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LI’MA
I Think Therefore I Am
Book I
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Chapter 1
while ocean spray from the churned-up waters of Delaware Bay, - packed with biting sand - was viciously slashing any foolish face that happened to be out and about.
High above …menacing steel-grey clouds ... of enormous proportions, were swallowing up the sky as far as a person could see, plunging the entire coast into darkness.
By early afternoon the storm, with its mighty fists, was mercilessly pounding the coastal town of Rehoboth Beach. The only ones safe from its wrath were the sea creatures that had dived for cover, deep in the quiet waters below.
On shore the noise was deafening.
The majestic old house, on Captains Drive, was shuddering and creaking from the wrath of the furious tempest.
After decades of Nor’easters, the two remaining residents, at number 271 Pilots Way, had become used to the fury and frenzy.
At the second story window, Elana Davian sat very still, pen poised over paper. Her attention had strayed to the storm-view outside the rain streaked window.
She was mesmerized, watching the sand Dunes being devoured by the crashing waves. The hungry wet jaws were reaching out beyond the shoreline to pounce on the miles of stalwart coastline defenders, dragging the embattled Dunes back to the sea floor.
Once again, they would have to dreg, to rebuild the Dunes … and then there’s the sea wall, she thought. The escalating financial cost for these extraordinary climate-change-battles, would be tagged onto next year’s tax bill. Even at her age, she still smarted when taxes, politics or religion knocked at her door.
She looked down at the sheet of paper on her desk, and with a sigh she resumed re-constructing the first few sentences she’d been struggling with ever since she had started this project.
My friend Prime Hollingsworth-Suazo was an extraordinary woman. She was a genius; a tech-giant; a mechanical engineer and a teacher.
She’d also been a secret agent; an assassin, and a defender of American democracy. We all were. Our whole team. All those years ago.
She was the best of the best the CIA had to offer - either with a keyboard or a gun.
That’s why she was commandeered back into service.
That’s why she was the one who was fingered to terminate the AI.
If it hadn’t been that she was the only person on the planet that had the technical ability and the meticulously encumbered military ‘access clearance’ … If it hadn’t been that she went into the Rhuhampton lab resolved to terminate the AI machine … If it hadn’t been that she disobeyed her orders - I wouldn’t be sitting here writing her biography today.
EXCERPT
LI'MA
Cascade
Book II
copyright Aria Creek 2015
First question:How many humans can the planet sustain?
Answer: 2,068,493,088
Second question: How can that be achieved?
Answer: Every single woman, on planet Earth, must have unfettered and unrestricted access to birth control - the knowledge of its use - and the freedom of her own person.
Limahong on: Maximum Overload
Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution,
the burden of endless growth has been carried on the back of natural resources.
By 2065 this lucrative horn of plenty was empty:
by 2065 the number of humans on the planet was five times past sustainability.
Now, the hope is that growth can be based on inked words on paper, total blind trust in leadership, non-biological GMOs, synthetic Pharmaceuticals and drone Nanoized bees.
1
Conundrum
Dr. Jessica Brown, sat perfectly still… hands tightly interlaced
in her lap… ignoring the small box she’d placed squarely in the
center of the glass table in front of her.
Refusing to open it, her attention wandered around her wellappointed
tenth floor corner apartment; overlooking a brilliant
view of the Thames.
Every time she walked through her front door, she felt giddy.
Her apartment was a large spacious affair starting with a grand
formal foyer, royally set off by high ceilings throughout. A dozen
large original casement windows from the last century, displayed
ever-changing scenes of life in the city below.
Artfully tucked away in the rear of the apartment was a new
kitchen that any le Grand Diplôme International le Cordon Bleu
chef would demand. The entire apartment, including the kitchen,
was wired with an electronic marvel of a Comm/Sound System of
her own design. Music and visuals were weaving their way throughout
the entire space as she sat there forcibly ignoring the box.
Never in her wildest dreams would she have ever imagined that
Damocles was hovering above her with his deadly sword ready to
strike her down dead.
.-.. .. -- .-
She continued to sit, ignoring the little box. Her hands were
shaking now.
2
Brainiac
Jessica Brown loved views.
Her last residence had been a very tiny, practically miniscule
bedsit, with one single narrow window. She had existed in that
space for the five years it had taken her to get two master’s degrees
and a PhD. Small and cramped it was, but that room did have one
redeeming factor. Through its tall narrow window, she could see a
brilliant view of the Oxford Botanic Garden.
Six months after graduation, she had turned in the key to
cramped bedsit, hopped onto her eye popping outrageously
detailed three-year-old, 50cc stroke scooter and rode the scenic
route into London. Other than the scooter, she took the eclectic
assortment of clothes on her back, her brains and a messenger bag
filled with her diplomas, photos, makeup, a treasure box, a portable
Vis/Comm and her passport.
.-.. .. -- .-
Jessica Brown, recently unchained and ready to pounce into the
fray, was a bundle of kinetic energy. With eyes wide open and
arms stretched to the heavens (in order to grab the quicksilver of
life by its tail) she was ready to ride the whirling dervish for all it
was worth.
Her first stop once she reached London was at her new abode.
Her second stop was at her new job.
Once ensconced in the six-figure job she had accepted, before
the ink on her latest diploma was dry, she’d been successfully
implementing the specs, program and software leading ultimately
to the building for deployment of OSSMs (Orbital Solar Shield
Management systems).
The prototype intended to be launched within the year.
The OSSMs were a self-sustaining-solar-shield device, which
she called an umbrella. It was a slotted membrane of solar collectors
with microscopic pinholes, a blanket of sorts, made up of
thousands of flexible interlocking polygons, deployed into space
to shade the Earth’s hottest spots.
Eventually, Jessie planned to augment these umbrellas for a
secondary use. She had plans to expand their capability to act as
recharge ports, for objects orbiting or traveling back to Earth .
Life was good for Jessie Brown. Her world was chaotic, climate-
change-challenged and overpopulated, but her generation
grew up in it; and this was the way life was for them – they knew
no other.
Jessie was a brainiac, young, healthy, adventurous, and, she
had enough money in her pocket to explore the London night
scene every weekend from top to bottom. There were clubs, music,
theatre, dance, art galleries and artists, museums and lots of restaurants
and a splendid cadre of friends from Oxford who worked or
lived in or around London to hang out with.
No matter where her mind wondered, there sat the little box
screaming for her attention.
coming soon
Evelyn and Mor
copyright Aria Creek 2022
In The Beginning
In the beginning, a stupendous rupture crested over the boundaries of the universe.
At that instant, an absolute stillness erupted into the progression of non-linear time.
From within that stillness A Certain Moment (nothing more than a blink of an eye, with the substance of a mighty flashpoint in the scale of infinite regression between the smallest particles in space,) entered into cohesion.
An instant later it was sucked into a kaleidoscopic riptide of agony as darkness switched consciousness into pain.
This was its beginning.
