Lance – The Sixties

The rest of the fifties was just plain fun. As always, we trained in martial arts. The entire family trained, it was just our way of life. It was the most fun when we trained by helping people, and we still played Robinhood and robbed the criminal. We made sure the victims were adequately compensated, which was not only fair but it solidly put them on our side, although we did track who we had helped and on occasion, we called in favors to help us advance our technology advancement goals. After all who is going to go to the authorities and tell them a bunch of masked heroes in colorful skintight outfits, with capes swooped out of the clear blue sky and not only saved me but made my losses good. Then they left in a flying saucer…. Yeah, I can see that happening.

When we first arrived in this time-period, I pictured us in Bit configured in his Rolls Royce Silver Cloud configuration. In my mind, I saw us running down some highway not knowing such things as speed limits. It was the classical scene of blasting past the cops behind a billboard and them giving chase until we drove off a cliff and soared into the sky while they braked to a panicked stop with their front wheels hanging over the edge of the cliff, eyes popping and jaws dropping. Such an imagination! The fun thing was that we actually did buy Bit's original body in April of 1955. Now after centuries of modifications he is more of a Transformer. —Yes, I know the first Transformer toy has not yet been created…. Not much of the original metal is left in Bit, as most of him is made up of fields.

It is interesting to see how many science fiction authors dream up things long before they are real. Another of my favorite authors, Ed Howdershelt, dreamed up an intelligent, talking, flying car made up of nothing but fields. Technology has not come that far yet, but I still have to respect his "Stephanie," for inspiring the eventual building of something like Bit. Stephanie had a lot more personality than either Bit or Imp, but they are still young in experience. (Sorry, guys but you know that it is true and I still love both of you….)

Technology was advancing like we wanted it to. To be honest, there was not all that much pushing we needed to do. Coincidentally, our pushing was typically via funding. Again, we funded someone who funded the people who funded the inventor. Go ahead and dig back through the historical records I'd bet anything that it is impossible to find any direct traces of our assistance.

The significant advances this decade was in spaceflight. Lots of little things of course but man-in-space was the big headline. My personal most exciting thing was the invention of a video game, the 'first' video game when a young M.I.T. student invented Spacewars after being inspired by one of my favorite old authors Doc E.E. Smith. (OK, so he isn't that old in the here and now, but still…) By the way, Betty and Erin had graduated with mechanical and electrical engineering degrees, respectively, from M.I.T. by this point. And, —Betty had 'nothing' to do with that game being created….

It was not until the end of the decade until exciting things started that would affect us the most; DRAM Computer Memory (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) was put on a single circuit chip, ARPA Net (Advanced Research Projects Agency) was fired up. This led to the eventual formation of first the internet, and then of the galaxy-wide datanet that Imp uses so well. A distant ancestor of what Imp uses as a primary control system, UNIX, was designed by Bell Labs. All this led to the invention of a Single-Chip Microprocessor, the Intel 4004. —Do you have any idea of how many trillions of single-chip microcomputers are in Imp or Bit? Or how many zettabytes of dynamic RAM they have? Yes, these developments are significant.

The crowning achievement for the decade was when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. Indeed, it was "One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind."

Personally, I spent a good portion of the last of the fifties in a personal funk. Yes, Serina had meant well. Yes, by her standards what she did to me was for me and our family's good. But about the only difference between what had happened to most of our girls and what happened to me was the intent.

The intent behind those bikers and what they did to the girls was power and control. It was not really a lust thing, although that is a component. When you see someone attack a gray-haired, wrinkled old lady, you can't tell me that she was so provocatively dressed that they could not help themselves. No, it was about power and control. The intent was evil. Serina's purpose was Love. I forgave her the instant these thoughts ran through my mind in the moment of Erin kissing me.

I still had to work through this in my mind, even though I gave in to total unconditional surrender at the moment of Erin's kiss. I don't know how the girls figure out who's turn it is, but I never sleep alone. I never get involved in those decisions, the girls are entirely in control.

It seems to me that greed is at the base of why this more-than-a-couple situation does not work in general. Greed as to is that person getting more than I am. Which, is a form of Jealousy. Now I can say with absolute faith that there is not a single jealous bone in Serina's body. And as has become apparent, none of the girls suffer from this malady. And while the amount of love that was shared in our family has not changed in the least, the tune and shape of that love have.

