"I wasn't trying to hide things. Just keep other people from worrying about things I wasn't sure about yet."

Mama looked at his hopeful face, sighing. "Do you know something is wrong?"

"Ah, yes. But..." 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"And did you make a decision not to tell anyone else?"

"Well, yes..."

"That's hiding things, dear. Sometimes it can be for a good a reason, but call it what it is. So here's my suggestion: You confide in Belinda, Butch and I, and if we think it shouldn't be discussed with the others, we'll back you up when they eventually find out and accuse you of hiding things. It will cause some drama and erode trust in the family, but it's an option.

What do you think?"

Milo rapidly ran this option through his brain and every part independently agreed that this was a sup-par option that would lead to disaster. "How about I just tell you and we discuss it and then tell the others?"

"As you like dear. Keeping secrets in a family is never good. Especially this family. You are all smart, but that isn't always a benefit. Now, what do you think we should all be worried about?"

Milo paused and thought, trying to turn the nebulous possibilities that were too mathematical to put into words into a logical way to explain things. "It's difficult. I have my programs searching the data net constantly for small bits of data that tell me something about how money is moving in the world, what laws countries are passing, who is making weapons and where are they selling them. Plus new advances in science, and figuring out how they will effect everything. It's a huge amount of data, and first my programs isolate the things I might be interested in, and then I try to filter things further. It's a complicated process to..."

Mama held up her hand, "You are panning for gold, swirling things around and finding a few nuggets. Right?"

Milo had never panned for gold and had to look it up quickly. For such a primitive process, it did sum up much of what he did. Mama didn't need to know the process, just what nuggets he turned up. "That's right." He took a deep breath and started listing the nuggets.

"Firstly, Wally is worried about something big. He gave me a copy of his kernel, and I don't know why. But if he's worried, and if he thinks I need it, then he knows something. But he can't talk about it. I don't even know how much he knows."

"Next, things are accelerating. There's always change going on in the world, but things are changing faster. Even when I account for the changes Wally is making and the effect that we're having, there is still a sharp curve. Some economies are staggering while other's boom. Certain commodities are disappearing from the market and causing shortages.

I've been tracing the movement of a lot of things that are crucial to growth in the world and always in demand. I thought at first that it was corporations trying to corner the markets on some commodities, creating false demand and then selling when the price got higher."

Big Butch nodded, then laughed. "Yes, that's been going on forever. I remember when I was a boy how every holiday season something was in short supply and my mother and aunts scrambled to find canned yams, sugar, cranberry sauce, smoked turducken, or SPAM for the holiday meals. There was always something missing, but it appeared on the shelves in time and everyone rushed to buy. Of course, no one was upset when canned sauerkraut was missing from the store shelves. Why sauerkraut and mushrooms was a traditional Christmas Eve meal was always a mystery to me."

"Yes, that's what I thought was happening. But the optimal time to sell the goods keeps coming and passing, and the markets correct by producing more. I've seen steel, jet fuel, preserved foods of all types, computer chips, diamonds, gold, rare earth metals, feather balls, fissionable materials, canned milk, dried hops, whiskey and vodka, and helium go through cycles of shortage, rising prices, and then a correction. Billions of dollars of each item, and a hundred more. it's been going on for the last few years, but there's been a flurry of hoarding lately. If someone wanted to make money, they are going about it wrong for short-term profits."

Belinda was following along, and knew about much of this. "What about long term profits? What could they see in the future that would make these purchases be worth keeping hold of. And how is the stuff disappearing?"

"That bothers me as well. Things are being bought by governments and corporations. Moved around the world a dozen times, and then dropping out of sight. A trainload of computer chips starts in Budapest, but turnips are unloaded in Berlin. I've begun to tap into spy satellites to track certain shipments, but even that fails to tell me much of anything. It's like they take that into account. This level of stealth is far beyond what any government would do, and corporations worry about the money. If they want to hoard essential materials, they can do it without this insane shell game."

