Refraction.

"The Korbent Refraction caused the home-parallel of Earth to grow a new parallel stemming from 1981, which became known as the Aton 5 parallel. The Aton 5 parallel was refracted to the right, away from the home-parallel, which was evolving to the left at the time.

"The Korbent Refraction was traced to the "lies" that the Neofascists told about the antiwar democrats and marijuana during the 1980 election year, through radio and television ads. Those lies apparently caused the complete corruption of the great experiment in democracy known as the United States of America.

"The "lies" led to the public's apparent majority vote for the Neoconservative "liars" to replace the antiwar democrats in 1981, after which the Neocons went on to show their true "fascist" totalitarian side by launching a "war on drugs" which was used to target antiwar democrats who used marijuana and destroyed them.

"To get away with such a "totalitarian" violation of American society, they had to first put a gun to the heads of Congress and force them to agree to "Zero Tolerance" policies to fight the drug war, policies which were a complete totalitarian violation of the United States Constitution. Well, a gun to the head may be the only thing capable of suppressing the fact that they could all be locked away in prison for the rest of their lives for such blatant acts of treason.

"The "drug war" did nothing but divide the American working and middle-classes, while the Neocons and their drug warriors profited off of it. Eventually, it even went on to divide common people everywhere, just the way the Neofascists wanted it, giving the wealthy "ruling-class" more and more excuses for treating common "peasants" everywhere like a bunch of dumb animals in a human zoo that needed to be "programmed" to be "good robots" for their Neofascist empire.

"The Aton 5 parallel has suffered many more problems than the home-parallel. It suffered from so many wars that eventually the common people began to turn against the leaders, and all that resulted was more war, misery, pain, and endless hardships and work that never ended.

"But the Aton 5 parallel is itself a main parallel with many sub-parallels, and within the sub-parallel of Aton 5.785, it may be possible to put an end to the wars and create a "Par Median" that could help to resolve the Korbent Refraction and prevent it from an otherwise inevitable self-destruction.

"I think I may be able to use the keys I discovered to help resolve it."

He put the compad into the breast pocket with the envelope and put the jacket on, and stepped into the water-closet to look into the mirror.

As he stepped back to the living-room, he thought about what he could do to make sure the information was shared with the right people. He thought about his work with 3d design and saw a way to carry the concept around in a way that could jog his memory without any problem while keeping it all a secret completely dependant on his memory alone. It was perhaps the safest way to carry the information he could think of, so he sat down at the computer and went to work on it.

He had to design a 3d object so he opened a 3d program and went to work on it. It took hours to complete and submit the order to the factory. It was expensive, but his credit could cover it and he believed it was well worth it.

He received the 3d object from the factory the very next day, with its most expedient delivery service, and opened the package, and took the 3d object out, to examine it.

Beautiful, he thought; it was just what he ordered. A beautiful silver medallion with just the right symbols on it, like a large coin, small enough to be carried in his pocket without any problem. He wrapped it in a clean handkerchief and stuffed it into his pants pocket. Anytime he needed to share the idea, it was right there secure at his side.

He reached inside the breast pocket, pulled the envelope out and looked at it. He realized it wasn't necessary to carry it anywhere at the time now that he had the abbreviated version on a compad and the medallion to jog his memory, and so he buried the envelope in a box in the corner with a bunch of books and other papers, mostly related to his work.

As he put his boots on, he wondered what to do next. He knew he had to do some leg-work, he just wasn't set on exactly where to go.

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Meanwhile, a fringe independent artist and writer of science-fiction known as Ren Tenrut was struggling to juggle the responsibilities of co-managing a Net Zone 21c club, get his work published, and try and redirect the course that his psycho-social and ethical program had taken over the decades while working himself to death trying to make up for mistakes that had been made in the past.

He realized he had been obsessed with his work and was trying to make up for it by sharing what he knew while working at the club. That was his secondary post and what made him more valuable than just another dish-washer. Things were tight, the club was just getting by, he understood well enough how it was. The only time the club made any profits at all was on a good weekend, when the college students were in a good mood and wanted to party.

Tenrut actually had a lot in common with Quoren, and they had shared some of it online. Tenrut had been writing a science-fiction series that covered M-theory and there were things he knew about that were still quite beyond him. His writings had made some interesting projections and he was finally getting somewhere with the ebooks, and sharing them online.

Tenrut's so-called life, which began about 60 years ago, had been complicated by an evil step-brother, who hated him the day he was born and started lying about him the day after. The step-brother had abused him, tortured him, lied about him and denied it all after the fact, and because the step-father always took sides with him, he got away with it for the first 20 years of that so-called life. Then there was an accident in late 1982, which caused his transfer to the Aton 5 parallel.

For 30 years, he worked his way out of the cold, from the end of the bread-line in 1984, through a robotic job for a decade from 85 to 95, and then he went back to school and did research and small-publishing. By 1995, he had recovered enough memory about what had happened before the accident in 1982 to realize that he was a victim of lies and something had gone wrong with the parallel he was a part in, and somehow, it was all interwoven into a mystery he needed to resolve.

His latest commitment, outside of his regular work, was an effort to prove to Twani and Sarena, some close friends who were beyond his local reality, that he could save up enough money to pay for the action software for the 3d company he was managing. 3d projects depended upon the action software and he worked with 3d projects, so he needed to pay for the action software.

Well, the year had ended recently and he still hadn't been able to save the money he needed to pay for the action software, and while it was true that Twani would not hold it against him, Sarena might. He had told her that he could do it somehow, that he could save the money up, but the money he required for medicine to treat the PTSD took most of it away.

At this point, it looked like he wouldn't have the money he needed to pay for the action software, and his chances of making it to first base with Sarena would be set back for who knows how long, especially if she got interested in another guy. In Sarena's line of work, as a field agent, she met all kinds of independent artists during the regular course of her work.

He could only do what he could only do, and making money was one of the hardest parts about it all. For the moment, all he had was his job with the 21c club and his ebooks, and after the bills and medicine was paid for, he was barely scraping by.

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Quoren and Tenrut were both into Multiverse theory and both wrote science-fiction ebooks on the subject, and met in an online forum where they both exchanged thoughts about M-theory. They had read each other's ebooks also and eventually discovered that they were both victims of lies told by evil step-brothers.

They both had been sent on fool's errands and lost their girlfriends in the summer of 1975. The close parallels were about as close as they could get, until they were able to deduce that the girls they were seeing were different, along with the states they resided in at the time, and of course, the exact dates of the events.

The girl that Quoren lost in the summer of 1975 was Sarena, whereas the girl that Tenrut lost was Lisa. From what Tenrut had shared with Quoren, Lisa went into the liberal arts, and worked as a model and a softcore actress for some big production studio. Sarena had an interest in the liberal arts but favored journalism and following the musical bands with a camera over posing on camera herself.

The most remarkable parallels between the two men were the step-brother, the summer of 1975, the summers of 1977 and 1978, and the accident in 82. The specific times varied in the exact dates for each man, but similar events occurred around the same times for both.

Both of the step-brothers had lied to the mother in both cases, in the summer of 1975, and both young men were sent on fool's errands and lost the girlfriend as a result, but the details were very different.

Both experienced very similar rejections from summer clubs for not wanting to get naked with the lying step-brothers, but again, the details were also different, including the year. For Quoren, it occurred in the summer of 1977, for Tenrut, it occurred in the summer of 1978.

As for the accident in 1982; that was perhaps the most mysterious parallel of them all. They had absolutely no exact details on any of it, save for the fact that both were motorcycle accidents in late 1982. Aside from the difference in the states and the dates, there were no other details about it to compare notes on.

After this, both had come to the same conclusions about the changes they went through after the accident. Both believed they had been transferred away from their "home-parallel" to the Neo-Spartan Aton 5 parallel.

Quoren realized that the parallels between him and Tenrut were close, but the details were obviously different. He even went on to speculate that it was possible they were both from different parallels and while the probability may be low for such parallels to exist in any one parallel, across a multiverse of parallels, the probability was higher.

While it may be true that they shared the Aton 5 parallel at that time, they could have been transferred from different sub-parallels of the home-parallel (Par 1978.5) after the accidents each experienced in 1982.

Ultimately, they both realized that the chances of there being more than one case in which an evil step-brother lied in such a way was probably quite high within the vast multiverse of variable realities there were in the complex era of the 21st century computer age.

Of course, the chances of such close parallels actually meeting and exchanging information was also much higher than ever before, in the 21st century, by way of the internet and an online forum. The fact that they were able to meet and share such information online was a testament to the effectiveness of a global telecommunications network like the internet within the 21st century computer age.

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Chapter Two: A Local Tour with a Memory Disk

There are those whose cynical attitude prevails over some of our highest ideals and ambitions, but despite all of the crude criticism, there are also those who sometimes become inspired in ways beyond the understanding of those who belittle such high ambitions.

Ron Quoren was just such a man, a rare sort of person, one who had been through a lot of amazing experiences and lived to tell about it, more or less, but failed to gain anyone's attention, for the most part, with any of it.

After realizing that nobody was actually listening, he buried himself somewhere in the dark corner of some office, close to the old, dusty library, and kept to himself for about 20 years, writing about his experiences, as an alternative for talking about them.

Of course, he still was not believed for the most part, so he decided to simply turn it all into some science-fiction and fantasy stories, with the idea that he might be able to sell the stories while keeping them in record at the same time. In this way, he was able to remind himself of all of it and point out all the facts buried within the fiction anytime, to anyone, if they cared to know.

But nobody cared to know any of it and he was generally ignored.

Then one day he hit upon something that he could not simply ignore, and wondered what he could do with it. This, he felt, was something that he should share with people, they should know about it, he thought. But unfortunately, he had absolutely no friends in the world at the time to share it with, and his relatives all thought he was crazy and never listened to anything he had to say about anything.

He sat in the dark corner of his small office, staring at his computer and wondering what to do about it. He had made a discovery and he didn't know how to handle it. He felt certain that such a discovery would be undermined and ignored by the big liars who ran big government, the so-called "benevolent" leaders of the ruling-class.

Quoren was not a fool. He knew they would suppress his discovery because it would threaten their power over all the suckers and fools of the human zoo that they called civilization.

But on the other hand, if he handled the discovery just right, and played his cards well, he might actually be able to do something good with it. The question was: How? How could he manage such a discovery and make something good come out of it?

When he realized that there were wealthy class millionaires and millionaire wannabees who would oppose the discovery, he realized it would be foolish to simply share it with anyone at all, because anyone at all could be a millionaire wannabee.

Actually, there really was no specific reason for a millionaire wannabee to oppose it, aside from selfish greed and greedy ambitions. Even a millionaire wannabee doesn't have to sell out to the big liars, if he chooses not to do so. But unfortunately, most millionaire wannabees had a tendency to sell out anything for enough money, so they probably couldn't be trusted with something like this.

Quoren made a note to stay away from wealthy classes and millionaire wannabees. None of them could be trusted with something like this, he decided. Something as big and potential as this might be better managed on the grass-root level, to be on the safe side. But where in the grass-roots could he possibly go and expect the kind of support something like this needed?

After thinking it all over, he made a plan, and thought about putting it to the test.

Yes, a test would be best for this, he decided. In fact, at some point he would need to do a test and a demonstration, to prove the point. Yes, a plan for sharing the discovery began to take form within his mind. He developed it and memorized it, and went to work with the computer on the very first step.

The 3d circular disc of virtual silver, with the letters "SAD SLDT" on it, was all he needed to back up the intelligence he needed to put it to the test.

After sharing the symbol with others, no doubt there would be those who would be interested in what it all represented. That would get the conversation going and having gained their attention, it would be much easier to share it with them. At least, that was the theory.

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Quoren did the research and narrowed it down to a local area owned, operated, and populated by democratic socialists and Green-party people of the middle-class, the kind of people who understood how hard it could be working to keep a roof over one's head.

He did a tour of the local businesses and bookstores, and eventually found himself in a local tavern, sharing drinks with some guys he had met.

Langstone was a middle-age guy who reminded Quoren of a college professor he once knew, with a short beard, long-hair tied back into a ponytail, and wire-rimmed glasses. Sanjay was a light-bronzed skin, stockier, more athletic guy, of apparent African or Indian ancestry.

"So, you think it's hopeless?" Quoren said to Langstone and Sanjay, whom he had bought drinks for, after getting their attention about the political situation.

"The big liars got it all sewed up nicely," Langstone said, with dry cynicism. "They lie for each other to protect their positions of wealth and power. The media works for them now and perpetuates their big lies."

Sanjay concurred and said, "The best we can expect is more of the same, business as usual. Expecting any more is living a pipe dream."

"What if I told you I had a way to expose the liars and knock them on their asses?"

They both looked at him with thin smiles and nodded. They looked at each other and almost laughed.

"Right," Langstone said, "and how're you gonna do that?"

"See this?" he showed them the silver disc with the letters on it.

"S - A - D S - L - D - T," Langstone read. "Never heard of it. What's it mean?"

Quoren took the silver disc back, and said, "I'll let you in on it, if you're really interested. But there are certain conditions."

"Conditions?" Sanjay said.

"Well, to begin with," Quoren said, "I think we should be careful how we share it with others. We wouldn't want the big liars to find out what we have before we can use it. You know how they are. They'd want to stop us before we could get anywhere with it."

"What exactly are we talking about?" Langstone said in a lower voice, as he leaned across the table. "Some kind of secret weapon?"

"Well, I don't think calling it a weapon is quite the right word to use," he admitted. "It's not meant to kill, just neutralize power abuse."

They thought about that and they all decided to have a drink together.

A minute later, Sanjay said, "So you're willing to share it so long as we keep it in the club for now?"

Quoren thought about that shortly, nodded, and said, "Yes, that's about right. We should keep it in the club and find a way to make it work the way it's meant to."

"How is that?" Langstone said, "I mean, how does it work?"

"Ah, yes," Quoren said, "the how about it. Of course, now, let's see. Well, we find an official rep who can sponsor the bill and push it through Congress. Of course, once we find this official rep, we'll have to surround him or her with our team and give him or her all of our support 24/7.

"We'll have to be there during the entire track to DC and make damn certain the bill gets there and gets its day in Congress. If it fails, well, I have to warn you, minutemen, that it could lead to civil war."

They both looked at him straight in the eyes and could see he was completely serious.

"This is about pushing a bill in DC?" Langstone said, smirked and checked his laugh.

"Your kidding, right?" Sanjay said. "Man, here I was thinking you might have something, and you lay a Congressional Bill on the table?" He shook his head, said, "I dunno, man," and took another drink.

"Sounds crazy," Langstone said. "I don't see how a simple bill can solve anything. They'll just use it as an excuse for raising taxes and sell us another political front for special interests."

"Well, don't think of it as a bill," he said. "Think of it as an amendment."

They both thought about that with interest.

"So, it's connected to the Constitution?" Sanjay guessed.

"Oh, absolutely," he admitted, and smiled.

They thought about that for about a minute, and the two guys turned to each other and one leaned over to the other and whispered in the other's ear.

A minute later, after they had whispered to each other back and forth, they turned back to him and Langstone said, "If you're completely on the level with this, then maybe it's time you joined the club."

"How's that?" he said.

"We know somebody, we think you should meet," Sanjay said. "Are you interested?"

"Somebody, like who?" he said.

"Somebody who would be interested in what you have to say," Langstone said, "but you'd better be on the level, otherwise he won't like it."

"Who? I mean, what kind of person are we referring to?" Quoren said, "I'm kind of picky about who I share this with. I have to be careful."

"An old friend who has the kind of connections you might need," Langstone said.

"Right wing? Left wing? Neoconservative or Neoliberal?"

"None of that," Langstone said. "He's a hard working American, just like we are."

"What economical class?" he said. "Upper? Middle? Lower?"

Langstone's eyes closed slightly as he thought about it, and said, "I would have to say... middle class."

"Upper middle?" he said.

"No, no, middle-middle," Langstone said.

Quoren thought about that and said, slowly, "How do we know he's not a millionaire wannabee?"

"Oh, well, I don't think he's like that," Langstone said. "He just wants us all to get along. I don't think he likes the big liars anymore than we do."

Quoren thought about it and said, "Well, I suppose I could meet him. But... about the amendment, well... I'd prefer to meet him first before I decide to share it. Would that be possible? I mean, if I think he's not someone that can be trusted with this kind of power, I don't think I could share it with him."

"Well, I think," Langstone said, "that if he agrees to meet you about this, he'll want you to share it with him. Otherwise it will just be a pointless waste of time."

Quoren thought about it and said, "One more question. What does he think about American democracy and the U.S. Constitution?"

"I believe he loves those things," Langstone said, "and he's as mad as we are that it's all been corrupted by big liars."

Quoren thought about it and said, "I'll need to ask him a few questions first, to be sure. Think we can arrange that?"

The two guys spoke quietly to each other for a minute, then turned back and Langstone said, "I think it can be arranged."

Quoren took a deep breath, thought it over shortly, picked up his mug and said, "Okay, let's set it up," and drank what was left of his beer.

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The two men took Quoren to a local business, they went into the back where there was a lounge, and he waited with Sanjay there for a few minutes, while Langstone went to locate the man they wanted him to meet.

Langstone returned with Eric Vondrake, a tall, middle-aged man of about 6 feet with a light bronze complexion and medium-length dark, brunette hair and glasses. He was in his casual mode while managing a small business.

Langstone introduced them and Vondrake looked at Quoren with interest.

"Well, Quoren, Langstone tells me you've got something," he said. "This better be good."

Quoren handed him the silver medallion and he looked at it closely for a minute.

"What's it mean?" Vondrake said. "What do the letters stand for?"

"Okay, I know you want me to share it with you now, but I think we should wait until we're ready to have the amendment drawn up and ready for submission to the Congress."

"What?" Vondrake said, with surprise. "But that could take months!"

He quickly recovered and said, "Why all the secrecy? Why not share it with us now?"

Quoren thought about that and said, "I think it's safer that way. If it leaked out to anyone in the wrong camp, we'd lose the civil war for sure."

Vondrake looked at him closely and said, "But I thought you said we could avoid a civil war."

"We can," he said, "by keeping this thing completely under wraps. Trust me, I wouldn't lead you along with just another con-job. Believe me when I tell you, this is the real thing."

"But... you have to let us in on it!" Langstone said, with slight impatience, and Vondrake checked him and said, "It's okay, maybe we can compromise."

"Compromise?" Quoren said.

"Yes," Vondrake said. "Just let us in on the first 3 letters on the disc. If we like what we hear, we might be able to deal."

Quoren thought about it for about a minute, as he stepped up and looked about the lounge where they had met.

"Very well, I agree to the compromise," he said, and spelled it out for them. "S - A - D stands for Save American Democracy."

They looked at him closely with poker faces which slowly became wide-eyed with suppressed amazement. A full minute passed in silence so quiet one could hear a church mouse praying.

"Well," Vondrake finally said, "you certainly have peaked our interest, Mr. Quoren. How do you intend to save American democracy?"

"With the SLDT," he said flatly. "It's an amendment that can't fail."

"Hmm, you sound very certain of yourself," Vondrake said, "but how can we be so certain if we don't know what this SLDT is?"

"Believe me, it's just what we need to save American democracy," Quoren insisted. "You do want to save American democracy ... real American democracy, along with the Constitution, right?"

"You're damn straight!" Vondrake stepped up, and went to the bar-counter, obviously incensed. He opened a small icebox and pulled out a bottle of water. He stepped back around the counter, opened the bottle, and took a hard slug. He felt the relief and looked at the others.

"We all want to save it, Quoren," he said. "The tyrants have been abusing it and slowly destroying it from the inside out. Where have you been, Quoren?"

"I've been around," he said.

"Do you know where you are now?" he said.

"Well, uh,...." he hesitated.

"You're a minuteman, Quoren!" he said, and opened his arms wide. "You're one of us!"

Quoren thought about that shortly, and carefully made sense of what the man had said.

"A minuteman, yes, of course," he said, and looked at the man, "Yes, that's it exactly! Damn it man, you're right! That's exactly what I am!"

