The Sky Doth Fall. Part 2.

Tarka:
 
Allan sat in the padded seat as the plane made its approch to the cold island 
below. How ever did he get into this situation? All he ever did was respond 
to a criptic ad for a job. He was desperate and in need of a job. Almost any 
job. Now he found himself in a strange situation where he wasn't really sure 
'what' job he was going to be doing or really how he would be useful for 
doing a reallity engine. "Tunguska, Russia, landing in ten minutes." He 
listened to the flat voice over the intercom and then found himself examaning 
his host in detail for the first time. The furry creature with strange joints 
and nose. Who was she really? She couldn't be human, and yet she dressed kind 
of like a human and actted kind of like a human.
 
The landing went off without a hitch and the small plane taxied to a stop... 
he was finally able to pull himself out of the seat and headed to the door. 
It opened before he got there and a monkey with a big cigar in its muzzle 
looked it. "Hey sweets. We got fresh meat for the brain farm?"
 
Vassily:
 
Allan had settled in his insanity nicely, he was thinking. Weird Alien women, 
strange jet planes, ttrips to nowhere to do the impossible. A talking monkey 
was just a cherry on the top of his hallucinatory sundae. "You're a macaque, 
aren't you?"  The smiian smiled broadly. "You've gotten us a good one this 
time, Sheila. Good eye for species."  She paused in wrapping the scarf even 
more tightly around her face. "You have a problem with the previous ones?" 
The monkey shrugged and shifted the cigar in his mouth. "Only that the broke 
too easily."
 
The cold air caught Allan across the face. This at least, wasn't a product of 
his overexcited imagination. The macaque put an arm around his back and 
guided his doen the metal steps onto the bright snow of the steppes. "Not 
much for color, but there are some trees at the site. So, you're going to do 
the magic thing, are you?"
 
WalksFar:

 "Magic?"  The word hung in the air.  "
 
 "Me?  What??  Other things ran through his brain.  Species?  Him?  Then the 
monkey said he didn't like the ones that . . . broke.  Broke?  Allam drew ukp 
short.  "Whoa!  Whoa!  Broke?  What do you mean . . . broke?"  He stared at 
the macaque.  "I-I understand danger but the way you put it . . . broke?  
And, what magic?  Explain.  This is all weirder than I bargained for."
 
 The macaque chewed the cigar, moving it frome one side of his mouth to the 
other.  "Yeah!  Broke!  They didn't last long when we got started.  They 
broke!  Died!
 
 "Oh . . ."  Allan digested the new facts.  "You figure I'm gonna break, 
too?"  The macaque eyed him, pulled the cigar from his mouth and spit.  
"Nope!  Only if ya get stupid when ya shouldn't."  
 
 "Now, about this magic?  What does that mean?"  Allan put his hands to his 
hips.  
 
 "You know, the magic!  Didn't you get briefed on all that?"  The macaque 
studied Allan for a moment.  "Nah, ya didn't.  We'll get ya oriented first.  
THEN, ya do magic!"
 
Terry:
 
"Oh, he doesn't do magic," the woman said, resting a hand on Allan's 
shoulder. To his surprise, it only made him cringe slightly. "He does 
science. *Advanced* science." Allan could hear her winking significantly as 
she said 'advanced'. "He's going to build us a perpetual motion machine, 
which will help us decrease entropy."
 
The macaque didn't look happy at that. "So... he's one of THOSE, eh. That 
means he'll have to build some silly-ass Infernal Machine, so he'll be poking 
around the junkyard at all hours."
 
"Just during business hours," the woman replied, "The rest of the time we'll 
keep him busy chopping wood. Plan accordingly. And give him the techy 
orientation, okay? His mental state isn't completely solidified in its new 
configuration."
 
"Right," the monkey said, motioning to Allan to follow him, less enthusiastica-
lly now. "We'll show you around the site, and I'll tell you what not to look 
at or touch. Hopefully you'll be smarter than the last wiz... um... 'scientist-
'."
 
