Predators, part 4: Simultaneity by faroutsider
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Description
It took a long time for Macali'Margaret to come around. At first she could not make any sense of the two streams of consciousness running simultaneously through her brain, but slowly she found that she could weave the kaleidoscope of thoughts, memories and sensations into a coherent whole. As separate beings, the human and Opae machine thought patterns had been almost completely incomprehensible, but in combination they forged a powerful and accelerated set of integrated functions - synapses and circuits working in synchrony, analyses tempered by empathy, calculations given context - carbon and silicon, matter and antimatter, time and anti-time collapsing the quantum waveforms like musical strings vibrating and rippling far into space-time-energy, and within their interference patterns every wave held an infinite number of secrets.
Macali'Margaret broke her reverie and deliberated on what she should do about the shadow people, who would now redouble their efforts to destroy her. The colony tower had gone, but she was unsure if it had been moved into orbit or shifted into a parallel dimension. Slipping through the translation portal directly to her laboratory, she set about re-writing the search-and-destroy programs utilizing Margaret's predatory subroutines.
********
While the algorithms ran, Macali'Margaret took the time to refill the auto-dispenser for the cats, to rest, to sit and think. It took a bit of practice to just think and not try to have a conversation with herself, but her mental process seemed more streamlined every hour. She was becoming more and more sure of herself and her capabilities all the time, and found herself fully understanding things she had only dimly perceived before. It was so much easier to come to a decision now, easier to trust her conclusions.
She had a hunch that the shadowy forms who occupied the colony tower were not really gone, and when she checked the outcome of the simulation embedded in the search-and-destroy protocol, she immediately saw the marker that indicated a large phase-shifted mass in orbit. Just as she had suspected, they were still there. Macali'Margaret made adjustments to the scanning parameters and the tower jumped sharply into view. It wasn't visible to the naked eye, but her screens showed every phase of the nine-dimensional matrix she had used herself, and ...
Oh, of course! The tower was exactly where it had always been. She herself had phased during the integration process. From the point of view of the tower, she must have flickered and suddenly disappeared! The tactical advantage of being invisible to one's opponent was huge. Macali'Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. If she moved quickly, they would not find her.
The first item of business was to make those in the colony tower believe she was well and truly gone. They knew her temporal matrix signature from their previous dealings with her, and they could not have helped but notice the energy discharge during her integration. She began writing a subroutine that would mask any emissions coming from her location. Whatever transmission noise was still being monitored from orbit, it would appear to pulse, flicker, then lose cohesion and slowly fade away to nothing. She was about to key in her ID as the final seal on the security protocol when she realized she needed to update her identity. She thought for a minute, and keyed the last five characters of the protocol ... MARCA.
With the cats fed and her own nutritional needs attended to, Marca began to forumlate her final plan ...
********
The collaborative saga with Tara (auntietk) continues.
Craig
Predators, part 3 Predators, part 2 Predators, part 1
Predators, part 3 Predators, part 2 Predators, part 1
Comments (25)
TooL_PePe
OMG! You are one of the artists I have missed from my time away from AZ. And by this, I see you have gotten GREAT at adding characters to your already phenomenal ability for environments. Woot! Great friggen work!
gonedigital
FANTASTIC! Love it!
necrophage
fascinating sci-fi scene - great lighting!
mgtcs
Fantastic atmosphere my friend, looks like a movie scene, congratulations!