Belinda tapped her fingers on the table, thinking, then said. "Someone sees a huge rush for a new technology and is storing materials to take advantage of that boom. Similarly, they see something bad coming, like a major war or global conflict and they either need them for their side or want to go into war profiteering. Or, someone is building something big. These could be long-term goals. Hell, they could be doing all of this, starting a war and profiting from it."

Milo nodded, glad she was seeing what he was seeing. "I've been working on those scenarios, trying to see what type of technology might suddenly appear. My numbers are murky since our Fusioncare system was the biggest advance lately. I can tie the shortage of helium to that, and some of the building materials, but most of the Fusion Generators worldwide were mothballed and will take a lot to get up and running. War worries me, but wars are hard on global corporations. They lose in one place, win in another. It's one of the reasons they've flexed so much power over the last few decades to make sure governments can't start another big war."

Butch grimaced, "But they love little wars, and 'peace actions' and 'quelling unrest'. There's always something going on in the world. It makes Genesis and fighting orcs look tame."

Milo tilted his head to one side, thinking and analyzing prior thoughts. "In Genesis and SC6, we use conflict to create tension in the game. I don't like that tension to happen in the real world. But I don't know how to stop it...yet."

Belinda punched him in the shoulder. "Don't start thinking that way. The only way to prevent all conflict in humans is to stomp all of them and then herd them around like cats. The last thing I need is you trying to take over the world."

He grinned at her, "Because I'd get in the way of your eventual global domination strategy and be a thorn in your side?"

She grinned back, "You assume you'd be a thorn. Who do you think I'd neutralize first? This is a good time to choose. Take the knee now, and I'll give you the antidote to the poisoned pie."

"Mama would never let you poison her pies."

"Mama and Big Butch are my second in commands. Always start with competent people at the top."

Milo looked around, Butch leered at him, and scooted his chair closer to Belinda. Mama innocently asked, "More pie, Milo?"

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He slumped in his chair. "Damn, outmaneuvered. Ok, I'll join them as one of your minions."

"That's assuming that I trust you, and frankly, those spots are filled, your position is about five tiers down, in the food division, doing important work making sure we have enough tacos."

That brought a smile to his face, "At least I'm doing important work. Which reminds me, I need to talk to Frank about another order, and we should do an upgrade to SC6 to add Ratengi Taco stands on isolated planets. The lore says they always arrive first and set up shop."

Belinda made a note on her wrist pad. "I'll assign taco procurement to Butch and Brad. They need more to do and I'd like them to take over procurement of a lot of things the habitat needs. Now, back to our big problems. What could someone be building?"

Big Butch snapped his fingers, "A moon base? Orbital habitat and weapons platforms? Massive space ark to leave the solar system and colonize elsewhere before we start a nuclear war?"

Mama shook her head, "You've been playing a lot of SC6, haven't you?"

He grinned, "All part of the online school we've set up. I'm too old to learn all the engineering, electronics, and other real-world things we're teaching them. But I'm getting tutored in astrogation and navigation and picking it up fast. Can't raid Zeus's convoys without a good navigator."

Milo and Belinda were both lost in thought, finally, she shrugged, and he began tapping furiously on his data pad. "Well, there is an increase in orbital launches, and two of the abandoned orbital habitats have changed ownership. But that happens all the time. The things are huge tax write offs. Technodyne seems half-serious this time, so maybe? But that doesn't fit with stockpiling...at least for now. This needs more research."

Mama said, "Then, let's move on to your biggest worry."

Belinda nodded. "I agree. Milo likes to leave those for last."

"It gives me more time to think as we work through the other problems! But yes, a big worry. I think Batch Five is real and actively trying to hack into Wally."

Belinda's immediate comment was, "I hate my Dad. He's dead most of my life, yet still here."

Mama got up and moved behind Belinda, hugging her. "But he's not you, and you don't have to feel guilty about it. If there are more people like the seven of you out there, they probably need help and you're the only people who are going to care about them."