Tarka:
 
Allan followed the monkey over to a small village of buildings. There seemed 
to be people about doing things here and there. Intermingled with the people 
were animals and what almost looked like humans but were not. Like the female 
creature that hired him. one man seemed to have an extra pair of arms as he 
waved both right hands.
 
"Whats with allt he people here?" He looked at his simien guild.
 
"Oh... your wondering about me? Well, if your not stupid you will not touch 
when I tell you not to touch. I was stipid once. I'm not anymore." He pointed 
at a building. "That there is the mess. They can make most anything you want. 
Its run by fizgit. Or at least that is what we call it."
 
"It?" he didn't liek the sound of this.
 
The monkey smiled. "It. We can't worked out it's sex... it is a rather large 
intellegent cockroatch now. Makes a wonderful cook... but hasnt' said a word 
sense it was dumb. I hope your not dumb."
 
Vassily:
 
Off to the side of the compund was a large tent covered in camoflague 
netting. All pale green grey and white. "That," pointed the macaque "is 
something you don't touch." Allan raised his head a bit higher, angling for a 
look. "But what is it?" "It's something you find out about later. Now we're 
going to the shops and the junkyard."
 
They trudged together across the snow, the hard pack crackling under their 
boots. "Do you have a name? Mine's Allan." The macaque moved the cigar around 
in his mouth chewing on the end. "You can just call me Buddy. Everyone else 
does. Just don't use it as a last name. I don't like it when people get cute. 
Besides, what sort of middle name begins with U?"
 
WalksFar:
 
 "U?"  Allan was  nonplused.  "What exactly am I supposed to do here?"  
"You'll find out in due time.  Time for orientation.  After that, we give you 
something to do.
 
 They continued along toward the building.  "Once ya get there and check in, 
they'll get ya started.  Then . . . scientist . . . ya do magic! Or whatever 
it is ya do.  Hopefully without being stoopid and gettin' broke!"
 
 Allan stayed at his side until they reached the building.  Something in a 
fur coat greeted them.  That's when Allan realized it was not a fur coat, but 
the actual person.  He recoiled in shock.  Two dark eyes regarded him with 
contempt.  "Jeez!  This's the replacement?  Holy Cow!  Wot gutter did she 
scrap this one from?"
 
 Allan frowned.  "I beg your pardon. . . ."  The furry gave him a contemptuous-
 look and backed inside.  
 
 "Come in.  Yer lettin' heat out.  We're about to start orientation.  Find a 
seat and don't bug anybody!
 
Terry:
 
The orientation was a blur of strange sights, smells, and sounds -- and Allan 
was fairly sure that some sort of filmstrip or powerpoint presentation 
happened, although he was too distracted by the other people in the room to 
really gather much from it.
 
Afterwards, he was taken into a room where they had him sit in front of a 
stone monolith inscribed with odd symbols, while a horrible organic conglomera-
tion of tubes was... milked... in front of him. The result was, somehow, an 
ID card with all sort of information that he'd never given these people 
written on it -- his mother's maiden name, his first pet's species, and his 
preference in ice cream flavors, among other things.
 
Allan felt really out of place among the other people being oriented, as they 
all seemed perfectly comfortable with all this -- many of them, while human, 
were really kind of freaky, with tatoos or bones or such. The only one he 
felt comfortable near was a young girl -- couldn't be older than ten -- who 
looked as scared as he felt. So, when they were all taken to the cafeteria 
for lunch, he sat down near her, for company in his growing sense of 
miserable doom.
 
Tarka:
 
"So what do you make of all of this?" Allen looked at the young girl and 
thought how very scared she would be, not knowing what was going on.
 
"Oh... I'm not scared cause I don't know what is going on. I know exactly 
what is going on. So far your the least clued in guy I have met so far... but 
some of your ideas are good... and yes.. I can read your mind before even you 
know what your thinking."
 
Allen made a quick retreat.... "Time for bed."
 
----
 
His new office was small and crampped... but was really well stocked with all 
the latest tech toys and gadgets. Better equipment then he would normally 
have been able to work with including four port VNA's. Buddy was there again. 
"This here is your workshop wizard. Strange bunch of tools you like to use... 
but that is alright. I'm sure that your magic will be just as powerful as 
others in time. Anyway, all of your spells have been loaded into that there 
techno computer book you have. Papers and such. Seems that the company found 
a lot of your work interesting. Oh... and you have an assitent. She will be 
here soon."
 
