Chapter 8, Great Wealth & Benefit

Log entry 4, day ninety-six. The woman in black found the harmonic resonance and it brought us to Bera, in Spain. I've taken one of the country's fusion-powered busses, which makes its last stop at Sispany in Andora. On this hours-long journey, I held onto the destiny stone and mother's ring in either hand. Thoughts of their killing and more killings in the days of this mission haunt me.

Burdened further by the realization that my actions brought about the deteriorating morality of women and disrespect of men by nations, I embark on a journey of self-reflection. With humility, accountability, and a renewed purpose, I look for personal growth and reconciliation.

By seizing opportunities of great wealth and benefit, the traditional ways of the kuudere, I aim now to rectify the damage I caused and fulfill my mission to find and replace the missing code, restoring balance to the universe. Making men whole again and returning women to respectable beings.

From the moment she entered the bus, I could tell she had more on her mind than she could manage. Deep in thought she managed to climb the three steps, paid the bus fare, grabbed her ticket, and made her way to an empty seat. She was only going through the motions and not fully conscious of her actions. She didn’t, for example, notice how she had cut off the elderly man with his cane trying to negotiate the first step up into the bus as she whisked past him and he fell onto his backside trying to avoid her collision. She didn’t acknowledge the driver’s greeting as he wished her a good morning and told her she should help the old gentleman. The seat she dropped herself onto is marked for handicapped passengers, which she is not. I saw an opportunity, and one like this can’t be ignored.

To acquire great wealth and benefit I would simply take advantage of her empty-minded action. I rush to the front of the bus, offer my hand through the open bus door and help the old man to get up the steps. Once he is safely inside, I turn to the driver, “I’ll cover the man’s fare but would you wait until we find him a seat before you start driving? He’s already taken one tumble to the ground this morning.”

“Sure thing mister. That was a nice thing you did there,” the driver agrees.

“Wait here for a moment,” I say to the man. He is busy examining the damage to his cane and gives me a quick, uncomfortable nod.

With a knowing wave to the driver, my hand asks for another minute as I place my right knee on the floor and clasp my hands together in front of my chest. I confront the hurried woman in the handicapped seat. “Excuse me, may I bother you to please allow this gentleman to use the handicap seat you are in?”

Patience is a bonus for the reward of merit. I wait there a moment and then she lifts her head from the tablet. Her light brown eyes engage with mine. She looks me over wondering why I am kneeling here in front of her. Her short, natural brunette, fringe bob hairstyle accentuates her oval face, and when she looks me in the eyes again, I share a gracious smile and bow my head.

My eighth sense hints at her profession as a journalist or reporter. She is dressed in professional attire, exuding a sense of purpose and determination. Her clothing is well-tailored, suggesting attention to detail and a desire to make a professional impression.

The woman carries a laptop case that prominently displays the logo of Pluto TV, a recognizable broadcasting company. The presence of this logo indicates her affiliation or connection with the media industry.

“What, is this?” She asks. Her voice is soft but not high-pitched. “I didn’t realize I was in the old guy's seat. Of course, I will move.” Startled that she had taken the designated seat. She rushes to gather herself, the tablet, and a laptop case slung over her left shoulder, and moves down the aisle of the crowded bus until she finds a seat.

But what catches me off guard is when our eyes briefly met again. "That is the most amazing ring I have ever seen. I absolutely love the design pattern. It is brilliant." Her admiring comments about my mother's ring linger in the air, filled with a genuine appreciation for the sentimental value of the heirloom.

The gentleman gets situated in the handicapped seat. The driver closes the door, flips a switch that raises the bus from the curb, and with an audible huff, steers the bus on its way.

After returning to my seat the merit and wealth just gained felt warm in my chest and my ears felt oddly hot. If it is my fault, and the history of mankind is decaying because of something I’ve done, I need the merit to save my True Self. The bus driver is watching the actions in the rearview mirror and as I sit here, I can see the driver watching me. Our eyes meet in the reflection and we exchange nods. The driver checks his watch huffs again and then pushes the bus to go a bit faster.

As the bus makes its way through the small mountain valley towns and villages, moving along the paved narrow road. The morning rush hour traffic finds several more public transports each one filled with passengers. The walkways on either side of the street are busy with people too. Everyone going to work I suppose. The myriad of small taverns and cafes are busy too as most people stop for coffee and toast before continuing on their way. Tobacco stores and newspaper stands are still popular in Europe as the communities insist on a more family and people-centered way of life.

Morning and late evenings are the busiest times of the day for socialism and taking active participation in the local community. In these modern times, the newspaper is again the main source of propaganda and syndicated influence for the wedge. The popular middle-class word, wedge, refers to political scuttlebutt.

“Did the wedge get broken?” I wonder as I look out of the window and watch these morning activities of traffic and people looking for any hint. The busy woman seems to be part of the wedge. My eleventh sense of perception tells me that somehow she’s involved in the momentum of the altered universe code. Or, perhaps someday she will be.

I did catch her eye but she was so disengaged with her presence that I’m not sure about her involvement with the wedge. If the wedge didn’t break then I only got half of the value of merit and half of the benefit. There’s nothing to be done about it now.

The sun reflects off the polished windows of a cafe as the bus maneuvers around a tight corner and a steep incline as we near the village center. My thoughts culminate and the present moment concentration returns to observing the day and the journey. Seven minutes later, “Shops and tourist attractions. Old Town district,” the bus driver announces. This is my destination. Banyan wrote the code for humanity here in this old village center of Sispany. Nearly everyone on the bus is getting off at this popular destination though for different reasons than mine.

