Chapter 12

Ah, it feels great to be alive for another day! A quick coffee, check with the Commanders that all is quiet on the western front, then my daily routine ... minus the shaving! Have I ever said I love not having to shave in the morning!

I grabbed a bowl of fruit and another coffee and Sam comes in and seems to be very happy.

“Good morning Sam, you certainly look very happy this morning. Any particular reason?”

“No, not really. Just a great day DD.”

I ask Sam to take a look at the items I came up with from the comparisons list and let me know if I missed anything or if she has any comments. She says she’ll look at it right away.

I also ask if there are any precious metals on Arkadia or in the Guardian Solar Systems.

“Lots of some and less of others. Why?”

“We’re going to need cash soon. Lots of cash. I have a lot of my own but nowhere near what I think we will need and I’d like to know what other options we have.”

“I see, well we have a lot of the metals that have significant value on Earth such as Gold, Silver, Platinum, etc, as well as metals that have less value. There are several thousands of tonnes of just Gold and Silver alone. They lost their value and rarity when replicators came into wide use.

You do not need to worry about paying for a lot of things if you make use of the replicators and androids.”

“That is good to know about the Gold and Silver Sam. I keep forgetting about using replicators even though I use one every day now.”

Sam’s cell phone goes off and she says it is a message from Mark saying he has taken the “Enhanced” CAP Test. I have Sam check both his Confederacy CAP and Enhanced CAP and I was not surprised that he scored highly. A 7.8 on the Confederacy CAP that got bumped to an 8.5 on the Enhanced with excellent scores in tactics, strategy, and planning. Well, we had to go congratulate him so down to the office we went!

“Good morning Mark I got your message that you took the Enhanced CAP test. Congratulations, Sam has gone over it and tells me you scored very well and excellent in tactics, strategy, and planning. Are you still interested in staying fighting here on Earth? Any way I can convince you to come to Arkadia and run the Guardians?”

“My thanks to both of you. And thanks for the offer again DD but my place is here on Earth.”

“Ok don’t blame me for trying and if you ever change your mind...”

Well shit, now what to do. It was too early to head to class and too early for lunch. We ended just going to the campus and sitting on the grass going over the next steps for Arkadia until it was close enough to lunchtime.

Hmm, Mexican food sounds good for lunch today. A couple of spicy chicken and cheese quesadillas along with a side of spicy black beans and yellow rice, and I was good to go for the afternoon.

Classes went as good as they could. I’d be glad when they were over and I had my degree. Shit, I should probably ask Sam if Arkadia has sleep trainers as the Confederacy does. I should look into learning how to run a planet sometime soon!

I mention them to Sam and she says Arkadia does have them but they found that, unless actually used, the retention level of the information is not as good when compared to normal studying unless the subject was repeated several times. Sorta like my going over the information she gave me to read.

A person would need to take the subject 4-5 times in a sleep trainer to have a permanent retention level.

I ask her to have a sleep trainer installed in my suite as I wanted to learn about “Governing” as soon as possible. She said it would be there when we went home tonight.

We were walking across campus when 2-1 says that there are 2 females following us at our 5 o’clock and they have been following since we walked out of my last class.

“Ok I’m going to turn around and ask them if we can help them and we’ll see what they say.”

I abruptly turned towards them and saw what appeared to be sisters about 8 meters from us, “Is there anything we can help you with?”

“I highly doubt it” the one sneered.

Sam took a step towards them, “then I’d suggest you quit following us,” and we turned to leave.

The one with attitude looked like she was ready to pop her cork until the other one cuffed her on the back of the head and told her to quit being a bitch. “I apologize for my mouthy daughter but I think only your girlfriend could help her if you know what I mean.”

“Mooooom! You just outed me to strangers!”

“Then quit being a bitch just because a man talks to you. Sorry, yes we were following you. Are you DeDeus? From the news conference Sunday? My daughter thought your girlfriend looked hot and swears that is her with you.”

“Moooom! Quit embarrassing me pleeeeease!”

I look over at Sam and she responds to them, “yes, this is DeDeus and I am Sam. Was that all you wanted?”

