Shiny perfect Union

United Earth

Shiny Perfect Union

(C) Vanessa Ravencroft (c) 2017

Prelude The year is 5100 OTT or 2880 NUT. The third Union time reform (of 5050 OTT) is now catching on and most citizen simply use the new number and no longer designate it NUT. Historians and scholars still might use OTT for Old Terran Time or NUT which stands for New Union Time. The war against the Kermac is near its end and everyone, including the Kermac know that the Union moloch can no longer be stopped. Richard Stahl in undisputed control of all Union forces, is finally allowed to execute his iron broom doctrine and sweep the Kermac and all those associated, chiefly of course the second Galactic Council away. The term United Stars of the Galaxies has not been used in decades and since the Assembly decision of 2879 NUT, Union became the new official designator and name for this immense mega society. While much of the M-0 galaxy remains unexplored, mostly the Spinward and Downward sector,  everyone believes the Union is now the biggest and most advanced society in this spiral arm galaxy, with considerable foot holds in almost every galaxy of the local cluster. The Union is ruled by its people and the seemingly unique concept of a collective simple democratic voting on every issue; a congress of representatives of communities in session around the clock and every day; has been developing and is morphing slowly and constantly since it's conception. There are no presidents anymore, no ministers, no ministries and no officials that decide for the people. There are no diplomats and no contracts made by the government for the people. Every issue is brought as a docket before the Assembly and discussed and voted upon. It was decided in 1779 NUT (4999 OTT) that only Union Citizen should be able to vote. That citizenship was a privilege that came with enormous benefits and freedoms, but also with responsibilities. But not all wanted to become Citizens and some simply fell through the cracks. This is the story of "Willie" William B. Hartman.