Allan was still dizzy in the head looking at all the equipment he could play 
with when the little girl from the day before came in and looked at him. Then 
nodded. "so you want to try that first? Alright... I will get the test set up 
for you. Its going to be good working for you. very Analitical mind."
 
The girl went to work settupg up some tests and then looked over at Buddy. 
"your not my type fuzzybrains."
 
WalksFar:

 Allan nodded.
 
 the girl set up some of the equipment and ran through test procedures with 
him until he got the hang of operations.  "Manuals are all in the drawers.  
Your job will be loads and stress analysis.  We have a lot going on here and 
according to your dossier, you have experience in loads analysis.  Correct?"
 Allan nodded.  "Correct."  How did they find that out?  
 
 The girl handed Allan a set of specs.  "These are the tests we were running 
before the accident.  You might want to check them to make sure the one 
before you knew what he was doing."
 
 Allan nodded again.  He took the file and ran through the papers and 
analysis runs inside.  "Hmm . . . most of this is good . . . a few minor 
adjustments to the figures are needed. . . ."
 
Terry:
 
"No, they weren't serious about making you chop wood, by the way. It's an 
in-joke about this sort of thing, the first person to get stuck with it 
thought it was about as interesting." Allan laughed at her joke, surprised 
that he'd already forgotten about that. She nodded approvingly. "Yes, it's 
probably best if you do the work that's put in front of you. We have enough 
'initiative' for a group three times our size. At any rate, go through the 
report, and I'll type in the corrections as you think about them."
 
It took a couple days before he'd finished verifying his predecessor's work 
-- it was almost correct, but as he'd found in the patent office, the 
*nearly* correct things were the hardest to review. Afterwards, he met with 
the woman who'd hired him, and presented his findings. She was not happy.
 
"So you're saying that every time one of us changes, the threshhold energy to 
regenerate our engine goes up by a factor of two?" Allan frowned, as that 
wasn't what he'd said at all, unless the energy spikes in the data represented-
 the 'stupid mistakes' the macaque had referred to. "Is there anything that 
counteracted that trend?"
 
"Well, there was one time when the stress levels dropped across the board," 
he said, switching back to the slide with the pretty graph. "Three weeks and 
two days ago, at... nine twenty two pm, local time. Maybe if you could figure 
out whatever that was and repeat it..."
 
Suddenly, his assistant grabbed his arm, and dragged him from the office. 
"She wants privacy," she hissed at him out in the hall, "And you might want 
to consider lying low for a bit."
 
Tarka:
 
Three weeks later Allen was looking at his first compleated project. It had 
gone faster then anything he had ever seen before... and after so long among 
the freaks that lived there... he wasn't bottered by different body types. 
With an assitent that could read his mind, it made the work so much more easy.
 
"Your scared to turn it on, but you think it will work."
 
He realized that he was and he sighed. He looked it over and thought for a 
while. "yes... I don't want to be stupid."
 
"Oh... she wouldn't like it if you turned it on without asking her over 
first."
 
Allan nodded and picked up the phone... an hour later the base commander was 
in the room. She was the same as before... a scarf pulled over her almost 
human but furry face. "Alright... you can hit the switch."
 
--- 
 
Allan's tail twitched in frustration as the nurse shook her head. "No. We wil 
not remove the tail. Your just lucky that was the onlly thing your grew... 
anyway... its cute and will help you not do another dumb thing."
 
WalksFar:
 
 Allan was never quite sure how he got a tail or how his tail bone extended 
down into it.  That was a side issue at this point.  His hand reached for the 
button. "Now? he asked timidly.  
 
 The woman nodded with deliberate slowness.
 
 Allan pressed the start switch.  Lights dimmed then came back.  A loud 
purring hum filled the air.  Allan watched the readout displays.  "So far so 
good.  C'mon, baby . . . stay with us.  Get past the spike.  Get past the 
spike. . . .  C'mon. . . ." he muttered encouragingly.
 