Even looking at it from a church standpoint, in the here and now. You get married, you get divorced, then you repeat. Sometimes people have repeated many times. How is this different from our family? Except that we did not bother with the divorce part.

Yes, we found a nice place in the Rocky Mountains to establish our new home. With more money than sense, we purchased a large plot of land on the east bench of a beautiful mountain range. Using contractors who were 'obligated' or at least grateful to us for helping them in their time of need we built an underground complex and then on the surface we placed individual houses. Landscaping and paving over the streets above the complex made it, so it looked like a typical neighborhood of small families, but underneath we could all gather as one. The area was gated, and we let real families lease the homes we did not use.

Bit had discovered how to create the material needed to develop an implant, like the one Serina, and I had, in the girls—if they wanted it. And they all did. We were one family in; mind, body, and now ability, as they had slowly over the years been working out with us at three-gee. It would take them a long time to master their implants to the degree that Serina and I had, but what else did we have other than time?

To give them that time we offered them the concoction that Beauty had given me. Between about the mid-teens to the mid-thirties, there is a point at which you can't really be sure of a person's age. A person could be closer to a teen or moving on in age. It is that sweet spot. This where Serina and I looked to be in age. But our girls were now starting to look like middle age. When we offered the pill of endless beauty, they jumped at it. As the body healed itself; wrinkles vanished, and skin tone cleared, their hair luster returned. They looked like girls again instead of moving on to middle age. It was when this process had mostly completed that we moved into our Rocky Mountain retreat. Eight girls with fully matured bodies, but with a young girl's looks and excitement. Glowing skin covering muscle that daily worked out in mock battles in a three-gee field. Reaction times that were literally superhuman. If you think I was the boss of that group, boy do you need to think again. Even if they made me feel I was the leader, trust me I was not, I was more of the coordinator.

During a really horrible incident I wasn't present, so take this from me as I heard it from the various witnesses and in my role as a narrator. The story is that one of the girls had got pregnant, not only pregnant but ready to deliver any moment now. I'm purposefully not saying who, as we all agreed that it did not matter who was first, let's call her 'Paula' as she represented every girl in the team. If you put on the adoption mindset, you love a child because of the experiences of raising a child, not from the nine months in your belly. This was what we all agreed to. That no matter who held the child in her womb, once that child was with us, everyone was the mother. Yes, there were some constraints such the ability to nurse. But outside of that, we all agreed it was all for one and one for all.

As an aside, a woman can develop the ability to produce milk using special injections. Serina had done so, so she could also nurse our 'firstborn' as well. Thus, sharing the night shift to make it easier on the birth mother. The excess milk was all donated to a human milk bank.

Whitney was a female doctor who lived in our Rocky Mountain retreat. She was very good at it, which is why she could afford to live in our area. Whitney was a bright, cheerful, single, blonde with a more than an adequate figure who was easy to know and fun to talk to. Because her shifts had been reduced recently, there was a tendency for many of our girls to go to Whitney's house and talk to her. At the time this happened, Serina and I were in transit to Jupiter. Bit made the trip possible in days not years. There were materials there for the taking that Terra could not yet manufacture. These materials would speed up our private development efforts immeasurably.

What small chat-chat was happening at the critical part of this story is not essential, what is important is that in the midst of chatting with Whitney our very pregnant girl's water broke all over Whitney's kitchen. Luckily Whitney was such a good housekeeper that you probably could have eaten off of her floor. By the time Whitney had placed a pillow under our girls' head and settled her on the floor, doing a quick clean up in the process, our girl had dilated to seven and was visibly dilating even as Whitney examined her. Knowing that there was not going to be time for a hospital visit, Whitney grabbed the supplies and make-do's that she had and prepared to deliver a baby. She had called and reached Ashley, who happened to be home that day, and Ashley was starting to rally the troops.

Way too much blood started to spill on to the floor—placental abruption was what it is called or Abruptio Placentae if you want to be formal. Usually not a big deal but it is life threatening to the baby. This was complicated by uterine rupture. Things had to happen fast, or both the patient and the baby were going to be lost. Whitney could tell through her examination that the uterine tear was threatening to become a complete uterine rupture. She was alone, and her operating table was her kitchen floor.