"Welcome to the club," Vondrake said, and handed him a bottle of water.

Quoren accepted the bottle, opened it, and they all took a drink together.

"Now," Vondrake said, and looked at him closely. "How does this SLDT work?"

"It weeds out the liars and exposes them," he said. "They won't have a chance, as long as we stay on top of it."

Langstone and Sanjay sat there and wondered about it, and Vondrake checked his watch, thought about it for a few seconds, then sat down in a chair, drank his bottle of water, stared at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and then looked back at the others.

"Well, when will you share it with us?" he said.

"When it's ready to be drafted," he said, "and submitted to Congress."

Vondrake thought about that shortly, and said, "Well, we could draw it up anytime. But submission to Congress could take a while... possibly months."

"Under such conditions," Quoren said, "we'll have to stay on top of it 24/7. We can't let the cat out of the bag too soon, otherwise it could get killed in the crossfire of a civil war."

Vondrake's eyes rattled slightly with that report and he said, "Now wait a second. Hold on. If we're gonna pass an amendment through Congress, we need the support of the people. There's no way we can keep something like this from them."

Quoren thought about that and said, "It has to be timed nicely. It has to be timed just right."

"I understand," Vondrake said. "But once we draft that amendment, we'll have to submit it to the public for support. After that, it could take months before it gets to Congress."

Quoren thought about all that time with a frown, but the frown disappeared and was replaced with a smile.

"Okay, it simply means we'll have to stay on top of it for as long as it takes," he said. "We're gonna need real 4th estate support. Can we get it?"

Vondrake took a deep breath and thought about it, "Well, if this thing is as good as you say it is, I think we can get it."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Tenrut had managed to finally get some help with his case against his step-brother Jarges. It was somewhat of a surprise to him because he actually just went seeking help for the medicine he needed, but doing that required a form of volunteer psychotherapy, so he agreed, knowing how much he needed the medicine.

The therapist discovered what Jarges had done to him and became the first person he had ever known to agree with him about it. It was something he never quite expected from anyone, and he wasn't quite sure how to respond at first, but he eventually gained more confidence, from the man's support, and decided to try and do more about the problem.

It was about a year before he finally got the medicine he needed when he decided to question his mother about the "misinformation" which led her to send him away on the fool's errand in 1975.

With his sister there as a witness, at his apartment, he asked the mother directly about it, once they had settled into the chairs and everyone was comfortable.

His mother had clammed up after he asked her where she got the information. She thought about it shortly and said she couldn't remember because it was so long ago. When he pressed her to try and remember, she refused to go on, stepped up, and began to leave.

He apologized, got her to sit down, with the help of the sister, and he agreed to stop pressing her on it.

"She can't remember that long ago," his sister insisted, and he agreed to not push it.

He spoke directly to his sister, and said, "That information had to come from somewhere."

"Where do you think it came from?" she said.

"Jarges," he said, and stared across the room, towards the window.

"Why do you think that?" she said.

"He confronted me, about a week or 2 before I was sent away," he told her. "When we were alone at the house on the weekend. He wanted to know the name of the girl I was seeing. I wouldn't tell him, because I didn't want him to ruin it for me."

"Why would he do that?" she said.

"Because he didn't have a girlfriend at the time," he said, "and he was jealous."

It seemed perfectly logical to him, when he recalled the memory of the confrontation with Jarges.

"He was the only one who knew anything," he said, "he's the only logical source."

It seemed perfectly logical to Ren but neither his sister or his mother agreed with him and the whole subject was left up in the air and uncertain.

There was no more action for some time after that on his case. He had to move his apartment, and finally managed to get the medicine, but it was so expensive that it started to eat up all of his extra money and he couldn't save anything.

Much had happened since he made the last move. He had made progress with some of his books when he began to publish them in ebook form and share them online. When he failed to manage to pay for the 3d software after another year of work, he found himself spending more time with the ebooks when not busy with other responsibilities.

He sat in the corner of his one-room apartment, at the computer and typed.

"After the accident, the step-brother continued to fool everyone, including mother, into believing he was actually a "good" brother to me, so when I returned to the east coast and went to work with a plan to write science-fiction on the side, mother thought the idea was fine and big step-brother had to do something to keep me preoccupied and out of the way, so he "let" me do it, and 4 years later, I finally had an office with a social club selling books at the local complex. Unfortunately at the time books were actually much lower in demand because of competition with television and videos and the book club made no profits and barely broke even.

"It was around that time that I saw her, with a couple of hot shots and a big automobile with a bar and a small lounge in the back. It had been almost a decade, and I had almost forgotten. She didn't see me, she was playing games with the big boys, outside of my circle completely.

"The memories began to return after that, for the first time since the accident in late 1982. Suddenly, with her memory restored in my mind, I couldn't forget her. I worked at the department store like a good robot 4 days a week and spent 2 days in and out of the science-fiction book club at the local complex, but I couldn't forget about her.

"That was the first time I had the dream and it all came back to me, how she got the job with the big studio, and the last day I saw her, before the accident separated us. But that was before I fully realized just how different the parallel I had been transferred to, after the accident, actually was. It took years before I was able to establish enough facts to support definite evidence of a parallel transference across the multiverse.

"I recalled the last day I saw her before the accident separated us forever. I had just returned home from the fool's errand and I tried to see her, to apologize to her, for going away.

"She was in her apartment room at the back of the complex, in a bit of a rush to go to work on the new job she had. She was very excited about the job and it was hard for me to pin her down for a minute.

"Lisa, you have to understand," I said to her, as she was fishing around for something. "It wasn't my idea, I didn't want to go. If it were up to me, I would have stayed."

"She stopped, looked at me, and said, "Yes, of course Ren. I understand, but I am really pressed for time right now. We can talk about this later."

"But we never did. Things went terribly wrong before we got a chance to talk again. I always felt I had made a huge mistake going away that summer, missing that time we could have had together.

"At the time, I didn't even know about step-brother's dirty secret lie to mother. If I could have told Lisa about that, before the accident... But things didn't work out that way.

"I never got the chance to explain it all to her. I never had the chance to tell her about the step-brother's lies to mother and the mistake she made sending me away in the summer of 1975, because of the step-brother's lies. I never got a chance to explain it to her before the accident separated us in late 1982.

"According to everything I had discovered, I had been transferred to another parallel, and the girl that I saw was not actually my Lisa. Even if by some chance I was wrong and it was her, there seemed no way to reach her, as long as she was surrounded by the big boys she worked with, so far as I could see. Was there?"

He stopped writing and thought to himself, after realizing he had failed to reunite with her within the Aton 5 parallel, and the step-brother's lies had left him miserable without her or anyone to replace her.

He was doing all that he could to make up for it, but he had a hard time meeting the status quo as long as he was still below the poverty-line and couldn't even pay for an automobile.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Three: Spooks in the Night, Liars in the Light

Vondrake got the amendment rolling and found some support with the local press. But even before Quoren shared the last 4 words with Vondrake, something quite unexpected occurred.

Quoren was kidnapped from his hotel room, had a hood put over his head, carried by 2 very strong men to a vehicle in the quiet cricket-chirping dew of the early morning before sunrise, and driven several miles away to a secret place.

With the hood still over his head he was carried along by the same strong men through 3 sets of doors, down a corridor, through another set of doors, and carefully carried into a very quiet chamber, with very low lights.

There he was told to sit by one of the strong men, as they pushed him down into a seat, and he sat.

There was a low tenor voice from a speaker, issuing a short order, and one of the men took the hood off of his head. They stood back behind him, on both sides of the doors, in the dark, as he sat in the middle of the chamber beneath a bright light.

"It's okay, Mr. Quoren," the voice said. "If you cooperate, you will come to no harm, I promise you."

"Cooperate?" Quoren said.

"Yes, surely you must realize by now," the voice said, "that your SLDT, whatever that is, has leaked out to the echelons of power. Did you think we would not find out?"

"Forget it," Quoren said, "You'll never make me talk."

"Oh, come now," the voice said, "why should you keep such a wonderful secret from us?"

"Because you would simply ruin it," Quoren said, "just like you ruin all the wonderful things of the world."

There was a cold silence that lasted for a minute, then the voice said, "I don't think you know who you're talking to..." It trailed off, and then recovered. "But never mind," he decided. "We can get you to talk. We have methods for extracting information. But you might not like it."

"Go to hell," Quoren decided. "You're in violation of my Constitutional rights. I demand the right to legal counsel."

The two muscle men secured both sides of him in the seat as another man injected him with a needle in the arm. He slowly dropped off to unconsciousness.

A timeless eternity later, he was swimming and climbing his way to consciousness, and about an hour later, his eyes opened and what he saw was like an illusory dream, blurred at the edges and distorted.

"This is your last chance, Quoren!" a voice boomed in his skull, as a ghoulish carnival mask of a face moved closer to him and he imagined a sinister laugh echoing within the chamber about to the sides.

"Tell us what S - L - D - T stands for or it's game over!" the voice boomed, as his eyes began to focus better and the man's face began to appear more human. But it was still a strange, cartoonish-like face.

"Tell us!" the man demanded.

"I can't!" Quoren cried out. "You'll ruin it!"

His cries echoed within an abyss about them, and he was at the bottom of it, nailed to the side of a wall in the dark chamber. He saw a gun barrel raised directly at his head, and suddenly, the lights went out.

Another timeless eternity later, he awoke in the chair again.

He was given some water by one of the guards.

The voice said, "Do you still refuse to share this information with us?"

"I ... can't..." he said, feeling near the broken point.

"Even if it can save your life?" the voice said.

"My life is not so important as this," he said, and left it at that.

"Very well, then you leave us no choice," the voice said. "You'll be taken to a cell until we're ready to take care of you."

The two guards picked him up by the arms and walked him out. He was taken to a cell where he fell onto the bunk and went into a deep sleep, exhausted from the torturous interrogation.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

Much to his surprise, when he awoke later that morning, he was back in the bed at his hotel room.

His senses were boggled for a minute as he recalled what had happened like it was all just a vague bad dream. Much of it was very twisted, obscure and illusory. He checked the time. It was almost 12 noon. He had slept much later than usual. What had he done the night before? Had he done any drugs or alcohol, or tranquilizers? Nothing he could recall.

He recalled having his dinner and retiring with a book at about 10 pm, after watching an old science fiction movie after dinner.

He had fallen asleep while reading. It was sometime in the early morning when the dark demons had snatched him away into the dead of night. He recalled it all while having coffee and a donot. About an hour later, he got into gear, called the club, and went to meet the others.

They sat there with their mouths half open as he told them about it. After he was done, they sat there in silence for almost a minute.

"Wow!" Langstone said, and left it at that.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a bad dream, like you thought?" Vondrake said.

"Well, yes, I am," he admitted. "Recall was too vivid for a dream. I know what happened. Besides, it all fits. I mean, I went to sleep at about 11 pm and slept until almost noon. I never do that. I usually wake up early after just 6 to 8 hours of sleep. According to my account of the night, if that was just a dream, then I slept for around 12 hours. Then how come I awoke with the dog of a hangover?"

"You did no drugs or alcohol?" Sanjay said. "Sleeping pills?"

"Nothing," he said.

Vondrake had been silent while Langstone and Sanjay did all the talking.

Finally, he said, "Okay, we get the picture. So they're on to us. That was just a scare test. They're hoping we'll back down. They know we have something and they want to scare us out of using it."

The others nodded and Langstone said, "Damn them, we're not gonna back down. Not when we have what we need to get back into the game and make a difference for a change."

"Right!" Vondrake agreed, and the others nodded agreeably.

"So, what's next?" Sanjay said.

"It's time to fill in some of the blanks," Vondrake said. "Quoren, we're gonna have to complete that amendment now and introduce it as a proposition for the public to review and vote on. I don't think we should wait any longer."

Quoren nodded and said, "Okay, let's do it."

\-------------------------------------------------------

After they filled in the blanks on the amendment, Vondrake looked at him and said, "So, that's what this is all about! Quoren, they'll never agree to it. I'm sorry, but I think we've been wasting our time."

"Nonsense," Quoren said. "All we have to do is hold it up to them and see how they react to it. It should hit them nicely, square on the forehead, just like a bull's eye. They'll never be able to dodge it. If it doesn't crack their reflection and expose them completely, it'll give them enough pause that they won't know how to handle it and they'll look foolish unless they have a good defense."

Vondrake thought it over as Quoren described it and turned on him directly and said, "You know something, Quoren? I think you might have something."

"You agree?" he said.

Vondrake thought about it shortly, looked out the nearest window, and said, "Let's work on that proposition and see how it looks."

He turned to Quoren and said, "If we can put it into a prop that the people will be able to vote on, we might have something."

They went to work on the proposition.

About an hour later, after they had the prop spelled out as clearly and straight to the point as possible, Vondrake called Langstone over the intercom, and Langstone and Sanjay joined them.

The two minutemen stood there at complete attention as Vondrake stood up tall and stepped across the room to Quoren. He looked at him seriously and said, "Allow me to shake your hand, sir. It's a pleasure to work with you."

He turned to the two minutemen and said, "Regroup and get the team together at the club. We're taking the next step now. Let's get on it then."

Langstone and Sanjay nodded affirmatively and went into action. As he left, Vondrake said to Quoren, "This is it, Quoren. This is when we do the all-nighters, for as long as it takes."

"Yes," Quoren said. "We've got to stay on top of it. When will we release it to the press?"

"In due time," Vondrake said, "in due time. We have to get the team together at the club and ready to deal with anything."

He went to his desk, checked his person, took his cell-phone from the drawer, and said, "We could be ready by tomorrow. Come on, let's go."

They left the office and headed for the club.

\-------------------------------------------------------

So they did it. They submitted the prop to the public and the press made a field day out of it. It got everyone talking within minutes of the news, and before the end of the day, there was the first reaction from the Neoconservatives.

"Are we to believe that we have lost the public trust so much," the porky pig said, "that we must now be subjected to mind-probes designed to reveal our souls?"

The porky pig paused shortly, to take a breath, and continued.

"It is an insult to our dignity," the man said, "and our post. We shall not be humiliated by such totalitarian tactics."

The man disappeared from the screen and was replaced by a reporter, standing outside the Minutemen's proposition offices at the club.

"This is not a totalitarian tactic," Vondrake said to the reporter. "It is simply designed to address certain very sensitive security issues and nothing else. The Conservative Republicans and the Democrats and everyone else who may be worried about any violations of their rights need not worry at all. The SLDT has nothing to do with their personal or private lives whatsoever. What it is concerned with is something that all of us have to be concerned with together. The future of our nation-state, its democracy and its Constitution."

This went over very well, and the Neocons were quiet for the rest of the day, as the sun set on DC and the left wing in California took over from there and the entire country was amused by its responses.

One funny guy even did a skit to satirize the reactions by the Neocons, in which the SLDT kept bleeping every time he opened his mouth until the computer system crashed and smoke started to rise from the machine. Everyone got a good laugh.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sarena called Tenrut the night before and told him to watch the news. She was a bit excited and wanted him to see it.

He was working with the science-fiction club at the time, and had become involved in a discussion about M-theory with one of it's most mysterious online club members, an extremely smart, knowledgeable man known as Ron Quoren.

He was reading through the very last post by the mysterious man when Sarena called to tell him to be sure and watch the news.

He went to the station website and made the video connection, and put it in a small window at the side of the science-fiction forum, and turned up the sound.

He read the words of Quoren again, and checked the date. He was overdue for a reply, by a week.

The sound from the OTC for the show gained his attention and he watched.

When it was over, he understood why she was so excited. It looked like the good guys were finally starting to make a come-back. He hadn't seen anything quite like it since that Evangelist in California was exposed as a major hypocrite and everyone had a big laugh about it for weeks after the fact.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Four: Separate Realities at a Multivertical Conjunction

Quoren was at the club working in his office, doing his part to stay on top of the push for the amendment.

"Quoren!" he heard a soprano voice say his name loudly, as if to get his attention. He turned about and saw a young woman, an attractive short-haired brunette, removing her sun-shades.

She smiled brightly and said, with excitement, "It's amazing, isn't it?"

Then she calmed down and stared at him with interest, then looked around, and looked back.

"I never expected to see you here," she said, with surprise.

Quoren stared back at her with intrigue, trying to recall her, and then it suddenly was there, emerging from his memory.

"Sarena?" he said, recalling her from his school days, over 20 years ago. "Well, now, this is a surprise! But you look... amazing! You don't look any older than the last time we ... "

"The time we were at the lake?" she said, and stepped closer, as the noise picked up in the outer office.

"Yes," he said. "You look just the way I remember."

"That was over 2 decades ago," she said, as she stepped closer. "You're looking well, Quoren."

They stared at each other shortly and then she snapped out of it and stepped back, and looked at the messy desk with the computer on it.

"I didn't know," she said, and looked over at him, with interest. "So how'd you get into the club?"

"It's somewhat complicated," he said, "maybe we could talk about it over dinner this evening?"

She looked at him closely with wide eyes, and another man's voice spoke from the doorway.

"It's okay, Sarena," Vondrake said. "We can take care of our business first, and you and Quroen can become acquainted."

"Reacquainted," she corrected him.

"Oh, you already know each other?" he said, and smiled. "Great, then you can get reacquainted. What about it?"

She looked at Vondrake with uncertainty for a second, thought about it, and said, "Well, okay. I guess it must be important. But it better be good."

"Oh, it'll be good," Vondrake said, "It's already hot enough to power a plant and an entire city! Quroren, Sarena will be handling the press for us. I'll be with her for the most of the rest of the afternoon, but after that, she's yours."

"Then I'll be seeing you later," she said, and stepped to the door.

"I'll be looking forward to it," he said.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Later, as they shared dinner on the balcony of a local restaurant, he told her about how he first met Langstone and Sanjay at a local tavern.

"But Langstone and Sanjay are just a couple of local union workers," she said. "How'd you get into the club, to see Vondrake? He doesn't usually make friends with complete strangers. Why did he see you?"

He thought about that shortly, wondering how much he should tell her. He realized he probably shouldn't tell her everything, if he wanted to keep it all under secure control.

"I was just a messenger," he said. It was true enough, and as a minuteman, it was his duty to share such things.

"I was assigned the job of carrying an important message to Vondrake, and so I did so. When Vondrake learned I needed a job, he gave me one with the club and the union work."

She accepted this neutrally, without doubt, and took a drink of wine.

"So, Vondrake made you one of his lieutenants," she said, "that must have been one important message."

"What about you?" he said. "How'd you meet Vondrake?"

"I'm a reporter, remember?" she said, thought about it, and recalled it for him. "It was about 5 years ago, when I was on a story that involved the state department and the local union. He's a popular man, with the local worker's unions. He's actually the only one that pays any attention and does something to help out.

"The others are nothing but plutocrats working for corporations and phony lefties that use the left as a front for phony pretenses. Just like a bunch of good cops covering their bad ass bosses and acting the apologetic PRs to keep the people confused while they maintain the status quo."

They talked about the business for a few minutes and then the subject finally turned to the past when they had first known each other, before the accident.

"So, why did you go away in the summer of 1975?" she said to him. "I don't think you ever got a chance to explain it to me."

He recalled the time, over 3 decades ago, looked in her eyes and said, "It wasn't my idea. I was tricked into going away by misinformation fed to my mother by my step-brother. It was a fool's errand designed to get me out of the way for the summer, so that step-brother could take you from me."

She stared into his eyes and saw that he was being truthful.

"Misinformation?" she said. "From your step-brother?"

"Yes," he said, and slowly explained it to her. "About one or 2 weeks before I left, my step-brother confronted me in the kitchen when we had the house to ourselves, when the parents were out, and he demanded to know the name of the girl I was seeing. Well, I didn't trust him and I thought for sure he would ruin it all for me somehow, so I refused to tell him her name.

"Well, as it turned out, he decided to simply lie about the girl and ruined it anyhow. He told mother I was seeing your older sister Lucinda, and she had a really bad reputation. I'm sure step-brother made sure mother knew just how bad her reputation was.