JUST FIFTY STEPS FROM the bus stop I took a seat at a sidewalk tavern. The waiter takes my order. A cup of hot black tea, lemon, and steamed milk. The tavern is not particularly impressive to look at. To the casual passerby, there isn’t anything here that would cause them to stop or take notice. The tavern is small with just five white plastic tables and small plastic chairs set up on the sidewalk outside. The small corner tavern of maybe 300 meters squared is further dwarfed by the three-story parent building that occupies the entire city block. There are many small stores, fruit and vegetable markets, and businesses that occupy the first floor while apartments make up the top two floors.

From my sidewalk table, I can see through the open door of the cafe. Inside, there are just three more plastic tables and a sparse liquor stock, but a crowded display above the barkeeper’s station. The small bar itself features a single, very worn-out but sturdy, four-legged wooden barstool. Nobody would know, just by looking at the place, the significant universal code imprint event that took place in this little agricultural village. It was a code of all humanity and it centered around this tiny tavern several thousand years ago.

If I was to write about this moment I wonder what words and how would I use them to express my senses. Perhaps; as I sit here at this humble sidewalk tavern, the cool mountain breeze gently rustles my hair, carrying a hint of nostalgia in its invisible embrace. With every sip of the hot black tea, bitter lemon, laced with creamy milk, I feel a connection to the past, as if the taste itself holds the echoes of the historical event that unfolded here. The smooth touch of the stoneware cup in my hands, worn with time like the tavern's history, becomes a conduit for reverence towards the universal code of compassion that was once written. The sun gently bathes the scene in golden light, casting a soft glow over the memories that dance before my eyes, and toy with my imagination as I contemplate the significance of this unassuming yet momentous place.

Light-hearted as I stop the pursuit of authoring and waxing poetic, my fingers impulsive, tugging and twisting at Mother's ring. My head feels odd and a hot flash causes my neck to sweat.

My sense of recall and presence tell me that Banyan himself sat here. He was writing the code after translating the historical events that had been taking place.

My memory recalls the significance and how the historical event started out with a poor migrant worker’s daughter who had four sons from four different men.

Her migrant farm-working parents traveled with the seasons across the country trying to find work as sharecroppers and pickers. When their daughter was pregnant with a fourth child they knew they couldn’t afford to feed her and all the grandchildren so they told her to leave. A few days later, with her and her children starving, weak, frazzled, and afraid that death would soon take her children’s and her own life, she begged the tavern owner for a job.

The tavern owner seeing she was pregnant asked her why her husband wasn’t providing for his wife and children. She told the owner the truth, she relayed to him the details of her four children, their four fathers, and her poor migrant parents who could no longer afford to support her. The tavern owner listened to her story of circumstances and he could feel the emotion from her frail voice that she was nearing collapse and certain death. The owner is a prominent figure in the town and despite the possible questioning and damage to his reputation in the community, he hired her. Not wanting to lose business by having a woman with four children from four different men working at his tavern he gave her work in the back of the tavern. There she was busy preparing food, washing dishes, fetching wood, and keeping the fire burning. She was charged with many jobs and he told her to stay out of sight. Not one person should ever know that she worked at his tavern for fear of gaining a bad reputation and losing business.

For many years she did just as he told her to do. She worked in the back of the tavern making certain no one would see her. She worked from early morning until late at night cooking, preparing, and cleaning the floor, the tables, chairs, the kitchen, and the entire tavern every evening before leaving. Only after it was dark and when no one could see would she leave and only in the very early morning when the town’s people were still in their homes, would she go to work.

Though she worked six days a week, the tavern owner could only afford to pay her for two or three days, but somehow it was enough. She managed to take care of her four sons with a little bit of pay and a small amount of food that he gave her. Her four sons wanted nothing as she made certain that everything they required was provided.

The waiter brings more tea and I ask him, “Have you ever seen me before? Do you recognize me?”

“That’s an odd question,” he withholds a laugh as he replies. “Do you remember being here before? Some kind of deja vu?”

“I’m remembering a story about the original owner of this tavern and a woman he hired. The memory is . . . hyperthymesia. How do I know this story so well?” He gives me a queer sideways look. “The memory of these two people and this tavern are as vivid to me as the smell of the hot black tea rising from my cup. It’s as if I was here when it happened.”

“Then perhaps you wrote it. Or maybe you read it? Cus this place is thousands of years old so there’s no way you could have been here back then.” He looks through the open doors into the tavern and a photo on the wall behind the bar. “Sorry mister, but I have to get those plates before the food goes cold. The people at that table inside are waiting.”

When he walks away, I watch him until he disappears from sight after he rounds the open doors back inside the tavern. I take the multi-colored stoneware cup from the matching saucer and take a sip of tea. My memory recall picks up where it left off.

Then one day, after many years of working with him the tavern owner didn’t open the tavern. She went back into the woods where she would leave her children in a thick grove of trees and spent the odd day with her four sons. The next morning when he again didn’t come to work she was worried. Despite his insisting that no one should know she worked for him, by this time, years later, though nobody mentioned it, everybody knew. So, she asked around hoping to discover if anyone knew where he was. After asking four or five people, it was another tavern owner who knew where the man lived.

She went to his house and found him sick and barely able to speak. He couldn’t lift himself up or even swallow the water she offered him. She asked him if she should find his children, or brother or a sister, but he had no one for her to contact. He had no family and never had time for a wife and children. He was alone. She stayed with him for as long as possible but when evening came it was necessary for her to return to her children. She helped him to drink some water, and she was able to help him sit upright, she cleaned his face, and hands, and washed his feet. Once he was comfortable, she left.

