Left at Eden - Chapter 12

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Left at Eden

Wendy ended up becoming a Stardust blue Furren as well. The changes happened just as fast as they did with Hailey because of the ocean water. And unlike Hailey, it was a well documented fact that Wendy was absolutely, completely, and 100% boy crazy.

The funny thing about that though, is she found herself attracted to Brie, big time.

Candy giggled, “Brie turned your friend Rolly.” she watched as Wendy was staring at Brie.

“Got to say,” Hailey laughed, “I honestly never saw that one coming. She’s had more boyfriends than I can count, and more crushes than that.”

“Brie is attractive for a Sartori, but definitely not my type.” Candy giggled.

“I could swear Brie didn’t swing her door that way,” Ella giggled as she joined them.

“I don't think she knows it yet either, but look how Wendy stares at her.” Hailey laughed.

“Poor Brie,” Karen giggled softly.

“Poor Wendy when Brie breaks her heart.” Hailey sighed.

Brie glanced up from her computer, and Wendy pretended she hadn’t just been staring the entire time. Brie remained oblivious, returning her attention to the computer.

Hailey wandered over to Wendy and whispered to her, “You should just come out and ask her, the worst thing she can say is no.”

“The worst two letters in the English language,” Wendy said, sticking out her tongue. “At least let me have the fantasy for a while,” she giggled.

“If you don’t ask her Wendy, I will ask her for you.” Hailey giggled, “Like that time you made me ask Derrek out for you.”

“You do and I’ll tell your girlfriend where you’re ticklish,” Wendy said sternly.

“Too late, she found out last night.” Hailey giggled. Wendy pouted cutely, trying to give Hailey the puppy pout.

“Seriously though, I totally thought you only dug boys?” Hailey sighed.

“I do! Or.... Fuck me,” Wendy sighed. “That’s what I wanted everyone to think. I can deal with being that weird girl who likes survival stuff because I’m a girl scout too, but if people found out I liked girls on top of it, I’d be labeled a man-bashing feminazi dyke for the rest of high school, and I couldn’t deal with that.”

“Well you’re Furren now, and being Rolly is accepted.” Hailey grinned, “Seriously though talk to her at least, make friends with her, you're good at that.”

“You’re right,” Wendy sighed, then slowly got up, like a condemned woman marching to her execution, and sat down next to Brie.

“Hey.” Brie smiled and waved.

“So um... That looks like an inverse formula?”

“You know about Quantum science?” Brie asked surprised.

“A little,” Wendy giggled. “Quantum mechanics is still just a theory where I’m from, but I absolutely love science. I’ve been watching documentaries on quantum theory since I was like ten.”

“That’s cool.” Brie said, “I have a degree in Quantum Science and Electro Engineering. I was studying for a degree in Bioengineering as well.”

“God,” Wendy said under her breath, glaring back at Hailey for making her come over. Talking to Brie was only making her feel more intrigued.

Hailey grinned and brought over two 16 oz bottles of Doctor Pepper, “Here you two go, you both looked really thirsty and Brie just found out she loves Doctor Pepper the other day.”

Brie nodded. “I gave a sample to Chuck, the mixologist back at the main colony, to try and replicate something similar for when our stocks inevitably run out. It’s like drinking liquid pleasure,” she said sheepishly as she opened her bottle.

“You know, I’ve always been keen to Doctor Pepper, but I like Baja Blast Mountain Dew as well.” Wendy said.

“I haven’t sampled that yet, but I believe we found several cases in the 7-11 storage area,” Brie nodded. She was still completely oblivious.

Hailey nodded, “I have them in my personal storage back home actually. But I can share some.”

“I’d say ‘I’ll love you forever’,” Wendy giggled, “But A, I already do, and B, Candy would have a stardust blue rug,” she teased.
“Have you ever had a Furren walking massage?” Brie asked.

Wendy shook her head. “Until last night I didn’t even know there were other species out there. I always hoped though.”