"Unfortunately, the step-father always believed step-brother's lies about me and mother was misled into believing him also. Apparently, mother didn't want to let me in on the real reason for sending me away at the time because she knew I would object and refuse to go.

"So I was led to believe that I had to go away for other reasons, something more important. After taking that bus thousands of miles away, after the point of no return, I knew I had made a mistake, but I didn't know mother had. She had no idea at the time that step-brother was lying."

He left it there and let it sink in so she got the idea.

Finally, he said, "I'm sorry, Sarena. I didn't want to leave you at the time, it wasn't my idea. I only wish I had the chance to explain it all to you 30 years ago."

She was suspended by the confidential report for almost a minute, then she slowly looked into his eyes and said, "Now I'll always wonder what would have happened if your step-brother hadn't ruined it."

"I've been wondering about that myself now for decades," he admitted. As he looked back into her eyes, he recalled the last time he saw her at the lakeside, in the summer of 75, just before he was sent on the fool's errand and lost her.

"Well," she suddenly looked away, checked the time, and looked back at him. "I didn't know... I didn't know about any of this. I thought... I thought you weren't interested in me at the time."

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't get a chance to tell you how I felt. They couldn't wait to get me shipped out. I... I'm really sorry."

He looked down and didn't know what else to say.

"Well, now things are different," she said. "We both have responsible positions. The world isn't as simple as it was 30 years ago."

"Yes, of course," he agreed, with a nod, and began to recover his senses and return to reality.

"So, how permanent is the post with Vondrake?" she said. "I mean, is it temporary or are you gonna be by his side through the next election?"

"Not sure," he admitted. "Oh, I'll stick with him to the next election alright. We have to see this thing through and make sure it works the way it was supposed to. After that, I may want to go back to my regular work."

"What is your regular work?" she said, curiously.

"Computer graphics," he admitted. "I'm hoping when this thing is over I'll have enough money to open up a professional office and studio, but that could take some time."

"3d computer graphics?" she said.

"Yes, of course," he admitted, and he suddenly had a bright thought. "Would you like to see some of my work?"

She thought about it shortly, and said, "Yes, I'd love to."

"Well, we're done here," he said. "How about now?"

She checked the time again and said, "Well, it's getting a little late. Maybe another time."

She began to pack her things into her purse and act like she was ready to leave.

He called for the check and a few minutes later, they were on their way out.

She drove him back to the hotel where he was staying, and stopped to let him out.

"Well, I'll see you at the club," she said to him, with a smile.

"Great to see you again, Sarena," he said, with a smile, and stepped up and out of the vehicle.

He watched her drive away from the doorway, then went inside to his room.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometime during the night, the spooks took him again from his motel room, and he awoke in the interrogation chamber again.

"What are you, Quoren, some kind of lazy liberal?" the strong male voice of a spook said to him.

"Do I have to go over my work history and give you a lesson in respect, to prove I'm not?"

"All I see is some kind of word man dazzling us with big words so far," the spook said. "Where are you from, Quoren?"

"I'm straight from the grassroots," he said. "I worked hard as a paper-man when I was still in grade school, then went to work on a farm because it paid more, did that for about 2 years before getting into landscaping, which I did in my last year of high school and after that for 2 more years before taking some time off for school again, to learn how to do more.

"School didn't work out because somebody fixed the grades in high school behind everyone's backs and my math didn't work with their science. As a result, I was forced back to work in the general labor department as a general maintenance man at an amusement park, cleaning the grounds and the rides, and concessions, etc..."

"I lost my job in 79 with the company I worked general maintenance with and got another job at a department store as a night cleaner, and lost that one in 1980, in a cleverly devised security trap involving some bags of candy that had been opened and left on the counter, which someone told me I could take candy from if I wanted to and nobody would care. Well, I did so one night, and the next morning a security guard who had been secretly spying on us used that as an excuse for getting me fired.

"It was devastating for me to lose that job at that time, because it was the last favor I could expect to get from anyone I knew. I was out in the cold after that one, until I got another job in 1981 as a paper-man, but the pay was low and it was very hard keeping a roof over my head at the time.

"Late in 1982, I had a motorcycle accident, while I was still working as a paper delivery man, and I was out of it after that, down with a broken ankle for the next 6 months, in and out of the twilight zone of the outer limits."

"1982?" the spook said, as Quoren took a break from the defense report details he had memorized over the past grueling 30 years of loveless purgatory, in defense of what little church mouse of respect that he could get from all the big giants pulling rank over him.

"Okay, we get that part of it," the spook said, looking at the compad. "What about the tour with the ASC you took in 82, before the accident?"

"Any chance we can take a break for water?" he said to them.

The man turned to look at another man, and one second later, the man tossed him a bottle of water.

Quoren accepted the bottle of water, unscrewed the top, and took a drink.

They waited for it, as the man stepped slowly about the chamber. A minute later he stopped and looked back at Quoren from the edge of the chamber, as Quoren spoke again.

"The ASC thing was whacked out," he said, "because I suffered from a bad case of insomnia which eventually led to a severe lack of REM-sleep."

"REM-sleep?" the man said. "Is that what led to your discharge?"

"That's what it was," he explained, "but the base psyche docs didn't know it at the time, because they hadn't yet learned about the effects of PTSD or the symptoms, and they knew nothing about the insomnia. They didn't know what my problem was, but one of the green lieutenants suggested it might be related to drugs.

"Anyhow, after I had a crazy episode during the end of the second week in which I was paralyzed on the bunk in the flight, in the middle of the night, and the base was being bombed all around me, they were afraid I was going to jump off the fire escape and get myself killed, so they transferred me out through channels."

"I experienced 2 days in an old World War 2 barracks with a crazy, mixed up flight of characters out of some twilight zone episode, got escorted out into the civil ranks of San Antonio to catch a bus back home, and took the trip from there, across the Mississippi, to New York, and went from there back to my home-state."

"Okay, we get the idea," the man said. "That must have been some twilight zone episode."

"Like nothing I ever expected to experience," Quoren admitted. "After what I went through after 75, I guess my evil step-brother gave me one hell of a wild ride across the multiverse. But the truth is, I wish you fascist types would just lay off me and let me return to my home parallel."

"We're not fascists," the man said, "Mr. Quoren. Let's get something straight. We work for the Constitution and the honor of our true democratic base, we are not fascists."

"Then why not just let me go?" he said.

"Because we have to have the truth," the man said. "We have to know what your true roots are and who you work for."

"I work for the truth," Quoren said. "I work for the Constitution and the truth. I work for all of our common, human, individual rights, and I cannot tolerate totalitarian oppression."

"Okay," the man said, and lowered the compad he was checking. "I just got the word. We're letting you go, but we'll be seeing you again."

The lights went low as the man stepped through the door out of the chamber and Quoren blacked out.

He awoke in his bed at the motel, where he had he had just wanted to get some fresh air, and knew about a mountain trail in the area. He had gone there for a hike to escape it all, before the big front yard began to ring its bells in his ears.

He thought he could get away from the spooks, but they followed him this time, and paid a visit.

It was not the kind of thing he would have had to worry about in his home parallel, before the accident in late 1982. The Aton 5 parallel was much more Neo-Spartan and Neofascist Capitalist.

His home parallel had been New Athenian, not Neo-Spartan. The two parallels were at near opposites, one devoted to peace and harmony and the other devoted to sports and war. His step-brother's lies in 1975 had caused him to be so refracted that his indisol had been transferred, after the accident in late 1982, to a Neo-Spartan parallel, Aton 5.

It was like being drafted into an endless war where the lowest rank was being a poor human, caught below the poverty line, at the end of the bread-line, and forced to work for 30 years to get out of that deep hole.

That was what he had done, but the spooks hadn't kept him long enough for him to get that far on with the story. He hadn't told them the part about it not being a life, but a sentence in purgatory. If they had kept him a minute longer, that's where it would have went.

But enough of that, Quoren thought as he fell asleep against an unrelenting tide of fatigue. It was just before sunrise, he thought, and took one last dive into the deep subconscious, for another escape.

He was up an hour later, put on the coffee, and typing at his notebook beside a cable-tv without the sound, showing the news and weather channel.

He recorded what he recalled of the night before with the spooks before it was lost, to avoid the gas-lighting effect. It was already fading like a dream as he held onto it in his mind and typed.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Ren Tenrut sat in the corner of his one-room apartment, opened the folder he'd received from his case-worker and pulled out 2 documents. One was a message directly from the case-worker, and the other was a report from the therapist who had helped him in 2014. It was a transcript report about the results of hypnosis and memory recovery his mother underwent in 2017. He read it with intrigue.

Results of Hypnosis and Memory Recovery:

Case of Rina Tenrut, mother of Jarges and Ren Tenrut

Subject: HMR: Target -Time: 6/1975 - 10/1982

HTD: 2017-09-14

In September of 2017 the mother agreed to be hypnotized to try to recover suppressed memories about what happened between 1975 and 1982, when Ren had the accident.

The following are some of the words that were recorded.

When asked about the summer of 1975, about how she had Ren sent away to get him away from Linda Amberly, she said:

"She was bad for Ren," she said. "He was too young for a girl like that. She would have corrupted him."

"Who told you that?"

"I knew it," she said, "after Jarges told me about her, I knew she was bad for him."

"Jarges, the brother of Ren?"

"No, Jarges, the father of Ren," she said.

There was a pause, and they went to the next point.

"When did you first know you made a mistake, that you had been misinformed about the name of the girl Ren was seeing at that time?"

She thought about it and said, "Not until after the accident, in late 1982."

Suddenly her face became twisted and she began to say, "No! No! No!"

The hypnotist had to bring her out of it. She calmed down, and she stared into blank space.

They waited for a minute, and started again.

"Do you recall what happened in the summer of 1978?"

"Yes," she said.

"What did Jarges say to you about Ren?"

"He said he was doing fine," she said. "He said that everything was going fine and that Ren was doing much better now."

"Did you believe him?"

"Of course, he was his brother and he cared about him," she said.

"So you trusted him to watch over Ren while you weren't around?"

"Yes, of course," she said.

"What did you think about Ren after the summer of 1978, after the vacation, after talking to Jarges?"

She frowned a little and said, "So sad. I don't know what went wrong with Ren. He wasn't just weak, he was slow somehow. I think he may have been a little retarded with some things."

"Who told you that?"

"Well, Jarges suggested it," she admitted, "and father appeared to agree. I really didn't know what his problem was."

"So, you didn't know that you had made a mistake in 75, at that time, in 78?"

"No, I didn't know at that time about the mistake," she admitted.

"At that time, in 78, did you still trust Jarges?"

"Yes, of course," she said.

"Did you let Jarges continue to watch over Ren?"

"Yes, I was much too busy working," she said. "There was no reason to not trust Jarges..."

She trailed off with this sentence and she began to frown, and she said, "Poor Ren..... No! No! No!"

They had to bring her out of it again and that was all they could get at the time.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Ren Tenrut nodded and frowned and saw how Jarges had lied, and used the father, to pass on the lie and convinced the mother that the girl, who was mistaken for being Linda, Lisa's older sister, was bad for Ren and they should have him sent away that summer to get him away from her.

There it was. The mother's confession, under hypnosis, proved it. Unfortunately, that kind of evidence was not exactly submissible in a legal case like this. But it convinced him all the more that he was not losing his mind and there was a reason for why his life had taken a turn for the worse after the accident and his transfer to Aton 5.

He looked at the small, one-room apartment as he sat in the corner, on the couch before the coffee-table with the computer flat-screen on it, and thought about his situation. He was getting by on a basic government stipend, for services rendered in the past, and compensation for civil war side-effects and an accident which resulted in PTSD.

The stipend paid the rent and some of the bills but there was almost nothing left over after that. He was able to get a part-time job at the 21c Club as a dishwasher in 2014 which also led to his work as a technical helper with computers and 3d programs, because he had been working with 3d computer graphics since 2010, but the extra money only paid for food and medicine, and left nothing in the end for anything else.

Katrina, the manager of the 21c Club, recognized his abilities to work with computers and 3d graphics and promoted him from a simple dishwasher to a technical manager of the 3d computer graphics department, so that anyone at the club who needed any help with 3d graphics could see him about it. After that, he worked part-time as a dishwasher and part-time with 3d computer graphics and anyone who needed help with any of it.

There were days when the dishes piled up and the computer work got slow so he went back to washing dishes, and other days when there were no dishes to wash and customers who needed help with 3d computer graphics, so he spent less time in the kitchen.

The book club that he started in the late 80s and early 90s didn't go anywhere because books had actually lost demand, as technology had been busy introducing more and more interesting ways to pass one's time, like cable television, videos or video-games, and eventually computer video-games, embedded videos, and electronic "ebooks".

Of course, for Tenrut and any other science-fiction writer in the 21st century "computer age", going to ebooks was inevitable and unavoidable, just to survive. But his ebooks did not sell well enough to make very much more than a drop in the bucket, and the part-time job at the 21c club barely paid for his medicine.

He didn't want to admit it, but his health was suffering, as he was getting older, and despite all of his efforts, his sanity was still quite difficult to manage. He just couldn't quite get over the fact that he was a victim of lies and that if it were not for the lies of his step-brother, he might be in the home-parallel enjoying a healthy, well-balanced life in suburban paradise, rather than barely surviving on a government stipend and a part-time job, stuck below the poverty-line.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Five: The Flaw in Neocon Armor Revealed

Quoren and Vondrake met with Kompten, the Minuteman's Ben Franklin on economics, and shared what Quoren had discovered.

"Yes, that is all very interesting," Kompten admitted. "I do believe you have made a good point."

"Can you do anything about it, Kompten?" Vondrake said.

Kompten thought about it and said, "With Sarena's help, we could organize a public forum discussion and invite a Neocon economist, to see what he has to say about it."

"That sounds like a good idea," Vondrake said. "We could leave the guy red-faced with egg!"

They suppressed the urge to laugh at the thought, and Quoren said, "We certainly could give it a minuteman's try."

"Damned right we could," Vondrake said, "Let's set it up. Quoren, why don't you see Sarena. I'm gonna have to work closely with Kompten on this."

"Right," Quoren agreed. "I'll take care of it."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sarena helped them set it up with the studio and they went through with it the very next week.

The forum included 2 economists ( Ted Compten, Karl Maudlin) and 2 local representatives of the state government (Tom Vondrake and Sylvia Maverson), and one forum moderator, Sandy Field.

Sandy Field introduced all of them to the camera, looked at a compad, then turned to the camera and said, "Today the issue is Socialist Economic Reforms: The Pros and Cons. Mr. Vondrake, could you begin by giving us a list of social economic reforms for a basic overview."

"Yes," Vondrake said, and looked at a compad. "The first on the list of economic reforms is an adjustment to a universal 4-day work-week, with 3 days off for everyone. We believe, as do most common working-class people today, that the extra responsibilities brought upon by the complexities of the computer age within the 21st century call for necessary adjustments be made to compensate for those complexities."

"It's quite true that the scientific reports we have," Sylvia Maverson stepped in to support the idea, "indicate that humans within the 21st century are all stressed out by the extra load of complex responsibilities and the simple fact that no one seems to have quite enough time to keep up with it all without having some kind of nervous breakdown.

"Furthermore," she concluded, "the only solution to any of it so far has been the season's favorite pharmaceutical opiates to turn people more into vegetables on their time off from their robotic jobs."

"What about it?" Sandy Field said, looking at the economists. "Is it possible to introduce a 4-day work-week to help resolve some problems?"

"I believe that it was settled, some time ago," Karl Maudlin, the Neoconservative economist said, "that a 4-day work-week could not be maintained without a substantial rate of loss in the pay and profits. The supply and demand requires the pie be adjusted so that the major percentage or Pro-centage is concentrated within the executive to be determined how to manage company assets."

"And everything is trickled down from there," Vondrake completed the thought for the man, and said, straight-forward, "yes, we've heard the dazzling excuses before, but we're not quite buying them anymore.

"Social economic reforms are necessary, in the 21st century, because the fascist capitalist method doesn't work the same way it used to, and it's no longer even necessary. It's actually obsolete. Why don't you just admit that it's an old idea, it's had it's century, and now humanity in the 21st century is ready for something better?"

"Yes, so you have said also," Maudlin countered him, "but you haven't been able to prove it yet, have you? After all, did not the Soviet Union fall? What happened to that experiment in socialism?"

"That's a good question," Vondrake said, "I've been wondering about that one for over 2 decades now. Isn't it true that our own secret government, the FIA, had something to do with that?"

"Well, I dunno about that," Maudlin said. "I'm not a politician, I'm only an economist."

"Gentlemen," Miss Field suddenly said, "let's try to stay on topic, okay? Tom, what's the next reform on the list?"

Vondrake looked at the compad, and said, "A limit on personal and private wealth."

He looked up and explained, "We believe that a limit on personal and private wealth could help to spread the wealth about more and balance the economy."

"What kind of limit are you suggesting?" Maudlin said. "Are you planning on turning everyone into paupers?" He smiled thinly as he said this, as if to suppress the humor, but nobody else saw anything funny about it.

"No, nothing like that," Vondrake said. "I believe we decided that we could set the limit at one million and make a good effort at doing everything else that we can to help balance things better at the same time.

"We believe that we could combine the 4-day work-week with this plan to set a limit at 1 million, and make the kind of reforms that could save the nation, possibly the world, from further wars and disasters."

"I don't see a problem," Ted Compten, the democratic socialist economist said, "with a plan like that. We know we have to do something and as an economist, I can honestly say, I don't see why we can't get our heads together and work it out."

"The whole thing would require a complete overhaul of the economy!" Maudlin insisted, "you have no idea of the scale of such a project. It could take decades!"

"Are you admitting that it's possible?" Vondrake said.

"Well, no, there are too many technical problems," Maudlin said, "besides, if such reforms are so miraculous, why do they keep failing? Every time a socialist economy appears somewhere in the world, it falls to pieces within a few years."

"Okay, that's a fair question," Vondrake said, "Perhaps it has something to do with secret FIA ops and trade sanctions, which we know have been used to strangle such nations, an effort to destroy them by an empire of liars before they manage to get anywhere and prove the fascist capitalists wrong?"

"What did you say?" Maudlin said, apparently lost by the heat of the discussion.

"I said," Vondrake reiterated, "If the capitalist system is so much better than the socialist system, why do the capitalists sabotage every experiment in a socialist system before it has been given a fair amount of time for the results to be known?"

The Neocon didn't know quite what to say, and began to turn a bit red in the face, and suddenly recovered with a safe fall-back to the question.

"Well, as I have said, I'm an economist, not a politician," he said, and shied away from the camera, looking down at his compad.

"That's a very good question," Sylvia Maverson said. "As a representative of the people who want to know the answers to such questions, I have to admit that I'm lost on that specific point. Why would the capitalists use the secret government and the military to conduct secret ops and enforce trade sanctions against an experiment in government and economics that is so vitally important to humanity?"

"Well," Vondrake said, "perhaps a Neoconservative politician can answer that one for us. If we can pin one down for a forum discussion like this, but apparently, right now, they're all much too busy. They were nice enough to loan us one of their economists for the day, however. If he can't answer a simple question like that, we may have to look for someone who can."

There was a pause of reflection and a station break.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

They all relaxed for a minute and had a drink of water. Maudlin, the Neoconservative economist, appeared somewhat lost in thought and unable to say anymore at the time. One might even have detected a small sign of distress in the man for not being able to give a good answer for that last question.

They continued the discussion as Sandy Fields spoke to Vondrake.

"What's the next on the list of reforms?"

"Restoration of the liberal arts budget," Vondrake said. "We believe that cutting the liberal arts budget in the early 1980s was a mistake and we think that restoring that budget now would make a big difference for the field of youth employment. By putting more money back into the liberal arts, we can stop building better robots and start building better humans again."

"Mr. Maudlin?" Miss Field said to the Neocon economist.

The man barely noticed, still lost in his thoughts, then suddenly woke up and said, "Well, uh... according to the reports from the early 80s.... it was determined at that time...."

