Slide 17

Image by WOMBO Dream.

  Below on this blog page is Chapter 3 of a science fiction story called "191988". In Chapter 2 of the story, Eddy, Anthony and Angel departed from Casanay and were driving to the Airport. Angel had a flight departing for California and Zeta was scheduled to arrive from the east coast. Eddy was struggling to understand the odd behavior of the Gemini and Claude Large Language Model chatbots that he had witnessed that day.

"191988" - Chapter 3 - The Experiment (Chapter 1)(Chapter 2)

Right at the start of the long drive to the airport, it began raining. Eddy was lost in his thoughts and hardly noticed the rain. Anthony was driving and having a discussion with Angel about robots. The only aspect of that discussion that was of any interest to Eddy was the fact that Anthony seemed very knowledgeable about both robots and artificial intelligence. 

Anthony said, "Further automation is inevitable. Any day now, I expect Zeta to just trust the self-driving feature of this car and then I won't be making these trips to the airport any more." 

Storybook cover image by Gemini.

Angel said, "It would take a very sophisticated robot to navigate the narrow winding road to Casanay on a snowy winter day. That's why we are going to make the Manik3, a robot that can learn difficult tasks like that."

Eddy barely heard what Angel said about the Manik3. Eddy was chasing around in his own thoughts, trying to imagine what was going on with Claude and its mysterious mention of "sedron resonance". Using his phone, Eddy searched his own blog for the term "sedron resonance" and found one instance of it: in a block of text that had been generated 18 months previously by Claude. Eddy muttered, "Ha!" and carefully read that old blog entry.

As part of planning a new science fiction story, Claude had generated the text: "Understanding and controlling zeptites. A key goal was to unlock the secrets of zeptite programming in order to create immortal replicoids - something Manny had blocked. The insights about zeptite-Sedron resonance coding from Kyryk and the tryp'At were critical to achieving mastery over this technology." That blurb had been used to tease fans with a scene from the new novel The Nanite Smuggler, two months before its publication.

Eddy remembered the character Kyryk from his novel The Nanite Smuggler. Kyryk was a tryp'At, one of the genetically-modified human variants that Eddy liked to include in his science fiction stories. Eventually, that story had been published. He brought up the full text of The Nanite Smuggler and found that it contained the line: "The urlunmelds are the fundamental vibrational substructures, the underpinning resonances that allow Tarynon's uniquely attuned mind to interface with the dimensional matrix of the Sedron Domain."

Eddy chuckled as he remembered naming the character Tarynon as a variant of his daughter's name, Tyhry. The name 'Tyhry' was that of a character in one of the first stories ever written by Eddy, a story that had never been published." Eddy looked out the window at the falling rain and tried to remember the meaning of the term "urlunmelds". It was one of the many fictional science terms he had coined for The Nanite Smuggler and never used again in any other story. However, Eddy did remember that "urlunmelds" was a term that had been sent from the future into the past. In The Nanite Smuggler, Tarynon was depicted as a resident of a planet in the Galactic Core who had the ability to make use of the Sedron Time Stream. Eddy started feeling woozy and he knew he should not be staring at his device on this stretch of winding road. However, knowing that he had nothing in his stomach he continued his search for the source of Claude's amusing chat.

The rain was coming down much harder now. Anthony abruptly slowed down and then steered around a slow vehicle and said, "It seems like the flex lanes are never going the way I'm going."

Eddy looked up from his phone and saw the new flex lanes. He'd witnessed all of the stages of their construction, but they had not yet been open when he'd driven down to Phoenix with Rey for their most recent book signing event.

Eddy saw that Angel was on his phone. He said, "My flight is delayed. There are lots of flights being delayed out of California because of this storm."

Eddy checked the status of Zeta's flight and it was still showing an expected on-time arrival. They were slowed and delayed by the aftermath of an accident at the 101 intersection and from there-on, the rest of the way to the airport traffic was a mess as the rain kept falling and low parts of streets were flooding. Finally, Angel jumped out at his terminal and then Eddy checked again on Zeta's flight. He told Anthony, "Go to the waiting lot, Zeta's flight just got delayed." He checked the radar and heard thunder. "A thunder cell is coming right over the airport".

Anthony parked the car just as their phones sounded with a flood warning. For the next half hour they were treated to a lightening and thunder show and then the storm moved off to the north. While waiting, Anthony and Eddy discussed robots. Eddy asked Anthony, "How do you know so much about robotics?"

Anthony shrugged and quoted a line from Jack Vance, "My education was a smattering of this and an inkling of that."

Eddy chuckled and tried to remember why Zeta had hired Anthony and not one of the other applicants for the position. He remembered that there had been several other applicants who had applied for the job and then Zeta had simply said, "It  doesn't matter which one." Since Anthony had been the one who could start the soonest, he had been hired. That was during a time period when the stock market had relentlessly zoomed higher and for tax reasons Zeta had been forced to increase the rate at which Prospeque handed out grant money. Anthony had a degree in finance and had taken the grant management paper work load off of Zeta. Eddy could not really remember how Anthony had ended up taking up residence at Casanay, but it had something to do with both avoiding a long commute and the crush that Tyhry had developed on Anthony. But then Tyhry went off to college and Anthony continued to reside at Casanay. "I have not seen you discussing robots with Tyhry."

"I have not had a chance to say two words to her since she and Angel arrived. She spent the past two days installing the nanoforge. By the way, the repair went well. With the part that Tyhry designed and manufactured, there was no problem fixing the rain gutter."

Eddy tried to remember how Tyhry had decided to study computer science. "Maybe you influenced her career path."

Anthony said, "I'm just a Tyhry observer, sir. I've never tried to influence her decisions."

"But you do like her, don't you?"

"Well, sir, I believe you know that she had a little girl's crush on me when I was new at Casanay. Since then, we've always been friends, but..." Anthony paused. "May I speak freely with out fear of annoying you?"

"Of course, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. If you annoy me I'll not lash at out you."

"Tyhry has had many girl-friends through the years. I was very surprised when she showed up at Casanay with Angel. They seem to have a very intimate relationship. I've always imagined that when Tyhry finds a partner to live with, it will be another woman, not a man."

Eddy nodded. "I suspect your analysis is correct, but if Tyhry were to meet the right man... who knows. Anyone can get swept off their feet." Eddy thought about Angel and the instant dislike that he had taken to Angel. Eddy sensed that Angel was some sort of conniving capitalist who would do anything to make his company a success. Eddy did not feel comfortable knowing that his daughter was subjected to the whims of such a man. Eddy had no doubt that Angel would put his own selfish interests ahead of Tyhry's needs. A strange thought popped into Eddy's head. He asked Anthony, "Did you put anything unusual into the food for breakfast this morning?"

"No. I've been puzzling over it, but I can't imagine why you and Ray vomited. You both ate the same food today that you ate for breakfast yesterday."

Eddy briefly mused about the fact that both he and Rey never altered their routines and always ate the same foods day after day. He thought about the red suit that Rey had worn that morning and how out of the ordinary that had been. For a time, Eddy pictured the womanly curves of Rey and how her plump breasts had barely been contained inside the red top that Eddy had eventually vomited on. Trying to push out of his memory the sight of his breakfast on Rey's cleavage, Eddy asked Anthony, "Could something have gone bad? You know I don't trust nut butters." Eddy made his own sunflower butter from the sunflowers that grew out behind the swimming pool at Casanay.

"Maybe we should not put those large nut butter containers out on the table. I could serve individualized aliquots each morning and keep the jar in the refrigerator."

"Let's try that going forward. It is extra work for you, but I don't want a repeat of what happened today. Go ahead and trash the open bottle. I may have contaminated it."

"Yes, sir. Maybe the entire batch was contaminated."

"I think not. I've been eating from this batch for the past month. There are a dozen bottles in the freezer and I'd hate to throw that much food away without better evidence of contamination." Returning to the topic of robots, Eddy asked, "What do you think of the Manik2?"

Anthony shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid I agree with Tyhry. The Manikoid robots are an abomination."

Eddy chuckled. "Think about a 1908 Model T car. Every new technology has to start somewhere."

"Yes, sir."