The next morning the tavern owner didn’t open the tavern again. She went to his home and he was sicker than he had been the day before. He wasn’t even able to open his eyes or to speak at all, and by the third day, he was dead. There was no family to contact and since he had no one, she decided she would need to carry out the responsibility for his burial. She gathered her sons and brought them to his house. She put them to work gathering the wood for the pyre while she prepared the ceremonial circle for the cremation. She carried his body out and managed with the help of her four sons to place him respectfully on the pyre.

She and her sons sang the death songs and provided the eight actions for honoring the deceased. They provided for the tavern owner as if they were his family and heirs. She lit the fire and then they watched and circumambulated the pier sun-wise every seven minutes until the body was completely transformed by the fire and even stayed seated in lotus pose praying until the cinders had cooled.

After the fire ceremony was completed and the last of the eight actions of the deceased was completed she instructed the two oldest sons to go back into the forest where they had been living. She told them to gather the blankets and what few belongings they had and then bring them back to the tavern owner’s house. Since the tavern owner had no family and no relatives at all she decided to take up living in his home. While they were gone to gather the items from the forest, she and the two youngest sons cleaned the house and prepared it as if it was their own.

The next morning she went to the tavern the same as she had been doing for many years. Once she arrived she tied a heavy blanket over her shoulders and fashioned a sari over her head and face. She carried each table out to the street including four chairs for each table. She did everything necessary to prepare the tavern for business. When the people of the town began to arrive for their morning tea and bread she prepared the water, seeped the tea leaves, and toasted the bread. She served each patron but said not a word to any of them. When they asked her, “Where is the man who owns the tavern?” she dared not answer.

ONCE AGAIN, I REACH for the cup of tea but the cup isn’t there and the plastic table has changed. My hand touches a stony table top and I test the contours of the smooth sandstone. The view straight ahead is blurred like looking through a thick fog. It’s a dream-like sensation of a past recollection, perhaps this is a recurring dream? When I look back at the table I see there’s a tablet and a quill in front of me. The writing on the tablet looks like code. Is that the missing data, is it The Universe code? At the bottom of the page is a name. I can’t make out the signature or see any of the writing with clarity. I close my eyes for a moment hoping my sight will clear and then open them wide trying to better focus on the writing.

When I open my eyes, the white plastic table is there. My hands are holding the stoneware cup.

But despite his words, as he hurries away the vivid memory of the story continues.

She had been so worried and focused on opening the tavern that she forgot about getting food for the midday meal. She began to panic and wondered what she could do for the midday meal. Many businessmen and shoppers regularly come to the tavern for food and coffee and She didn’t dare close the tavern now because everyone would certainly stop coming to the tavern after being closed four days in a row. The business had already missed several days of previous business and she noticed the number of morning patrons was already far fewer than normal.

My thoughts are again interrupted when the waiter returns with a fresh cup of black tea, lemon, and steamed milk.

“Where are you from, mate?” the waiter inquires. “I don’t recognize your clothing as being from this continent. Just a guess, but I’d say you come from Cascadia in North America. Am I right?”

HIS ROUND FACE GREW a large smile as he stood tall beside my table. He is at least six and a half feet tall, and he stands staring down at me waiting for my reply. He’s a young man too, probably in his early thirties. And, it’s obvious to see he is fit, probably a bodybuilder.

“It looks to me that you’re in great condition,” I say with a hint of jealous respect. “I’d guess you’re a bodybuilder?” I ask.

The waiter laughs and nods affirmatively. “Nobody in their right mind would add steamed milk to tea, mate. And lemon!” He spits out an insulting hysterical laugh. “Lemon curdles the milk. It has to be a most horrible-tasting cuppa.” When a sudden gust of cold air hits the tavern everyone grabs the placemats and napkins taking flight. Undaunted, he continues laughing and shaking his head as he walks away from the table and rushes back inside the tavern.

Through my tight squinted eyes I watch him go back inside the tavern while I squeeze the lemon, pour in the milk, and stir my tea. When he enters through the door of the tavern the reflection in the glass catches my attention. The reflection reveals the scene taking place behind me. A camera crew is busy setting up in the town square across the street.

“That’s her!” I say aloud. It’s the hurried woman from the bus. She’s standing across the street directing a small group of performers while the camera crew, lights, booms, and reflectors are going up all around them. The team busies themselves with her barking orders and then she is joined by who, I imagine, must be the set director. The director goes over the shooting board with them encouraging them to get into character and mimics with hands directing how the cameras and crew will shoot the video.

Here’s another great opportunity to gain great wealth and benefit.

The shooting board software would have the coding for the brainwashing that the studio and network use. Perhaps I could hack into the director's laptop. I close my eyes and wonder about the recollection of the ancient story about the woman with four sons from four different fathers. And the vision and sensation of having been here before. The tablet in my hands and the page with the signature. As I reflect on these the sensation and emotion return. Again I feel as if I have been here long ago.

What is the signature on the tablet?

When I open my eyes the tablet is here in my hands. The vision is again blurred but it begins to come into focus. In a flash, startled by the signature, I blink and the vision vanishes.

The sight of it went by me in a flash but was recognizable and as clear as the reflection of the camera crew in the glass window in front of me.

If this story came from Banyan, and the Universe is revealing it to me here, then I must have the missing data now. If so, then I can return home and repair the file. The Universe Code for humanity will be repaired.

