Geron Kees

Some call me the gangster of love! 😃

I wanted to get this story posted so that it would end today, on the holiday, but it was not to be. So the final two chapters will appear tomorrow. GA only allows two chapters per day!

Yeeee-haaah!

Still waiting on that poster!

Part of the fun of magic is that you need not be contemporary with it at all.

Yep. Did I say 'yep'?

Um...how does 'wait and see' strike ya? You always have some good ideas. Not that I would steal any, or anything!

Sefton noted their changed mood on the return trip to the city. They were elated to think they had just taken the first step in finding Pacha, Mike, Bobby, and Kontus. But that elation was tempered by the knowledge that this was by no means a certainty. Not until Murcha weighed in with what he had learned, if anything. And as rapidly as the artificial mind was able to work, that they had not already heard back from him had given them all pause. Charlie had been tempted to call the ship, but felt

That's about the nicest reward I could hope to get for my efforts. Thanks!

Me, too. Otherwise I would have had to figure out something else!

Well, It's not really forever. It's simply a non-passage of time relative to where Pacha and the others are. It's useful, because it gives the characters time to figure out the answers!

Even an unexpected assist is an assist! I have to have Billy and Will take a major part in another installment, I think!

Even elves have air conditioning. They call it the North Pole! Thanks!

It's the stuff that scary stories are made of. Hmm!😁

I don't need to look it up. A solar storm of that magnitude is definitely a scary proposition. There are undoubtedly refuges on this planet prepared just for such things, but not for you or me or any other average citizen. And EMP would be as destructive, in many respects. Let's just not go there yet!

Exactly. America used to have the most dependable infrastructure on earth. Back in the 1950's, anyway. That's how old a lot of this stuff is now! --G.

I knew a Kip in high school that I liked a lot.

Could be another name for the same thing. Out of body experiences have a lot of documentation, going way back. I am not a follower of that sort of stuff, but I kind of agree with what Hamlet told Horatio!

It is, indeed. Not just fragile, but not well-secured. It was a good idea to link America's power grid infrastructure together via the Internet, because it has produced a more flexible system able to better adapt to meet demands. But then not to properly safeguard those network connections...stupid. No one has attempted a large-scale cyber attack on the utilities of this country yet (that we know about), but our readiness to stand off such an attack is pitifully lacking. Russia recently performed a test to see if they could take their entire country off the Internet and still retain internal connectivity. They said it was a success. They did this ostensibly as a precautionary measure in case of an attack. But it served just as well as a preparedness exercise for what they would certainly want to do if they cyber-attacked us first, and wanted to avoid retaliation by the same means. To my knowledge, the US has no similar program in place to isolate us from the world Internet should the need arise. Because I live in the boonies, I have a whole-house generator at my place, that runs off of LPG, and I have two tanks that give me about a two-week run if I need it. Back when winters here were a lot worse, we had an ice storm that took town utility wires all over the county. We were without utility power for five days. Without the generator, we'd have been back to heating via the fireplace and cooking on a small portable gas stove. I doubt most of America would find that a fun way to spend a winter's day.

Well, I wanted to sort of put some limitations on what magic can do. It's a science to the power users in these stories, so it should have rules like any other science. Viewed as a technology of sorts, magic can be put into perspective. I decided that some of the rules should be better laid out here, and that Max should be better viewed as someone very proficient with a science rather than just a magician that can do anything. I really do feel that if there were people somewhere with these sorts of abilities, there would be clear rules they would know, and limitations to what they could do. Sure. Even with limitations, I consider Charlie and his crowd to be fairly able people. At least, that's the image that I want to present here, that young people can be intelligent and able. People that are able define limitations and then look for a way around them, or a way to change them. Charlie and company benefit greatly from having a few old heads like Max, Pacha, and Ragal around, and I do think they are showing that they are learning. But I have also found that if I am going to keep adding entries to this series, I need a set of rules that I can work by, too.

Max teleported their entire group to the edge of the port city, where the tour agency of their Molokar friend, Sefton, was located in a modest building with a large door in the facade that looked to be the roll-up type that fronted a garage. A sign out front showed a stylized, saucer-like vehicle with a bunch of heads popped up above the rim, flying just above some trees, with some weird-looking towers in the background. Underneath the illustration were several large words lettered in a blocky

I'm not telling! Mostly because I don't know her last name!

Yep. Thanks.

Sigh. You, sir, are incorrigible!

Hope so, too!