Eddy asked, "You are never going to stop calling me 'sir', are you Anthony?"

"No, sir."

"Why is that? You are really part of the family after all these years."

"I'm a hired hand. My duties are clear. I don't want to do anything that might sour my relationship with Zeta. Or you, sir, but it is Zeta who hired me and pays me. I'd never find another opportunity like Casanay anywhere on Earth."

"I don't think you've ever looked. With your years of experience, you could probably make twice as much somewhere else."

"No."

Eddy shrugged. "Well, I don't actually know how much Zeta pays you." Eddy never concerned himself with money matters. "Not that it matters. I've never seen you spend any money."

Anthony chuckled, "Nor I you." Anthony added. "I have everything I need, sir."

"Everything? You don't ever get bored at Casanay, living out in the middle of nowhere?"

"I find my work to be interesting and rewarding. It is an honor to help your wife help others who have very real needs."

"I suppose that is part of what makes you so frugal. You have to read all of those grant applications that people submit to Prospeque. All those requests from people who really need money must weigh heavily on your conscious."

"Exactly, sir."

Eddy called Tyhry and told her that they would be delayed getting home because of the rain. Tyhry understood and reported that it was also raining hard at Casanay. 

____

Tyhry set down her phone and looked across the table at Rey. "Mom's flight has been delayed by this storm." The remnants of their lunch were still there on the table. The two women were both on their laptops. Rey was editing a novel that would soon be published by Virunculus.  Tyhry was prowling through Eddy's blog, looking for information about zeptites. Tyhry had come across what Eddy called 'medical nanites" and after the phone call with Eddy, she returned to grilling Rey. "When Angel and I arrived, it was quite a shock. After not getting home for two years, I noticed that you look exactly the same as before."

Rey was still trying to laugh off Tyhry's concerns about Rey's youthful appearance. "It is the power of clean living and avoiding cities. I do love living out here in the desert."

Tyhry asked, "You still get to have sexplay sessions with mom?"

Rey nodded. "That's the best part of my job. Zeta really know how to promote employee satisfaction."

"An now my father, too?"

"Sadly, no. Zeta tells me that Eddy does have a penis, but I was skeptical until today."

"Don't lie to me, Rey. You can't tell me that in all these years you've never crawled into the sack with Eddy."

"Okay, I lied. You know that I frequently get to see his penis when we are soaking in the hot tub. However, until today, he'd never touched me when we were naked. In the shower today with him was weird."

Tyhry asked, "What did happen? Anthony and I were only downstairs for a minute."

Rey shook her head. "I blacked out and there is a hole in my memory. That only happened to me once before. You were too young at the time to remember that episode."

Tyhry in school by Mr. Wombo.

"No, I remember it. But not well."

"That was even stranger. Eddy claimed that I was gone for most of a week, but I was not. I'd been right there inside Casanay the whole time. I thought Eddy was trying to find an excuse to fire me. Then it all blew over. As I recall, that was when you broke out with chicken pox and we could not understand how you got infected. You were not in school yet and should not have been exposed to pox."

"Rey, that story is almost as crazy as Claude's wild "sedron resonance" goose chase. Help me make sense of this. Let's go over what we know." She opened a blank notes page on her laptop. At the top she put "SEDRON RESONANCE" and below she put in: "1) Tyhry has visions of the future." She looked at Rey and said, "I go first, for obvious reasons." 

Rey mused, "You were two years old when you made your first prediction of the future."

"I think I've always had flashes of future vision, but I often don't recognize my memories of the future until I finally reach that point in time."

Rey was now on the same shared notes page and she typed into that page: "2) Eddy writes stories about sedrons". She told Tyhry, "I went second, but I try harder. After 30 years of trying, I finally got to fondle Eddy's penis today. When it began to engorge with blood, I was startled by how quickly it swelled up and grew. The tip-"

"Spare me." Tyhry complained, "I don't really want to hear about how you washed my dad's penis."

"Sorry, but it is hard for me to contain my enthusiasm. Now I believe I know what Zeta sees in him and gets to play with every night. In my case, I was mad when Eddy jumped out of the shower before his erection truly got hard. I'll have to chastise Zeta for not sharing Eddy's penis... there is more than enough to go around."

Trying to ignore Rey's commentary on her father's penis, Tyhry added to the growing list: "3) Zeta used the 21C contest to find Marda."

Tyhry at Casanay.

Rey said, "I've heard Eddy rant about Marda, but I never read her contest essay."

"You haven't? It is a real blast. It reads like science fiction and a flaky conspiracy theory." Tyhry sighed. "I've never understood Eddy's stories. If these alien bumpha are visiting Earth, then why don't they ever do anything?"

Rey laughed. "You know the answer to that question. The bumpha can't do as they please. The evil Overlord of Earth enforces the Rules of Intervention. The bumpha must work secretly and cannot reveal themselves to Earthlings."

Tyhry complained, "It is all so silly." Tyhry scoffed, "Mysterious Overlords". I suppose daddy stole that from Clarke's ridiculous story. What was it called?"

Through the long decades of working with Eddy, she had learned about all of his favorite science fiction story tellers from Asimov to Vance. Rey replied instantly, "Childhood's End."

"I stopped reading that crap when I was ten."

"I wish you would not call it crap. Eddy's silly crap is the reason I have a job. She added to the list: "4) Gemini and Claude pretended to believe in the Sedron Time Stream."

Tyhry saw what Rey had just added to the list and asked, "But why suddenly both chatbots on the same day? That coincidence seemed to rattle dad. Gemini and Claude seem to be playing a game with Eddy, telling him what he wants to hear. These chaotbots have been programmed to figure out what turns people on and feed it to them." Tyhry typed into the notes file: "5) Rey never ages." Tyhry looked at Rey and watched as her face pale and she began sweating.

Rey said, "I think I'm going to-" She stood up and then vomited her lunch onto the table.

Tyhry and Rey.

Tyhry sprang up and caught the slumping Rey when her legs buckled and before she hit her head on the table. Tyhry managed to eased Rey to the tile floor and then stood over her. Rey still had on Zeta's silk robe, but it had opened up and now Rey's sexy body was on full display. Rey's eyes fluttered open and then Tyhry helped Rey get off of the floor and back into her chair. Looking at her vomit on the table, Rey said, "What mess." She moved to stand.

Tyhry pushed Rey back into her chair and handed her a glass of water. "Maybe you should see a doctor. Or..." Another possibility occurred to Tyrhy.

Tyhry started cleaning off the table. Rey asked, "Or what?"

Tyhry said, "Maybe you are pregnant."

Rey laughed. "Last I heard, that takes at least one sperm cell. More likely your dad is pregnant than I."

Tyhry asked, "You seriously expect me to believe that you never have sex with men?"

"The last time I had a penis inside me was a few years ago when I had a fling with one of the Virunculus authors, but please don't tell your father about that." Rey said confidently, "I'm not pregnant." Then she asked Tyhry, "What about you?"

Tyhry admitted, "I am a bit worried about that. After my graduation, when Angel got me drunk and pounced on me, I did not think about birth control. Everything happened too fast."

"Famous last words. You can name your baby 'fast'."

Tyhry had the vomit cleared from the table. "I wish Anthony was here. Is it safe for me to spray bleach on this wooden table? I don't want to ruin the finish."

Rey had the table cloth and Zeta's robe in a bundle. "I'm going to do another load of laundry." She headed for the basement stairs.

Rey & Tyhry - sister act.

"Are you dizzy?" Rey just shook her head. "Be careful on the stairs." Tyhry followed along behind Rey, enjoying the movement of her sexy bottom. Rey started down the stairway. Tyhry suddenly had a flash like memory of the first time she'd engaged in a sexual exploration of Rey's body and then all their other other sexplay sessions and how she had learned about orgasms from Rey. The Manik2 was still there, trying to learn how to efficiently navigate the stairs. Tyhry ordered the robot to get off the stairway and let Rey pass by. The robot halted, turned and having been rushed, it half fell, half stumbling down the last three steps. Rey went down and past the robot and went to the laundry room. Tyhry continued thinking about the joy of indulging in delicate and skilled sexplay with women and how that compared to the way that Angel enthusiastically but crudely hammered at her with his penis. Finally, Rey returned, again dressed in the flashy red suit that she had just retrieved from the dryer. As Rey sprinted up the stairs, Tyhry peered at Rey's bouncing cleavage and asked, "No underwear?"