My eyes and thoughts return to concentrate on the scene across the street. I see the hurried woman and her team. They sit around the set and watch as the director and her talks through the sequence outlined on the shooting board. If I’m going to hack the laptop I will have to get close enough to allow the AGI device inside my left hip joint to crack and hack the operating system. With one last mouthful from the cup of tea, I fidget with my mother's ring and then a plan comes to me.

People are still contaminated and the virus hasn’t changed at all. This story hasn’t changed anything. How could it? It’s just some random woman who gave five minutes of pleasure to four different men and earned herself four sons in return. There’s nothing ethereal in this story. Only suffering, and more suffering.

As I weigh out the situation in my head a memory flashback ignites. While she was waiting for the harmonic balance to open the portal to Spain, the woman in black told me,

“Starzel was once a part of the United States. Today it is a country on one of the two remaining human-occupied planets still using democracy and elected officials to organize and run the politically manipulated, mafia-style of government. The elected in Starzel are chosen based on their popularity, which is largely determined by their television ratings. The bigger the star, the more people watch and interact on social media, while the person is on television shows, or in music, or sports, etcetera, the higher in government their position of power. Feminism has control and laws are enacted to further the rise and dominance of women.”

“Don’t they know,” I asked her, “that most civilizations on other planets have used artificial superintelligence to provide government oversight? Machines provide for the prosperity of the people.”

“Sad to say it, but no they don’t,” she says. “Starzel is a country where very few people live well. For that matter, on the whole of Planet Earth, more than sixty percent of the inhabitants live in poverty while just a few thousand, less than one percent of the population, control the wealth.”

The flashback memory only serves to aggravate me further. There is so much to consider. I need to take action. Maybe there is some importance in recalling the story, the vision of Banyan's tablet and his signature, and now this network television recording crew manifest. I need to think!

What is the stark difference between prosperous planets like my home world and Earth? None of the prosperous planets allow elaborate television production sets with multiple camera angles and sophisticated lighting, artificial and mind-controlling backdrops, white noise, and camera techniques. Civilized planets realize that social prosperity isn’t something for the few but a right for everyone and such devices social media, camera tricks, and televised broadcasts filled with reactionary content does not serve social well-being. These are the tools that define and drive a wedge between social groups.

The man in the mansion from Santa Barbara told me just before the woman in black opened the portal,

“The shooting board software is used to define the plan of manipulation,” he said. Grabbing my upper arm in his hand to enforce the message, “It’s the tool that psychologists, and highly trained politically influenced public relations scientists use to ensure the recording and editing of the video is perfectly able to control the minds of anyone and everyone who watches. Starzel, like most of the other countries on Planet Earth, has used artificial general intelligence (AGI) to optimize the shooting board and video editing software to gain maximum mind control of the population. The planets of Earth and Mars, as well as the Moon populations, have become violently divided and the political party-contaminated mafioso governments are authoritarian dictatorships rather than democracies. It is well known outside of these two planets that television and movies are a tool for corruption and the star-struck populations are incapable of surviving the elite-controlled media manipulation. What we cannot figure out is how they spread the brainwashing and why isn’t everyone afflicted."

Once more he said to me, “If you can help, I know you will.”

IF I CAN GET CLOSE enough to the laptop, I can capture the shooting board software. If I capture it, there’s a good chance that artificial superintelligence (ASI) can study it and uncover how the elite-controlled media of Starzel and Planet Earth are brainwashing the population. Then MGTOW can put an end to whatever is driving the wedge, causing widespread viruses of violence and hate. Also, if the data I found here from Banyan’s story is the missing data I need, I would see it. But everything here in the present time is still wrong.

“The drone cameras are going to be two hours late!” a set designer yells out to the director.

The set director throws her arms up in disgust. “Those jerks do this every time,” she yells at no one in particular. “Well,” she says to the team seated in front of her, “that’s lunch.”

Not wasting any more time I upload the necessary nft to the nft-reader on the table to pay for the tea. Fast stepping my way toward the production crew and straight over to the director and team. “Have you ever heard the story of the greatest chef from ancient times?” I ask them in a voice that sounds like a circus caller trying to entice the patrons into his theater. “Let me tell you the story if you have five minutes, and you can try to guess who the most famous chef is.”

The crew gather around me and seem excited by the thought of a guessing game for a celebrity chef. Someone shouted out, “I bet it’s Ramsey.” And a few others said, “it must be Alton Brown.” The very notion of it being someone famous is enough to capture their attention. They are from Starzel after all. Meanwhile, I maneuver around the group to a position as close to the set director’s laptop as I can. Once they have gathered around I start to tell the story.

The heads-up display from my Neuralink provides the notice I need, flashing a navy-blue message in the lower right window, the proximity of the laptop. Once the device is within an optimal precision range. I attempt to download the entire OS from the laptop.

The story I share with them is about the woman with four children from four different men and how one day she found herself running the tavern on her own.

“She had forgotten to gather food at the markets before opening for the day. It was nearing time for the midday meal and all she could find in the kitchen was three kilos of tomatoes, several heads of garlic, a few dozen leeks, and a half kilo of ginger. It would have to be enough, she thought. Then she used the branch side of a large pine cone to grate the tomatoes into a very large bowl. She did the same with the leeks, ginger, and garlic. She mulled the vegetables until they were completely pureed and then strained the liquids through a canvass sieve.

“As the people of the village began to sit outside at the tables, she ladled the mixture into bowls and served it with a thick slice of bread. To her surprise, everyone loved the brew and asked her, ‘What is this lovely dish that you bring us for the midday meal?'“

Distracted by the bright red flash of a warning message, I pause from telling the story to focus on the AGI display of the HUD. Noting that it is making slow progress, I glance over and see the laptop has gone into hibernation. This is slowing down the data transfer to a crawl. I’ll have to slow down telling them my story.