Chapter 1 "Shiny perfect Union" Maybe you think a lot of this is made up, it could not possibly happen in the shiny perfect Union and no less on Pluribus the most perfect planet in the whole frikking universe. Or to make me sound bad ass and cool but the truth is, I am not. Maybe the things I am going to talk about make me sound like a criminal or just stupid. Maybe you will think I am the product of circumstance, but all I am going to tell you about has happened. My life's story; well the part that is worth talking about started the standard year I turned fourteen. That is an age where the teenage period of a Terran human  really starts. They talked in Union school about the Human mystery, and I know the term Terran means anything that originated from a planet called Earth, including a lot of colonists that left that planet so long ago, but I couldn't really tell you much about Earth or why they call us Terra humans and not Earth humans. Until very recently even time was still measured by Terran standards. For example I was born in the year 5001 OTT, which means Old Terran Time. Which is the year 2781 NUT, New Union Time. I was heavy into Rec drugs, including the illegal ones. )Of course all rec drug are illegal for a minor) but I didn't have the required UCU (Union Credit Units) to buy it with, so I started looking around the house and the immediate neighborhood for things I could sell, but there weren't many things.My mother who was still like my best buddy back then and her new civil union contract partner Marti, who became my legal male co guardian. We lived in a decent home on the Eastern Continent on Pluribus. A civil court awarded it to my mother after her first CU-contract with my real father got annulled about ten years ago. Any dwelling on Pluribus; even on the Eastern Continent and quite distant in planetary terms from the Western continent and the very heart of the oh so mighty and shiny Union; was valuable. But she says she only got the short end of an OOCA guaranteed loan contract. Of him she never really talks about, however grandmother did. My mom and Marti booth had these corny jobs and didn't own anything you could steal, at least not without them noticing right away. Marti worked as a building system technician for one of the super towers over at the Western Continent, which was a fancy way of saying he was a custodian and janitor robot supervisor and my mother was a receprionist at one of the rich people's space scrapers on the Western Continent which was also a no brain required job, other than sitting behind a reception desk all day and smiling stupidly at every idiot that walked through the hard light doors. It all started with me roaming through the dwelling after school looking for something  that wasn't boring, like ,straight human porn, weird non human porn VR, adult VR experience chips, anything really. Of course I hoped to find their own stash of legal or perhaps illegal rec drugs. My mother and in particular Marti were borderline alc-addicts then and maybe not all the uptight law abiding Union citizens as they always claimed to be, I was thinking. Anything is possible after all. The dwelling was small, four rooms and a hygiene room. A rent to own condo on the 455th  sub floor in the Skeepman's Sub Surface complex Eight of Miss Baldwin's Town and I lived there with my mom and my birth father until he left which was when I was five and after that with my mother and Marti who became my legal co guardian and became my new father until recently, so I knew the place in and out. I was sure I had poked through every drawer and looked into every storage alcove. Searched under every piece of non tech furniture in the place. I'd even pulled the old religious books Marti had brought with him, the really old kind with two hard cover lids and many sheets of paper in between. But there was nothing, nothing new I mean. Except for a Memory Chip taped on the underside of my mothers underwear drawer, with images, vid clips and such of family like aunts and uncles and grandmother. Mom had played them for me a few years ago, mostly of people I had never seen or talked to. I looked for images of my birth dad from the time he was still living with us, but there was only one still image of him, standing next to his own flyer and in his black Spatial Navy uniform. I had printed me a hard copy and studied it often as it was the only image of him I had ever seen. I always wondered why she or grandma had not kept any more vids or stills of him. There were a little bundle of text messages, mother had print copies of. Tugged away underneath her satin and perfume smelling under garment things. My birth father had written to her even before they signed a marriage contract and before I was born. I never read them before but they turned out pretty heated. Steve, as my birth father's name was defended himself against my mother's accusations  that he left us for a female officer, one Lieutenant Caroline Carter, but he was claiming that she was just a bunk mate on the same ship and there was nothing going on between him and her. He blamed the spatial navy for him being transferred from a cozy desk job on Pluribus to a ship. He wanted to come back. I almost felt sorry for him, but I didn't believe him. Mother said it was all his fault and he was screwing Caroline and he was a liar. None of my mother's response text were among the print outs. even though I was little when it all happened I remember stuff. If he was such a standup honest man, why did he never sent any money or tried to be in touch with me, his son. Granny always told me not to think about him anymore, he is probably living on a distant planet or something or maybe killed while fighting some non Union idiots. She grabs me by the shoulder and shakes me, You don't have a father, Willie. Forget about this idiot. She was hard as Ultronit and tough as Intelli-Fab, my grandmother, oh yeah she was. I used to be like her especially when I was about my birth father. I don't think he knew my mother had kept these print outs and I was sure Granny didn't know either. Anyhow this afternoon, I came home from Union school because I left early. It was just fine as I didn't need any Cerebral uploads about some stinking non humans anyhow. I had not signed up for any extra credit classes and was not part of any student clubs .I looked for any fresh food in the stasis storage but found nothing really, so I ran the ancient food printer to make me a few fake as hell tuna sandwiches. I used Marti's adult code I had  to have the dwelling system deliver me a beer from the CO-STO. He would never notice that the Dwelling conveyor system delivered a beer from the convenience store seventy eight levels up, while he was at work. The Shiss lizard running the CO-STO send a bill  every week and a few more beers, made no difference. I went into the family room and plugged in one of mother and Marti's crazy sex VR chips into the GalNet console and laid down on the Virtu couch. Moments later I was in the VR nexus, a white room with doors, one was marked male the other female. I walked through the male door and in a dark red room with a bed and strange devices. A mirror reflected my image and I was this muscular tall man with a serious male organ all naked, except for a tight leather mask around my face. There was a woman tied up in chains and stuff on a rack of sorts. She had big boobs red hair and was also wearing a mask. I did not understand the set up and left. There were no other doors, and I didn't want to be the tied up female so I decided to exit the adult nexus and return to reality. I played a little with Mako our house monkey, which was paying all attention to me. Of course he was programmed to do so. But I got bored and really wanted some 'Blue-Purple' or something to make me relax. It had been a couple of days now since I had been high and whenever I went that long I got miserable, an unexplainable feeling of desire and crawling inside me. I got irate and pissed at everything and everyone and I realized I would never graduate and become a citizen, I would never serve the 22 month of required citizen service for those uptight assholes the Union preferred in any thing and everything. A little patch of 'Blue-Purple' on my arm and all my anxiety went away. Blue-Purple was on the edge of legal tox and of course it was illegal for minors. I was a minor but I didn' give a flying fikkin about all those rigid Union rules. The whole universe needed to spin according to Union rules, at least that's what they wanted. While this was Pluribus Unum, the very center and  considered one of the most lawful planets in the Universe where only less than two percent of the population was involved in anythung illegal; but the planet had a population of over a hundred billion and two percent of that is still a lot of individuals. Calvin over at the Oswald Subsurface Complex 1 was a Used Items merchant and one of those who never asked many questions where things came from and he paid with Credit Cubes, untraceable UCUs. That the slick slimer Kolor was never far from Calvin's store and always had some fine Blue-Purple patches for sale was of course not a coincident. I was already giving up on finding something for sale that would not be discovered right away. Of course Calvin would give me top price for our GalNet terminal, as it was Avatar enabled and had a virtu couch too, would be noticed if missing right away. The rest of my parents posessions were boring stuff, like clothing. My mother didn't even had jewelry. I was looking one more time through the closet alcove in their master bedroom, down on my hands and knees and groping  past my mother's shoes. When I came to what I thought previously were just some folded blankets. But when I felt inside the blankets there was something hard inside. I pulled the whole thing out and unwrapped these two green military personal effects cases, with my birth father's name written across. the lid. The ID lock had been removed on both. I opened the first and noticed a genuine Kermac Line blaster with four spare energy cells.Untitled Story (c) 2017