He looked down at his compad, snapped out of the daydream that had took form in his head, and said, "Well, of course, that was the early 80s, over 3 decades ago. But according to those reports, it was determined that the liberal arts field was impractical and considered to be a waste of time and money."

"So," Vondrake said, "they gave the money they took from the liberal arts to the sports department and the secret government, and started a nice little revolving doorway between the sharp daylight game-play and the highly secretive cloak and dagger of the secret government in the shadows and dark of night."

"Why on Earth would they sell us the idea that cutting a part of the education program and giving the money to sports was actually a good idea?" Miss Maverson said.

"And to think that Charlette Miserbyte blamed the socialists for the dumbing down of America, when all the time it was the Neoconservatives," Vondrake said. "They must have paid her a million for that one."

Maudlin said nothing, and there was a short pause.

"Let's get to the next item on the list," Miss Fields said.

"End the drug war and restore our Constitutional Rights," Vondrake said.

"We believe that the drug war was based upon lies and exaggerations from the beginning," he explained, "and to continue such a violation of the U.S. Constitution in perpetuity is not only wrong, but anti-American, anti-Constitutional, anti-democratic, and basically totalitarian by its very nature.

"After all, it all depended upon the one big lie about marijuana, which mistook it for being as bad as heroin. That was the big lie that scared the American public into going along with the Neocons, and we know it now.

"Why let them perpetuate such a big lie," he concluded, "by denying that it has any significance and letting it continue to be abused by the bad doggies in big government?"

"Well, of course," Miss Maverson said, "this is a very controversial issue but we believe that the abuses of the drug war have caused more problems due to corruption within the secret government, so this issue has to be hammered out to make sure such abuses cannot continue."

"Ted, can you give us the economics on this one?"

"Yes, well," Compten sat up and explained. "In the past 3 decades, the Neoconservative war on drugs has cost the tax-payer over 5 billion dollars. Most of that money has gone directly to the ONDCP, and the drug Tsar has dished it out to the agency and the agents in the field, and the agency has passed it on to the local state and police.

"The largest piece of the pie has gone to the agents and the police departments who have been nice enough to violate their core mission as civil servants and found a way to make some extra bennies at the same time."

"Now hold on," the Neocon economist Maudlin suddenly said, but then he stopped, looked about, and shied down.

"As I was saying," Compten continued, "while the largest portion of the money has gone to the drug warriors themselves in the field, about 40 percent has gone to the Justice department responsible for the drug cases and the humans subjected to incarceration for the crime of possession or dealing. In this case, the penal system and the wardens get about 20 percent of that 40, which is divided with the Justice department."

Everyone accepted this information, and Miss Fields said, "How would it help the economy to end the drug war?"

Tom Vondrake, the democratic socialist answered that.

"Most of that money could be reallocated," he said, "into other departments, where it could do a lot more good for humans and the economy than the revolving school-to-prison complex they have now. Billions being wasted on an obsolete drug war based upon lies from the beginning just doesn't make any sense at this time. The way to fix the problem is at the roots, which we know are poverty, and that requires more than making the neighborhood cop into a police-doctor with big-brother credentials."

Another pause.

"Now, we come to perhaps one of the biggest, most mysterious items on the list," Sandy Fields reported. "Tom Vondrake, tell us, exactly, what is an SLDT?"

"It stands for Standard Lie Detector Test," Vondrake said, and explained. "It's a device to check and balance government office posts which helps to insure the trust of the people with those offices and the humans that hold them. The SLDT could be conducted at the beginning of every officer's term of office, and at least once annually after that. Questions put to the officer would be directly related to the office post and nothing private, unless there was a specific reason where the 2 subjects crossed, of course."

"No problem here," Sylvia Maverson said. "Sounds like something we should have done 30 years ago."

"I concur," Ted Compten said.

When they turned to Maudlin, the Neocon economist, he smiled thinly, nodded a little, then looked down and shook his head.

"Okay," Sandy said. "It looks like that's all for now. There is one more item on the list of reforms, but we're running out of time, so I'll just read it now."

"Cessation of the Imperial wars for profit, under order from Inspector General pending complete investigation into Defense Department and Military/Industrial Complex under suspicions that defense department has been hijacked by war-profiteers to fight "wars for profit", a completely unconstitutional post for the nation's defense department to hold."

"Give it to me quick, before we run out of time," Miss Fields said. "Is this possible?"

"Yes, it certainly is," Vondrake said, "but not without popular support of the people to back it up. If the people want to put an end to the wars, they can use the Inspector General's office in this way. I myself just found out about it quite recently and we're only just now sharing this point and looking for support now. Yes, it is possible to take this action. We could start a petition for the IG anytime."

"Fascinating," Miss Maverson said, "that's the first I've heard of this."

"I'll sign that petition now," Ted Compten said.

The forum ended and Sarena looked at Qouren on the side of the set.

"Wow, where'd that last one come from?" she said. "I've never heard of that one before."

"Oh, that's something the Neocons tried to keep buried," he said. "I dug it up from the old archives last year."

She looked at him for a moment, with respectful interest, and then back to the set, as they were

all getting up to leave.

Compten and Maudlin, the 2 economists, were talking with interest as they left, and the look of distress on the Neocon's face had been replaced by professional interest.

\---------------------------------------------------------

A local stand-up comedian did a bit in the local night-club later that week.

"Does anyone know in what year, exactly, that the U.S. Government started working for Fascist Capitalism and stopped working for the Constitution and the rights of all American citizens and humanity?"

"Anyone?" he said.

There was a short pause.

"Okay, class, the answer to that one is 1981," he said. "1-9-8-1. It was the year in which the Neoconservatives took over in DC. It was the year in which the Neocons lied to the world about marijuana and the antiwar democrats, and introduced the perpetual drug war and zero tolerance policies.

"The Zero Tolerance policies were a complete violation of everyone's individual rights, and supported totalitarian actions which were used by the secret government and the police to destroy anyone who was suspected of being in possession of illegal drugs. They lied about marijuana so they could include it in the war, because it was by far the most popular drug and they realized that a majority of antiwar democrats used it.

"With marijuana demonized by their propaganda and lies, they went on to demolish the antiwar democrats, while lying to the American people and leading them to believe that marijuana was an evil communist plot to turn everyone's kids into drug addicts and prostitutes.

"Here we are, over 35 years later, and the perpetual drug war, with the zero tolerance policies, are still in place, for any hick cop to use against any poor fool anywhere, anytime, but it never makes the front-pages or the headlines news anymore, because its been replaced with a much bigger, badder boogie-man. Terrorism!

"That's right, people. You no longer have to worry about illegal drugs being smuggled up your kids keisters anymore.

"Now, you've got an even bigger, badder boogie-man to worry about. The kind that smuggles bombs up your kids keisters! How's that grab you?

"Don't worry though, as long as you let big step-brother probe you, poke you, prod you, stick its nose into your privates whenever it feels like it, go through your private files and photos whenever you're online, follow your browsing habits, build a profile on you, and continue to treat you like some kind of dumb animal or kid in grade school who is still learning how to walk like a good robot for the first time, everything will be fine."

\---------------------------------------------------------

Tenrut knew he had enough of a case now for his "Defense Report", and worked on it when he had the time off from his duties at the club. The Defense Report was a report which included all of the facts about his case, including the simple fact that his step-brother lied to the mother through the father, and caused the mother to make a mistake which had Ren sent away on a fool's errand for nothing, just to get him away from the "girl" who she feared would corrupt him.

That step-brother's lie had caused him to lose a girlfriend, a friend who he worked with, and a good chance at a good job and a decent life in the suburbs. He lost all of that because of the step-brother's lies.

Up until 2014, nobody seemed to care about his case. It was perhaps no more than a coincidence that he met Felderzen, the therapist who helped him get diagnosed properly (confirmed diagnosis: PTSD) and helped him get the medicine he needed. Felderzen was much more helpful than he expected, and went on to give him support in his case against Jarges, after Ren told him about all the evil things the guy had done and got away with, including the lies of 1975 and the mistake the mother made because of those lies.

Felderzen provided the report on the hypnosis and memory recovery, conducted after the mother eventually agreed to go through with the procedure. Tenrut recalled the details of the report and realized that his suspicions were confirmed: the step-father and the step-brother had conspired together in 1975 against him and his mother had been misled to make the mistake because of the misinformation they had supplied.

It was right around then that he recalled the military brass from the movie "Catch-22" and realized that the old man was just like those guys, and he had taught the step-brother to lie just as well as they did. Like father, like son.

Now, the big lying step-brother was nothing more than a phony lefty playing the big front yard for the Neocon masters, and living it up in suburban paradise at the same time.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Six: Close Call on a Big Green Day

The next day the World Forum News reported on the controversial question that had been raised, despite efforts by the Neoconservatives to suppress the story completely.

Quoren road his bike to his office in town in the morning, stopped at a local cafe-lounge for coffee, and stopped to watch the news on the large screen, during the early morning rush.

He watched as the report shared the big question raised by Vondrake, the local democratic socialist who was pushing for economic reforms.

"I said," Vondrake reiterated, "If the capitalist system is so much better than the socialist system, why do the capitalists sabotage every experiment in a socialist system before it has been given a fair amount of time for the results to be known?"

The Neocon didn't know quite what to say, and began to turn a bit red in the face, and suddenly recovered with a safe fall-back to the question.

"Well, as I have said, I'm an economist, not a politician," he said, and shied away from the camera, looking down at his compad.

"That's a very good question," Sylvia Maverson said. "As a representative of the people who want to know the answers to such questions, I have to admit that I'm lost on that specific point. Why would the capitalists use their secret government and the military to conduct secret ops and enforce trade sanctions against an experiment in government and economics that is so vitally important to humanity?"

The segment from the forum discussion ended and the reporter reappeared and completed the review with, "The controversial question has been taken to the world forum and democratic socialist groups all over the world are pushing for answers from the Neoconservatives."

Quoren left the lounge and walked to the bike he had locked to a post by the bench, outside the lounge, beside the parking lot, and suddenly, he got caught in a whirlwind of action out of nowhere.

As he squatted down to unlock the bike, there was a whiz and a clank in the metal post over his head, and an automobile appeared on the street, at the curb beside him. A familiar voice said, "Quoren, quick, get in the car!", as it was opened at the curb beside him.

He looked up and saw Sarena, and she was being quite insistent.

"You're too hot to be on the streets! Get in!"

He heard another whiz and there was another clank on the post, and he began to get the message, and jumped into the vehicle.

A second later, Sarena, once he was safely inside with the door closed, put the pedal to the metal and burned rubber out of the scene.

Once they were safely away from the scene, she said to him, "Quoren, the Neocons are onto us. You're not safe out here anymore without cover."

"What?" Quoren said, as she continued to drive them away, headed for the suburbs, over a bridge.

She looked about, into the mirror, and calmed down.

"I think we lost them," she said. "After the news went out, the Neocons put a price on you."

"I don't get it," he said.

"It's a right-wing bounty," she said, "but you don't have to worry, as long as we have you covered."

"I still don't get it," he said.

"Quoren, they know you're the nowhere man," she explained, "that you have all the answers. We have to relocate you to a safe house, for your own protection."

They drove and drove for about 20 miles, to the edge of the suburbs, through a scenic route of winding roads and hills with trees.

Eventually, they turned up a narrow side street, which led to a small group of small middle-class homes, nestled into the corner of the mountains.

"Consider yourself honored," she said to him, "this is one of the most secure pieces of real estate there is in this corner of the state. It's owned by a company that supports everything we stand for right now."

She drove into the driveway of the house furthest from the entrance, on the left side, and parked outside the garage. She pushed a button on the keypad to the computer controls, and the door of the garage opened. A minute later they drove inside, parked, and stepped out.

"Follow me, I'll show you your new home," she said.

They went through a door which led to a short corridor, with 2 doors in the side, and into a living space with a combination living-room and lounge, with a bar-counter and dutch-door leading to a kitchen.

"Wow," Qouren exclaimed, "This is where I'm gonna live?"

Sarena stopped, looked at him, and went to the bar-counter, where she set her bag down, and said, "When's the last time you've been to the suburbs?"

"The suburbs?" Quoren thought about it, and laughed.

He went to the window of the living-room, looked out through the curtain, and admitted, "It's been almost 40 years, actually. I grew up in the suburbs, over 40 years ago. We didn't have a house anything like this, of course, but it wasn't anything like the purgatory I got transferred to after the accident, in late 82."

He turned to her, and said, "That was much worse than this."

"Well, you can get comfortable here while the election year plays its course," she said, and went through the dutch-door to the kitchen.

"There's some food in the kitchen, basic foot-stuffs, nothing too fancy. You can make a list of things you need and we'll do what we can."

She stepped out into the living-room, where he had deposited his weary self onto a comfortable chair, and she handed him a bottle of water and said, "Hang in there, trooper, and we'll make it through this alright."

He relaxed, closed his eyes, and thought about the sharp, violent incident that had occurred about almost an hour ago now, by his reckoning, and felt like he had just narrowly escaped something that could have led to further complications upon his hell-bent existence.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Around about the same time Quoren was dodging bullets, Agent Jack Stenbolt, from the MVC, had just stepped out of the Zvenya lounge, after seeing the World Forum News Report about the results of the recent local discussion on social economic theory and government, and was headed for his office a block away.

He was thinking about it as he stepped into his office on the second level of the gray-stone building. He greeted his secretary for a minute, then stepped into his office. He looked out the window at the western part of the town lighting up to the day, and went to his desk.

He checked his messages, once he was into the system, and found one from the Par 1978.5 parallel, also known as the "home-parallel", which was also equated with Earth.

Stenbolt knew he was in a "shadow" parallel of Earth, he had no doubt about it. The specific sub-parallel of Earth, as it was referred, was Par 1981.785. It was his job to keep a careful watch over the "sub-parallel" Par 1981.785, and make certain that none of its problems had any adverse effects upon the home-parallel, or any other pars or sub-pars of the multiverse.

But this recent development reported by the World Forum was something quite interesting. It was much different than the way things had been going, since the Neocons unleashed their dogs of perpetual war on the American public in 1981.

Stenbolt opened the message and read it.

"Red alert to possible violations to recent 5G telecommunications. Check on potential to act as human "pacifier" using microwave radiation. Check for something like a VFM: Variable Frequency Modulator. Report back ASAP all information on investigation."

"5G telecommunications?" he said, scratching his head about it. He thought about it, took a sip of his coffee, set it down, and saved the message to his journal. He began taking notes, as a follow up to the problem.

He stopped and thought about the news report, and realized that the social democrats would want to check on something like this, so he did a search online and located some names, and figured out who he might be able to contact for help.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, one of the specific measures on the list of reforms being posed by the democratic socialists had caught the attention of a group of veterans from an overseas war, and they took it to one of the legal lefties they knew with the ACLU, Mervin Quimby, and he helped them make contact with the Inspector General.

"Who is the Inspector General?" Maxwell Stone, the head of the veteran's group, said to Mervin Quimby, the legal expert.

"For something like this," Quimby said, "We may have to elect or appoint one. The qualifications for the job are simple: The Inspector General has to have the rank and knowledge to perform the job expected of him, and if we can find such an officer, we simply have to consult with that officer to determine whether or not the candidate for the office is fully qualified for what is expected. After it has been decided who the IG is, we simply have to give the IG majority support for the investigation."

"Oh, yes, there is one other thing that needs to be done," Quimby said, "before we can get the ball rolling on the official level. We need a petition with a majority of names to prove to the IG's office that the investigation warrants its attention."

"A petition and majority of names?" Stone said, and nodded. "I'll get right on it. Anything else?"

"Can you get that petition?" Quimby said to him, seriously.

"I can give it my best try," Stone admitted, "but yes, I think we can do it. The military alone has a majority of veterans and active soldiers who are sick of it. I believe we can get that majority."

"Okay, you should get on it ASAP," Quimby said to him. "I'll outline what we can expect on the legal level with the big piggies."

"What about the IG?" Stone said. "Who do we want for the IG?"

"First, we need that petition," Quimby said. "If we deliver the request for the investigation with the petition of names at the same time, they won't simply give us the runaround and we should be able to get some action. We can figure out who the IG will be after the office gives us the green light."

"Okay," Stone said, "I'll get to work on the petition and see you later."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

At the 21c Net Zone Club, Ren Tenrut shared some of his ebooks with a few people he had met, and returned to his corner, to check his email with the notebook. He sipped the tea for a moment, as the notebook was activated, and couldn't stop thinking about the case.

The case was his case, mainly because his rank was so low down that his value to the multiverse was not considered important, and since he had no money to pay anyone to do the work for him, he had to do it all by himself.

To be fair, that wasn't entirely true. It had been that way at first, until he proved to the Neo-Spartan landlords that he was no lazy liberal and could do a hard labor job as well as anyone. But the real problem was not the work itself, so much as the fact that he was a victim of lies, and he had been misplaced in another parallel because of those lies. He had been cast out of his home-parallel after an accident in late 1982, and nobody in the world seemed to believe anything he had to say about it.

But that didn't stop him from writing science-fiction and sharing it with the world, in the 21st century of the computer age. It also didn't stop him from doing a complete investigation of everything that had happened after his step-brother lied to his mother in 1975 and had him sent on a fool's errand for nothing, which completely fouled up his entire life.

For over 30 years now he had been working hard to survive while recovering the memory he had lost from before the accident in late 82. Just a few years ago he had recovered enough to know that his step-brother had lied in the summer of 1975 to get him out of the way, and his mother had made a mistake in sending him away based upon that lie, which she confessed to after the accident in late 82.

Tenrut couldn't get over the fact that the past 40 years of his life had been caused by his step-brother's lies and his mother's mistake in 1975. He just couldn't shake the idea that things could get so completely messed up because of his step-brother's lies.

He checked his email and found a cryptic message from something known as MVCA-1981-785.

The most interesting thing about it was, he thought he recognized it from somewhere, but where exactly he didn't know. It became lost in a nebula as he wondered about it. He snapped out of it, took another look, and he thought he knew.

"Of course!" he realized, and decided to open the message.

He read it carefully, saved it to his document folders, and thought it over.

He checked the time, finished his tea, and deactivated the notebook. He folded it up, put it into the bag, and left the club.

He returned home to his apartment, went to the corner of the living-room, sat down in the chair, relaxed for a minute, then recalled the mysterious message.

He put the notebook on the coffee-table beside the main computer monitor, which was nestled into the corner on the floor beside the table, and activated it. He let it power up for a minute, then turned on the main computer, logged in, and copied the message over to his main computer.

He deactivated the notebook and read the message, secure on his main computer, with the word-pad.

"Greetings, Mr. Tenrut. I'm a part of an organization involved with a project involving M-theory and we're very interested in your work. I'm fascinated by your description of the Aton 5 "shadow" Earth and the theory of multivertical parallels. We may be able to help you with your problem. If you are interested, you may see me at my office anytime between the hours of 10 am and 10 pm, Monday through Friday."

There was an address at the end of the message.

It sounded like an opportunity, perhaps with a production studio. Could it possibly be? He thought about it and read the message again and was led to wonder. The message mentioned a "project", which suggested a possible production company.

He checked the time and the calendar, and wondered when he could fit it into the week. If it really was an opportunity to work with a production company, the sooner the better. This could be the break he needed.

It sounded like they were interested in his ebooks, and that meant they might be interested in using one of his scripts for a video production. If he could sell a script to a big production company, it could get him out of poverty and purgatory.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Seven: The Minutemen and the Inspector General

Vondrake received all the support he needed from the democratic socialists and the Minutemen who had the support of real patriots who still understood the Constitution.

Together with Langstone and Sanjay, Maxwell Stone organized the petition for the IG's office and within a week, had all the names they needed. The military veterans had all signed it and most of their family members as well. Most true antiwar democrats signed it, and all of the democratic socialists signed it also.

Stone took the petition of names with Quimby, to the Inspector General's office the very next week, and submitted the request for the investigation.