“We’ve found out that we all share a common ancestor.” Brie nodded. “It’s good to know others who share the same DNA exist.”

“Never know when you might need a kidney,” Wendy giggled, paused, and put her hand to her forehead. “Can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

“You’re furren.” Hailey said as she turned to leave, “We say all kinds of things before we can catch it.”

Brie giggled. “It comes as natural as breathing, but don’t worry. I’ve heard far, far worse, and far less funny in the last 48 hours,” she teased.

“Tell her about the Author and the you know what Brie.” Hailey grinned as she left.

Brie snorted, snickered, fought it down, but eventually just had to give in and laugh.“What's so funny?” Wendy asked.

“Watch,” Hailey said. “You’re about to see a Sartori approach to Furran humor in action,” she whispered to the others. Sure enough, Brie started explaining the joke, but before she was even halfway through, Wendy broke down and started giggling too.

“See.” Brie grinned, “Furren’s have some of the weirdest and cutest jokes.”

“If I said something like that back home, they would just stare at me like I was crazy, shake their heads, and walk away. Hailey can testify,” she laughed.

“We’ve heard, but you see, most of us come from a part of the galaxy where our species actually know of each other.” Brie said. “If my theory on isolationism and creation is correct, I believe human beings were a ‘base template’ from which other species were developed.”

“No, that makes total sense,” Wendy said. “If I was doing an experiment then I’d go out of my way to keep my control as pristine as possible.”

“So what I’m not thinking.” Brie smiled at Wendy, “Because of what you just said, is that the species that brought us all here, wasn’t part of the original experiment.”

Wendy nodded her agreement. “It wouldn’t make sense to just change the experiment halfway through. That would taint the results. And even just ‘borrowing’ people from the control group ruins the experiment because they take people who’d be missed.’

“Not to sound like a mad scientist who would ever do such a thing,” Brie said, cracking a smile, “But if it was my experiment, I would proceed precisely as you say, by only finding subjects who wouldn’t be noticed missing. It would seem a new experiment was enacted by a different organization, species, or beings.”

“The problem is, Hailey and I would be missed..” Wendy spoke up. “Hailey’s parents are control freaks, well at least her mom is. And my Dad worries about me hardcore.”

“Moreover, it sounded like you were part of an organized search party with local authorities,” Brie nodded. “Nothing raises a red flag faster than taking someone under official protection. And this only began approximately eighty galactic standard years ago.”

“So I’m thinking they might be after people who are going to become famous or are on their way to becoming famous for one thing or another.” Brie spoke up, “Candy was on her way to winning a Galactic Peace prize. I haven’t shared that theory with anyone else yet, however.”

“Really? Why not?” Wendy asked. “It makes total sense to me.”

“Two reasons,” Brie answered. “The first being that I wasn’t on my way to being famous. I was on my way to a crappy lab job at my mother’s conglomerate. Two, your subjects being aware of being subjects alters the test, and I don’t want to bring any problems down on my friends or the other colonists.”

“Maybe it’s not an experiment, maybe they are trying to free us?” Wendy shrugged. “When something bad is coming a mother bear will protect her cubs.”

“But why would they restrict our movement if we’re not, technically, prisoners?” Brie asked.

“I don’t think they are, I’m betting dinner and a date, that you and I can create a fuel source that is native to this planet.” Wendy grinned.

“Better, smarter scientists than me have been trying for fifty years,” Brie laughed.

“Yeah but they didn’t have me, the Geek of Almand High, I was president of the rocket club, and I invented a new type of Biodiesel for our club.”

“Hmm,” Brie said. “Very well. One dinner date against...” She grinned, leaned closer so that the others, whom she now realized had been watching them for awhile couldn’t hear, cupped her hand so they couldn’t read her lips, and whispered, “Against one dinner date.”

“Sounds like a deal.” Wendy grinned. “Do you have a lab that I can tests on different things?” and they shook hands.