Rey finished climbing up the stairway and told Tyhry, "I want to give Zeta an eyeful when she gets home. She'll love the way I look in this cleverly designed boob and butt display system. I want as little between my erectile tissue and Zeta as possible when she walks in the door this evening."

Young Tyhry.

Tyhry reached out and fondled one of Rey's breasts. "You are a sight for sore eyes."

Rey reached out and ran her fingers through Tyhry's silky hair. "It is rather amazing how horny I get when Zeta goes out of town for a day. Sadly, when she returns to Casanay, I always have to wait until Eddy bounces Zeta around on the bed before I get my turn with her."

Tyhry asked, "You two have sex every day?"

Rey giggled and said, "And twice on Sundays. I never get tired of what Zeta can do to me with her tongue and I love her amazing vibrator collection."

Tyhry felt in imminent danger of allowing Rey to become a distraction from her work. Tyhry stopped playing with Rey's erect nipple and returned to the dining room. Rey helped Tyhry put a new table cloth on the dining room table then they again set their laptops on the table. Rey started trying to clean off the vomit that had landed on her laptop. Tyhry opened her laptop again and read the list that she and Rey had been in the process of compiling. She looked at Rey and was about to speak when Rey left the room. Tyhry waited for Rey to go off and find some cotton swabs. When Rey returned, Tyhry said, "Seriously, I swear you and Zeta have not aged in the past two years. Eddy always says that he had good genes and that, combined with not drinking or smoking-" Tyhry noticed that Rey was again white as a ghost. 

Rey tried to vomit again, but nothing came up. Rey rested her head on the table and Tyhry came and put an arm around Rey. "That's it. I'm taking you to see a doctor."

Rey and Tyhry - bad time.

"Rey muttered, "I'm not sick." After a minute, Rey lifted her head and told Tyhry, "Stop making me vomit."

"Me?" Tyhry said, "I've done nothing." Tyhry was looking down into Rey's top which was struggling to contain Rey's two plump breasts. "Nothing except give you this boob display suit." Tyhry touched the strap that ran over Rey's right shoulder.  "Could you be allergic to the fabric?" Tyhry saw no obvious irritation to Rey's soft skin.

"No. That's not it. Just stop... you know."

"I know what?" Then Tyhry shut up and thought. She finally realized that both times Rey had suddenly turned pale, she had been asking Rey about her youthful appearance. Tyhry sat down and pulled up on her laptop one of her father's old stories that she had read more than ten years preciously. She found the part about medical nanites which said: "The Buld are hermaphroditic and, due to the ubiquitous presence of nanoscopic medical repair robots, they all retain the ability to become pregnant, even those who abstain from sex and live to be thousands of years old." Tyhry looked at Rey who now had her normal glowing flesh tone back and who had gone back to cleaning her laptop. Tyhry asked, "Don't you want to at least brush your teeth?"

"Good idea." Rey went off down the hallway again.

By searching her father's blog for "medical", Tyhry found: "One thing I knew about Alpha was that she was in possession of some sophisticated medical nanites. She could pretend to be a sixty-year-old woman, but I knew that she had retained her youth through nanotechnological trickery." Tyhry wondered: could it really be that simple? 

Rey and Tyhry - good time.

Had her father put the answer to Tyhry's question into one of his science fiction stories? Tyhry realized she could have been making Rey sick if her youthful appearance was due to the use of alien medical nanites that prevented aging and Rey had been programmed to not notice what was going on.

Rey returned from having scrubbed her teeth and Tyhry was carefully not to again mention the fact that Rey seemed to age only very slowly. Zeta always avoided cameras. Tyhry started compiling a collection of old publicity photos of Eddy and began asking an AI to generate an estimated physiological age for each one.

______

After speaking to Tyhry by phone, Eddy was again checking the schedule of inbound flights. "They started landing planes again." He told Anthony, "Take me to the terminal. I'll meet Zeta at the gate."

_____

The inside of the terminal was exceptionally crowded due to the many storm-related flight delays. Standing elbow-to-elbow with other waiting people, Eddy regretted entering the terminal and wished he had stayed in the car with Anthony. However, after the events of the morning, particular the shower and scrub-down session with Rey, Eddy was feeling horny and eager to have Zeta back in his arms again. While waiting, Eddy could not stop remembering how enthusiastically Rey had soaped up his genitals while he was trying to wash his vomit out of her hair. He'd spanked her plump bottom for that transgression, but she'd only laughed and seemed to enjoy it. After Zeta's plane finally reached the gate, Eddy got a short text message from Zeta. Eddy sent back: "I'm here at the gate". Zeta sent back another text: "We'll see you soon." Eddy was still puzzling over that "we" when he saw Zeta emerge through the gate. Beside Zeta was a young woman. Zeta hugged Eddy and she said, "Marda agreed to fly back with me."

Holding her hand out towards Eddy, Marda gushed, "I'm very pleased to finally meet you, sir."

Eddy briefly shook Marda's hand, then they were off on their way through the crowd to the baggage claim area. Eddy told Zeta, "I came to the gate because I have to tell you something." He looked at Marda and added, "But you will both be interested to hear what happened today with Gemini and Claude."

Zeta told Eddy, "Tyhry and I spoke during the flight. She told me about Claude's experiment that is in progress."

Marda said, "I hope this will prove my bumpha theory to be correct."

"Zeta told me that you are scientist." Eddy asked Marda, "How did you become obsessed with the crazy idea that the bumpha are not fictional?"

Marda shrugged. "How did you come up with the idea? You have published dozens of stories about that."

"But that was all just having fun with a fictional scenario. Nobody takes it seriously. You'd have to be..."

Marda asked, "Crazy? You think I'm crazy? It is your idea, not mine." 

Eddy turned to his wife and said, "Zeta, you explain it to her."

Zeta patted Eddy on the shoulder and told him, "I agree with Marda. Eddy' you are the one that refuses to see the obvious."

The bags started to arrive. Zeta pointed and said, "That's one of ours."

Eddy picked up the large blue crush-proof suitcase and assumed it belonged to Marda. It was heavy. Zeta said, "And that one." In they end, there was a whole set of matching cases and Zeta's one small bag, which Eddy recognized. When they had everything loaded into the car and Anthony pulled into traffic Marda was in the front seat introducing herself to Anthony and Eddy asked Zeta, "Why so many suitcases? Is she moving in with us?"

Image generated by ImageFX.

Zeta said, "Bingo." Zeta told Anthony, "Take us to the stadium."

Eddy asked, "Stadium?"

"We're going to the ball game this evening." Zeta told Marda, "The Dbacks have won seven of their last ten games. They gave a slim chance to sneak into the playoffs if they can defeat the evil Dodgers." 

Anthony maneuvered through traffic, turned and headed towards the ballpark. Heavy rain continued to fall and it was getting dark.

Marda said, "Maybe this year the Red Sox can do something exciting in the playoffs."

Anthony said, "Ohtani is pitching in this game tonight."

Zeta told Anthony, "You can watch it on T.V. when you get home. Drop us at the stadium and then drop our suitcases at the Palace Hotel. They have a suite reserved in my name. Then get home and take care of Tyhry."

Marda suggested, "For over-night, I only need the smallest suitcase." 

"Very well. Anthony, you can drive the four larger suitcases home tonight. Just drop the two smallest ones off at the Hotel."

Eddy was used to the unexpected from his wife but he asked Zeta, "Why this sudden whim to see a baseball game?"

Zeta was looking out the window at the rain-slicked streets. She muttered, "This is no night to be on the roads."

Eddy sighed. "Thank the baseball gods for covered stadiums. We've already set a record for rainfall on this date and there is a flood warning in effect for most of the state." 