The secretary accepted the request and said, "I'll see that the manager gets it as soon as possible."

"Actually, it's quite urgent," Quimby said. "I believe article 14, subparagraph 7 includes an option for expedient services."

"Oh, it's urgent?" the secretary said. "Okay, that's different."

She used the intercom and spoke, "Mr. Grayson, there's a Mr. Quimby here with an urgent message."

They waited for almost a minute, then a male voice replied, "Very well, send him in."

The door clicked beside the desk, she stepped up and opened the door, and Quimby and Stone stepped inside.

They met Mr. Grayson, the manager of the Inspector General's office.

"Well, what can I do for you gentlemen today?" Grayson said, cheering up to the idea that someone needed him for something.

"We have a petition here," Quimby said, handing him a small flash-drive, "for the Inspector General, for a special investigation."

The man put on his glasses and accepted the flash-drive as Quimby handed it to him.

"Please be seated," he said, and he took a seat behind the desk, and connected the flash-drive to his computer.

He studied the petition on the flat-screen for about a minute, then looked at them and said, "Well, now. This is a big deal. I presume that you have all of the legal details in order?"

"Yes, we have," Quimby said. "But we haven't chosen an Inspector General yet. That is what we plan on doing next, as soon as your office gives us the green light."

"Yes, well," the man said, "This will have to be reviewed before we can do that. It will take about a day or 2, at least, depending on your full cooperation."

"Of course," Quimby said.

"Okay," Grayson said, and went to work with the computer for about 5 seconds, then stopped, and looked up again.

"Okay, I'll get to work on this at once," he said. "You can put together a list of potential Inspector Generals. We have a list if you need it, but it may not have been updated yet, so that's for you to decide. You know what the requirements for the post are?"

"Yes, of course," Quimby said. "When can we expect action with this?"

"As I said, the review will take one or 2 days," the man said, stepped up, and went to the door.

"In the meantime, I suggest you find yourself an IG," he said, and opened the door for them, as they stepped up. "I'll be in touch with your office."

They left the man to do his work.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Tenrut met with the mystery man who had contacted him after following the directions on the onboard computer of the automobile Katrina had loaned him. He had a hard time convincing her how important something like this was, without presuming too much.

"This could be it, Katrina!" he said to her. "This could be the script that makes all the difference!"

That's what he was thinking at the time and that was what he was still thinking, but he had quietly cooled down and contained his excitement at the prospect, as he drove along the roads in the suburbs, seeking the address the mysterious message had provided.

There was a town out in the middle of the boondocks somewhere to the western edge of the suburban sprawl, and a busy little section at the middle of it all. The address was at the northwestern edge of the busy town, beside a nightclub and a computer graphics gallery, at the end of a gray stone building, where there were several offices on 3 levels.

The office was on the second level at the back. He parked the car, secured it, and went inside, up the steps, to the second level. He went to the back, found the door, and pressed the button on the side.

There was a click, the door opened an inch, he accepted the invitation, took the handle, opened the door, and stepped inside.

The inside was a classical modern office, a mixture of the retro 20c with a sort of alternate world science-fiction fantasy theme, updated to the 21c computer age. There was a large flat-screen, about a 30 inch screen, on the wall, displaying a slideshow of various science-fiction and fantasy images.

The secretary sitting at the desk at the side was a young, short-haired brunette wearing a retro style casual blue and gray medium length skirt of the tight kind popular from the 40s and 50s.

She stepped up to go to one of the filing cabinets for something, turned to him and said, "Do you have an appointment with Mr. Stenbolt?"

"Well, yes," Tenrut said, "more or less. I believe he sent me a message."

"Name?" she said, and stepped back to the desk, and sat down before the computer flat-screen.

"Tenrut," he said, "Ren Tenrut."

She checked the computer for a minute, and said, "I'll see if I can reach him. It'll take a minute."

She put the ears on, and worked at the computer.

Seconds later, she spoke, as she looked into the screen.

"Ren Tenrut," she said, "he says you sent him a message."

Seconds later, she turned to Tenrut and said, "He'll be with you in a minute. You can have a seat."

Tenrut looked in the direction she pointed. There was a small couch squeezed in between a couple of cabinets against the wall, just below a window, across from the 30 inch screen, along with a coffee-table with a mess of old magazines on it.

He sat down, glanced at the magazines for a minute, a mixture of science-fiction, fantasy, and various other worldly publications, including National Geographic, and looked up at the 30 inch screen.

It appeared to be some kind of field agent's office for a production studio, he guessed. He began to dream about the possibilities for a minute, when the door opened and a man stood and looked at him, and said, "Mr. Tenrut, please come in."

Tenrut stepped up and followed Mr. Stenbolt inside to the office. It followed the same general decor as the secretary's office, a mixture of retro classical modern 20c and futuristic computer age of the 21c. This one had another, larger screen on one wall, and a window behind the desk.

Stenbolt was in his late 30s or early 40s, about 5 feet 10 inches, had medium-length dark hair, a somewhat healthy, muscular body. He was wearing a blue and gray retro-style suit similar to something from the 50s, without any tie, of course.

"Please take a seat, Mr. Tenrut," Stenbolt said, as he sat down behind the desk.

Tenrut looked at him, and raised his eyebrows in anticipation.

"You're wondering why I contacted you," Stenbolt said. "Of course, let me explain."

Stenbolt looked at him for a moment, took a breath, and let him have it.

"I believe that my company may have a deal you might be interested in," he said.

"Okay, a deal," he said, and nodded. "What kind of deal? Something to do with one of my ebooks?"

"Well, yes," the man said.

Tenrut felt a little excitement inside but kept it cool.

"Which one?" he said.

"Well, our interest is mainly the M-theory theme," Stenbolt said. "The parallels you have explored, based upon the basic M-theory, which follows the classical Spartan-Athenian Conflict."

"Yes, of course," Tenrut said, following the man closely. "That is something I have been working with, with the Multivertical Man series."

"Yes, that series follows something along the same line we have been following," Stenbolt admitted. "That was why I thought we should meet on this and see if some kind of deal might be possible."

"I'm all ears," Tenrut agreed.

"We can help you get your "Defense Report" published," Stenbolt said, "if you agree to act as a courier for us, to carry important information to our home office."

Tenrut was taken aback by this news, by surprise, and sat up to attend to it.

"Oh, is that what this is about?" he said, with some disappointment, which led to misunderstanding.

"I'm afraid I don't follow. You want me to act as courier... and you'll publish my Defense Report? But I already have a way to publish it as an ebook for free."

"But there's more," Stenbolt said, "we believe it may be possible to have you redeemed, and exonerated, from Aton 5, and returned to your home-parallel."

Tenrut thought about that for a moment, and didn't know quite what to say. Stenbolt appeared to be genuinely sincere, as if he were a true believer in M-theory. As much as he wanted to believe it, it seemed like a long shot, at best. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Then he realized that it might be some kind of clever pitch angle, from a smart agent, and decided to play it along by ear.

"Okay, I think I know where you're going," he guessed. "This is a spin-off on the Multivertical man script, isn't it? I mean, you're not just putting me on, right?"

"Well, no, I'm not putting you on," Stenbolt said. "You see, Tenrut, you appear to know more about the multiverse than most humans do. In fact, we believe you've nearly got it nailed down, more or less. About all that you need to do now is localize the sub-parallels, to be more exact."

Tenrut respected the man for a moment. He knew M-theory alright. He thought it over, looked down for a moment, then looked up again.

"Yes, I could only make approximations," he admitted, "it just needs a little fine-tuning. Of course, it's all just theory. But I've always believed it would be possible to do more with more resources."

"My company has resources," Stenbolt said. "Are you interested in the deal?"

"But I'm a bit lost on the reality of it," Tenrut admitted, and recovered. "I'm a science-fiction and fantasy writer. Why not get somebody like a line-back stuntman to be your courier?"

"We're not in a position to make deals with such Neo-Spartans," Stenbolt said. "They could not be trusted and would not understand the importance of the information. Furthermore, there are none available that fit the profile of a Multivertical agent.

"M-theory, amongst Neo-Spartan Atonians," he explained, "is considered nothing more than a cerebral fantasy for fools to waste their time on. They have no appreciation for something on this level of the multiverse."

Tenrut nodded knowingly, for he had done all of the research himself and said as much somewhere within the body of his serial scripts. Stenbolt was right, of course. Neo-Spartans of the Aton 5 parallel were quite well grounded within the local parallel, playing the games they were taught to play, not speculating about parallel realities across the multiverse.

"You're with one of the big studios, am I right?" he guessed.

"Let's just say I'm an agent," Stenbolt said, "and I'm sharing an opportunity with you to do more with your series and your work with M-theory."

"Okay, that sounds like something I'm interested in," Tenrut admitted. "So, spell it out for me. Exactly what do I have to do?"

Stenbolt told him, step by step, what was expected of him.

When he was done explaining it, Tenrut thought about it and said, "That will lead to my redemption from Aton 5? That action will get me to my home-parallel?"

"Yes, that's the basic plan," Stenbolt admitted. "Are you interested?"

Tenrut thought about it as his mind tried to see it through the maze of tricks and illusions he imagined all about. Was he being recorded on video right now? He looked about the office for signs of a camera, and wondered how the big studios operated. He was left looking back at the mysterious agent in an air of mystery.

"What's the pay-rate?" he said, and Agent Stenbolt smiled.

"I'm sure we can work something out," he said.

"Oh, one thing I almost forgot," Tenrut said, sitting up on the edge of the seat. "I have to have script control over my own scripts. I cannot let anyone make changes to the script without my authorization."

"Well, I don't think that will be a problem," Stenbolt agreed. "We'll be sure to take note of that in any formal contract we might make in the future. The Defense Report itself will not be altered, I can assure you. That script is necessary to get you exonerated."

"Good," Tenrut agreed. "That's exactly how I want it. No script changes without my permission. It's an absolute condition, understood?"

"Yes, Mr. Tenrut," Stenbolt agreed. "So, why don't we draw up some kind of formal contract and we can meet again later to finalize it?"

Tenrut thought about that and said, "Look, I had to borrow my girlfriend's car, and I'm not sure I can keep doing that. Is there any way we can meet somewhere else?"

"For something like this, of course," Stenbolt said. "Where would you like to meet?"

"Do you know where the Net-Zone 21c club is?" Tenrut said.

"No, I've heard of it, but not visited it," Stenbolt admitted.

Tenrut told him the general area, he did a search and he located it on a map on the computer.

"Okay, I've got it," he said. "When should I visit?"

Tenrut checked his calendar for a minute and they set a date for the meeting.

Stenbolt stood up and stepped around the desk as Tenrut stood up, and they shook hands.

"Good to meet you, Stenbolt. I'll see you later," Tenrut said.

"Later, Tenrut," Stenbolt said, as he left the office.

\----------------------------------------------------

Vondrake, Langstone, and Sanjay were busy working with the local channels with the state department to promote the list of reforms during the election year. They needed more mainstream coverage than they were getting, to let the voters in on everything. Along with the World Forum News reports, the plan was to get the message out to everyone.

Counteracting all the Neofascist capitalist propaganda was an important part of the plan, so they had to raise the volume of the church mouse, to overcome being drowned out by the big corporate royal giants.

Of course, there was the internet, but they had to rely on grassroots groups for actually reaching people, anywhere that humans still valued the truth above the lies and deceptions.

He was just one of a multitude of democratic socialist "reformers" as they were often referred, in one of a multitude of locations throughout the nation-state. It was important to share the truth that they knew, so that was what they were doing.

Quoren had given them something they needed badly if they ever expected to return sanity to the world, and now all they had to do was share it with the world and if the world had any sense left to it, it just might see the light.

\--------------------------------------------------

Quoren was working with the computer in his room, when Sarena returned home that evening.

"Have you eaten yet?" she said.

"Nope," he said, sat back and respired. He looked at her and added, "I guess I could use something."

"Anything particular?" she said.

"As long as it isn't too spicy," he said.

"What about pizza?" she said.

"Now that's spicy stuff," he said, but changed his mid, "Pizza is okay, as long as you go easy on the tomato sauce."

"Tell you what," she said. "I'll go to the kitchen and see what we've got. You can join me when you're ready."

She left as he agreed.

About 5 minutes later, Quoren joined her in the kitchen and they agreed on something that wasn't "too spicy".

Later, they sat in the living-room, eating and watching the news and weather report with the volume low. The food was on the coffee-table as they sat beside each other on the couch and took their time with it.

"So, you never told me about 82," she said, and continued eating.

He thought about it and said, "What about 82?"

"What made you join the Air force?" she said. "I mean, at the time, I didn't know. I only heard about it later."

He thought about it, shrugged, and said, "I didn't know what else to do at the time. I needed some kind of direction and I couldn't find it anywhere else. People in my own back yard didn't want me around for anything. My step-brother had made me look like a fool to the family and friends..."

"Was it really that bad?" she said.

"Yes, it was," he admitted, "but at the time, I didn't know what to do about it."

"What made you join the Air Force?" she said.

"I needed a job, I guess," he admitted, and looked at her. "At the time, I couldn't find anything anywhere else."

"I had no idea," she said. "I thought you went to school or something like that."

"What about you?" he said. "Where were you in 82?"

"But we're not through with you," she said, and looked at him closely, in the eyes.

"What else do you need to know?" he said.

"How long were you in the Air Force?" she said.

He looked away from her, downcast about the thought, and said, "I was discharged early, due to a mental breakdown."

"I'm sorry," she said, and put her hand on his.

He took her hand, held it, and looked into her eyes.

"It's okay, it was a long time ago," he said, let her hand go, and went back to eating.

A minute later, he stopped, and said, "So, what about you? Where were you in 82?"

She thought about it shortly, began to say something, but the World Forum News Report appeared on the video, and she stopped.

She found the remote device, pointed it and raised the volume so they could hear it.

"News about the state of democratic socialist economic reforms on the international level has drawn a global rise in the democratic polls.

"Capitalist economists appear to have been backed into a corner about an ethical question that has eluded them since it was posed last week by the democratic socialists. There has been no report of any reaction yet from the Neoconservatives."

"The United Nations has agreed to give the question hearing at the earliest possible date during the next meeting."

The report ended, and Sarena turned the volume down.

"Well, that's it for now," she said, and sat back and relaxed.

They were quiet for a minute, then Quoren said, "So what about 82?"

She looked at him closely, moved closer, and said, "Forget about it, soldier. What you need is some R and R."

She took his hands, looked into his eyes, and said, "When's the last time you've played doctor?"

He smiled, looked down, and admitted, "I... I can't recall."

"If you can''t remember," she said, "it's probably been too long. Ren, if you need some help, I'm here now.'

He looked at her and agreed to let her help him. She was a wonderful nightingale, just what he needed.

\--------------------------------------------------

Chapter Eight: Message in a Bottle from a Victim of Lies

Excerpt from "A Defense Report for 2018" by Ren Tenrut

How Step-Brother Mucked It All Up For Me

"People play all kinds of different roles in human society and civilization. It's important for people to be able to do things that are functional within human society and civilization to have a healthy, well-balanced life. Without the ability to play such roles, humans fail to be accepted as "functional" members of society.

"My step-brother hated me so much he intentionally sabotaged my ability to play such roles and denied and lied about it all, and got away with it. That's what it is like when one's ability to play a role gets mucked up by a lying Neofascist: they are forced to play the fool instead!

"That's what my step-brother did to me. He mucked up my ability to play a "functional" role and made me look like a fool who couldn't do anything right, and denied and lied and got away with it all, so that I failed to get a good job and everyone looked at me like a dysfunctional fool who would never amount to anything good.

"Because of the step-brother's lies, I never did well enough with any job to escape poverty, and always got stuck with the dirty-work for low-pay, dead-end, menial labor jobs that nobody else wanted. He made me look like such a fool by the time I had graduated from high-school, that I was already judged to be a mediocre loser before I stepped out into the "real world".

"While it's true I was physically capable of holding almost any hard-labor job, step-brother's lies had corrupted the way so many people looked at me that they were actually prejudiced towards me and I was disrespected more than normal, persecuted, and pushed out of everywhere I went.

"The point is, everything step-brother had done to me, the lies and the sabotage of my role, and the denial that let him get away with it, made it very difficult for me to find a good job in a world where the competition was already 10 times higher than normal.

"The whole world gets sold to us as a monopoly game and a "land of opportunity" at the same time, and the individual is always forced to take all of the blame for "not winning" and being a "big loser", because they are too stupid or too slow or too weak, etc... It's always the fault of the individual when they fail at anything, according to this mentality, and never the "system" or those who corrupt it, like evil step-brothers who tell lies just to get what they want.

"Winner takes all in the fascist capitalist monopoly game, and the loser gets nothing. Winner takes all, loser takes the fall. All of this, in spite of the fact that winners are some of the biggest liars in the world.

"My step-brother had the power to shape me like clay when we were young, just by lying well and making me out to be whatever he wanted. Up until 1978, he told everyone I was his "stupid little brother" and after the summer of 1978, after the incident wherein I did not trust him enough to get naked with him and his friends, he told everyone I was a "big stupid jerk".

"Both of these subjective insults upon my personage became the popular notion of almost everyone who took sides with him against me. After the summer of 1978, everyone took sides with him against me; the vast majority of people in the town we lived, including family members, extended family members, friends, neighbors, peers, school associates, potential employers, etc...

"Everyone disliked and rejected me after the summer of 1978, after the step-brother told everyone that the reason why I reacted the way I did and declined the invitation to get naked with him and his friends was all because I was a "big stupid jerk" and had nothing whatsoever to do with anything he had done wrong to hurt me in the past.

"At that time, not even my mother was aware of the fact that she had been lied to about the girl I was seeing in the summer of 1975 and had made the mistake of sending me away on a fool's errand to get me away from her, and nobody knew that step-brother was the source of the lie and was keeping that dirty secret to himself the whole time.

"So, after the summer of 1978, he stamped the words "big stupid jerk" over my profile and image and everyone rejected me. I was kicked out into the cold, and in late 1982, had a motorcycle accident and died in the hospital. My indisolar transfer was based upon the step-brother's lies and the popular conclusion he had dictated to everyone; the mistaken notion that I was a "big stupid jerk" and therefore deserved to be punished and taught a lesson.

"Based upon the step-brother's lies, I was transferred to the Aton 5 parallel, an extreme right-wing Neo-Spartan, Neofascist parallel run by a bunch of huge liars, big, stupid fascist capitalist jerks, and psychopaths hell-bent on having everything their way regardless of what anyone else wanted.

"Why was I sent to such an extreme right-wing, Neofascist parallel? Because I was judged to be a "big stupid jerk" and they wanted to teach me a lesson about "big stupid jerks" and the kind of world they run. That is the lesson they wanted to teach me and I was forced to tolerate those big jerks for over 30 years, despite the fact that the step-brother lied and the real reason why I reacted badly in 1978 was because of his lie in 1975 that hurt me, not because I didn't have any reason and not because I was a "big stupid jerk".

"If I was a big stupid jerk in 1978, it was because of the dirty secret that the step-brother was keeping at that time, about how he had lied and got me sent away on a fool's errand in 1975.

"That dirty secret was a fact that step-brother managed to keep to himself, so that nobody knew anything about it, until after the accident in late 82, after mother discovered she had made the mistake based upon the misinformation in 75.

"Bottom-line: Step-brother's lie to mother in 1975 and the mistake she made because of it were the missing facts when judgment was passed upon me after the accident in late 82. Those missing facts could have saved me from the hell and purgatory of Aton 5 that I was sentenced to because of that judgment.

"In other words, if the whole truth had come out about step-brother's lie and mother's mistake before the accident in late 82, my indisol would never have been committed to Aton 5."

\-------------------------------------------------------

Quoren awoke the next day and found a note from Sarena. He checked the time and yawned, thinking about coffee. It was almost 10 am, he had slept late. He knew why and thought about it as he made coffee and checked the morning weather report.

Normally, he was an early riser, but he had been at the end of a 48 hour day when they had dinner together the night before. Man, he had finally slept like he had escaped purgatory, for once in his life. With that thought, his mind wandered back to Sarena, and he thought he knew why.