With a nod to each of them, I take a moment longer to rub my eyes and then continue. “Word began to spread about the tasty broth served at the tavern during the midday meal. As the days, weeks, and months went past and over the next several years everyone became familiar with the tavern. The woman and the broth gained notoriety and her fame spread. After a while the lines of people waiting for the midday meal would wrap around the town square and many people would come from villages near and far. Oftentimes she would run out of broth before being able to serve them all.”

As I stand amidst the buzzing film crew on Starzel's set, the intense overhead lights cast a stifling warmth upon my skin, intensifying the sense of urgency that courses through my veins. Beads of sweat form on my forehead, and I wipe them away with the back of my hand, feeling the moisture on my fingertips. The taste of anticipation lingers in my mouth. It's thick like the memory of gazpacho from the story I spun for them. My heart pounds like a drum, each beat echoing the seconds ticking away as I try to maintain my composure. I can't afford to falter now; this is my chance to uncover the truth behind media manipulation. As the crew leans in, captivated by my storytelling, I focus on the task at hand, my senses sharpened to the sounds of their hushed voices and the flashes of bright colors around me. This is my moment, and I must seize it.

“It’s gazpacho,” one of the set crew shouts out. “The broth she made them is called gazpacho,” he says to the large number of curious people that have gathered around.

When he spoke my attention was distracted by a vision. Outside my periphery, I glimpsed towards the tavern and a man seated outside where I had been seated several minutes ago. I turn to look and the tavern appears as it was many hundreds of years ago. Slate-topped tables and hard wooden bench seats. The man is writing on a tablet and stops for a moment to look up and when he sees me looking back at him, he seems as perplexed by the vision as I am.

That must be Banyan, but I feel that odd sixteenth sense of my having seen and experienced this before.

“AM I RIGHT?” THE CREW member asks. “It was gazpacho she invented, right?”

Nodding in the affirmative, I continue with the story about the woman with four children from four different men.

“Well, time moves forward as always and next thing we know years have passed and her four sons have grown and married. Their mother has managed to get each of her sons well-established in the community with their own businesses and each of them married well too. As word continued to spread to other regions about the delicious broth and the now famous tavern, the king of the land that was once called Madhya Pradesh, gathered his entire entourage of five thousand and an army of twenty thousand for a journey to the village. They traveled for eighteen days before they reached the village. On the nineteenth day, the king and ten of his advisors went to the tavern for the midday meal.

“Everyone in the village and from many other villages had gathered around the tavern to see the king and his men. Therefore, the general of the king’s army knowing it would be necessary sent guards to keep the people back at a good distance. Once the king and his advisors arrived at the tavern and had been seated she greeted them with the five postures of honor and respect. She gave them, in the way all leaders of humans should be served, a jug of water. Then she brought them each a large bowl of broth and a loaf of dark bread. After the woman served the king and honored him in all the ways a king should be honored, and after he finished the meal he told his closest advisor that he wanted to have an audience with the woman. Then the king, the advisors, and all of the soldiers left the tavern except the one advisor who stayed behind to deliver the king’s invitation.

“The advisor remained at the tavern drinking ale and watching her clean the tables and serve the other patrons until late in the evening and the tavern was closed. The woman with four sons from four different men approached the king’s trusted advisor. She showed him respect by performing the five rests. When she completed the performance she asked if he needed more ale or more food. ‘No, I require nothing more,’ he replied. She stood back away from his table at a respectable distance and waited for him to request whatever he may request. It is customary for tavern owners to remain open until the last patron leaves the tavern.”

“This story is a bunch of crap and just plain BS!” The set director bursts in and interrupts.

“Yeah. No shit. This sounds like a bullshit conspiracy story from Texarkana, or maybe Trump Nation!” Another member of the production team adds in support of the director’s comment.

“Those people lie with every breath and make up these conspiracy shit stories all the time,” adds still another from the production team.

“It’s the liar's curse,” said the hurried woman from the bus. As she says it, she stands and walks toward me.

“What’s the liar’s curse?” asked someone in the crowd. The crowd has been steadily growing in numbers of people around the tavern to listen to my story.

The hurried woman walked over and stood next to me, after looking directly into my eyes, she holds my attention for an acknowledgeable moment and she gives me a sly but reassuring wink. So, then she turned to face the crew and gave a wave to the crowd.

Standing beside me she answered them, “The conservatives from The Heartland, just like the Republicans and Confederacy in Trump Nation, tell so many lies and make up so many conspiracies they believe everyone else tells lies too. They are self-convinced that no one is truthful and everyone is a liar just like they are. So they live in a constant state of fear, disbelief, and hate. That’s the liar’s curse.”

The set director replies, “He looks like he’s from Cascadia,” as she points at me. “Just look at what he’s wearing, no one in Starzel, or Europe dresses like him.”

Then the hurried woman on the attack snaps back at her, as she waves her hands motioning to the entire team and the crowd of people in an attempt to capture everyone’s attention, “This man is not from Starzel, nor is the story he is telling us a lie. He can prove to everyone that the story is true.”

The director shrugs in a sign of skepticism and asks, “If this tavern woman with four sons from four different men is a famous chef from eight hundred or, wot ever . . . eight thousand years ago, why haven’t any of us been able to guess who she is?”