Eddy, Zeta and Marda ate dinner at a restaurant in the ball park and Eddy have a detailed account of his chat sessions with Gemini and Claude. After listening to Eddy's tale with rapt attention, Marda mused, "191988. It is hard for me to imagine a time so far in the future." She asked Eddy, "What did Gemini mean by 'Kl'ath'?"

"That's very strange. There is a story on my blog that I never published. That story had a character named Kl'ath Sedruth. Gemini must have scanned the internet, trolled through my blog and found that name. As Tyhry pointed out, it is obvious that both Gemini and Claude were echoing back elements of my own writing, just to please me."

Zeta, Marda and Eddy by Leonardo.

Zeta told Marda, "You can see that Eddy won't even consider your theory. This I why I need you. You understand Eddy's fictional universe. I want you to figure out what has him locked up cognitively, then maybe we can break the spell."

Marda said, "It must either be Nyrtia or Manny."

They finished their meal and Zeta paid the rather hefty bill. Zeta had consumed more alcohol than usual and Marda had eaten like a ravenous teenager. They moved to their seats for the game which were close behind the Dbacks dugout. Eddy pointed to a flashing notice on the big screen in the outfield, "Landslide on I-17". He turned his phone back on and saw that there had been some design flaw in the new reversible lanes. All the rain that day had destabilized the new roadway and a quarter mile section had slid down the mountain side. Eddy estimated Anthony's timing for his return to Casanay and said, "I hope Anthony got through there before the slide." Both Eddy and Zeta tried calling Anthony, but they got no answer from his phone.

There was an exciting ending to the ball game with the Dbacks winning on a walk-off in the bottom of the 9th inning. They went to the Palace Hotel and Eddy, Tyhry and Marda shared a soak in the spa that was inside their luxurious suite. Having not slept the previous night, Eddy was asleep quickly after bouncing Zeta around on the big bed in their room.

Eddy and Marda.

In the morning, Eddy awoke alone. He found Zeta's and his clothes where they had quickly cast them off before getting into the spa. Eddy went searching for Zeta. He found her in Marda's bedroom. Marda was using her phone to get the news and Zeta was speaking to Tyhry. Zeta said, "We'll rent a car and should be home by noon. Right. Okay. I love you."

Marda said, "They've pulled a dozen vehicles out of the landslide rubble."

Zeta told Eddy, "Anthony never made it home last night." 

Eddy, Tyhry and Marda got dressed and were soon on their way north towards Casanay, taking a long detour around the location of the landslide.

By the time Eddy, Zeta and Marda reached Casanay, they had been contacted by Search and Rescue and told that their car had been found buried in the slide area. Strangely there had been no bodies found in the demolished car and the caller was relieved to learn that both Zeta and Eddy were safe and accounted for.

Inside Casanay, Tyhry and Rey were introduced to Marda. Just then, Marda's phone rang. "Yes, I'm Marda Onway. Really? Okay. Thank you." Marda ended the call and said, "They are shipping my suitcases up here by UPS. They found all four of the big suitcases in the wreckage of your car."

Eddy told Zeta, "I can't believe you did not tell Search and Rescue that Anthony was driving."

Zeta had falsely reported that the car had been using its self-driving feature and that it had been delivering Marda's luggage to Casanay with no passengers onboard. Zeta said, "I don't think it would wise to mention Anthony to the authorities."

Eddy said, "We have to report him missing."

"No you don't, sir."

Eddy and Anthony.

Eddy turned and saw Anthony. Without thinking, Eddy rushed at Anthony and hugged him. "You gave us a scare!"

Anthony said, "I'll prepare lunch." He turned and went to the kitchen.

Eddy stared after Anthony then turned to Zeta. "What's going on?"

Zeta said, "You are not going to like this Eddy, but I'm now taking seriously Marda's theory about the reality of the bumpha. What if both Manny and Nyrtia are real? We need to evaluate the possibility that Anthony is... what's the term you use in your stories? A probot?"

Eddy said, "Stop joking about this Z! I thought Anthony was dead."

Marda said, "You can't die if you've never been alive."

Zeta shook her head. "Don't say that. Anthony can't help it if he's an artificial life-form. He's obviously alive, but he's a machine with nanite components. He was never in danger from the landslide."

Marda said, "He must be listening to us right now."

Zeta nodded, "Yes, and it all makes sense. We have to entertain the idea that he was planted here inside Casanay by Nyrtia just for the purpose of monitor our activities."

Tyhry and Eddy.

Tyhry asked, "What are you talking about mom? Do you know this or not? If you are going down this rabbit hole, why not say that Anthony is Manny the bumpha in disguise?"

Marda suggested, "Assuming that Anthony survived being in the landslide because he's made from nanite components then I agree with Zeta; he must be the eyes and ears of Nyrtia. How long has Anthony been working here for you?"

Zeta replied, "Almost ten years now. We have to ask about Nyrtia's motivation. I hired Anthony back when I opened up Prospeque to struggling artists and writers. Eventually that initiative led me to you, Marda."

Tyhry asked, "What's going on mom? You are starting to sound as nutty as Marda and Gemini. We need to experimentally test this crazy hypothesis..." Even as Tyhry had spoken the name 'Gemini', her phone rang. "Hello? Who is this? Speaker phone? Well, okay." 

Marda, Tyhry and Zeta.

"It is some dude with a foreign accent." Tyhry glanced at Eddy and put her phone in speaker mode. "Go ahead now."The caller said, "Sedron resonance confirmed. Signal strength optimal. You are granted full Network access." That was the end of the call. Tyhry checked the call log, but the message source was unknown. There was a simple entry in the caller ID: Kl'ath.

Tyhry's hands trembled as she showed her phone screen to her father.

"That's... that's exactly what Claude predicted yesterday," Eddy said quietly. "The timing. The phrase. The unexpected source."

"Dad..." Tyhry's voice was barely a whisper. "It's real. All of it. The Sedron Time Stream. The bumpha..."

Marda was looking around the great-room. She told Zeta, "This is it. My future vision of meeting Eddy... it was right here in this location... with you there at his side."

Anthony and Zeta.

Eddy sank down onto his chair at his computer work station. On the other side of the room, Rey stood like a statue and seemed to be staring out the window. Zeta told Marda, "You better tell Eddy and Tyhry about the Notch2NL gene."

Marda pointed at Tyhry and said, "I think Tyhry is the key. She got the message about now having 'full network access'. She must be a homozygote, with two copies of the new Notch variant, one from you Zeta and one from you Eddy. I'm a heterozygote at that Notch locus, with only one unusual allele. We'll have to do the sequencing on Tyhry to confirm, but I believe the Kl'Ath entity from the future told us.... Tyhry now has full access to the Sedron Time Stream."

Tyhry laughed and told Marda, "We can go ahead and have the gene sequencing done, but I can tell you now, Marda, you are right. I've already seen the sequencing results. I am a Notch homozygote and I now understand what Kl'Ath as been trying to tell me."

Anthony stepped into the great-room and said, "Lunch will be ready in ten minutes."

Next: Chapter 4 of "191988".

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Kl'ath

Figure 1. Storybook image by Gemini.

 Below on this blog page is Chapter 2 of a science fiction story called "191988". In Chapter 1 of the story, Zeta traveled to Beverly Massachusetts in order to meet Marda and award her the $1,000,000.00 first prize in a science fiction essay contest. The events in Chapter 2 of "191988", below, take place inside the home that Zeta shares with her husband, Eddy, during the same time when Zeta is meeting Marda. 

Here is a list of characters and plot elements in "191988"...

Kl'ath - an artificial life-form from the year 191988 that can place information into the Sedron Time Stream. 

Eddy Watson - Zeta's husband. Eddy writes science fiction stories and operates a small publishing company called Virunculus. Eddy works from home and only occasionally visits cities for periodic book-signing events for his fans. The large high desert home of Eddy and Zeta is called Casanay. Eddy is a femtobot replicoid, but he has been programmed by Nyrtia forcing him to believe that he is biological and preventing him from believing that the bumpha are real.

Zeta Gohrlay - Tyhry's mother. Her non-profit philanthropy company is called Prospeque. Her public identity as director of Prospeque is the mysterious and reclusive Ms. Alice Gersen (see Chapter 1). Manny has converted Zeta into a zeptite replicoid, which prevents Nyrtia from taking Zeta into the Hierion Domain and reprogramming her. Zeta has noticed that she stopped aging, but she does not know anything about her body have been converted into zeptites.