“Oh, they have a small lab setup here, and an entire facility back on Heart,” Brie nodded.

“I think a bigger lab might be better more equipment right?” Wendy asked.

“It shouldn’t take us long to get you up to speed on the equipment,” Brie nodded. “Everything uses a universal interface based on international trade language, like this,” she said, showing Wendy her tablet device.

“Holy shit,” Wendy said, “It’s like Apple and Google got together with a bottle of cheap wine and made a glorious baby.” she paused, “I need to talk to Hailey, she said she was in the exploration guild, so while they’re out exploring I need them to be on the watch for specific things.”

“We’re on the same expedition team,” Brie giggled. “You can join too, if you want, but I suspect you’d be happier in the Science lab.”

“Oh wow!” Wendy said and pulled out her iPhone, it was pink just like Hailey’s, and pulled up some pictures, “These something similar to them, they’re called Wheat, and this one's called Maize or Corn.”

“Hmmm,” Brie said as she brought up a search window on her tablet and leaned close to Wendy. Their faces practically touched as she overlaid her tablet over top of Wendy’s phone for a moment, as she scanned the image.

“If you could have a lab on that boat, I’d totally join you.” Wendy giggled.

Brie’s face lit up, and she grinned. “Come with me?” she said as she offered Wendy her hand. “I’ll show you my work space. I do a lot of element and material analysis on-ship.”

Wendy smiled and got up to follow Brie taking her hand. She winked at Hailey as they passed the girls. “Cool, I just need a hotplate, a broiler, some barrels to store the stuff in, and a chemical testing kit.”

“My science instructors would have loved you,” Brie nodded. “They were big believers that if you could take some rocks, some pond scum, and a stick, and create a complex chemical compound, then you could make miracles with proper scientific equipment.”

“Oh and if we can approximate it, I need copper or Plastic tubing, lots of it.” Wendy grinned. “Copper works the best, and it’s the most common mineral..”

“You need something that can conduct electricity effectively?” Brie asked.

“Disperse heat actually.” Wendy said.

“Heat dispersal, resistant to overheating itself,” Brie said thoughtfully and began rapidly searching through her tablet’s database even as they walked toward the ship. “Ah, super polymer Zed-716, extremely easy to make from materials found all over the islands, can be made rigid with application of comprehensive force. Should work nicely until we find a ready source of copper tubing.”

“Flexible to some degree, I’m probably going to have to bend it.” Wendy nodded.

“Extremely,” Brie nodded. “In its natural uncompressed state it has properties similar to rubber, however it doesn’t require application of heat or introduction of carbon molecules to add strength.”

“Nice.” Wendy said, “We might be able to just use that.” she got led into a pretty big and mostly empty area of the ship, there was some machines in there.

“First Aria, now you,” Brie giggled. “This island is fast becoming my favorite yet.”

“Speaking of Aria, we need to figure out how to trade with her for her engines.” Wendy said.

Brie grinned. “Oh, that’s easy. She told me that if we ever found a way to repair them, that we were welcome to them. It seems she’s decided to settle down here, and call this planet home - even if she does get her ship repaired.”

“If this works, we might not have space flight, but I’m betting we can have faster world travel.” Wendy grinned. “Think like Airplanes, Hailey showed you pictures of earth Airplanes right?”

Brie nodded. “Among other things,” she said with a grin. “Pink is most definitely your color,” she teased Wendy.

“Well if she’s showing embarrassing pictures then you have to see this one.” Wendy grinned and pulled up some pictures of Hailey at a party the bug out group held.

“What... is that thing on her head?” Brie laughed. “It looks like a lamp shade...”

“It is.” Wendy grinned. “These are one of the few times we’re allowed to drink, because our group leader is responsible.” she showed Brie another one with Hailey passed out and Wendy drawing a penis on her face.

Brie giggled, “Ok, that one I get because of Candy’s Pussy in a Penis joke. But why did you draw it on her face?”