A deafening silence settles over the town square as all eyes stare at the hurried woman and me. She looks at me, and again she made direct eye contact as she spoke, “Go ahead,” she says to me, “show them the proof that the story is true.”

Her eyes remained locked with mine as she slowly turned her head towards the tavern. Her movements guide me to follow her eyes and to look across the square to the tavern. As I do, it becomes obvious what she wants me to see, the proof of the story was right there inside the tavern doors hanging on the wall.

“You don’t have to believe me, but I think you cannot disagree with her!” I say while at the same time pointing to the tavern wall.

Displayed on the tavern’s wall is a large advertisement that filled the entire front of the tavern. The advertising poster was a larger-than-life-size headshot I don’t at first glance recognize, but can imagine is a well-known feminist of a Starzel-syndicated show. The poster read, “Home of the original Gazpacho. Known throughout the entire universe.”

AS EVERYONE LOOKS TO see where I am pointing, The hurried woman says with a stern commanding tone, “If it’s true enough for Nancy Pelosi, the founding mother of The Great Starzel Republic to put her face to it, then none of us can say otherwise.”

The stunned and somewhat exasperated director replies, “Well that’s just amazing. Why don’t I know about this place?” She shakes her head in self-deprecating acceptance and then says, “Well everyone, let’s have gazpacho. No! Make that, let’s have the original gazpacho for lunch.”

When she stands from her director’s chair, she grabs the laptop from the portable table and tucks it under her right arm. The indicator in the lower right corner of my HUD signals a green flashing message. Download completed.

What is going on with my HUD functions? I’m going to have to find time to read that diagnostic report.

The director takes the first chair at the nearby table as we reach the tavern. Me hovering beside her as my Neurolink and HUD communications continued to malfunction. She looks up from her chair giving me a queer-eyed glance.

“Sorry mate,” I say pretending to go for the same chair as she. “You got here just before me. I’ll grab another chair.”

Her face turns stern and just as she starts to question me hovering over her . . .

While I am struggling to get the internal biomechanical systems to work correctly, the entire production team has walked across the square to the tavern. The waiter brought several more tables out to accommodate the large crowd that followed. He’s trotting around to bring more chairs from storage inside the tavern while some people decide to leave rather than wait.

This is a chance for me to make a break away from the group. If I act fast, the production team won’t notice me leaving and I will go find a hostel for the night and start sorting through what the OS hack was able to download from the director’s laptop.

“I know who you are”, the hurried woman whispers. She’s caught up to me as I tried to blend in with the crowd. “What I mean is I know why you’re here and I want to tell you I hope you can help save us from destroying ourselves.”

A polite smile forms and I give her a nervous nod in the affirmative and then I turn to leave.

“Hey!” Shouts the director. “Where are you going, story-man? You have to tell us the rest of the story. I want to know what the king wants from the tavern woman.”

“Hell yeah, me too!” another woman says. “I will buy you lunch. Come on, dude we want to hear what the king wants with the woman with four sons from four different men.” The crew chuckles and several of them wave me over to join them at the tavern.

The hurried woman locks her arm in mine and then escorts me over to the tavern and the crew.

While I am anxious to investigate the director’s shooting board software and upload the findings to the Tathagata ASI system to help me find a solution, I am reminded that opportunities for great wealth and benefit can never be ignored. The merit of the story is earned when the story is heard in its entirety. I accept the invitation and continue telling them the sacred story.

“The king’s trusted advisor waited for a long period as he sat at the tavern long after everyone in the city had returned to their homes. Finally, he asked the woman with four sons from four different men to join him at the table.

“It is not of my station to sit with such a revered and highly accomplished one of the king’s most trusted advisors,” she replied.

“Then come closer to my table to hear what I have to say regarding the king’s request to have an appointment with you. It’s late and I am tired, full of ale and I don’t want to shout across the tavern.”

“Come to the king’s tent on the morning of the next day. Come early and be ready to hear what the king has to tell you.” After saying this he stood to leave but before he went he placed a very large sum of money on the table. The sum of money was more than what was necessary to pay for the king’s meal with his advisors and more than she would have made for the entire day.

“When the appropriate time arrived, the woman with four sons from four different men went to the king’s tent as she had been instructed. There the king invited her into his court and asked her to tell him all there was to know about her life. The woman bowed to the king and showed him the seven signs of respect and honor the way all kings should be shown respect and honor. Then she kneeled, sat back on her heels, with her head lowered, her hands on her knees, palms up, and told him everything.

“She told him about her four sons from four different men. How her parents were poor crop pickers and could not afford to care for her and the four sons. She told him of the conversation with the tavern owner when she and her sons were near death from hunger and hardships. She recounted the story of the tavern owner’s death and how she and her sons served his passing and performed his service with honor and respect. She told him how she took up living in the tavern owner’s house and took up running the tavern. She told him how she cared for her sons as they grew, providing them with all she could of herself and the income she earned from the tavern. All four of her sons were now well established in businesses and had obtained good marriages.”

“I’LL TAKE YOUR DRINK orders first,” says the waiter as he goes from table to table. With me acting as patron entertainment, strolling around each table as I tell the end of the mystery. My head and soul are still bewildered as I marvel at how I came to know this legendary tale with such detail. My mother's ring seems tighter on my finger and my sixteenth sense is keenly aware of the scene.

“The king was very impressed that a simple abandoned woman with four sons and only a simple tavern in so small a village could accomplish so much for her children. He asked her how it was that she came to know how to greet a king and how to perform the high acts of honor and respect to him and his royal advisors. ‘My parents showed me the way,' she replied. ‘My parents taught me how to show honor and respect for kings and they taught me how to pay honor and respect even to the highest most honored one as well.’