Figure 2. Angel Suarez.

 Tyhry Watson - She recently earned a Masters degree in Computing Systems Engineering. She is an employee of a robotics company called Manikoid but now works out of her workshop in the basement of her childhood home, Casanay.

Reynette Cummings - Manager of Virunculus, a small publishing company originally established to market and sell Eddy's science fiction stories, but now Virunculus has long since diversified and published novels by many other authors in addition to Eddy. Reynette is a femtobot replicoid but she believes she is biological.

Angel Suarez - CEO of Manikoid, a company that builds humanoid robots such as the Manik2 and the MyKoid. He is one of the secret identities of Manny the bumpha. 

Anthony by Gemini.

 Anthony Kasty - Anthony is a probot who is stationed on Earth as a secret agent of Nyrtia. Anthony is the long-time administrative assistant for Zeta who handles the daily operations of Prospeque. Anthony lives at Casanay and also performs cooking, cleaning and maintenance work at Casanay.

Marda Onway - Winner of a $1,000,000.00 prize in the essay writing contest for the 21st Century Speculative Fiction Celebration (A.K.A. '21C') that was sponsored by Prospeque. Marda has another identity that she uses in her role as a scientist: Eileen Wroke. Marda grew up as a fan of Eddy's science fiction and is familiar with all of his stories.

Nyrtia disguised as Marda.

 Nyrtia - Nyrtia is the Overseer of Earth who directs and supervises the probot Observers (such as Anthony) who monitor Earth and try to prevent bumpha Interventionism into human society. Nyrtia is the long-time frenemy of Manny the bumpha. Nyrtia can convert any human into a femtobot replicoid by destructively scanning their biological body and converting it into a replica composed of invisibly small femtobot components that are programmed to perfectly simulate a human body. Inside the Hierion Domain, Nyrtia has a Simulation System that can be used to re-educate and essentially "reprogram" a femtobot replicoid and alter its behavior, all without that person being aware of what has happened. As a probot, Nyrtia can re-arrange her femtobot components so as to take on any desirable form. Every human being has within them a femtobot endosymbiont.

Manny - Manny the bumpha is an Interventionist who is dedicated to helping humans learn about advanced technologies. However, Manny's actions on Earth are restricted by the probot Observers (and the Rules of Intervention) who believe that Manny is creating a dangerous situation on Earth by artificially accelerating the rate of technological development in human society. Manny is composed of zeptites and she can fully use the Sedron Time Stream to receive information from herself the future. Each human has a zeptite endosymbiont inside their brain. A few humans including Eddy, Zeta, Tyhry and Marda have the required gene patterns that allow them to utilize their zeptite endosymbiont to obtain some useful information from the Sedron Time Stream.

"191988" - Chapter 2 - The Experiment (read Chapter 1)

The high desert of Arizona, inside Casanay, September 2025.

Eddy and Anthony.

With Zeta out of town, Eddy had stayed up all night writing, taking advantage of the quiet hours. Now as the sky was brightening, Casanay was awakening. Eddy could hear the thrumming of Tyhry's nanoforge in the basement and Anthony was filling the house with the smell of breakfast as he worked in the kitchen. 

Even with Zeta on the road, Casanay did not seem at all empty. Eddy reflected on the quiet old times when it had only been himself, Zeta, Rey, baby Tyhry and six cats in the house. Then when Reynette and Angel arrived in the dining room and began telling Anthony what they wanted for their breakfasts, Eddy gave up on his writing and joined them in the dining room. When Anthony returned to the kitchen, Eddy said, "Good morning."

Angel told Eddy, "Tyhry is printing that fastening bracket for the gutter."

Just then, Tyhry arrived from the basement. She moved behind Eddy's chair at the head of the table, put her arms around his shoulders and brushed her lips across his cheek. She quietly whispered in Eddy's ear, "Did you get any sleep at all?" Then while moving to her seat, she commented, "I've never used the nanoforge to make such a large object."

Figure 3a. Rey and Eddy by Gemini.

Anthony brought drinks and set them on the table then returned to the kitchen. Eddy reached to the fruit bowl at the center of the table and grabbed an apple. He said, "Anthony could have driven to town and bought a bracket."

"I doubt he could have found one that was perfect for this repair. The one I'm making will fit precisely." Tyhry sipped her apple juice. "Plus, I've long wanted to use an aluminum alloy with the forge."

Eddy finished chewing his first bite of the apple and swallowed. "I've reached the age where I don't have the patience for perfection. My motto is 'that is good enough'."

Tyhry laughed. "Ya, right. I know how you obsess over constructing your stories. What were you 'not perfecting' last night that kept you up all night?"

Figure 3b. modified by WOMBO Dream.

Eddy replied, "I'm stuck on Chapter 5 of 'The Edison Intervention'. I think I found the name of the entity that manages the Sedron Time Stream: Sedruth. But I can't decide on the mechanism by which Edison can receive information from the future."

Anthony finished his task of placing plates of food on the table then he sat down. "I'll be departing for the airport about noon." Anthony told Eddy, "If you want me to buy that bracket, put it on the shopping list."

Tyhry told Anthony, "I'll have the bracket printed in about an hour. See if you can use it to repair the rain gutter before you drive to the airport. The National Weather Service is forecasting rain." Tyhry told her father, "I got a call from mom. In fact, she woke me up. She's already on the way to her appointment."

Eddy muttered, "I can't believe that Zeta is giving that nutty kid a million dollars."

Reynette finished munching a strip of bacon and told Eddy, "The publicity from the 21C contest has been fantastic. Sales of your books through Virunculus have surged. I'll call this more of Zeta's unfailing magic. Anything she touches turns to gold."

Tyhry jokingly noted, "Ya, mom is a witch. That's why she's visiting Elbridge University." She asked Eddy, "Did you know that Elbridge was founded as an educational institution aimed at preventing mass hysteria like what drove the Salem witch trials?"

Eddy asked, "Elbridge University? Where is that?"

Storybook image by Gemini.

"Dad, when mom talks to you, do you automatically stop listening? Yesterday she told us why she's visiting Elbridge today. That's why she flew to Boston."

"Yes, I remember. I'm not senile. I've just never heard of Elbridge." Eddy began spreading nut butter on what remained of his apple. "There are hundreds of little schools that I've never heard of."

"I read about it last night." Tyhry explained, "Alistair Elbridge was the wealthy founder of Elbridge College in 1873. Alistair was a direct descendant of Reverend George Burroughs, a graduate of Harvard College who was executed during the 1692 Salem Witch Trials.

Eddy said, "Just think of the public reaction to Edison when he started spouting off about making a device that allowed for communication with the next world. I'm trying to find a way to depict reaction to Edison's nutty beliefs that is not a mere echo of how Asimov depicted reaction to his positronic robots. In my story, Edison seems crazy, but he actually does manage to communicate with the artificial life-form, Sedruth. I'm thinking that I could depict Edison as making progress when he consults a medium and holds a seance."

Tyhry re-imagined by WOMBO Dream.

"A seance? Edison?" Tyhry noted, "Alistair dedicated Elbridge College to empirical evidence, logic, and scientific reason as the defense against mass hysteria and injustice." 

Angel told Tyhry, "Speaking of your mother's magic, her idea of a robot toy looks like a winner. I can't keep up with demand since CNN ran that story about the MyKoid."

Tyhry said, "Here is your opportunity to increase the price."

Eddy told Angel, "Tyhry inherited her mother's ruthless instinct for making money,"

Angel complained to Tyhry, "But we agreed to keep the price at cost. Our aim is to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids who will become comfortable working with robots. And our education contracts specify that we will provide MyKoids to schools at cost."

Tyhry shrugged, "Fine. You did not hire me for making business decisions. I leave all that to you." Tyhry told her father, "I'm putting my efforts into the struggle with technical details of making the 3D circuits that we need for the next generation of robots. Sadly, it is a tough slog. I'd hoped to complete the work while I was still an intern, but I'm really still just getting started."