 The hum continued, whined once which made him cringe, but returned to a 
surging purr that made him smile.  "It works!"  He grinned beaming at the 
woman.
 
Terry:
 
Then he reached to turn the machine off, but the woman grabbed his hand 
before he could. "Oh no you don't," she said, "Last time it caused a small 
time loop, and this time you might end up with more than just a tail."
 
"What," he said, "So we're just going to leave it turned on forever? That's 
not really *safe*..."
 
"It is a perpetual motion machine, right? If it can't be left on forever, 
what's the point?"
 
"It's a prototype," he explained, "So it really only has the 'on/off' switch 
instead of a real intensity dial... and I had to crank it up pretty high to 
get past the spike. Which means it's building up more momentum the longer we 
leave it there running." And indeed, the soft humming was gradually building 
in pitch.
 
"Well... friction gets higher the faster it spins, so it'll reach equilibrium 
eventually, right?" his assistant said, reading his mind, or at the least the 
first part of it. "Oh! But that'll be at such a high temperature that the 
fireball will destroy the entire complex."
 
Tarka:
 
The base commander just smiled... "That is alright. You connect up what 
equipment you wish to monitor it with. We will move it over to the green 
tent. If you think it will explode. Good Job Allan. How soon do you think you 
can have a fully working model built?"
 
He nodded. "I could... but one thing... what will you use it for?"
 
"Why... to speed up enthropy... or slow it down." She turnned on her heal and 
left again...
 
"You know she is telling the truth... but I have never been able to read 
'why' she wants to do that. You have an idea though. Hummmm." Allan's 
assitent when to work while too large guys came in and halled away the now 
buzzing unit... his assitent had already slapped some sensors onto it. 
 
"You think its time to find out what is really going on. I will help you 
Allan." For once... he was glad that he didn't have to ask out loud.
 
WalksFar:
 
 Allan went about getting the machine ready to move.  It was not much of a 
major task.  Once carted, others would move it to a safe place in case the 
inductors overladed and it spun itself apart.  The importance of his work 
settled in.  He had done something he once thought impossible.  It wasn't.  
Why did they need this?  He had an idea of his own, but that remained to be 
proved.  Right now he needed more facts . . . evidence.
 
 "I said I would help you find out the truth," said his assistant.  "First 
stop, right there!"  She pointed to the tent where he had been warned never 
to bother.  A place where "stupids" happened.
 
Terry:
 
He paused, and looked at her. "No," she said, in response to his unasked 
question, "You're the first person I worked with. Didn't you see me at 
orientation with you?" Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not lying to you! Please, you 
can't possibly think it's my job to gain your confidence and then make sure 
you get yourself killed off as soon as you plot rebellion. I mean, you *do*, 
but you can't take that kind of conspiracy theory seriously. Can you?"
 
Allan thought about moving for the door, but noticed she was in the way. He 
thought about grabbing a wrench and hitting her with it, and she shifted to 
cut him off from that, too. This was hopeless! She could read his mind, how 
could he ever hope to win?
 
So he gave into his panic, and without thinking, turned off his machine.
 
Tarka:
 
Allan awoke in a hospital bed again... he twitched his tail and ears... ears? 
and sighed... he remembered turnning things off... then nothing. He held up 
his hand... at least that was human.
 
"Yes you dolt. Your still mostly human. You just have ears and that tail that 
you had before. Gads... your so dumb. Look at me!"
 
He turned his head and looked at his assitent. She frowned at him and glared. 
She had a cute little pair of cat ears and a cat tail. Much like he did.
 
"Yes... I look like those sexy cat girls you like so much in manga. Damn you."
 
Allan gave up and closed his eyes. He enjoyed the silance for only a momment 
though... and then his shoulder was shaken. He opened his eyes to find Buddy 
looking over him. 
 
"You did it Allan. You did it. The reallity engine has been made. Your system 
worked as the power source. You are truly a powerful wizard!" The monkey was 
all smiles... and offered Allan his still wet cigar.