“We had one wine cooler too many,” Wendy giggled. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. I saved all the pictures to blackmail her if I ever had to. But it’s a power I only use for good.”

Brie nodded she understood what Blackmail was, they used the same practice on her homeworld, and other species used it as well. “So I think we can set you up in here with my equipment since I don’t take much space.”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Wendy nodded. “I could even set up a cot in the corner so I can catnap,” she giggled.

“Actually there’s bedrooms on the ship too.” Brie laughed. “I’m thinking that we can place the Engines over there for you to work on. I already know why it won’t function, and it’s a relatively easy fix. I suspect she didn’t want to fix it because that would mean leaving.”

“Well Primative fuel won't get us space travel with them, But I’m thinking we can make Jet engines out of them.” Wendy nodded. “I’ve kinda noticed that most of the people here don’t really want to leave anyway. Even Hailey.”

“This place... It gets inside of you,” Brie nodded. “For example, I told you before how I had nothing to look forward to back home. But here, I’m appreciated for my talents as a songwriter too, and not just as a cog in a machine.”

“You’ll have to sing me a song sometime.” Wendy said.

Brie giggled. “My species possess two sets of vocal chords which in effect, allows me to sing in harmony with myself.”

“That’s got to be damn useful.” Wendy said, “I have a tail now, but so do you, why don’t your species have fur?”

“Divergent evolutionary paths,” Brie nodded, adding, “But we are actually extremely close - both highly intelligent, but where Furran are playful, Sartori are...” She chuckled. “We over-analyze everything until all the fun in a room is nothing but a shriveled, quivering mass in the corner.”

“You suck the fun out of Parties?” Wendy shrugged, “You seem pretty normal to me.”

Brie nodded. “I get that a lot. They also tease me occasionally for going off on a tangent, but not cruelly.” She laughed a bit. “It’s just a part of my species that we externalize our thoughts - sometimes very quickly, in order to posit a solution.”

“I’d scratch their eyes out of they were mean to you.” Wendy stated.

“It’s sort of like how I tease Candy and Hailey about Furren humor by intentionally explaining their jokes out loud, even if I got it immediately.” She grinned. “But don’t tell them I said that.”

“Oh I won't, I’ve noticed I get the urges to tell dirty jokes more now too, but I told them even as myself, so It’s not like it’s any different.”

“You’ll fit right in,” Brie laughed. “But I do have one question.”

“Ask me anything.” Wendy said, swishing her tail.

“Why did you want to wager our success, for a date with me?” she asked.

Wendy blushed Brie couldn’t see it through the fur, “I’ll tell you after I win.” she winked.

Brie laughed. “Fair enough. It’s just... Even among my people I was never considered attractive. As it goes, I’m average at best in intelligence and appearance.” She shrugged. “I’m not used to the attention.”

Wendy shrugged, “Their loss our gain.” and nodded, “Attention can take some getting used to - good or bad. I went from a lanky, kind of homely 12 year old to having my body catch up to itself over one summer, and suddenly everyone wanted to go out with me. Add to that, I had a crush on the girl who would become my other best friend, and you’ve got a recipe for one awkward as fuck school year,” she giggled.

“Well, all the same,” Brie said as she turned and kissed Wendy’s cheek, “Thank you. I hope that you win, even if losing is the same result for us,” she teased.

“Yes but me winning has an added bonus of me telling you why a date.” Wendy winked.

“And less awkward than saying that I won a date with you in a wager,” Brie giggled as they walked out into the hallway again. Ella was on her way through carrying a bedroll under one arm, and waved lazily.

“Don’t mind me. Karen and I are going to explore the island since Rebecca wants to stay on another day and head back tomorrow.” she paused, “Hailey and Candy are out looking around as well.”

“Out looking for a love nest,” Wendy giggled.

“Probably not, Hailey said she thought she spotted something interesting.” Ella spoke.

“Either way,” Brie said, “Looks like it’s just you and me tonight.”