No one says anything so we start to walk away when the one with attitude yells out, “Sam if you ever get tired of your boyfriend look me up!” I almost couldn’t hold in the laughter before Sam could beam us up!

Back onboard everyone has a good laugh. “I told you before you were a hottie, Sam. All you girls are.”

Of course, they then turned the laughing towards me, saying here I am the Ruler of a new world and it’s Sam that the girl likes! Hahaha.

I go over to Chef and get him to make me 2 KFC extra crispy chicken breasts with garlic mashed potatoes and gravy. Mmm mmm good!

I contact the Shield Commanders and they have nothing to report.

I see the sleep trainer in my suite and it looks similar to a comfortable recliner with an adjustable headrest. I ask Sam to show me how to set it up to take a course.

There are a small display and keyboard the same as is on the replicator, and it allows me to search a database of subject material to choose from. Each subject lists any previous subject that should be taken beforehand for greater understanding, as well as the runtime of the subject.

Sam tells me it is usually better to limit the amount of time in the sleep trainer to 2 hours as this amount of time has shown to achieve the greatest retention.

I ask her if that is 2 hours at a time or 2 hours per day and she says 2 hours per day. She tells me that a LOT of material is covered in those 2 hours.

I see a course called “Governing/Managing” and the description says it covers from small business management to managing multi races in multi solar systems. I decide this is definitely the one I need and notice the runtime of 4 hours! Looking closer I see it actually says the runtime is 4 hours x 3 days!

Ok breaking that down to 2 hours a day means 6 days to complete the course, and to achieve permanent retention I have to take the course 4-5 times, so I’m looking at 24-30 days in total.

I decide that there is no time like the present to get started, so Sam shows me how to set the course to start, how to limit the runtime, and how to save where I leave off.

I slip into the recliner and Sam shows me how best to adjust the headrest, positioning the recliner for the most comfort, and saving the settings so the next time I use it the recliner will automatically move into the saved configuration.

Sam and I say our goodnights and I’m off to school again.

Ufff, I will say that sleeping all night in the sleep trainer isn’t as good as sleeping in my bed. I think from now on I’ll be sleeping in my own bed after a training session is done. Oh well up and at em!

I go through my normal morning routine and grab a cheese and spicy sausage omelet from Chef for breakfast.

Sam and the Security girls pop in to say hello and the girls disappear just as quickly. I check in with the Commanders and there is once again nothing to report. I’ll take the tranquility!

I ask Sam how the website is doing and am told that visits are increasing daily but there hasn’t been significant traffic yet. I ask her to think about ways to increase interest in Arkadia and traffic to the website, maybe a Q&A section?

I inquire about the “Enhanced” CAP test and am told there have been quite a few people take it, most with very low Confederacy CAP scores. A majority would be good for fighting the Swarm on Earth but not what we are looking for to migrate to Arkadia. When we have greater numbers we can do a review of them if I wanted to.

“Sam, do we have scanners out anywhere still?”

“Not at the moment DD. Did you want to send some out? Which countries and do you want the same parameters as before?”

“Yes, send as many out as possible to gather data from as many countries as possible. Start with the EU and have them work their way East and South. The same parameters as before please.”

“Consider it done DD.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

I contact Ryker and ask how things are going there. Everything is still on schedule. He did ask about building an Orbital Factory Replicator (OFR) nearer to Arkadia for future use and I told him to go ahead as long as it didn’t slow down production of the first 3 PG’s as I wanted them for the protection of our Solar Systems. He ensured me he wouldn’t let that happen.

“Sam, next week is the last week of classes before Spring Break. I just talked with Ryker about us coming to Arkadia and he tells me there is housing ready to stay in, so we could stay in Guardian City instead of on the J&J. Would you and everyone else be interested in going to Arkadia for a week?

“Of course we would love to go DD. That would be great! Did Ryker say which housing is ready?”

“Excellent Sam. No, Ryker never mentioned anything specific when I asked. He just said there was housing ready to live in. He did suggest that we take a shuttle from the J&J to Guardian City though. Let’s plan on going then, Sam. We’ll need to stock up on food etc for a week as there shouldn’t be any replicators planet side correct?”

“That is correct DD. Ryker had them all removed. He could put one or two back for your use though.”