Prelude The year is 5100 OTT or 2880 NUT. The third Union time reform (of 5050 OTT) is now catching on and most citizen simply use the new number and no longer designate it NUT. Historians and scholars still might use OTT for Old Terran Time or NUT which stands for New Union Time. The war against the Kermac is near its end and everyone, including the Kermac know that the Union moloch can no longer be stopped. Richard Stahl in undisputed control of all Union forces, is finally allowed to execute his iron broom doctrine and sweep the Kermac and all those associated, chiefly of course the second Galactic Council away. The term United Stars of the Galaxies has not been used in decades and since the Assembly decission of 2879 NUT, Union became the new official designator and name for this immense mega society. While much of the M-0 galaxy remains unexplored, mostly the Spinward and Downward sector,  everyone believes the Union is now the biggest and most advanced society in this spiral arm galaxy, with considerable foot holds in almost every galaxy of the local cluster. The Union is ruled by its people and the seemingly unique concept of a collective simple democratic voting on every issue; a congress of representatives of communities in session around the clock and every day; has been developing and is morphing slowly and constantly since it's conception. There are no presidents anymore, no ministers, no ministries and no officials that decide for the people. There are no diplomats and no contracts made by the government for the people. Every issue is brought as a docket before the Assembly and discussed and voted upon. It was decided in 1779 NUT (4999 OTT) that only Union Citizen should be able to vote. That citizenship was a priviliege that came with enormous benefits and freedoms, but also with responsibilites. But not all wanted to become Citizens and some simply fell through the cracks. This is the story of "Willie" William B. Hartman.