“And Rebecca,” Ella laughed. “But she’s swapping war stories with the Admiral and Tricia over drinks.”

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Comments

Well they said they needed a

Well they said they needed a rocket surgeon, having her on the boat will give her access to more new materials and places far away from anything important to test, also means that the ship may get a speed boost - non wormhole speed boost, that is, i would assume that those would require so much power that they will need combustion and would only use it occasionally. Edit ohh wait she wants to use the in system/in atmo for jet engines, that could warrant a bigger boat, if the fuel is good enough, otherwise it could convert the ship to a hydrofoil

They are going to have to make some major modifications to the ship and probably the engines, to safely handle it all, possibly make it turn a driveshaft, of course looking for something specific may mean revisiting previously explored islands

I just realised

Rebecca- Captain/Helm
Hailey Coms officer
Candy- ship's councilor
Brie- Science officer
Ella- security (against wild animals)
Wendy- ship's engineer
Karen- unknown

You could probably fill up a starfleet bridge crew with them...

SO they will get the engines before they head back,

Wendy will probably also need a condenser, for distillation.

Also Wendy wants to make a "hot date"/"hot couple" joke, no wait "Fuel's not the only thing that's burning" or something to that nature. Oh who am I kidding its all of the above.

If a disaster is about to happen and you can only evacuate a few, you choose the ones whom would be missed the most, (and aren't politicians or big business people that would figure out means to survive anyways) and others to support them

Awe

You're not gonna admit that the bet is a set up for a pun-up line? I mean its a good thing that Tucker from Red vs Blue will never meet a Furren, otherwise we'd hear non-stop "bow-chika-bow-wow"

What's your favorite episode

What's your favorite episode of s14? I am stuck between 50 shades of red, why they're here, merc trilogy, and the "mission" also RvB the musical

Seams the over seers

Renee_Heart2's picture

Are giving the coliny's what they need 7-11, a rocket scientist 2 star blue furiens a survivalist a furien psychologist an admiral just to name a few. Seams as if things are starting over on a new world.

Love Samantha Renee Heart

I think they have been doing that from the start

Tricia specialized in organisation before arriving, this helped organize a society, the Admiral specialized in exploration, circle sea explored their islands faster, they've been providing the backbone first. Ensuring minimum power problems before radio namely the ability to solve circle sea's power problems, and so on. It doesn't make sense to send a fuel expert without radio communication being established, or at least having a reason to transport heavy loads, long distance. And it helps to provide the fuel expert with a familiar fuel to serve as a baseline for her experiments.

Considering both the Stardust Blue Furren are non-breeders, its probably for the beast form stuff.

Curious that they don't have ready access to copper tubing, makes me think that outside of possibly iron and their substitute semiconductor they don't have much in the way of metal, or mining in general, and they've been using polymers, wood, stone and concrete for everything, once they get the fabricators working, they will be perfect for making test engines, as well as boot strapping a proper electronics manufacturing set up. the ones from the ship itself are perfect for fuel testing, as they are already known to work (just in need of some repair), but for various uses and to optimize on the fuel they can develop, they are going to need to design their own, besides, they will need new engines anyways so that more can use the fuel.

Interesting that Wendy specified wheat and corn, seems to indicate that her biodiesel used grain alcohol, of course she should also try working with used cooking oil, maybe not for high output to mass engines, but it will be less of a strain on their infrastructure and useful for say ships in winter.