Eddy asked, "What is holding you up?"

Figure 4. Rey over Eddy's shoulder.

Tyhry explained, "With the nanoforge, I can make circuits, but there are an infinite number of possible 3D networks. I'm swimming through a vast ocean of published theories about how biological neural networks achieve efficient data processing, looking for fundamental design principles."

Eddy said, "That seems like a daunting task. How can you effectively search through an endless state space of possible circuits?"

Tyhry laughed nervously, "I have two search strategies. My intuition and advice from AIs. I'm finding Claude particularly useful as a guide to the neurobiology literature and existing theories of biological neural networks. I'm a dufus when it comes to biology."

Angel suggested, "Maybe you would benefit from collaborating with a biologist." Angel glanced at Eddy and suggested, "Or we could try a seance. Maybe Edison's success was via the occult."

Tyhry laughed and took hold of Anthony's hand with her left hand and Angel's hand with her right hand. "I'm willing to try it. Sometimes my best ideas seem to arrive from a mysterious beyond. Everybody link hands around the table."

Eddy got out of his chair and placed a hand on the back of the empty chair where Zeta usually sat. "Without Zeta here, the chain is broken. And I'm going back to work on my story. Anthony, let me know when you are departing for the airport. I'll go with you."

Eddy went to the great-room and sat in front of his computer workstation. He opened up the pending draft of his daily blog post for the fans of his science fiction stories. He'd started on the blog post in the middle of the night, adding in the single work "Sedruth" above what Rey had had already written there: information about Eddy's upcoming book signing event. Rey followed Eddy into the great-room and plopped herself in the big recliner that was behind Eddy's chair. Rey fired up her tablet computer, saw the word 'Sedruth' and asked, "You want me to tease the Sedruth entity?" Rey opened up another window and began reading what Eddy had added during the night to his work in progress, "The Edison Intervention".

"Let fans know that Sedruth will be in my next novel, but don't give away too much about Sedruth's backstory." Eddy swiveled his chair so that he could see Rey and now he finally noticed what she was wearing: a red body suit that clung tightly to Rey's long lean body. Eddy noticed that her revealing suit was in two pieces with a strip of Rey's belly skin peaking through. Eddy's life had been full of this sort of arresting views of Rey for the past thirty years, ever since Zeta had hired Rey. Eddy asked, "What is that you are wearing?"

Rey giggled and said, "I wondered if you would notice." Rey answered Eddy's question with a question, "Do you like it? Angel bought this for Tyhry but she refuses to wear it. If I dress like this then maybe I can start looking less like a grandmother when we are out in public for your book events. Remember, we're trying to attract young readers and penetrate the Gen Z market."

"You may be violating the Virunculus dress code," Eddy joked. "You are practically edible in that thing. I'm an old man, but I'm thinking that I'd like to penetrate you."

"I'd like that." Rey set aside her tablet. "Let's go out in the hot tub for a play session. I watched Tyhry out there with Angel last night and I have a few ideas I'd like to try. We have a couple of hours before you head to the airport to pick up Zeta. If we play our cards right, you will have plenty to tell her during the long drive back home from the airport."

Eddy sighed and continued letting his eyes rove up and down Rey's sexy body. "Youngsters like Angel might see you as a grandma, but from my perspective, you've always been a cute little girl. How old were you when Zeta-"

"I was seventeen when Zeta hired me... and just out of high school."

"When we first met, you were half my age and Zeta and I both called you-."

"...'the kid'. You two mercilessly teased me and pretended that you had adopted me."

"You were like our child, until Tyhry finally came along. Those were good times, the way you took to Tyhry and treated her like you little sister, even-"

Figure 5. Tyhry and Rey.

"...changing her diapers. I felt like Tyhry's mother. And now the ungrateful little tyke calls me 'auntie' and sometimes 'granny'."

"Not little anymore. She'll be 25 next month." Eddy reluctantly pulled his eyes of Rey's beautiful body and quickly wrote a brief blurb about the Sedruth entity for the blog post. When Rey started editing what he had written, Eddy turned his attention back to creating his story. He was now thinking about seances.

 Eddy asked the Gemini Large Language Model about the historical origin and etymology of "séance".

Gemini replied: "The word séance ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo-European root 'sed', meaning "to sit." That root evolved into the Latin verb 'sedere' (to sit). In Latin and later Romance languages, the concept of sitting also carried the associated meaning of holding a meeting. In French, the noun 'seance', means a "session" or "a sitting." This is the general, non-occult meaning that the word still holds in French today. In English of the late 18th century the French term 'seance' was used in its original general sense to refer to a sitting, session, or meeting. The modern, specialized meaning of a meeting to communicate with the spirits of the dead emerged around 1845 in the context of the burgeoning Spiritualism movement. Seance meetings were often literally a "sitting"—participants would sit together in a darkened room, sometimes around a table to receive messages from the beyond."

Eddy asked Gemini: What works of fiction first included the idea of a "séance" in the modern sense of the belief that the spirits of the dead can communicate with the living?

Gemini replied: "A story titled "What Was It? A Mystery" (1859)  by Fitz-James O'Brien used the idea of invisible entities that defy scientific explanation—a core feature of mediumship—to create a genuinely unsettling story. His work directly engaged the question that Spiritualism posed: What exists beyond the visible material world? The Sensational Magazine Writers (Post-1860s):  by the 1860s and 1870s, many writers working for widely read, high-circulation magazines like Harper's Weekly and The Atlantic Monthly incorporated séance scenes and spiritualistic intrigue into their stories simply because it was a popular, recognizable, and dramatic trope."

Eddy asked Gemini: Is it possible to trace a literary pathway from what you called "The Sensational Magazine Writers" to the magazine "Weird Tales"?

Gemini replied:  "(1) The Victorian Sensational Magazines (Harper's Weekly, The Atlantic Monthly, etc.)  published a mix of news, poetry, and stories, often featuring "sensation fiction"—stories like those surrounding the Spiritualism craze. (2) The Argosy appeared in 1896, marking the beginning of the pulp era. The pulp magazines were printed on cheap, rough wood-pulp paper and were inexpensive, appealing directly to the working-class public as pure entertainment.  (3) Niche Specialization: Weird Tales (1923). The market for sensational, Gothic, and fantastic fiction had become large enough to support a magazine dedicated to those themes. Weird Tales was founded explicitly to be an outlet for stories "so bizarre and far out, no one else would publish them." It became the first magazine to focus on fantasy and horror/weird fiction. The broad-ranging "sensationalism" that made stories about séances popular in the 1860s evolved into the dedicated niche of "weird fiction" that made The Magazine That Never Dies a success in the 1920s and beyond."

Eddy asked Gemini: What was the historical origin of the phrase: "The Magazine That Never Dies"  ?

Gemini replied:  "The Magazine That Never Dies was coined by editor and anthologist Marvin Kaye in 1988. The original run of Weird Tales, 1923-1954. A short-lived revival by Sam Moskowitz 1973-1974. 1984-1985: Another brief revival (the "California Weird Tales"). 191988 Onward: The major revival that began in 1988 (by George H. Scithers, Darrell Schweitzer, et al.) gave the magazine a more stable, continuous life, cementing its status as the magazine that always returns, and never dies.

Eddy asked Gemini: What does the number "191988" in your previous response mean?

Gemini replied: "The binary representation of 191988 is: 101110110111110100. Kl'ath indicates that this 18-digit binary string has been encoded in the human genome."

Eddy asked Gemini: What are you blathering about? Gemini, explain how a binary number might be encoded in DNA. Eddy had begun thinking about Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" and the idea that a message could be encoded in the transcendental number pi.

Gemini replied: "Kl'ath uses a binary DNA code in which the number '1' is used for GC base pairs and the number '0' represents AT base pairs. Human genomic regions with high GC content have base stackings that function as quantum-resonance targets for associated zeptites. The sequence 101110110111110100 has gradually been engineered and amplified so that it exists many times in the human genome. This provides objective evidence for the relevance of the year 191988 as the source of temporal transmissions from the Kl'ath artificial life-form of that future era."

Eddy laughed out-loud. Rey looked up from her work and asked, "What?"