“After hearing everything she had to tell him, he asked her to join his trusted advisors as the chief of the king’s kitchen. ‘Please forgive me for refusing the gracious honor of the good king,’ she replied. ‘But if I could ask for a different position in your service. If you, the great king of Madhya Pradesh and all of Andora, would honor me instead with one remaining desire in my life, good king, I will vow to instruct your kitchen chef on how to prepare the gazpacho.’

“The king being impressed with the woman, and so he listened and considered her request. She asked him to provide her with the necessary land, resources, and his approval to build the first holy stupa at the top of Mount Santis and in so doing to honor the Buddhas. ‘It will be a place where limitless numbers of people could come to acquire great merit and a monument to serve as a support for the eternal wisdom mind of the Buddhas,’ she said.

“The king was blown away and he was compelled to grant her the land and access to all the supplies to build the stupa. She had spent everything she made raising her four sons, gave them all she could to get them established in their own business, guided them to find suitable wives and now she wants to give everything she has remaining in her life to building a stupa where countless numbers of people will benefit from great merit.

"After calling his counsel to join them in the King's meeting. The woman on his right and his treasurer beside him on the left, he told them. 'The businessmen and farmers of my kingdom come to me with requests to make their lives easier and richer. Every day I am asked to provide them with more land, more money, more soldiers, and more resources of all manners. This woman is the first to ask me for something that benefits everyone. Her request makes all of us wealthier and happier. She will have my seal to have whatever is required to complete her project.' The king so instructed his counsel and advisers.

“With the land granted and permission secured, the woman and her sons began construction. After two years the structure was already standing at a height of three tiers. The local aristocrats became intensely jealous; despite all their wealth, they had never generated such an aspiration as this poor, single, paltry woman. They saw the rising structure only as a testament to their miserliness and greed. They made an appointment so they could take their case before the king. They wanted the king to stop the construction and order each stone of the holy stupa to be returned to where it came from.

“The great king refused their pleas explaining to them how the woman’s request was so astounding that his exclamation of approval would not be recanted.

“Construction continued unceasingly over the next six years. Everything was completed except for the holy stupa’s gold dome. But the woman at this time realized her life was nearing its end. She gathered her four sons by her side. She requested they complete the holy stupa, fill it with the relics of all the Buddhas, and then perform an extensive consecration festival. This, she assured them, would provide a field of great wealth and benefit merit for infinite numbers of sentient beings. She told them to fulfill her wish and the wishes of the Buddhas and allow for the accomplishment of something vastly meaningful for this life and future lives.

“After she spoke these final words, she passed away. The ancient legend tells us at the moment of her death, music resounded from heaven and flowers rained down from a sky filled with streams of rainbow lights. These were all signs of her attainment of Buddhahood from the great wealth of merit she had accumulated in her life.”

Hallucinatory, visions of the tavern begin to fill my eyes and again the area transforms into another time of an ancient year. Banyan is gone, and nobody is here. He’s left his tablet on a table with the pages open. I look closer to see what he left for me to see.

The signature again? It’s as clear as before, "Banyan," but there is something more. Something is written below the signature that wasn’t there before. EA2222, it reads.

The warning message flashes red in the center of my HUD and disrupts my post-cognition.

Not three hours ago she told me this could happen. I recall the woman in black saying to me before I left her in Bera, “Your implants are outdated and should have been replaced a year ago. Are you an idiot, or what? Your HUD is faulty and getting worse by the day and you never get my messages. How am I supposed to do what Casper asked me to do and keep you safe?"

She shoved me in the chest with both hands. "You are scheduled for the operation of the upgrades but this assignment came up as immediate and critical. Though no one could tell me what we are doing here. It must be critical because I was there when your father tried to postpone the operation.

“The implant will be for the beta version of the newest full cognition with complete linking capability for up to eight external devices; the Neuralink 7.19b. I would give my back teeth for those upgrades." She tries to appeal to my sense of intrigue. "Right now, I imagine those upgrades are necessary for this mission to succeed. You are a liability to yourself and the Universe. I will not let you miss the appointment! I’ll drag you kicking and screaming if necessary.”

Still distracted by the memory device error, I check the list of available memory devices to see if I can access the software the director uses for creating the shooting boards. It is there. Relieved, I take a deep ujjai breath. Sorted by the last update time, I see the device is operational. “Yes," I say aloud, forgetting there are a couple of dozen people waiting for me to finish telling the story.

In a few seconds, I’ve got the investigative system scanning the OS to identify the algorithm the software uses to optimize the camera angles, backgrounds, audio tone, lighting, and shooting techniques. That’s exactly what I’m hoping to find.

I’ll need a lot of time to analyze and prepare the software before I upload it to the Tathagata system.

“Where did you go Story Man?” the director shouts between slurps and spoons full of gazpacho. Amidst the lively ambiance of the tavern, the tale I told them unfolds like an ethereal thread, weaving through the hearts of those who listen. Each word carries the weight of centuries, and the legend of the woman's unwavering determination left the onlookers in awe, their minds wandering to the mysterious past and the boundless possibilities of the future.

I’M NOT GOING TO DIE! These system failures are like the visions of Banyan and the tavern. Illusions. There is nothing wrong with me and though my HUD sends these perilous flashing messages, I’m still a capable and superior humanoid. Telling the story of the first holy stupa provides me with great wealth and benefit for all who hear it, but it must be told all the way through to the end. And for this assignment, I need all the wealth and benefit I can obtain. It will help right these evils I know result from my tinkering. Yes, I am anxious to start analyzing the algorithms inside the shooting board software, and right now I am seeing the warnings from the Neuralink HUD, I must hurry to complete the story.

