Chapter 50: Serina – Advance to the twenty-first century
Lance is much more into the history of technology than I am. I just want it to work when I need it. However, even Lance does not have much to say about the decades leading up to the year two-thousand A.D., or even after for some decades saying that the phrase, 'more, faster, and smaller' covered it all. Sure Quantum computers were being thought about and while they do help pull together the results of trillions of calculations they still have an element of uncertainty about them.
Lance seems to think that the 'smartphone' was the crowning achievement of this period as it brought the daily benefits computing to almost every person. Did we continue to encourage tech advancement? Yes, we did. But we had turned our investment company over to 'professionals' Our girls had retired from the day to day operations, they were much more interested in our children of which we were starting to have a herd of them. All loved to death and spoiled to no end.
Lance and Bit were buried in creating a 'real' USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F as the vehicle that would take us home. The ship was basically bit with huge fields wrapped around it. When you get down to it, everything is nothing but fields. Even though our ship would be made of fields, the deck would feel solid to us.
The night after that first night with Erin, as Lance and I cuddled we had another pillow talk session— a long one. I quoted to him from one of his favorite fiction series where Spock says, 'The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few,' and Lance, of course, responded, "'or the One...' But it still hurts. I know that you meant well and I still love you more than words can tell. That you sacrificed yourself along with me for our team is something that goes beyond my ability to express, but I still hurt. My biggest worry is you, how do you feel?"
I had to admit it, as I said, "Yes, it hurt to see you two together, but the look in Erin's eyes and sounds of hope from all the rest quickly removed that hurt. You have not been on the receiving end of the tears as they tried to consider leaving us. Even the thoughts of going outside the group for a one-night-stand just to be able to have a baby pulled their corks. The damage to us as a team would have been massively greater than this alternative. I knew you loved all of us, but it was your upbringing that stood in your way. Your head knew what to do, but your heart would not let you. Just like you, their minds understood, but their hearts would not let them either. However, I knew your strength, I knew you could accept what must be. And I knew that your love could only multiply and never divide."
There was much more, but that primarily settled it. I was happy to share Lance with the team as I loved all of the girls without reservation. If you truly love someone, how can you not be happy if they are happy? The reciprocal was that they showed us that they loved us far more than mere gratitude for saving them years ago. As girls, we had shared too much pain and joy in the past to not love each other. Like sisters, we often slept together, and that warmness helped, but it was not the same as sleeping with Lance; even though many times we 'just' slept with him and cuddled. This was not about sex, but intimacy and love.
The whole team had already been cuddling him on the couch and such long before this next step. The only person on the team who was body-shy was Lance. The whole team had been skin to skin at many times in the past and for many reasons. This next step of intimacy only solidified our team and what the children that it produced did for all of us goes beyond words.
That I was able to help nurse 'our' first born just bonded him even more so into my heart, and you should have seen Lance's proud, loving eyes as he watched 'Paula' and me when we nursed him. I think that as much as anything, brought Lance entirely around. This did set a precedent for the future. We made it a pattern to always have two lactating mothers for our children so that no one had to burn out with early morning feedings. If there ever was a situation where the bottle was required you could place a bet that Lance would be there demanding the privilege. He never shirked one dirty diaper. That is the one thing that a family composition like ours granted was freedom from burnout.
As to Whitney, well she weathered meeting the team and accepted that Lance and Serina were who they are. Although the concept that Serina was an Imperial princess appeared to trip every fantasy that she had ever had as a kid. She had no idea that all of us were together, as we emerged from different houses when she saw us above ground. And our underground complex about blew her mind. We connected her home to the complex, and she is training along with us. In every respect, but one, she is one of the team. She has all the implants that all of the team does and that concoction of Beauty's just tweaked her innate loveliness. It was her knowledge and skill as a medical professional that impressed us at first. It was her bright smile and friendly attitude that captured all of our hearts. If she should ever want to join the team entirely, I know that the rest of the team has room in their hearts for her. As to Lance? Well if we pull the puss in boots eyes on him, he will be putty in our hands and accept her as one of the team
Little Lance and Jane are typical here and now kids. They did all the standard school things. Lance went to teacher meetings as their 'dad,' partnering with Erin and Betty respectively. The teachers have him pegged as a wonderful Uncle supporting his single sisters' kids and think he is terrific for it. Lance and Jane just accepted all of us as a mother (calling us alternately Aunt or Mother, depending on what they are trying to get out of us.) and Lance as a father—although in public they learned to call him Uncle.
They have trained with us now and then, but not in three-gee. I'm not sure, but kids seem to just live in the bubble of their own worlds and kind of know what mom and dad do, but not entirely. This describes little Lance and Jane. The two kids played with the local neighborhood kids, complained when we moved that their lives were over, but made new friends the day we moved in. School dances and such they danced with other kids. They usually acted like brother and sister if they were forced to partner with each other—as if the other was this weird creature that they tolerated.... But I could see that sometimes they looked at each other, as they entered their last year at high school, as more than brother and sister. They knew that while they lived together, that there was nothing of heredity to link them.
College was normal. Lance went out for Computer Science stuff, while Jane wanted to be a teacher. They dated other people as if tomorrow would never arrive. But in the end after graduating it was to each other that they looked. Their wedding was unremarkable in the local sense, even if they had huge attendance. I don't think that they ever knew that their family knew so many people.
After they were married little Lance and Jane moved off to silicon valley and jumped into the tech scene there. When Lance had an idea and wanted to go on his own, somehow the investors were behind him no matter how many times he failed.
All of our kids went to college, that was something that Lance insisted on. And if they needed tutoring, he was there until the early morning hours. When you think about it, we had a member of the family that knew something about almost any subject, even if we were tech-heavy. Most of our kids ended up working at our research facility, but only if they deserved it. They had to earn their way onboard.
The research facility was where all the action was nowadays. The more complex the society became, the harder it was for us to play at being superheroes. The ubiquitous presence of cellphone cameras also precluded our superhero activities. And frankly taking you through the not very exciting steps of building parts for our ship was not worth writing about.
We knew how to create small, powerful hot fusion reactors, using the materials we had eventually harvested from Jupiter. Supermagnets that operated well above room temperature allowed us to make tiny plasma bottles, or tokamaks, to contain the fusion reaction. Our computer systems while not as complex as those in Bit were effective enough through the method of massively parallel processing using large numbers of processors. As long as we could get the right materials, either by building them up in atomic level 3D printers or harvesting them from Jupiter, Bit could use his self-repair capabilities to produce the field manipulation and other modules we needed. We then tied the field projectors to our home-made computer systems in small self-contained devices that only needed a power stream to become massive components of the ship.
And yes Bit and Lance did design the NC-1701-F, or something that looked like it.
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