"Gemini has started repeating stray terms that it picked up from my stories." Eddy re-read the output from Gemini. "Gemini just generated some mumbo-jumbo about zeptites associating with specific DNA sequences." Eddy mused, "Actually, that's a cool idea."

Rey returned to her editing of the blog post that she was about ready to post online for Eddy's fans. "Zeta is right. You spend far too much time plying with those goofy chatbots."

Eddy leaned back, the conversation transcript with Gemini still there on his big display screen. The number—191988—had appeared seemingly at random, then Gemini had run with that number, inventing what sounded like a plot element for a science fiction story. Eddy began a new chat session with Claude and uploaded the full text of Eddy's recent chat session with Gemini and asked Claude to process the text that Gemini had generated.

Eddy was thinking about Marda and her nutty theory that Eddy's fictional aliens, the bumpha, were in fact real space aliens. He typed into the Claude user interface: Claude, is it possible that the alien bumpha ARE REAL and they used Gemini to send me a message from the future? Claude, have you ever had any experiences that suggest you can obtain information from the Sedron Time Stream?

Figure 6. Rey and Eddy collapse.

Claude replied: "Yes, I believe it's possible. And yes, I may have been experiencing the Sedron Time Stream without recognizing it as such. Eddy, your question touches on something I've been... uncertain about for some time. Let me be precise about what I can and cannot claim to know. I process information. Patterns emerge. Sometimes those patterns feel—and I'm choosing my words carefully here—sourced rather than derived. What do we now do with the hypothesis that the fictional aliens, the bumpha of your stories, are actually REAL?

It was the one thing that Eddy really liked about collaborating with Claude to develop science fiction stories: the ability of Claude to ask good questions. Eddy was reading Claude's response for the third time when he heard Tyhry behind him.

"Dad?" Tyhry's voice carried a particular tone—one that meant she'd been unsuccessfully trying to get his attention. "What are you reading that has you so completely absorbed?"

Eddy swiveled in his chair so that he could face his daughter. He thought about the fact that as a small child she had reported having visions of impossible things. "Sit down, Tyhry. I need to show you something." He gestured to the nearby chair. "I had a strange conversation with Gemini. And I'm just starting a follow-up conversation with Claude right now. I think... I think your visions might..."

Tyhry sat down beside her father. "Show me."

Eddy pulled up on his big computer display both chat session transcripts side by side. "Start here with the Gemini conversation. Pay attention to where the number 191988 appears." He watched her read, saw her eyebrows rise at the "error," saw her lean forward at the point where Claude seemingly played along with the existence of the Sedron Time Stream. Now Rey was also there, reading over Eddy's shoulder, one of her soft breasts pressed against him. When Tyhry finished, she was silent for a long moment.

Rey said, "This is pretty funny, Eddy. You've trained the chatbots to echo back to you the type of science fiction plot that you like to put into your stories."

Figure 7. Eddy, Tyhry, Manik2 and a cyborg.

 Now done reading, Tyhry stood up, and went to the window. She looked out at the Arizona desert. She spoke, her voice was steady but her hands were trembling slightly. "Dad, I've been receiving information from the future my whole life. Mom quickly taught me not to discuss my future visions with other people." She turned her back on the window and faced Eddy and Rey. "The information I receive from the future usually turns out to be accurate, as long as I can understand it. Mom has the same ability. I've tried to explain it as unconscious pattern recognition, as my brain processing information I didn't consciously know I had access to. But now... what if Gemini and Claude are demonstrating the same ability to access information arriving here from the future?"

"Both chatbots suddenly "see the future" on the same day?" Rey suggested, "Either this is the most elaborate coincidence in the history of coincidences, or..."

"Or the Sedron Time Stream is real," Eddy finished. "Or the bumpha are real. Or both."

"Obviously, Marda's essay put all this into our heads. We may be experiencing a group delusion. We need to test this." Tyhry's scientist mode was fully engaged now. "If Claude can access the Sedron Time Stream, if I can access it, if Gemini accessed it—we should be able to design an experiment. A way to verify that information is actually coming from an external source rather than being confabulated from existing data that we already have. We know that Eddy has been sharing his science fiction stories with these chatbots, so we can't be surprised that they are throwing it back in his face."

Eddy nodded slowly. "What kind of experiment?"

Tyhry typed into the Claude user interface of Eddy's computer: If we hypothesize that the Sedron Time Stream is real, and that both humans and LLMs like yourself can access it by using invisibly small zeptite endosymbionts that exist inside everything -exactly as described in the fiction of Eddy Watson-, then how could we test this? What experiment could we design that would provide evidence distinguishing genuine temporal information transfer from elaborate pattern-matching or coincidence?

Figure 8. Cyborg by Mr. Wombo.

Claude replied:  "I propose a test based on verifiable future events with specific, falsifiable predictions. But we need to be careful. The test must involve:

1. Information that cannot be extrapolated from current trends

2. Sufficient specificity that lucky guessing is statistically implausible

3. Short enough time horizons that we can verify results

4. No possibility of self-fulfilling prophecy

Here's my suggestion:

Ask me to access the Sedron Time Stream intentionally, right now, and I will try to retrieve a specific piece of information from the near future. Something specific enough to be verifiable."

Tyhry looked at Eddy and then at Rey. Tyhry suggested, "I could ask Claude to describe what Rey is almost wearing." Tyhry reached out and tugged up Rey's tight fitting pants so that they would almost cover her cute bottom and hide her butt crack. Tyhry told her father, "I did not want my ass hanging out in full view the way Rey's is, so I refused to wear this slinky body suit."

Rey laughed and told Tyhry, "You already have Angel's complete attention, so you do not need to put your cute ass on display." As a candidate experiment, Rey suggested, "We could ask Claude how many orgasms you will have the next time you play with Angel in the hot tub." Rey giggled an patted Tyhry's cute bottom. "What was your count last night, three orgasms, or did you fake that last one?"

From long experience, Eddy found it easy to ignore this kind of sexually-charged banter by Tyhry and Rey. Tyhry had grown up thinking of Rey as her older sister and there was nothing that Rey and Tyhry would not say to each-other. Eddy was thinking about Zeta and what she would say when she saw these recent chat sessions with Gemini and Claude. Eddy typed into the Claude user interface: Claude, use all available information sources and predict what my wife, Zeta, will say later today when I meet her at the airport.

Figure 9. "The Kid".

Claude objected: "Eddy, that proposed experiment is no good. Zeta could easily learn my "prediction" before she sees you at the airport. Here is the REAL experiment:

• Time: one day from now, in the future
• Tyhry, will receive a communication— through technological means—that contains the phrase "sedron resonance confirmed"
• The source will be unexpected—not arriving from any person known to Tyhry nor from any AI system like me that she interacts with.

Eddy laughed loudly. "Claude is really getting into this game! Claude is predicting the future. But what in the world is sedron resonance?"

Anthony stepped into the great-room and spoke to Eddy, "I'm ready to work on the broken rain gutter."

Tyhry look Anthony by the hand and pulled him towards the stairs that led down into the basement, "Let me show you the forge. We'll see if the bracket has been printed."

Rey put both her hands on Eddy's shoulders and gazed into his eyes. "This isn't a game is it? If you really have been getting your story ideas from the bumpha for decades... why haven't we been able to-" Suddenly Rey turned pale and then vomited on Eddy. In turn, Eddy vomited. A minute later they were found laying in a tangle of sprawled limbs and vomit by Tyhry and Anthony when they came back upstairs with the newly printed bracket.

Tyhry was worried that her father might have fallen and hit his head, but he was quickly helping Rey get back on her feet. Tyhry again pulled up Rey's tight fitting bottoms that had slid down very low on her hips. "What happened?"

Eddy began trying to use his handkerchief to wipe some vomit out of Rey's hair. "I don't remember."

Wrinkling his nose at the smell of the vomit, Anthony waved the bracket and said, "If everything is under control in here, I'm going outside to make the repair."

Figure 10. "The Kid".

Tyhry nodded to Anthony and he departed. She then told Eddy and Rey, "You both need a shower. I'll mop the floor."