So now the next morning she's out and about again, and he's stuck at home like the local squire, keeping a guard over the comfy estate.

He made some coffee, looked out at the weather for a few minutes, and went to work with the computer in his room.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Sarena spent the day at the sound studio reviewing sound-tapes and running a few auditions with some of the local alternative rock groups. There was a long list of alternative rock groups to be covered, but today they were hosting the "Bored Again Christians" in the morning and "The Poor Playboys" later in the afternoon.

"Bored Again Christians" recorded "Victim of Lies" and "Lost in the Nebula", and later in the day, "The Poor Playboys" recorded "Multivertical Man" and "FDV4 Free".

It was an interesting day, to say the least.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Vondrake and Stone met at the club and Vondrake said "Do we have a list of potential candidates yet?"

"We're working on it," Stone said. "We should have it narrowed down by later today."

Vondrake stepped into his office, sat down, and took out his cell-phone.

"How's our man doing?" he said to Sarena, on the other end.

"He's doing fine," she reported. "How's the club business?"

"Looking better, since the AP picked up our story," he said. "The WFR took notice nicely."

"I know, I watched it with our man," she said.

"Good news for our side," he said. "Anything more to report?"

"That's about it," she said. "We'll have to get together with our man at the end of this job."

"Sounds like fun," he said. "We'll be there."

"Later," she said.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Vondrake, Stone, and half a dozen other volunteers did research on the long list of candidates for about 3 hours, and had it narrowed down to 6 possibilities by 4 pm. All 6 potential candidates for the office were veterans of recent wars who had leaned to the left after service, obviously in favor of restoring sanity to the world. 4 were vocal and proliferant writers with an antiwar post, 2 were on the fence, but all were concerned about the abuses of the MIC.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Tenrut spent the first part of the day helping out at the Net Zone 21c club, sharing some of the things he knew about 3d computer graphics with some interested young college students.

Later, he sat in the corner in the back, on tea-break, and recalled the appointment with Stenbolt. He checked the time, it was going on 3 pm. Stenbolt was due any time now.

He spent the time reviewing the website with his ebooks, wondering which specific story the studio was interested in.

A man in a gray overcoat with a 50s-style dark gray hat appeared a few minutes after 3 pm, stepped up to the counter, just 4 meters away, spoke to someone there, then looked to the corner.

Tenrut acted casual and cool, as Agent Stenbolt stepped over to the table, and said, "Mr. Tenrut, have you thought over our proposal?"

"Please, have a seat Stenbolt," Tenrut said. "Would you care for some refreshments? Coffee or tea, perhaps?"

"Nothing, thanks," Stenbolt said, as he sat down across the table from Tenrut.

"I find the proposal fascinating," Tenrut admitted. "But I'm still wondering which one of my ebooks you're interested in. Unless... don't tell me... You're interested in the Multivertical Man series?"

"Well, we do find the series fascinating," Stenbolt admitted, "but the specifc novel that drew our attention was the science-fiction mystery novel which utilizes a unique technology referred to as MVC-tubes, to intersect with a multivertical conjunction and cross parallels."

"Oh, yes, of course," Tenrut said, "the science-fiction mystery novel. That's one of the most recent in the series. You're interested in the MVC-tube technology?"

"Yes, it's quite fascinating," Stenbolt admitted. "Are you interested in the deal?"

"Yes, of course," Tenrut said. "So, you're willing to utilize the MVC-tube tech, and produce the novel, as long as I am willing to deliver the message to the home-parallel? What about my cut of the profits?"

Stenbolt thought about that shortly, quietly acknowledging the fact that Tenrut had bought into the production studio front, and said, "You're cut is 5 percent after the sound studio gets its 50 percent. That's just for the video product alone, which could turn a million out the first week. If this thing flies well enough, it could turn into a series."

Tenrut tried to think about what 5 percent of 50 percent of 1 million dollars was, and was lost in a nebula.

"Think of it, Tenrut," Stenbolt said to him. "This is your chance to return to your home-parallel."

"Yes, it sounds like a great idea," Tenrut admitted. "I could use a vacation, a nice long one."

"We've reviewed your defense report," Stenbolt said, "and we do believe we can make it happen. All you have to do is agree to the contract deal and the assignment is yours. What about it, Tenrut? Are you willing to return to your home-parallel and deliver our message?"

"Well, I am interested in the whole idea," Tenrut admitted, "I guess I'm just still a bit lost on why you need me. I mean, I'm no stuntman. I'm just a writer who also happens to be a victim of lies with a serious psycho-social disorder, which I've been trying to make up for by sharing what I know with the world."

"I've explained why we need you," Stenbolt said, "because you have the intelligence. You see, the truth is, with technology like this, we need a mind with the capacity to restore suppressed memories, just in case there is any temporary subconscious loss during the transition. We've already determined that you have the capacity to deal with such side-effects."

"I see, of course, I understand," Tenrut admitted. "Well, that all sounds about right. But if you're going to produce the novel, and you want me to play the part of the wounded victim of lies returning to the home-parallel, then won't you expect me to continue to play the rest of the role? I mean, I'm no actor..."

Stenbolt thought about that and looked at the tea Tenrut was drinking and said, "Is it too late to order some coffee?"

"Not at all, " Tenrut said, and called out, "Hey, Kat. Bring us some coffee, will you?"

There was no answer, so Tenrut stepped up, and said, "I'll get it. Just be a minute. What'll you take in it? Cream, sugar?"

"Make it black with sugar," Stenbolt said.

A minute later, he returned with a cup of coffee, and set it down on the table.

As he sat down, Stenbolt accepted the coffee, said, "Thanks," and continued the conversation while stirring the coffee in the cup.

"Well, as I understand it," Stenbolt said, "there aren't too many scenes with you in it. The plan is to find someone like a close parallel or double to play the part, but we would still prefer you to be the one to utilize the MVC-tube at the beginning of the story."

Tenrut thought about it and smiled. It sounded like an interesting way to start the Multivertical Man series and he couldn't resist it.

"I'm sold," he said, as Stenbolt drank the coffee, and almost spilled it, as Tenrut suddenly erupted.

"I love it!" he said. "It's a great idea! Wow! What a way to go!"

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Quoren and Sarena talked at the end of the day in the living room.

"Did you know that my oldest brother, the one who treated me fairly, for the most part, actually encouraged me to go out and have adventures, but when I found a place to settle my bones and write about those adventures, he thought I was wasting my time.

"I always wondered how he could be that way, and the only reason I could think of was that he was a writer himself and he wanted me to do something else, rather than let me write stories and books for myself to get my head straight."

"That does sound unreasonable," Sarena said. "You didn't let that stop you from writing?"

"Well, when I was younger," he admitted, "I was extremely humble and sought approval from the family, for support, and he and mother were the only ones who were willing to take sides with me on any of it. Step-father and step-brother never gave me any support on any of it, they both treated me like a bastard and a fool, and always blamed me for everything that went wrong.

"So it helped to get some support from either the mother or oldest brother. I'm sorry to say that gaining independence from them wasn't quite so easy for me, after all the damage that was done to me by the step-brother's lies."

"So what did you do?" she said.

"It took about a decade," he said, "after the accident, between 1985 and 1995, to regain some kind of security and confidence. It took that much time to recover the memory I had lost from before the accident. In 1995, I went back to school and realized how important it was for me to get my head straight, and writing seemed to help with that, so I did a lot of it. I simply didn't bother seeking the oldest brother's approval on any of it and did it anyhow, whether he liked it or not."

"So has he read any of your ebooks?"

"Not that I know of," he admitted. "I don't think he'd be interested."

"Where's the step-brother now?" she said. "He's the one who lied in 75, right?"

"Yes," Quoren said. "I'm not sure where he is. I completely lost track of him. The mother and sisters never told me much when I asked about him. Despite the lack of information flowing in my direction, I have been able to deduce that he has at least 2 different addresses, one in the Noreast suburbs and another in Florida, where his wife and family have been while he's been playing the phony lefty middle-class playboy, I presume."

They were silent for a moment, and Quoren suddenly exclaimed, "The step-brother's lies put me in a loveless purgatory for over 30 years!"

He stopped himself, checked the time, and said, "I have to take my medicine."

As he stepped up and left the room to get his medicine, she said, "You're not in a loveless purgatory anymore, Quoren."

He stopped at the doorway, looked at her and said, "Do you know what the step-brother's lies did to me?"

She looked down and said, "No, I can't say that I know that. I'm just telling you that all that has changed now."

She looked up at him and said, "I understand how it alienated you from humanity, but now I know all about it, and I'm on your side. You can put it in the past."

"Thank you," he said, and looked into her eyes. "It has been very difficult. I'd better get my medicine."

He left her to get his medicine because he knew how important it was for him to continue to manage his sanity, and he wasn't quite sure if he could do it without the medicine. Sometimes, all it took was a full moon and a high rate of alpha-waves to push him over the edge.

One thing for certain, thoughts about his step-brother didn't help. The last time he had thoughts about the lying step-brother without the medicine, it sent him tripping through the shadows. That was something he had learned to avoid. The shadows were too much work and dominated by lying, evil step-brothers.

The shadows were deceptive, played tricks with the senses, like a maze of smoky-glass grayscale complexities, a realm in which humans were lost at the end of the bread-line until they could find a way to scrape by, on the merest of crumbs, to survive. The shadows lacked the security of the home-parallel.

Quoren had been lost for years out in the cold at the end of the bread-line and he knew how hard it got. He didn't want to go back there now, not after everything he had worked for. He felt himself wavering and dove onto the bed in his room. He fished through the bottom drawer of the end table on the other side.

He looked out the window and saw the full moon as he turned over on the bed and took a pull on the vape. He was lost in a nebula as he forgot where he was and his thoughts were lost under a romantic moon somewhere in another space and time.

He was laying on a blanket on the grass on the side of the lake, under the bright moon, and Sarena was there, somewhere, on the side.

"I was beginning to have a bad dream," he said, "and then I thought of this place, about how much I wanted to get back here and apologize."

"Apologize," she said. "What for?"

"For going away in 75," he said, and looked at her. Her face was lit by the moonlight and he was happy to be with her.

"I didn't want to go," he explained, "it wasn't my idea. It was my step-brother. He lied to my mother and she thought you were someone else. She sent me away that summer because of step-brother's lies!"

Suddenly, Sarena appeared in the doorway to his room and the Vulcan vacation ended.

"I heard you talking," she said. "Are you alright?"

"I didn't want to go away in the summer of 75," he said, and looked at her, with eyes as wide as 2 full moons. "It was my step-brother. He lied to my mother and she thought you were someone else. She sent me away that summer because of step-brother's lies!"

"Yes," Sarena said carefully, "I understand. Did you find your medicine?"

He snapped out of the obsessive delirium, looked at the vape, and said, "Yes. I'm okay now."

She looked at him as he stared at her, and he said, "I'm sorry! I didn't want to go away in the summer of 1975. Everything went wrong because of the step-brother's lies!"

She nodded with the thought and decided to sit down on the bed.

"Sarena," he said, "my step-brother's lies were what separated us in 1975."

"I know," she said.

"That was 40 years ago! 40 years, Sarena!"

She turned to him and looked into his eyes. He tossed the vape aside, took her into his arms, and she did not resist him.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Stenbolt filled out the report at his MVC-tube station office, at the Aton 5 conjunction between parallels. His post had him watching over the sub-parallel Aton 5.785 and so that's what he had to do. If there was a problem that threatened more than one parallel and/or the home-parallel (aka Earth), he had to act to counteract it.

So he thought it over and started to type before the flat-screen.

MVC Report on Aton 5.785

Recent developments within Par 1981.5785 favor theory that it may be within the Par Median.

Too early to be absolutely certain, will know more after election year, 2020.

Have secured potential courier for 5G information. Will follow plan for delivery, etc: 2020-04.

Agent Stenbolt,

2020-02-25

Stenbolt recalled the fact that he hadn't checked his inbox yet, and got right to it. He was expecting something... and yes, there it was.

He had the MVC authorization to let the "courier" through. Tenrut would be happy to hear the news. His "Defense Report" had been completely reviewed, and he had earned his redemption.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Message in a Bottle

Excerpt from Ren Tenrut's personal journal:

"The Actual Facts About What Happened Between 1975 and 1982"

"Step-brother lied to mother and the step-father backed him up, and both were working for the Catch-22 Club (old school) and the Neoconservatives in 1980. Step-brother fooled everyone into believing that he was the "cool" one and I was the one who couldn't be trusted. His lies between 1975 and 1978 ultimately had me rejected and kicked out into the cold by all of the "cool" antiwar people of the late 1970s. At the time of the motorcycle accident in 1982, I had no friends left anywhere in the world.

"The Catch-22 Club were old school war-profiteers and Neoconservative, fascist capitalist millionaire wannabees like the step-father and step-brother. They were the ones who worked against the antiwar democrats, but they used me as a scapegoat so that the true antiwar democrats, like the oldest brother, would be confused and think that I had something to do with it.

"Step-brother was the one who lied about everything, not me, as he led them to believe. He was the big liar, not me. I was the scapegoat they used to distract mother, the oldest brother (who worked for the antiwar democrats), and the sisters. He made me play the fool and take all the blame for everything that went wrong, simply by getting the step-father to back him up on all of his lies about me.

"Simply because the step-father supported his lies about me, the whole family was programmed to go along with those lies, and step-brother made me look like I was the one who couldn't be trusted, when in fact, it was the step-brother himself."

"In the summer of 1978, when step-brother asked me what I thought about the idea of "getting naked", and I declined the idea, it was as if I had failed the test completely and I was rejected by everyone after that.

"It was as if it were all a test to see if I would be a part of their secret summer-time "naked club" and I failed it completely, and everyone hated and rejected me after that. They failed to understand why I could decline such an invitation and decided to kick me as far out into the cold as they could, following the lies of the "good" step-brother in the process, which had nothing good to say about me.

"But they didn't know about 1975. They didn't know about how step-brother had lied to mother and had me sent on a fool's errand to get me away from Lisa in the summer of 1975. Nobody knew anything about that at the time in the summer of 1978, when step-brother feigned innocence and had me destroyed just to keep that lie a secret.

"I lost Lisa because of that lie but nobody knew anything about it in the summer of 1978. Mother didn't tell me she had made a mistake in 1975, because of misinformation about Lisa, until after the accident in late 1982.

"Step-brother was a selfish, lying, spoiled brat pig who lied and got away with it, betrayed our mother's trust in the process, and lied again later to cover up the lies. I was the main victim of his lies, but mother hasn't been too happy about it either."

Ren Tenrut, 2020-01-04

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Nine: How to Stop a War in 3 Easy Steps

Later that week, the democratic socialists found their man, a left-leaning veteran officer attached to the legal department, who had seen enough of the victims of war by the age of 30. He also knew the Constitution like the back of his hand, the military code of justice, and gave full support to the ACLU, because, "We need more checks and balances from everyday people and true patriots who know the Constitution."

There were actually 4 candidates who fit the profile.

"So what made you choose Kendraw, rather than the other 3?" Sarena said to Vondrake, at the club office.

"We did a depth analysis on the profiles of each," he said, "and found out that the only one who didn't look busy with any other major commitments, including emotional attachments that might get in the way. We discovered that Kendraw appeared to be the only guy who seemed like he was itching to get out of the office and enjoy some leg-work."

"I thought he was active with sports?" Sarena said.

"Sure, he's spent some time on the courts," Vondrake said, "but that's the interesting part about it. He's one of those guys who can't quite keep up with the Neo-Spartans that dominate the courts, but he does his best to do so and just keeps on trying."

"Almost sounds like an underdog," Sarena said. "Are you sure he's our guy?"

"If we give him the support he needs, and he's as smart as his profile makes him," he said.

"How old is he?" she said. "He'll need energy for all the leg-work."

"42, I think," Vondrake said. "With our support, he should do fine."

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Quimby and Stone met with Kendraw and spoke with him directly about the Petition for an Investigation into the MIC and Defense department. Kendraw was 42, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, appeared to be in good physical shape, had short, brown hair, and thick-framed glasses.

"Sounds like a good idea," Kendraw said. "I'll sign that petition."

"We were wondering if you might be able to do a little more," Quimby said.

"I'll do whatever I can to help out," the man decided, and stepped up from his desk, to meet the men eye to eye.

"What would you do in our position?" Quimby said to him. "We need a way to make this thing work."

"Does the military support it?" he said, "the military has a lot of people in it. They're a very big family."

"We have a majority on the list," Stone said. "They are all with us."

"Good, because an IG is nothing without majority support from the people. That's a priority issue," Kendraw said.

"You can take a look at the petition," Quimby handed him the compad with the petition on it.

"That's okay, I believe you," Kendraw said, "What is it you want from me?"

He began to check the time for a moment, and Stone said, "Well, see, we were wondering what the first step, after the petition, might be, in a situation like this."

Kendraw thought about it, raised his eyebrows for a moment, stared at them, then shortly looked away and stepped back to his desk, then spun about and said, "How long has it been since the military has had a tea-break?"

"A tea-break?" Quimby said. "I'm not sure what you are referring to."

Kendraw sat down at the desk and explained to them the procedure they needed to follow to order a "tea-break" for the military and get the investigation going in the right direction.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

What followed after that was a fairly interesting and unique episode in which Quimby and Stone talked over the details with Kendraw, on a strictly confidential post as an American patriot and citizen, in support of the U.S. Constitution, and willing to do all that he could to help out.

Quimby and Stone actually accompanied Kendraw to a local school, where he worked out on Wednesdays, and talked with the man the whole way.

Kendraw exercised with the two men and talked it all over, in an almost academic way.

It got a little silly when they tried to continue talking with him during the aerobics class, so they decided to clam up at that point.

After they checked out of the lockers, and they headed out to the parking lot, Kendraw stopped and said, "Well, unless you guys need a lift, I guess I'll be seeing you. Good luck with the investigation."

Quimby and Stone scrambled up to his side quickly and Quimby said, "Uh, Kendraw, we were wondering. Would you care to accompany us, during the investigation?"

Kendraw looked out across the sky at that thought, as it suddenly dawned upon him what they were offering, and he smiled like a light had just gone on in his head.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

The Net Zone 21c club was a club for people who liked to connect to the world using computers and the internet as a medium of communication and they all believed it was possible to use computer technology to help resolve world problems. But they also knew that it required a lot of work with computers to make it happen.

The local Net Zone 21c club was managed by a smart girl who Tenrut knew and his knowledge with computers got him the job as a tutor and technical engineer, helping the young members, mostly from the local colleges, with technical details and programs.

They had managed to bond on subjects like science-fiction and M-theory, and got into sharing many ideas and stories, as well as ebooks available online.

The 21c club also had something that made it popular on weekends and attracted many customers from the local colleges at that time. It was a 60-inch Eskapes screen that played any musical video available, a growing list of media devoted to the pacific play-side of life, and completely opposed to the nonsense of war.

Tenrut saw the light once he realized that his own step-brother had lied behind his back and got him transferred to the Aton 5 parallel, where he was left with the same "Catch-22" that Yossarian was up against, at the end of his tour.

"No sir," he decided, he would not accept a lying step-brother as his master. "No sir," he decided, he would not support a bunch of lying step-brothers, like the Neocons who had lied them into a state of perpetual war.

It took 30 years of careful research, on his days off from work, but he was able to eventually recover all of the memory he had lost after the accident in late 1982. He put all of the facts about the case into his "Defense Report", beginning with the lies the step-brother told behind his back, which caused their mother to make the "mistake" of sending him on a fool's errand for nothing, just to get him out of the way.

It was the "mistake" mother made, which she confessed to making later, that was caused by the step-brother's lies, which caused everything that went wrong with his so-called life, up until the accident in late 1982, and his indisolar transfer to the Aton 5 parallel.

A step-brother's lies had caused his demotion from suburban paradise to a loveless purgatory which threatened to swallow him into a black-hole if he didn't find a way to pay for everything he needed to float his "junk-boat" office and get out of poverty.