Big Butch looked at Milo, "You mentioned this, but said something about being held in jars?"

"Worse really. Vigo's plans and notes on their creation showed they wouldn't have bodies at all, and be kept alive inside of special pods. They are under total control of their captors. Communication, sustenance, and any stimulus would be outside of their control. Slaves, with no way to run."

Everyone shuddered. Mama said, "How sure are you?"

Milo said softly, "Very sure. I ran into one of them last week, and again two days later. We've done a lot to safeguard Wally, and fixed a lot of exploitable places in his defenses. Corporate hackers are getting leery of attacking. We've been hitting back at them hard. But in 37% of those attacks and reprisals, someone who isn't us exploits the corporations, using the chaos we create. I wasn't worried about that at first, but the percentage grew. And, the second group of hackers became more visible as the corporations backed off. Very good hackers who can only be caught once by any strategy and are getting more skilled."

"Could it be normal humans or something like an AI?"

He shook his head. "An AI would be obvious. We've been working with Rusty but he still moves through our test runs like a huge whale. He's too powerful. LLAMA was the best AI known for this type of work, but his style was hit-and-run. It was obvious where he'd been. And no human brain can think as fast as the Alphabet. We have Belinda as another data point at the top of human thinking ability or a little beyond. These people are faster."

"You said you met one?"

"Twice. But it wasn't nice. I was working on a problem I detected far inside of Wally's security, and instead of watching silently like the others, he...attacked is a bad word, but l'll use it....they attacked me, bombarding me with very angry thoughts, trying to delay me as they triggered all of Wally's programs. I broke contact, but it shook me. There was no coherent message, just anger that I was there. Two days later they tried again but I was ready for them. I hit them with over a million cat memes at once, and left them to deal with that while I retreated. They were paralyzed for over two hours and disappeared."

Belinda stared at him, "Those weren't the ones you were saving for Lars, were they?"

"No worries, I copied the whole file before I weaponized it."

"Whew, good. I don't want to piss off the System that runs Genesis. Things are getting really fun. So, what's the plan for dealing with Batch Five."

"Still thinking about it. I guess we should have an all hands meeting and formulate plans. Right now, we have so little data on them. And if they are all like the one I ran into, they'll be difficult to find and to communicate with."

Mama stood up, and shifted her hug to Milo and tousled his hair. "Feel better?"

"I do. I think. But now you have to worry about things too."

She stood up and laughed, "Dear, I only have one brain and it moves slowly. My worries are about keeping you fed and healthy. All of you. I'll leave the big worries to the big brains. But I'd best get busy cooking. You all eat a ton when you have these little thinking sessions."

The jungle was quiet as the Gangrene Gerbil Tribe did their victory dance around the captive tied to a stake in the center of camp. They had delayed her death until all of the tribes had gathered. She was a treasure not to be wasted! She screamed and hurled profane insults at them, using some words they'd never heard before. Torture made her laugh and rant all the more. She had kicked three gerbils to death when they grew careless, the blows of her clawless feet pulping organs and sending them flying into the trees. Preparations for a great death were under way when she tilted back her head and trilled the hunting call of the Killer Bunnies. The sound echoed across the clearing as hundreds of terrifying creatures ripped into the gerbil clans, scattering blood and stuffing across the ground.

From her vantage point in the center of camp, Kappa laughed as her tribe taught the gerbils a lesson they would never forget.

Beta had been punished hard for being late to return. The recall signal had been sent three times, and now he suffered under the mental lashings and electro shocks for his tardiness. He endured it. Reveled in it. They could do what they wanted to him, because he'd won. He'd found his hated enemy and attacked again, forcing it to give up its treasures. He'd been overwhelmed at first, staring at the cute faces and reading the their little amusing sayings. It had taken him a long time to gather all the files and hide them, ignoring the return signals. The kitties would be there when he was next allowed to go into the Data Net and hunt. His kitties. He loved them and they loved him back. The rest of the world could burn, he didn't care, and pain was nothing.