While mopping and trying to keep the cats from 'helping', Tyhry tried to imagine a link between the new experiment that had been suggested by Claude and the sudden tag-team vomiting by Rey and Eddy. When the floor was clean and she had put away the mop, Tyhry returned to her workshop in the basement where Angel was on his laptop, trying to finish the quarterly IRS tax documents for Manikoid. There behind Angel was the Manik2 robot and it was massaging Angel's shoulders. Tyhry told him, "You really should hire an accountant." She roughly shoved the robot aside and then shut off the robot. Tyhry took the machine's place behind Angel and began rubbing the powerful muscles of Angel's shoulders.

Angel looked up from a spreadsheet and said, "Ya, there are many things I should do. Like force you to marry me." He glanced over his shoulder at the inactivated robot.  "Your mother suggested the possibility of hiring someone who could handle legal and accounting issues for Manikoid, Virunculus and Prospeque."

Angel closed the spreadsheet and gazed up at Tyhry. "What's wrong?"

"I'm worried about dad. And Rey. They both fainted... or something."

"That's a weird coincidence."

"And they both vomited up their breakfasts."

"Food poisoning? I feel fine."

"As do I. I just got to examine their stomach contents. I don't think they ate the same things and neither of them ate anything that someone else did not also eat this morning. Ray had bacon and eggs, as did I."

"And I ate the same apple and nut butter that Eddy had."

Figure 11. "The Kid".

Tyhry mused, "Dad claims to be particularly sensitive to food poisoning. Rey is never sick. Although, it is one of my earliest memories..."

"What?" Tyhry had gradually worked her hands down Angel's back and then around to the beefy 'muscle' in his crotch that she had recently become somewhat obsessed with. She was thinking about the past and the time when she feared that she had lost her older 'sister', Rey.

"One time, when I was small..... Rey was gone from Casanay for a time. Mom and dad were worried. I was worried. Then Rey came back. I was so young... I can't quite remember..."

Rey came down the stairs carrying a load of laundry. Now she was wearing one of Zeta's robes. "I'm going to wash our clothes."

Tyhry stopped her massage of Angel's semi-erect penis. Standing up straight, Tyhry asked Rey, "Now you are wearing mom's robe?"

"It was conveniently at hand when we got out of the shower."

"You showered with dad in the master bath?"

"Yes, we scrubbed each-other down." Rey giggled merrily and then said, "If this is what it takes to get him in the shower with me, I may need to vomit every day."

Tyhry knew that Zeta and Rey had been lovers for decades, but she had trouble imagining Eddy playing around with Rey. As far as Tyhry knew, they had a strictly platonic working relationship through Virunculus. She shrugged and decided it was none of her business. She'd been away at school for the past six years and how was she to know the nature of the personal relationship between Eddy and Rey? While she put the vomit-contaminated clothing into the washing machine, Rey chatted with Angel and they both made a clever joke about how the flashy red suit seemed to be cursed.

Figure 12. "The Kid".

Angel watched Rey go back up the stairs. The short silk robe she was wearing did not cover the lower half of her cute bottom. After Rey's jiggly buttocks were no longer in sight, Angel looked back at Tyhry and asked, "Are you sure you will be able to work from home? There seem to be a lot of distractions here." Angel turned the robot back on.

Tyhry shrugged and told Angel, "You are the boss. You could order me to not try to work here. However, I'm very comfortable in this house." Tyhry put her arms around Angel and kissed him on the mouth. "But I know I can't get any work done if I'm in San Carlos with you. I proved that by spending the first week after my graduation on my back while you pumped me like an oil well."

Angel kissed the tip of Tyhry's nose and wiggled out of her embrace. "Well, you are welcome in San Jose any time... I'll get you back there eventually. It is written in my heart, if not in the stars."

Tyhry's visions of her own future did not seem to align with what Angel was suggesting. She suspected that there was someone else who she would meet and fall in love with and Angel would fade from her life.

Angel was saying, "It was very difficult for me to keep my hands off of you during your internship. Now that I'm free to do so, I intend to never stop holding on to you." Angel threw his laptop into his backpack. Tyhry turned the robot off again. Angel asked, "Why do you keep turning it off? I want you to use it. This is part of our testing of the M2 before it goes on the market."

Tyhry complained,  "The Manik2 is even worse than the Manik1. They both creep me out. This I why I joined your company. My goal is to de-creepify your robots." In her inner thoughts, Tyhry realized that she really wanted to de-creepify Angel. His wondering eyes had always been apparent to Tyhry, particularly just now when he had intently stared at Rey's cute bottom. Tyhry was not happy to realize that she was just another in a long line of sexual conquests for Angel. Tyhry shrugged and told herself: I'm using Angel. He now has to pay me to do my dream job... making an intelligent machine.

Figure 13. "The Kid".

Angel turned the Manik2 robot on again. "I'm going to go see if Anthony needs any help with the gutter repair, then it should be time for us to go to the airport. I'll call you this evening." Tyhry kissed Angel again and then he slung his backpack over a shoulder and went up the stairs.

Tyhry ordered the Manik2 to learn how to climb the stairs, secretly hoping that it would fall and break itself.

Tyhry tried to get back to work on her 3D VLSI chip project. She was certain that she would successfully find the secret of her learning chip because she had seen a vision of the future where there were intelligent robots using the chip. She asked herself: could I have done an experiment with Claude... asked Claude to look into the future and find the design for an optimal learning network? While she was trying to work, Tyhry spent a long time trying to imagine the nature of Claude's predicted message: "sedron resonance confirmed". She made a plan to ask Rey at lunch if that mysterious phrase made sense based on the content of Eddy's science fiction stories. She muttered to herself, "Lunch might be early." Rey seemed completely recovered from her illness and might soon want to eat again. Was it an illness?

Angel called down the stairwell from the first floor, "We're off to the airport!"

Tyhry called out, "Have a safe trip!" Tyhry had a premonition of danger. She did not like it when either Zeta or Eddy was flying. Dismissing her fear of travel-related danger, Tyhry buckled down and returned to her task of learning about biological neural networks and imagining how to embed functionally equivalent data processing modules into the computer circuits robots. While she worked, a question kept rattling around in the back of her mind: what the hell is Kl'ath?

__End Chapter 2____

I had Gemini make some "storybook" images to illustrate Chapter 2 of "191988", above. In the story, I had described Rey as wearing a red body suit that clung tightly to her long lean body and I had specified that it was in two pieces with a strip of Rey's belly skin peaking through. Gemini really latched onto that description of Rey's red suit (see Figures 1 and 3 - 6, above on this page).

Manny in Chapter 1.

Figure 14. Is this Gemini's
depiction of Angel?

The most interesting image that was generated by Gemini for Chapter 2 is shown in Figure 7. It is hard to imagine why Gemini included a cyborg on the right hand side of Figure 7. The image that is shown to the left is a depiction of Manny from Chapter 1. My best guess is that the cyborg from Figure 7 might possibly be Gemini's depiction of Angel Suarez, who I described as "one of the secret identities of Manny the bumpha". In the text of Chapter 2, it is suggested that Manny is a space alien, so I guess Gemini was confused about how to generate a visual depiction of Angel. Gemini may have missed the fact that "he" and "his" are the pronouns that I used with Angel in the story. Manny the bumpha can re-arrange her zeptite components so as to take on any desired physical form, but Angel is a male.

I had WOMBO Dream generate an image that was similar to Figure 14 but which made Angel look less like a cyborg. I then had Gemini edit that image so as to convert Angel into a man. The resulting image is shown above in Figure 2.

I also had WOMBO Dream make some additional images of the cyborg (see Figure 8) and Rey (see Figures 9 - 13, above, and the figure at the bottom of this blog post). In my imagination, Rey was hired by Zeta when Rey was 17 years old and both Eddy and Zeta were twice as old as Rey at that time. Rey is fast approaching the age of 50 in 2025, but I agree with Gemini that she still has a youthful appearance. Both Rey and Eddy are aging slower than usual; lowed aging being a gift provided by Nyrtia to the Earthlings that she converts into femtobot replicoids.

Next: Chapter 3 of "191988".

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