KnightWolverine
Great Story...Cool Sci-Fi Scene!
alzartz
Great work!! Awesome image!!
psyoshida
How fun! I love how you took a little shove from Tara and expanded that into this great storyline with the utterly fantastic graphics to boot. I await the next installment. I'm a very huge sci-fi fan as well as a faroutsider fan. Great work.
auntietk
While the algorithms ran, Macali'Margaret took the time to rest, to sit and think. It took a bit of practice to just think and not try to have a conversation with herself, but her mental process seemed more streamlined every hour. She was becoming more and more sure of herself and her capabilities all the time, and found herself fully understanding things she had only dimly perceived before. It was so much easier to come to a decision now, easier to trust her conclusions. She had a hunch that the shadowy forms who occupied the colony tower were not realy gone, and when she checked the outcome of the simulation embedded in the search-and-destroy protocol, she immediately saw the marker that indicated a large phase-shifted mass in orbit. Just as she had suspected, they were still there. Macali'Margaret made adjustments to the scanning parameters and the tower jumped sharply into view. It wasn't visible to the naked eye, but her screens showed every phase of the nine-dimensional matrix she had used herself, and ... Oh, of course! The tower was exactly where it had always been. She herself had phased during the integration process. From the point of view of the tower, she must have flickered and suddenly disappeared! The tactical advantage of being invisible to one's opponent was huge. Macali'Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. If she moved quickly, they would not find her. The first item of business was to make those in the colony tower believe she was well and truly gone. They knew her temporal matrix signature from their previous dealings with her, and they could not have helped but notice the energy discharge during her integration. She began writing a subroutine that would mask any emissions coming from her location. Whatever transmission noise was still being monitored from orbit, it would appear to pulse, flicker, then lose cohesion and slowly fade away to nothing. She was about to key in her ID as the final seal on the security protocol when she realized she needed to update her identity. She thought for a minute, and keyed the last five characters of the protocol ... MARCA. ..... With the cats fed and her own nutritional needs attended to, Marca began to forumlate her final plan ...
Kinchie
Cracking Stuff, Fellas! Great Pic and tale!
Umbetro38
A strong story supported with great pictures and absolutely interesting
grafikeer
Great story and image...the atmospheric lighting is very well rendered,and your posing skills improve with every image!
bigbraader
Great sci-fi, well done on the lighting.
hipps13
so cool as the smiles continue wonderful work warm hugs, Linda
Dreamingbee
amazing story and work
lyron
Fantastic scifi!!!
Savage_dragon
Scary. I understood every word of that. You must be fascinating to have a conversation with. I've been called insanely intelligent. Or, was that intelligently insane...? Anyway. Love it! "}
Black-Carrie
Fantastic story and image!
amota99517
Your writing and imagery have woven a wonderful spell. They are both captivating and inviting. Excellent work!
shingleboot
Wonderful image, love the lighting effects.
rbowen
Very good story and work!!
carlx
Superb sci-fi composition and mood, Craig!!!
WZRD
Super series - and an excellent talent for writing cool sci-fi!
kftate
Very cool image and great story! Fantastic work!!
babuci
Great story and an excelent render.
anahata.c
Ok, another question: Did Tara write 'all' the narrative? Is part of it by Craig? I only ask because you, Tara, only repeat part of the narrative in your comment. (This is what I get for coming in after the movie started...) But ok, onto the piece: Preparations! I don't know how you managed all this scientific detail, Tara. Craig I expect it from: You're a scientist. But I didn't know you had such a predilection for this kind of material, Tara! I sure don't. So you both developed a whole plan for escape, and found that the Tower hadn't really moved. Good! A nicely envisioned piece, and still the amazement that they're the same person. I assume it's not easy to make a moving narrative while also being loyal to the technical details: I realize that's what science fiction is about, but it would seem very hard to me to do both in the same narrative (and you have, Tara). The image is a fine combo of laboratory with a basement-like place, like it isn't necessarily the 'living room'. I'm not being facetious: It has a wonderful combo of lab & boiler room. The light helps, and I like how M/M is bathed in it to where she's almost obscured by it. Nice details on the screens & the gen. molecular generator. Fine atmosphere, Craig, but you've been creating fine atmosphere in your art for a long time now...And the narrative is tense, expectant yet methodical. Not easy to do! Nice work on both ends. And yes---M/M is really fascinating, with all the tattoos & all the other fascinating detail. (I think her hair might be called a "bad hair day"...) I just saw that this was over in 6 parts---could it be? I'm just getting started! Onto part 5...