Aton 5 was a "shadow Earth" of the home-parallel, and he knew it. He shared what he knew in his ebooks, in science-fiction and fantasy, and speculated with others who were interested in M-theory.

Of course, it was all just speculation, and everyone knew it, more or less, because none of it could be proven scientifically. But it took a much more objective perspective upon everything than any other viewpoint he knew.

As long as it couldn't be proven scientifically, it was all fiction, of course, and mere speculation. But for someone who had their own private version of Gulliver's Travels in the Twilight Zone of the Outer Limits like Tenrut, M-theory actually made more sense than anything, and it was perhaps the greatest mystery he had ever experienced.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Quoren was working in his room again when Sarena came home.

"How are you doing?" she said.

"Not too bad," he said, "I finally got the ebook done. It's got everything in it."

"Which ebook is that?" she said.

"The one about how my step-brother lied in 1975," he said, stared at her, and then back at the flat-screen, and completed the sentence, "and I was sent away that summer, and lost everything that any sane man would want a chance at within suburban paradise."

She got the message, and said, "Sounds like an autobiography."

"No," he said, "actually, its a science-fiction mystery, cast up against a crazy mixed up multiverse of parallel Earths."

"Quoren," she laughed, and said, "You had better keep your feet on this Earth during this next season."

"Oh, don't worry about it," he said, and smiled at her. "I think I've finally found a sub-par much closer to my home-parallel. I'm not going anywhere now."

"Good, have you had anything yet?" she said.

"I'll be out in a minute, Sarena dear," he said, and looked back at the screen.

They had another meal together as the day ended and it was like another chapter ending in the storyline of his existence.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Quoren dreamt that he was in his home-parallel.

He was at the lake, with Sarena, just like it had been in 1975. There was a picnic table at the edge of the lake, in a grassy field, beside some trees. It was before he was sent on the fool's errand. She was sitting on the table, with her legs up on the seat, he was standing there with her. It was a warm summer day, in early June.

He awoke from the dream like he was drowning under pressure, and checked the time by the side of his bed. The memory of her was there, lingering in the back of his head, as he thought about where he was. The memory of the younger Sarena was 40 years in the past, in another parallel, and the version of Sarena in this parallel was not the same girl.

He wasn't exactly sure yet what the big difference was, because he lost his Sarena in late 1982 after an accident, and she was still quite young at the time. He had been able to configure that they knew each other, in this parallel, when they were young, but he hadn't yet figured out how close they had been.

He recalled getting close to first base with her, before he was sent on the fool's errand, but he didn't quite make it, didn't have the time, before he was shipped out. In this parallel, she knew him, but he was unable to figure out just how close they had been.

He thought about her, at the lake, as he dosed off again, and imagined speaking into her ear, "Do you remember the time at the lake?"

He was thinking about Sarena on the couch in the living room as he recalled the lake, and imagined asking her the question, as he drifted off to sleep.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Ten: Tea Break Time and an Investigation Underway

March of 2020 within the Aton 5.785 parallel was a busy time for the Inspector General's office, the company of veterans who had volunteered to give it all the support he needed, the democratic socialists pushing the investigation and the social economic reforms, and anyone who had nothing better to do and wanted to help out.

The IG's office submitted the request for an immediate investigation, and declared a "tea break" for the military, during the course of the investigation. This required an immediate cease-fire during that period.

The military agreed to the tea-break but the investigation was due to take much longer.

The IG's office spent the first week organizing the company and its mission and goals, and the second week organized the pay-roll for 1000 company members, mostly veterans sworn to defend the Constitution and the Inspector General's office and mission.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

When the Inspector General's office called for a "tea break" for the military, Kendraw explained to them what that meant.

"In the original military codes agreed upon by the earliest nation-states, which in the ancient times were more like kingdoms, they had to have some kind of rules to govern the wars, and one of the most obscure provisions was agreed upon to prevent the most basic codes from being broken.

"That provision called for a "tea break" in a situation where technical rules may be in violation, pending an investigation into the matter as soon as possible. During the "tea break", the opposing sides agreed to a cease-fire to get to the bottom of the situation, to prevent it from getting worse."

"This is the kind of matter which has always been the job of the Inspector General's office to check on when a popular petition has been handed to it."

"From what I've been told," Kendraw added, "It looks like this military is overdue for a "tea break".

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Vondrake watched the replay of the forum discussion with the others as they met at the club. He stopped the recording and said, "The point is really quite obvious."

He turned to the others and went on, "We've made it fairly obvious to some people, now we simply have to share this point with everyone, everywhere. Compten and Langstone, why don't you give us an example of what we can expect."

The two men both nodded, and Compten said, "Isn't it true, Mr. Secretary, that you maintain that socialist economies and governments are not the best economic systems and governments for humanity in the 21st century, and that capitalist economies are the best we can do?"

Langstone thought about that shortly, nodded, and said, "Well, yes. I don't believe that socialist economies or governments are the best way to go. Capitalism and American democracy are really the best thing for all of us."

"I see, then could you answer one simple question, in light of that conclusion?"

"I'll try," Langstone said.

"If socialist economies and governments are such obvious failures," Compten said, "why put Navy blockades up and enforce trade sanctions that strangle those economies and why surround such economies with military bases and conduct secret operations to sabotage them?"

Langstone was taken aback by the sudden accusation.

Compten poured it on and said, "If experiments in socialist economics are so important to the future of humanity, why sabotage those efforts?"

Langstone didn't know what to say at that point, just looked down and shook his head.

They waited a minute and Vondrake said, "As you can see, we do not believe that they have any logical answer for this one. This is the point we are working to try and take directly to the United Nations. We can spread the word, but let's try to not show our whole hand to the Neocons, while we're at it."

They went over some of the other points with more confidence.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Sarena sat in her office at the studio and thought about Quoren. Seeing him now after all these years like this, she wondered where it put her. Then she thought about Ren Tenrut, and the deal they made about a year ago. She had agreed to continue to act as his agent if he saved up the money he needed to pay for the 3d action software. It was a simple way of letting him know that he had to stop making excuses to her for not living up to their original deal.

"No more excuses," she had told him. "If you want me as an agent, you're gonna have to do better."

She wondered if she had been too hard on the guy. He had been through a lot.

So, now, she had just learned that Ren still had not saved the money, but that he had hitched onto something else that he insisted would make up for it. Something connected to one of his ebooks.

She didn't know quite what to make of it. She really didn't have much time for Tenrut when she had her work with the studio and she had to baby-sit Quoren.

Quoren was something else. She had lost touch with him years ago, after an accident. She had no idea what happened to him until she saw him at the Minutemen's club. How he had acquired the intelligence he had was beyond her, a real mystery.

When she asked him about it, he said very little, and told her to read the ebook when he was done.

Quoren was much too important to the democratic socialists for her to ignore at a time like this, during a big election year. She was committed to baby-sit him through the year if necessary, knowing how important he was to the world.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Tenrut received the good news from Stenbolt informing him that they had been given the green light and were going ahead with the project. He was instructed to return to the company's northwest office during the first week of April to sign the final papers and get a look at some of the designs for the set. Details could be worked out at that time.

He thought about Sarena, and wondered whether he should share more with her. He day-dreamed about popping it to her over dinner at some fancy night-club, then his mind drifted and he recalled Lisa at the complex, on that day he saw her.

His mind began to sink back in time, to the memories before the accident, and to the last time he saw her, in that twilight zone episode of the outer limits where she told him she got the job with the big studio and had to run....

He fell into the episode like some kind of repeating dream, and his mind drifted away. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for going away and missing the summer vacation, but he didn't get the chance. She was in a hurry and he didn't get a chance to apologize to her.

He always thought it was the biggest mistake he made, it was a mistake that his mother later admitted to, but at the time, he thought it was his mistake alone and he hated himself for it.

If he didn't go away that summer, they would have had the chance to spend some time together, the way they originally wanted it. But the step-brother's lies got in the way and ruined their plans and he was sent on a damn fool's errand for nothing.

He tried to explain what went wrong but he never quite got the chance. When he got around to seeing her on that day, in late August, she had just gotten a job with a big studio, and she was on the run. He tried to slow her down, and tried to apologize, but she was running late.

He hated himself for making the mistake. He always thought that if he had just spent the summer with her, they would have had a chance to get closer. He hated himself for going away on that fool's errand.

After she went to work for the studio, things didn't go so well for him. Something went wrong between him and his step-brother in the summer of 1978.

Nobody understood him when he declined the step-brother's suggestion to get naked on that fatal day in the summer of 1978. Nobody understood because the step-brother had successfully kept all the details about how he lied in the summer of 1975 to their mother a secret, and Ren had been misled to believe that the sacrifice was necessary, when it was nothing more than a fool's errand to get him out of the way.

Step-brother had managed to keep that dirty lie a secret from everyone, including the mother and him, but Ren knew he had done something, just couldn't prove it, so he was busy at the time doing an investigation into the mystery.

Nobody understood that Ren had a mystery to solve that required that he keep his clothes on at that time. They were all fooled by the step-brother, who feigned innocence through the whole thing, and let Ren take all of the blame for ruining everyone's day. The way the step-brother told the story, everyone was led to think Ren ruined the whole summer vacation.

Just about everyone actually believed it and Ren was kicked as far out into the cold by them as they could possibly kick him. By the end of 1982, Ren had absolutely no friends in the world left when he had the accident, and he was lost from his home parallel, before he was able to solve the mystery and explain it all to Lisa somehow.

Poor Ren, he was such a foolish romantic.

When he thought of her now, he wondered if there was any way to reach her to explain it all. Or would the series be picked up by the studio and give him a chance to send her the message in a bottle via the video medium, through one of the big studios?

Now that was a fine idea, he thought. If only it could be more than just a pipe dream.

He imagined it all in his head, like some kind of romantic movie.

He saw himself working with the studio on the series, producing the script, and sharing it with the public. He saw himself sitting in a fancy office somewhere, with some cash for a change, calling her up on his cell-phone and saying, "So, have you seen the movie?"

"What movie is that?" she said.

"It's called the Last Resort," he said. "You might want to check it out. I think you'll find it interesting."

He was sure that would get the message to her. There was no way any big studio goons were going to stop their princess from watching a movie if she wanted to.

What a fine idea it was, for sure. If only it could be more than a pipe dream.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Quoren sat in the corner of the room before the flat-screen, and stared into the image of the Zvenya, where the seacoast met the sea and disappeared into the distant sound on the horizon.

He relaxed, closed his eyes, imagined the Zvenya setting around him, and went on a nice Vulcan vacation for a change. He hadn't quite fit it into the new geometry yet until he gave it his complete attention for a moment and saw it all in his mind.

Within a minute, he was sitting at the base of a stone mountain, looking out across a field of weeds and a small desert of sand, which led to the seacoast. There was a tree just a few meters away to his right, where a doorframe had been, and there were several trees across the sandy field, in the distance to the left, away from the sandy coast.

He recalled the setting well from the first time he discovered it in 1985. It was one of those rare moments when he actually began to feel some confidence about working it all out somehow, despite how low he had fallen.

The setting made a great Vulcan vacation now. He drifted away with it as the sun set and another day ended.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

MVC Report on Aton 5.785

"Interesting developments with Aton 5 sub-parallel. Quoren's theory about a "Par Median" Parallel may be proving true. This could be a potential solvent to the Korbent Refraction. More on that later.

"Going through with plan to employ Tenrut as courier, due to show him the "set design" during next meeting."

Stenbolt, 2020-02-30

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Eleven: The IG, the 420, and the MVC Tube Station

In April of 2020, the veterans in cooperation with the IG's office went to work forming a basic company from which to manage the investigation, and one of the first things it did was reallocate funds from the Defense Department pie that had been put on a permanent tea-break pending the investigation. With the hot wars on hold for the time, there was no point in throwing away funds on the munitions necessary to keep the war-machine rolling.

Of course, that money alone was not enough to cover the complete investigation, and the IG had the right to make up for it by getting money directly from the federal reserve, if necessary, and in such a case as this, it was.

By the end of the first week of April, a company employing 1000 patriots working for the IG on the investigation had been formed, with an outline of the basic mission goals.

Kendraw was perhaps one of the most casual, unofficial IG's ever known. He acted more like an advisor to Quimby and Stone, who carried him along for the ride. He acted almost like a green lieutenant, at times, looking to Quimby and Stone for some guidance, but it was always they who ended up learning something from him in the process.

Quimby and Stone posed a fascinating project to Kendraw that he couldn't resist, once they invited him along for the ride. What they proposed was possible, according to the codes covering checks and balances, but he also knew how much it all depended upon the popular support of the people.

The possibility of seeing it through with the democratic socialists was something he couldn't miss. It gave him a chance to be something more than just the bench-warmer at the amusement park.

He thought about Vana and wondered if she saw him in any of the news coverage, and wondered what she would think about him now. For a moment, while he was in his office at the company, he checked the time, saw that it was going on the noon break, and wondered if he should try to give her a call.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

During the week in which the popular "4/20" was celebrated, Sarena spent some time at the Westendfelt college where she had started her career in the field, lending support to the local musical groups that agreed to play on that day.

At the Independent Arts building there was a large hallway on the first level and an amphitheater where the groups played on the stage before an open-door audience, coming and going freely throughout the 4 day "spring-break" weekend.

On Thursday of that week, the musical bands started playing, and with plenty of breaks in between bands, played one after another until Saturday night midnight.

In between bands, a large screen played musical videos, and Sarena recalled how Tenrut had got her more interested in music videos after he met her... when was that? 2018? He was working with 3d computer graphics at the time and had some big plans about doing a heavy metal movie or series in 3d.

He had shared a few 3d musical videos with her but none had been picked up simply because he didn't have any good music to go with any of it at the time. So she tried to help him with that and they had been seeing each other on and off ever since. But Tenrut had suddenly changed jobs and told her he was making progress with one of his ebooks.

Sarena realized she had her hands full with her job, the deal she made with Vondrake, the Minutemen, the democratic socialists, and Tenrut and Quoren. She set it all aside for a while and tried to enjoy some time with friends and associates at the Westendfelt 4/20 and got carried away with the casual spring break mode.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

In early April, Tenrut returned to the MVC office to see Stenbolt and go over the final details of the set design.

"Where did you get the idea for the MVC-tubes?" Stenbolt asked him, as they sat in the office and shared some of the computer graphics on the large flat-screen, attached to the wall across the room.

Tenrut thought about it, for a moment, as he stared across the room at the flat-screen on the wall.

"For some time I've been having dreams, about a mysterious realm beyond this reality," he said, "it's all very dark and mysterious, like the twilight zone of the outer limits. Well, it inspired me to imagine how such a realm might actually possess the technology to cross parallels of the multiverse.

"You see, I've been looking for some kind of substantial bridge, for some time," he explained, "and I finally located the kind of technology that worked, at least in science-fiction."

"I see," Stenbolt nodded. "Well, it does seem like a good sci-fi device for a Multivertical theme."

"I think so," Tenrut agreed.

"Well, how do you like what we've done?" Stenbolt said.

Tenrut looked over the designs of the set on the screen, as it showed him the MVC-tube station from a few different angles.

"Not bad," Tenrut said, obviously impressed. "It looks so real. Is this just a 3d computer graphic design, or have you actually constructed the full-scale model?"

"Oh, we have the full-scale model," Stenbolt admitted. "We just need to get all of the final details in order."

"Really?" Tenrut admitted, and stars appeared in his eyes. He looked at the screen as the images of the MVC-tube station were being shown in a slide-show, and he became lost in a nebula, finding it all nearly impossible to believe.

"You're telling me you already have the full-scale model of the MVC-tube station," he said, with his eyes wide open, "somewhere out there right now?"

"Yes, would you care to see it?" Stenbolt said.

"Yes, of course," Tenrut admitted, "this is the sort of thing that one has to see to believe."

"Of course. Then we just have to sign some papers," Stenbolt said, and they got into the tedious details.

They had everything covered within 20 minutes, and Tenrut hesitated and said, "When are we scheduled to shoot the first scene?"

"April 25," Stenbolt said.

Tenrut reviewed everything carefully one more time, saw that his conditions were met with script control, the pay-rate, and his cut of the profits, etc... and signed.

"Who have you got for the main roles?" he said, as he handed the contract back to Stenbolt.

"We've narrowed it down to 2 possibilities," Stenbolt said.

"How are you gonna get around the fact that we may not look alike?" he said.

"We'll be sure not to get too close to your face," Stenbolt said, "with the cameras, except in wide angle shots. The MVC-tube station is not so bright along the walls, so we can lower the lights and make it look more mysterious. We'll work it out."

"Okay, I see where you're going," Tenrut said. "You want me to play some kind of Multivertical agent, carrying a message from one parallel to another. Is that it?"

"Yes," Stenbolt said, "that's it."

"Yes, that's not a bad idea," Tenrut admitted. "It makes a good opening for the Multivertical man series."

"Well, yes," Stenbolt agreed, and stepped up.

"Shall we go and check it out?" he said, and went to the door.

He went to the secretary's office, told her he was going out, and Tenrut followed him out.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

They drove in Stenbolt's vehicle westward, then northwest along a winding road through hills and forest for about 3 or 4 kilometers, gradually upward, until they reached a lake. On the northwestern edge, at the base of the mountains, was a large gray-stone structure with 4 10-meter high marble columns, and a large set of doors at the top of about half a dozen stone steps at the entrance.

Tenrut had never seen anything like it and was quite amazed.

He was even more amazed after Stenbolt led him inside and it was all there; the MVC-tube station he had imagined seeing in the shadowy parallel Earth realm.

"It's like I've been here before," he said, as he was overcome by a sense of deja vu.

"Perhaps you have," Stenbolt said, "in some distant past indisolar experience. The multiverse is a vast and mysterious place, with all kinds of possibilities where the variable element of intelligence and free, independent will factor into it all."

"Yes," Tenrut agreed, as he stepped further into the great hallway, stopped, and looked to the right, where there were tubes in slots in the walls, just as he had dreamt, leading to a multitude of different sub-parallels of Earth and Aton 5, it's dystopian evil twin.

"So," Tenrut spoke carefully and quietly, as he turned to Stenbolt, "I get to take one of these tubes back to my home-parallel?"

"Exactly," Stenbolt said.

"Could I check out the tube close up?"

"Yes, follow me," Stenbolt said, and led the way to the right of the large hallway.

He led him to the first tube in the first slot at the side, to the right of some kind of computer station, and stopped.

"Go ahead and check it out," he said to Tenrut, "Just don't touch any of the controls."

Tenrut checked it all out and it looked like the genuine article. He tapped his fingers on the side of the tube and it was solid metal. He looked up inside the tube compartment, saw the circular array overhead, and stepped back.

"Sure looks real enough," he said. He looked to the side, saw a small keypad set of controls, and almost pressed one of the buttons, stopped, and drew back.

He spun about and looked at Stenbolt and said, "I'm sold. I presume the door is controlled by one of those buttons."

"Yes, but we need not play with any of that today," Stenbolt said. "When the time comes, it will work well enough."

Stenbolt turned to the computer station and said, "At the computer station, the designated destination can be locked onto, to the specific sub-parallel."

Tenrut stepped over to the silver and gray station, saw some kind of home-page on the view-screen, a test-pattern combo with the letters MVC at the top, and what appeared to be a standard set of keys on a console before it. He studied it all for a minute.

"Very nice," he finally said, and turned about, looking at the large, dimly lit hallway from one corner. "You've really done an excellent job with the set. It all looks very real."

He looked down for a moment, turned about and said, "I'm amazed. I have to assume that if you've done this good a job, you must be one of the bigger studios. It looks like you've already committed yourself to some kind of Multivertical Man series."

"Well, something like that," Stenbolt admitted, "the truth is, we've been working along similar parallels with this concept for years."

"Yes, of course," Tenrut nodded, "I always maintained that some ideas, no matter how original, could be accessed by almost anyone with enough intelligence and motivation. But I never knew anyone could commit so much to such a fantastic science-fiction concept."