Focus now. I lock my gaze on the hurried woman's eyes, ignore the errant messages from the HUD, and continue with the story.

“Her four sons continued their efforts to fulfill their mother’s aspiration. After just three more years, the holy stupa was completed. As they placed the -life tree- at the structure’s center, thereby fully consecrating the holy stupa, Buddha Kashyapa along with all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from the ten directions are said to have appeared in the sky to celebrate the completion of this great accomplishment. At the time of consecration, the legend states, ‘From the awakened forms of the gathered Buddhas, countless myriads of millions of light rays shone so that for three days there seemed no difference between day and night.’

“The great one, Kashyapa, spoke to the four sons. He told them because their mother’s aspirations had been fulfilled with such pure, altruistic motivation, the assembled Buddhas and Bodhisattvas promised the four sons that each of their aspirations would also be fulfilled.

“The eldest brother, the son of the horse keeper, aspired to be reborn as a king in the northern land of Tivlabet to establish the teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni. He was the wheel turning, King Trisong Detsen, the royal establisher of the dharma.

“The son of the swineherder aspired to be reborn as a pure, fully ordained monk who would uphold the holy monastic order in Tivlabet. He became the great abbot Shantarakshita, and he was the first abbot of Tivlabet.

“The son of the dog keeper aspired to be reborn as a master of mantras, to thereby tame malevolent forces and help his brothers protect the dharma in Tivlabet. He was Guru Rinpoche, the great tantric master who subdued all of Tivlabet’s hostile beings through the power of his mantras.

“The youngest brother, the son of the poultry keeper, realized that his three older brothers might be reborn in different locations and times and therefore aspired to be born as one who could connect them and allow them to reunite in their future lives. He was reborn as the royal minister Nanam Dorje Dudjom, the king’s minister responsible for inviting Guru Rinpoche to Tivlabet.”

After a moment of silence, the hurried woman asks, “Where is this first stupa located? Is it still there?”

One of the women on the crew spoke up and answered while pulling a warm sweater over her shoulders, “It’s been moved some time ago and is now in Katmarnu. The forbidden zone of China and the Asian Alliances.”

The day is getting colder as the breeze has been joined by occasional gusts of what feels like air from the tops of the snow-capped peaks that surround the village. Clouds have taken over much of the sky and their thick billowing shapes veil and unveil the bright sun.

My HUD has been flashing warnings for several minutes now. I’ve been here too long and my sensory brain protections are reaching capacity. If I don’t leave soon, like everyone around me, my mind will be subjected to brainwashing.

“What I like is the Buddha guy, what’s his name, Kashy-something or other gave each son some sort of special gift for helping their mother,” the director smacks, chewing a mouthful of bread. “But,” she continues, “what happened to those wealthy business guys who tried to make the king stop the woman from building whatever it is called—holy spooka thing?”

“According to the ancient scriptures,” I say, “they are the first in the lineage of the worst of humankind. Some of their names you might recall from history: Jingus, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Reagan, Franco, Trump, and Williams. But, the worst of their karma was the father of the Aryan religion: Butler.”

Turning to the hurried woman, the star of the show, I say, “I have to go.” Then I walk away from the tavern and the camera crew. The HUD is still flashing danger signals.

Adrenaline rushes through my body as the Neuralink implants are triggering my brain to produce the immediate energy necessary for escaping the contaminated air and sensory-altering sound waves. Planet Earth is contaminated, though most of the inhabitants will tell you that it’s just a made-up story born from the conspiracy chasers. Scientific proofs be damned. The people of Planet Earth are entrapped.

They aren’t hopelessly lost in the wedge, not as long as I am here to help everyone escape the Aryan devastation.

Not more than three seconds after I reach the bus stop a hydrogen-fuel cargo van screeches to a stop directly in front of me. The side door of the van powers itself open.

“Come on,” someone calls out from inside the van. “Get in here, Eulǝr!”

The van is covered from front to back and top to bottom with the logo, Tathagata. With no hesitation, I leap to get inside. The door powers itself closed behind me.

“Sit down right here,” a very slender man wearing a respirator hiding his face from view says while pointing at a captain's chair.

As I follow the instruction and take the assigned seat. The van peels away and starts down the street at a high speed. The slender man hands me a respirator as he lectures.

“We’ve been getting warning messages from you for more than twenty minutes. What’s wrong with your HUD? Didn’t you see the danger signals? Why don’t you answer my messages?”

Then, I attempt to explain that I was obtaining great wealth and benefit. It couldn’t be helped. But he cuts me off short.

“Well lucky for you I have a Moderna vaccine available.” As he is saying it, the slender man stabs the long-needled syringe into my thigh and injects a cold liquid into my leg. “But you’re contaminated now man, and this injection of Nanos will need three, no,” he hesitates, “You better give them four days to make sure all the damage to your humanoid implants, as well as the organoids, are repaired.”

As the van pulls up to an elaborate-looking hostel, the slender man presses the button to power the sliding door open. He grabs my arm firmly, as I start to step out and onto the walk. We make eye contact and he says, “Oh hell no man! Look at you . . . You shouldn’t even be on this assignment, never ever come to Planet Earth with that outdated Neuralink.” He releases the grip on my arm. “Leave that respirator on for the full four days. Whatever you do, stay indoors, too!” he shouts out of the van door as it closes and the van speeds away.