“Not necessary Sam. It wouldn’t be right for me to have them when no one else will.

Could you have someone check on the state of the rivers, lakes, and oceans on Arkadia? Would they be able to sustain some of Earth’s “marine life”? Both salt and fresh water? Maybe we can buy some live “marine life” to take with us when we go? Or sperm and eggs? I’m not talking about whales and sharks right now, just smaller things that humans eat such as different types of fish, shellfish, crab, lobster, etc.”

“I have passed that request on and will let you know as soon as I get the information back. And yes we could take some marine life with us. I can have several large aquariums built and we can transport what you want into them. Will your entire PG be going to Arkadia?”

“That is great Sam. I was thinking that 2 Shields would stay here as I don’t want to take the entire PG with us and leave no presence here. I’m sure certain elements in the Confederation would love for me to do that. And hold off on the aquariums until we see what, if anything, we can get.”

“That is doable DD. We’d have to make the trip as quick as possible so there’d be little compromise in your Security though.”

“Good enough for me Sam.”

I call Mark and Dean and ask them if they’d like to come up to the J&J for lunch tomorrow. They both say they’d love to so I tell them I’ll stop by and pick them up around noon.

I let them know I’ll be picking them up in a shuttle and ask if there is any problem coming and going from the roof. I tell them we won’t actually “land” on the roof so the ship’s weight won’t be a problem.

Mark says there is extra Security still on hand so there should be no problems there either as he’s sure it will be seen and reported. I thank him and tell him we’ll see him tomorrow morning.

Classes are classes though there is more pointing at me and whispering than there ever was before. Sam asks if I want to know what they are saying and I shake my head whispering, “no thanks.” Was that giggling I heard in my mind?

Back on the J&J, I chat with Chef for a few minutes while ordering a Thai meal. He loves being able to work on AI programming and is looking for new and better ways of programming them.

I ask if he has anything that’s a little better than the Confederacy AIs, and if he does, would he think about allowing me to sell it to Earth companies to raise money for Arkadia.

“Sire, I do have many older versions that are better than what the Confederacy races have. I think the best one for Earth would be a version 1 generation better than T’ull AIs, as the T’ull AI seems to be the best in the Confederacy at the moment. You know that anything I create is yours to use Sire.”

“Thank you, Chef, but they are your creations and I would never use them without your permission. The AI version you mention does sound what I am looking for though. Will the Earth companies be able to learn and use the new knowledge in the AI to advance it? Create new and better AIs like you are doing?”

“Yes, they would be able to do that, though I think it will be some time before they’d create anything better than what we gave them.”

“It might not be better right away but it may be different than what you are used to. Many times things have been created as a “by-product” when trying something else. You may see something different in their programming and get a “Eureka” moment that leads you to something you never thought of before. Browse Earth’s internet for things that have been created by accident or were not the initial goal of the inventor and you will see what I mean.”

“I will do this Sire, thank you.”

“Sam, which shuttle should we use tomorrow? There are only a few of us so I was thinking my personal shuttle is too big.”

“Use it anyways. Show off a little for the newsies. We can be seated in the Observation Lounge and have a great view of the J&J as we approach her.”

“Good thinking Sam. Give the newsies something more to speculate about and give Mark and Dean something to think about and maybe change their minds about coming to Arkadia.

Ok, I am off for more sleep training though I will not be sleeping in the trainer tonight!”

“We were wondering how long it would take before you made that decision. Who won the pool girls?” Hahaha.

Oh boy waking up in my bed is so much better than in the sleep trainer! I grab a DD coffee from Chef and get the usual “All is well” report from my Commander. Gym, shower, brush the teeth, and ready for another day! Another DD coffee and light breakfast of some cereal and fruit to take to the table.

“Good morning Sam, all ready for another day?”

“Good morning DD, I see you are in a great mood again. I don’t foresee any problems today but hey, the day is just starting.”

Sam and I spend the morning going over things on the Arkadia website and she shows me some of the people that have taken the Enhanced CAP test. Only a few that I’d consider for migration to Arkadia. A vast majority so far were still those with very low CAP scores hoping to get off-planet.

I read some more of the information Sam had given me until it was time to go down and pick up Mark and Dean for lunch.