Of course airplanes unless they are designed to take off and land on water will not be very good for exploration, and it is very hard to make such craft carry a decent load, what they need is a VTOL that uses aerodynamic lift when in normal flight, copters drink fuel too quickly thus limiting range. Aircraft, some ground vehicles (not as needed being mostly islands but useful on larger islands) ships that don't have to rely on the sun or wind for their propulsion, mining equipment, refining equipment, subs, and power tools away from ready source of electricity, all things that their fuel will enable, most of those wont need high output versions of the fuel, not to mention it can be a nice auxiliary power source. the fact that she got a model rocket to run on biodiesel is impressive, liquid fuel engines in small scale is hard to do, and usually when people do it they use aviation fuel, not diesel, and biofuel is very difficult to make into high energy liquid propellant, obviously for her aircraft fuel, if they want any real altitude, its going to have to either contain additional oxygen, use a separate oxidizer compound mixed in, or the engine is going to have to use the inert gasses, if they are noble gasses this means plasma, if there is a sufficient nitrogen component, that can be used chemically, Brie's electro engineering degree will help for a plasma component, not sure where the quantum science factors in, maybe quantum entanglement based heat exchange? Bio-engineering will help them optimise the feedstock once they get something that works.

Interesting that she wants to convert the engines to jet engines though, as jet engines provide most of their thrust through hot exhaust, yes they'll be the easiest conversion, but on a water vessel? she's gonna have to find a way to handle that exhaust, and air intake, though fortunately as they are rocket engines, she's going to have to add an air intake anyways, assuming she doesn't go the pulse jet route, hopefully the room is middle stern, unless she sends the hot exhaust into a turbine and heat engine, to power a propeller and generator, the only way to use it is to go hydrofoil, and that has its own problems, one being that the mast will create immense drag. Unless, the engines aren't going to be used on the ship, at least not the ones from Aria's ship, but for an aircraft, in which case, she would need something to anchor them down onto the ground for test firing, until they can build the aircraft to install the engine in.

Aircraft and engines

the engine conversion may be simple, heck even an engine test rig would be simple (it would probably need a dedicated building with a concrete foundation, but still) fuel tests could be done with a model rocket, with a transponder to help record telemetry possibly even some systems to Elon Musk the rocket (cant have water destroying the test rockets every time, liquid propellant rocket engines aren't simple machines), (though making a liquid engine so small is a challenge unless they can use the fabricator), the thing is, what will they build the aircraft out of, what kind will it be, and who will fly it. Other engines will be even more useful, particularly internal combustion, for obvious reasons, those are going to need some good spring material. However I wouldn't be surprised if the ones building the sub have figured out a good engine. Though I don't know what they will do with the wormhole drive, unless they can use it to search for teleportation signatures. Still Wendy is going to need quite a bit of space, its going to take quite a bit of feedstock to make a small amount of fuel.

As the consumables from the 7-11 run out, and they take care of all the non-edible goods, whether they are movie disks or bottles of sunscreen (would transfer into glass, to use the plastic, also send some to a chemist to replicate) they will get some aluminum, some plastic and assuming they pumped all the gas into their own containers, they have all the materials from the pumps and the reservoir tanks, they may keep the fridges there, though then again, they might not, they would take the shelves which are either aluminum or steel, however all that I would imagine would be invested in infrastructure. I imagine that stuff could be re-purposed for producing biofuel, wont be needed for a while though, the gas from the 7-11 will hold them, Of course Wendy's experiments will encourage more engines to be made and used, and they will have to come up with biofuel for both diesel engines and gasoline, as well as their aviation bio-fuel. The aluminum and plastic they have is limited, but it doesn't do them much good if it just sits around, at the same time, its not ideal to use in a product because its so limited, therefore they will want to use it for productive equipment. That said, they may want to save the aluminum, it can be useful for extracting more aluminum from one of the more easily accessed rocks than bauxite.
Of course most fuel non-aviation fuel will be used during winter, however they are going to want to use up the gas before then, its early spring for them, and it will destabilize.

Attitude changes

Jamie Lee's picture

It seems all the interaction has reshaped attitudes towards the different races. Had each been on their home planets, or where they were taken, they would have had the prevailing race attitude.

Also, stepping into new shoes by way of the ocean water gives added perspective to those who change.

That calling the planet home says a lot about the feelings before being brought to the planet. All are basically starting over. All now have a purpose they may not have felt before being taken. And having a purpose can be a life saver for many.

Others have feelings too.