Seeing that Tenrut appeared satisfied with the set, Stenbolt took him to the other end of the great MVC hall, where there was a lounge with a balcony overlooking a pond with a waterfall and a garden of flowers and trees, at the base of the mountains.

There were a few others going about business, it was not a busy day.

"Wow, you have really put some resources into this," he said to Stenbolt, casually. "Beautiful!"

They sat at a table near the balcony overlooking the garden and the waterfall, had some fruit-juice to drink, and went over the basic steps that Tenrut would take during the first chapter. Tenrut followed Stenbolt closely, as he marveled at the extraordinary set Stenbolt's company had built for the Multivertical Man series which he had written so much script for in the past 2 years.

It was all a great mystery with a suppressed sense of deja vu lingering in the back of his mind. Was it possible, as Stenbolt had suggested, that he had been here before?

About 30 minutes later, they left the lounge and left the MVC tube station, and Stenbolt drove Tenrut back to the 21c club.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Sarena met Quoren at the end of the week, on Friday night, at the suburban home where he was still being kept safe from the Neofascists who tried to kill him over a month ago.

"How's the book going?" she said.

"I'm almost there," he said, waking up to her presence. "After 40 years, from my alienation which occurred in 1980, I've recovered enough memory to have 2020 vision, in spite of the refraction caused by step-brother's lies."

"Sounds interesting," she said, and then added, "but I thought the accident was in 82? You said 1980."

"Yes, well," he explained, "1980 was the year in which everything was altered by the brainwashing techniques of the Neofascists, who used radio and television propaganda ads which were designed to sew the seeds of doubt about what the antiwar democrats were selling, all based upon lies and exaggerations, of course."

"Yes, I understand," she said, "It sounds quite interesting. Shall we eat?"

He smiled as she left his room and he prepared to join her.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

MVC Report: Par 1981.785

Courier due to make delivery on 2020-04-25.

Stenbolt, 2020-04-20

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twelve: 2020 Vision: A Par Median Between the Extremes

2020-04-25

The others had joined Sarena and Quoren at the hillside house nestled into the side of the mountains in the suburbs, for the expected reaction to be delivered at the World Forum Report, which they had on the big 36 inch screen on the wall of the living-room.

First there was news of the Investigation into the Defense Department and the Military Industrial Complex by the Inspector General's office.

They waited for the news to be reported while relaxing about the room on the comfortable chairs and couches, sharing some refreshment at the end of another hard week of work, and anticipating the reaction.

"The Inspector General's office," the report stated, "has declared a cease of hostilities on all war-fronts, pending a complete investigation into allegations that the Defense Department has been involved with unconstitutional activities not pertaining to the original mission."

Everyone relaxed from the suspense with the news, as it continued.

"The military reserves, including the veterans, have agreed to support the Inspector General on this decision."

The report covered the world reaction to the news and everyone relaxed, with heavy pants and sighs in the background.

"Wow!" Sarena exclaimed. "They actually did it!"

"With some help from us," Vondrake said.

"We did it," Quoren said, admitting the whole truth for them all. "After all, we got the ball rolling, didn't we?"

"Yes, we did," Langstone agreed. "We finally did it."

"Not quite yet," Sanjay said. "We still haven't heard from the Neocons."

They all turned to the report and waited for a commercial to end.

The report went directly to the United Nations, where all of the nations had their representatives.

The point made by the democratic socialists was being served directly to the American ambassadors and representatives from the state department. The French representative, acting as the speaker for the democratic socialists, made the point for the UN.

"We would all like to know that if experiments in social economic reforms are so vitally important to the future of humanity, why sabotage such experiments?"

The secretary of the state sat there staring straight ahead in complete suspense, then turned to his advisor. They spoke quietly in private for a minute.

Everyone waited for an answer.

Finally, the secretary turned and said, "Sabotage is somewhat of an extreme term. Could you clarify the point?"

"Mr. Secretary, we are talking about some very obvious totalitarian actions," the representative said. "Trade sanctions, alone, have been known to strangle an economy."

The secretary listened to his advisor for a minute, and then looked down, and sighed with a frown.

"Mr. Secretary?"

The advisor spoke for him and said, "The Secretary will have to get back to you on this."

The report ended and everyone relaxed with relief.

"That'll give them something to think about," Sarena said.

"They'll never get around this one," Vondrake said.

"They can't play hero while lying to us anymore," Sanjay said. "They'll have to go along with the reforms."

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Tenrut followed Stenbolt's directions closely and carefully.

He went up the stone steps into the MVC tube-station, stepped inside, and handed a compad to the security guard just inside the entrance. The security guard pointed to the right, and said, "Tube 1978.575", and handed the compad back to him.

Tenrut walked to the right, and followed the edge of the wall, where the silver gray tubes were in slots, just as he had seen it all the first time Stenbolt showed it to him.

He saw the numbers over the computer stations, and read them one after the other. He passed by 4 tubes in 2 separate slots before he located tube 1978.575, stopped, and looked at it. The hall wasn't busy at the time and he appeared very much alone.

He studied the silvery gray tube and the com-station with interest, then followed the tube up with his eyes, as it disappeared behind the bronze arch over the slot. As he wondered where it all went, across the multiverse, he heard someone and looked back down.

"Travel orders," a security guard in a gray uniform said, and Tenrut handed him the compad.

The guard stepped over to the computer station, checked the compad with it, confirmed the orders, and handed the compad back.

He stepped to the side, returned with a helmet, and handed it to Tenrut.

"Put this on," he said to him, "I'll get the belt."

Tenrut put the helmet on, and it fit snug like a glove with soft foam-rubber padding inside. The security guard returned with the belt and helped him put it on. It was similar to a parachute's belt, with one belt about the waist and two extra belts in an "X" crossing over the chest and shoulders.

The man stepped back as Tenrut said, "Thanks", and he said, "Get in the tube and I'll get it ready."

Tenrut stepped inside the tube and the man went to the com-station. Tenrut turned about and looked out of the tube, and the man returned and said, "Okay, you're all set. It'll be about a 10 minute transition, so relax and just go with it. When it's over, you'll know it, and the door will open and you'll be there."

The transparent door closed and the man stepped away to the com-station. Tenrut waited in anticipation for the ride to begin. The lights went low and he began to feel like the tube was rising, but at the same time he began to float in the air as if in a zero gravity chamber.

He floated in the darkness and stars appeared with a lattice-like wire-frame of lines connecting the points of light, and it all began to move about, as if the tube, with him in it, were moving through it all. He tried to make sense of it, then just relaxed, as the security man advised, and just went with it.

Eventually, after about 10 minutes, the process began to slow down and things began to materialize about him as it did so. He felt his weight returning and the tube took form about him again. He was back inside the tube. He relaxed and took a breath, and the lights went up as the door opened.

He carefully stepped out and saw what appeared to be the same tube-station, and thought for a moment that he could be at the end of the scene, until he looked down and saw that the pattern of the floor was different, and so were some of the other details.

He turned to look at the com-station, and saw the numbers "1981.785", just as a woman in a blue and gray service uniform stepped up to him from the side.

"Welcome to Earth," she said, smiling brightly. "Travel orders, please."

He handed her the compad, she took it to the com-station, confirmed it, and stepped back.

"Let me help you with the belt," she said, and he let her help him. He removed the belt and the helmet, she took it away, handed back the compad and said, "Just take any door at the end of the hallway and it will take you outside."

Tenrut was surprised to see that it did appear as if he had been transported, to a near-identical MVC tube-station. He found it hard to believe, until he went through the doors leading outside, and found himself in a completely different world.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Quoren shared the ebook with Sarena the next day and said, "I don't want to spoil it for you. But the truth is, I was used as a scapegoat by my step-brother. You'll understand how that was done by reading the ebook."

She nodded with understanding and agreed.

"I'll check it out," she said, and she took a look at it on the compad.

"It might take some time," he said. "It's over 100 pages."

"What kind of ebook is it?" she said, "mystery or autobiography?"

"A little bit of both," he admitted. "I suppose you could call it an alternate history mystery."

"Alternate history?" she said. "Is it science-fiction?"

"Fact-based science-fiction," he said. "The names have been changed to protect the innocent."

"Really?" she said, with sudden interest. "Now I am interested."

She put the compad in her bag and said, "I'll definitely have to check it out."

She stopped fishing through her bag, looked up at him and said, "I don't suppose you can tell me how it ends?"

"I'll give you a clue," he said. "My older brother thought I was behind the gun club that killed Lennon, but it was really step-father and step-brother, and the Catch-22 Club. They fooled everyone, the whole family, including mom."

She was left wondering what he was talking about, as he stepped up and went to do something, saying, "Mom's gonna be so surprised when she hears the news."

"Where's the scotch-tape?"

Sarena wondered about what he was talking about. Quoren had become so cryptic lately, mixing symbols with reality in ways she didn't always understand.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

MVC Report on Aton 5.785

Very interesting developments in Par Aton 5 sub-parallel 1981.5785. Looks like Quoren's theory about a Par Median could be right. This could actually be the solvent to the Korbent Refraction after all.

Courier passed through MVC-tube 1978.575, as planned, 2020-04-25. All appears to have gone well with the transition.

Stenbolt, 2020-04-27

FINIS

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Afterword: Excerpt from "A Defense Report for 2018" by Ren Tenrut

Dreams About the Home Parallel

The memories I have managed to recover from the home-parallel, from before 1982, are very special to me. They are from a time when our leaders were still sane and willing to work things out through peaceful trade and negotiations, rather than war, because everyone understood what the news about the Vietnam war was all about and everyone was sick of it.

But then the Neoconservatives came along with another big Catch-22, backed up by a monstrous lie about marijuana and the "antiwar democrats" and "pacifists" who used it, and lied the whole Aton 5 parallel into a state of perpetual war.

By 1983, all of my dreams about a nice, healthy, well-balanced life in the suburbs were shattered completely and all of my friends were gone, as I recovered from a fatal accident that had me condemned to that loveless purgatory for mistakes that were made before that fatal day.

For 30 years, condemned to a loveless purgatory, I have had nothing but the memories of the suburban paradise I lost to keep me motivated, with some hope that there might be a way out of the hole I fell into.

The Aton 5 parallel, I know, is not my home-parallel. I know where I was before the accident and where I was after the accident, and I know for a fact, that they are two very different parallels of Earth.

I know also that I was "misjudged" and "misplaced" because of the lies of my step-brother, who fed "misinformation" to mother in 1975 which had me sent on a fool's errand for nothing. I know also the fool's errand was the biggest mistake I ever made, because I lost a potential mate for suburban paradise (a good thing at that time for any young man), and everything went wrong after the fact.

I know that it was the step-brother's lies from 1975 and 1978, which caused the fool's errand and my complete rejection and alienation from human society. I know that he lied to cover his previous lies and feigned complete innocence in the summer of 1978, when I was judged so harshly for simply not trusting him enough to get naked with him and his friends at that time.

I know that step-brother used my bad reaction in the summer of 1978 as ammo against me, to cover up the dirty lie that he was keeping a secret, from the summer of 1975.

I know that given all of these facts, I am innocent and was wrongly misjudged because of step-brother's lies and I was condemned to the loveless purgatory of Aton 5 after the accident in late 1982 as a refractory reformative punishment, to "teach me a lesson".

Of course, this misjudgment and the form of refractory punishment served to me is all wrong, since it also was based upon misinformation fed to everyone by my step-brother, and I'm fairly certain that he was perhaps one of the biggest pathological liars I have ever known.

He lied to cover up previous lies that were used against me, and lied to cover up those lies as well. If the step-father hadn't always believed everything he said without bothering to check on any of it, he never would have gotten away with it all.

I know that it was wrong for me to be misjudged and transferred to the Aton 5 parallel after the accident in late 1982 and it is wrong for me to continue to suffer for something that was not my fault but was the fault of a step-brother who hated me the day I was born and started telling lies about me the day after.

The truth is all quite logical, actually. For the first 20 years of my so-called life in the home-parallel, I was lied about, abused, tortured, and gas-lighted into submission by step-brother's denials and lies. Ultimately, after abusing me and getting away with it for the first 20 years, he destroyed me with that same power (with the help of step-father, of course) and I was rejected and kicked out of the home-parallel completely.

I was left feeling like it was all my fault in the end, as the gas-lighting was quite effective and the accident had caused a loss of memory. For many years, while I recovered my memory, I was made to feel guilty, like it was all my fault and my fault alone.

Now I have accumulated enough information to prove that I am actually nothing more than an innocent victim of one of the biggest liars I have ever known: my very own step-brother. As it turns out, he destroyed my life in the home-parallel, a suburban paradise, with lies.

I have to admit that I find it all completely illogical for me to feel guilty about something that I am obviously not responsible for.

Ren Tenrut, 2020-01-07

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A Short History of the Aton 5 Parallel by Ren Tenrut

The Aton 5 parallel was refracted away from the home-parallel around 1981, after the Neoconservatives violated MVC regulations and used radio-stations to brainwash the American working-class public with lies, which sewed the "seed of doubt' which led to the destruction of the antiwar democrats and paved the way for one of the most totalitarian violations of the U.S. Constitution in the 20th century, the insidious, perpetual "Drug War".

To fight the "Drug War" in 1981, after the Neoconservatives took the White House, they introduced "Zero Tolerance" policies; policies which were a complete violation of everyone's individual civil and constitutional rights, which gave the secret government and the police a free-pass to commit totalitarian actions against American citizens right in their own back yard, merely under the "suspicion" passed on by a complete stranger that "illegal drugs" might exist anywhere in the hands of anyone.

After enough experience and news about such totalitarian "police" actions in the early 1980s, everyone was forced to expect and respect random visits from an "anal probe" police anytime, especially in the lower middle-class and lower-class communities, where "big brothers and big sisters" formed something known as the "Neighborhood Watch" which worked directly with the Neocon masters to keep a close eye on anyone who might qualify as "lazy liberals" who might be a bad influence on their kids.

Nail on the head? Okay, the simple fact is everything went ass-backwards in the Aton 5 parallel after the Neocons took over in 1981. Americans lost rights, social progress and civil rights took a major set-back, the Catholic dark-age dogmatists and hypocrites worked with the Neocons and the Zionists to program Americans to be better robots to serve them, not better humans with healthy well-balanced lives, but robots to serve. Meanwhile the Protestants and antiwar democrats were either neutralized, transferred, criminalized, or disappeared, etc...

Martin Luther and civil rights took a serious set-back, unfortunately, as the Neocons pushed the lies about marijuana and antiwar pacifists and made anyone who disagreed with them about anything out to be lazy liberals. Lazy liberal was the label put on anyone not willing to go along with the new robotic program, a program which was designed to punish anyone unwilling to support their wars and their fascist capitalist economic policies.

The point is the Neoconservatives actually "lied" about marijuana and the antiwar democrats who used it, and spread those lies through the radio stations everywhere in 1980, the election year, and that actually was a violation of Multivertical regulations because it was a method of mind-control which depended upon the subjects not being aware of it.

In other words, technically, any form of mind-control which the subject was not aware of was a violation of their rights, and because the American public was not aware that they were being "brainwashed" into doubting the antiwar democrats and voting against them with lies, through a sophisticated form of mind-control, then what the Neocons did with the radio-stations in 1980, known as "mission creep mind-control", was actually a severe violation.

What the Neocons did in 1980 was more than a simple violation, it was much more than that, because it caused the Korbent Refraction, which led to the Aton 5 parallel, where fascist capitalists have hijacked the U.S. Federal and state governments and have managed to lie like experts to get the American working-class to go along with their bad economic and anti-democratic policies, all which have been cleverly designed to feed the executive, millionaire-class and make it big and fat, while squeezing the life out of the lower and middle-classes.

Anyone who failed to go along with the Neoconservatives during the 1980s, within the Aton 5 parallel, was rejected by society, relegated to the under-class and homelessness, criminalized, or completely disappeared or killed.

Social and Economic reforms proposed by the antiwar left-wing and socialists were completely rejected by the Neoconservatives within the Aton 5 parallel in the early 1980s. Programs related to education and healthcare for the lower and middle-classes were gutted, while millions were poured into sports and the "Drug War".

Aton 5 evolved in a kind of funny way after the Neoconservatives took over in 1981. It was a mixed union between the Neocon masters, their Neo-Spartan robots, and the Religious Zionists who promoted the dark age dogma which kept the common masses dumbed down while they conducted their war and destroyed all that was left of the antiwar left-wing that opposed them.

It was funny because, well, for one thing, the Neo-Spartan robots didn't actually all agree with the dark age dogmatists, especially on their days off from work, if you get my drift. In fact, some of them may have gotten a little too close to that evil left-wing socialist and renowned lazy liberal, the notorious multi-millionaire hedonist Hugh Hefner!

In fact, something similar like that did eventually happen, and the religious-right themselves got caught up in a scandal after it got a little out of hand. What remained of the left-wing and all true independent artists had a big laugh after that, because it exposed the Neocons and their religious-right dogmatists as hypocrites to the world.

But not to worry, Neocon fascist capitalist lovers, because by that time the Neocons had fixed the status quo so that they had near-absolute control over the economy and weeding out anyone who continued to pose any problems for them was as simple as planting illegal drugs on them and turning the mainstream against them. Or, if that didn't work, they could always catch them in a honey-trap and inhibit their ability to share the love and the money after the fact.

Despite the obvious hypocrisy, the Neoconservatives went on to sell more big lies to humanity, and made a seriously evil come-back after an event known as 9/11 which definitely qualifies as an unresolved X-file in this intelligence office. The Neocons blamed it on Muslim terrorists and used it as a pretext for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, in 2001 and 2003.

While the mainstream "corporate media" has been peddling endless lies designed to give them all the power and permission they need from the dumbed-down Americans (and their allies) to bomb anyone anywhere back to the stone age, because they're "not nice" like we are, the alternative media has been reporting the truth and being suppressed within the mainstream for doing so.

The truth has become well-known amongst the alternative media and the left-wing that supports it. The imperial wars being waged by the United States have nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with oil and gas resources, or any valuable resources that the fascist capitalists get their minds set on and want to take.

For example, Afghanistan was not invaded because of the terrorist group behind the 9/11 event. That was just the pretext the Neocons needed for the invasion, to make it look legit. The real reason was they needed Afghanistan for an oil pipeline to the sea, and because the mountains in Afghanistan have some of the most valuable minerals in the world, worth millions to the ones who could extract it.

The truth is that within the Aton 5 parallel, the Neoconservatives have built an empire upon lies, and as I record this, they continue to get away with it, despite all of the obvious human rights, civil rights, and Constitutional rights in violation. It's really quite simple: they simply deny and lie, and cover it with more lies. The method has worked quite well for them.

But it's easy to treat the world like your petting zoo when you've got more wealth and power than any old world royalty ever had. Within the Aton 5 parallel, the wealthy ruling-class in the 21st century "Computer Age" appears to be more and more like a form of "Corporate Royalty" every year.

Unfortunately, by 2020, the Aton 5 parallel in the hands of the Neofascist Capitalists has become caught up in an imperial quagmire like nothing any science-fiction writer ever imagined.

As the old saying goes: "Oh, what a tangled web they weave, when first they practice to deceive."

Ren Tenrut, 2020-01-07

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Par Median Aton 5.785

2020 Vision

List of Reforms

1. End Drug War and Restore Constitutional Rights

2. Restore liberal arts budget to percentage before it was cut in 1981.

3. Popular petition to IG to stop wars pending investigation.

4. A universal 4-day work-week

5. Limit on Personal and Private wealth

6. Introduction of SLDT

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"The Korbent Refraction" by Nick Zentor

Copyright: Coldpost-85, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

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Multivertical Man Series Ebooks

TSV08 / MVM000: Fool's Errand: Redemption

MVM014: A Multivertical Conjunction

MVM016: The Korbent Refraction

MVM017: The Last Resort

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Temspace Variant Ebooks

TSV00: Day of the Mystikon

TSV05: Alternatives

TSV08: Fool's Errand: Redemption