Chapter 1 "Shiny perfect Union" Maybe you think a lot of this is made up, it could not possibly happen in the shiny perfect Union and no less on Pluribus the most perfect planet in the whole frikking universe. Or to make me sound bad ass and cool but the truth is, I am not. Maybe the things I am going to talk about make me sound like a criminal or just stupid. Maybe you will think I am the product of circumstance, but all I am going to tell you about has happened. My life's story; well the part that is worth talking about started the standard year I turned fourteen. That is an age where the teenage period of a Terran human  really starts. They talked in Union school about the Human mystery, and I know the term Terran means anything that originated from a planet called Earth, including a lot of colonists that left that planet so long ago, but I couldn't really tell you much about Earth or why they call us Terra humans and not Earth humans. Until very recently even time was still measured by Terran standards. For example I was born in the year 5001 OTT, which means Old Terran Time. Which is the year 2781 NUT, New Union Time. I was heavy into Rec drugs, including the illegal ones. )Of course all rec drug are illegal for a minor) but I didn't have the required UCU (Union Credit Units) to buy it with, so I started looking around the house and the immediate neighborhood for things I could sell, but there weren't many things.My mother who was still like my best buddy back then and her new civil union contract partner Marti, who became my legal male co guardian. We lived in a decent home on the Eastern Continent on Pluribus. A civil court awarded it to my mother after her first CU-contract with my real father got annulled about ten years ago. Any dwelling on Pluribus; even on the Eastern Continent and quite distant in planetary terms from the Western continent and the very heart of the oh so mighty and shiny Union; was valuable. But she says she only got the short end of an OOCA guaranteed loan contract. Of him she never really talks about, however grandmother did. My mom and Marti booth had these corny jobs and didn't own anything you could steal, at least not without them noticing right away. Marti worked as a building system technician for one of the super towers over at the Western Continent, which was a fancy way of saying he was a custodian and janitor robot supervisor and my mother was a receprionist at one of the rich people's space scrapers on the Western Continent which was also a no brain required job, other than sitting behind a reception desk all day and smiling stupidly at every idiot that walked through the hard light doors. It all started with me roaming through the dwelling after school looking for something  that wasn't boring, like ,straight human porn, weird non human porn VR, adult VR experience chips, anything really. Of course I hoped to find their own stash of legal or perhaps illegal rec drugs. My mother and in particular Marti were borderline alc-addicts then and maybe not all the uptight law abiding Union citizens as they always claimed to be, I was thinking. Anything is possible after all. The dwelling was small, four rooms and a hygiene room. A rent to own condo on the 455th  sub floor in the Skeepman's Sub Surface complex Eight of Miss Baldwin's Town and I lived there with my mom and my birth father until he left which was when I was five and after that with my mother and Marti who became my legal co guardian and became my new father until recently, so I knew the place in and out. I was sure I had poked through every drawer and looked into every storage alcove. Searched under every piece of non tech furniture in the place. I'd even pulled the old religious books Marti had brought with him, the really old kind with two hard cover lids and many sheets of paper in between. But there was nothing, nothing new I mean. Except for a Memory Chip taped on the underside of my mothers underwear drawer, with images, vid clips and such of family like aunts and uncles and grandmother. Mom had played them for me a few years ago, mostly of people I had never seen or talked to. I looked for images of my birth dad from the time he was still living with us, but there was only one still image of him, standing next to his own flyer and in his black Spatial Navy uniform. I had printed me a hard copy and studied it often as it was the only image of him I had ever seen. I always wondered why she or grandma had not kept any more vids or stills of him. There were a little bundle of text messages, mother had print copies of. Tugged away underneath her satin and perfume smelling under garment things. My birth father had written to her even before they signed a marriage contract and before I was born. I never read them before but they turned out pretty heated. Steve, as my birth father's name was defended himself against my mother's accusations  that he left us for a female officer, one Lieutenant Caroline Carter, but he was claiming that she was just a bunk mate on the same ship and there was nothing going on between him and her. He blamed the spatial navy for him being transferred from a cozy desk job on Pluribus to a ship. He wanted to come back. I almost felt sorry for him, but I didn't believe him. Mother said it was all his fault and he was screwing Caroline and he was a liar. None of my mother's response text were among the print outs. even though I was little when it all happened I remember stuff. If he was such a standup honest man, why did he never sent any money or tried to be in touch with me, his son. Granny always told me not to think about him anymore, he is probably living on a distant planet or something or maybe killed while fighting some non Union idiots. She grabs me by the shoulder and shakes me, You don't have a father, Willie. Forget about this idiot. She was hard as Ultronit and tough as Intelli-Fab, my grandmother, oh yeah she was. I used to be like her especially when I was about my birth father. I don't think he knew my mother had kept these print outs and I was sure Granny didn't know either. Anyhow this afternoon, I came home from Union school because I left early. It was just fine as I didn't need any Cerebral uploads about some stinking non humans anyhow. I had not signed up for any extra credit classes and was not part of any student clubs .I looked for any fresh food in the stasis storage but found nothing really, so I ran the ancient food printer to make me a few fake as hell tuna sandwiches. I used Marti's adult code I had  to have the dwelling system deliver me a beer from the CO-STO. He would never notice that the Dwelling conveyor system delivered a beer from the convenience store seventy eight levels up, while he was at work. The Shiss lizard running the CO-STO send a bill  every week and a few more beers, made no difference. I went into the family room and plugged in one of mother and Marti's crazy sex VR chips into the GalNet console and laid down on the Virtu couch. Moments later I was in the VR nexus, a white room with doors, one was marked male the other female. I walked through the male door and in a dark red room with a bed and strange devices. A mirror reflected my image and I was this muscular tall man with a serious male organ all naked, except for a tight leather mask around my face. There was a woman tied up in chains and stuff on a rack of sorts. She had big boobs red hair and was also wearing a mask. I did not understand the set up and left. There were no other doors, and I didn't want to be the tied up female so I decided to exit the adult nexus and return to reality. I played a little with Mako our house monkey, which was paying all attention to me. Of course he was programmed to do so. But I got bored and really wanted some 'Blue-Purple' or something to make me relax. It had been a couple of days now since I had been high and whenever I went that long I got miserable, an unexplainable feeling of desire and crawling inside me. I got irate and pissed at everything and everyone and I realized I would never graduate and become a citizen, I would never serve the 22 month of required citizen service for those uptight assholes the Union preferred in any thing and everything. A little patch of 'Blue-Purple' on my arm and all my anxiety went away. Blue-Purple was on the edge of legal tox and of course it was illegal for minors. I was a minor but I didn' give a flying fikkin about all those rigid Union rules. The whole universe needed to spin according to Union rules, at least that's what they wanted. While this was Pluribus Unum, the very center and  considered one of the most lawful planets in the Universe where only less than two percent of the population was involved in anythung illegal; but the planet had a population of over a hundred billion and two percent of that is still a lot of individuals. Calvin over at the Oswald Subsurface Complex 1 was a Used Items merchant and one of those who never asked many questions where things came from and he paid with Credit Cubes, untraceable UCUs. That the slick slimer Kolor was never far from Calvin's store and always had some fine Blue-Purple patches for sale was of course not a coincident. I was already giving up on finding something for sale that would not be discovered right away. Of course Calvin would give me top price for our GalNet terminal, as it was Avatar enabled and had a virtu couch too, would be noticed if missing right away. The rest of my parents posessions were boring stuff, like clothing. My mother didn't even had jewelry. I was looking one more time through the closet alcove in their master bedroom, down on my hands and knees and groping  past my mother's shoes. When I came to what I thought previously were just some folded blankets. But when I felt inside the blankets there was something hard inside. I pulled the whole thing out and unwrapped these two green military personal effects cases, with my birth father's name written across. the lid. The ID lock had been removed on both. I opened the first and noticed a genuine Kermac Line blaster with four spare energy cells.