A Heathen in the Kingdom of Peace -- A Note from Jeremy

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I suppose you'll think it goes without saying. Still, the parallels between the Union of Independent States and your United States of Columbia -- No? Oh. Amerigo. America. Whatever. Even though the parallels are there and are rather clear, they are not the same.

Xhilr is not your world.

There will be some who say the Kingdom of Peace is a proxy for some country on your Earth. For the sake of those who will cry Privacy! and Cultural Appropriation! -- It is not.

Springmoon and Mei had to think twice about it, but they decided we are far enough separated in spacetime that, by the point at which the privacy issues might matter, neither you nor we will have any reason to care that they are mentioned or known on your world. Hailey doesn't speak to me, but, when she last did, she told me she didn't believe in my fantasy worlds. I don't think her husband does either.

Names are at best approximately symbolic anyway. You would not recognize the actual name, in either the language of the Fishers (my language) or the language of the People of the Dawn (Springmoon and Mei's).

Of necessity, I borrow Joel's voice. I trust his translation. And since I have no use for money or other legal instruments from Earth, I assign Joel the copyrights in your world. I also trust him not to play intellectual property games with them, although he will only hurt himsel if he does.

[I've got a handle on the part about intellectual property games. Let's hope I get close on the translation.

My apologies about the images. Getting the text here is pretty difficult. So far, the images have not transferred well at all.

Oh. And I could mention a few translation issues here:

Most of the countries of Xhilr use hexadecimal numbering systems -- base sixteen. I'm using the common earth convention of A through F for the digits beyond nine:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10_sixteen.

Even the time is usually hexadecimal, refer to the Xhilr clock on the right and the Earth clock on the left, below:

There are sixteen hours in a day. So, what we would call 3:00 PM would be A:00 (essentially) on Xhilr.

That makes the Xhilr hour roughly half again as long as what most of us call an hour on the earth. (We will ignore differences in rotation periods and in the entropy field.) Think of this as 90 minute hours.

I've chosen to call the sixteen divisions of the hour "long minutes". Work that out as 90/16, or about five and a half (5.625) earth minutes long.

And I've chosen to call the sixteen divisions of the long minute "short minutes". Short minutes work out to be about 21 seconds long.

A:BC would be about 11 x 5.625 minutes + 12 x 21.09375 seconds past the 5/8 of a day point that we call 3:00 PM, or about 4:06 PM on an earth clock.

I am essentially translating Jeremy's digital logs, comparable to chat, blog, and journal sessions, including the time stamps in the records. But I'm leaving out the cryptographic elements, since they provide no useful information to anyone on this earth. Can't access the timestamp servers, and what would we do with the proofs, anyway? -- Joel]

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Arrival

TOC

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Backed up here: https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/07/bk-heathen-in-kingdom-of-peace-note-from-jeremy.html.

思いで その壱 -- Omoide, Sono 1

When I was teenager, I was certain I would never see my fortieth birthday. I've beaten that by nineteen, and don't have any good reason to believe I won't beat it by twenty-five or thirty. And?

Some of my earliest memories:

(Why? No good reason. I was trying my hand at being an author of fiction, but life has gotten in the way. Fiction is hard to write well. At least, the stuff I've tried to write is. Personal memoirs should be easier. Much less planning and research, much less need to retain focus.)

-- I remember hearing my name called, running to ask my mom what she wanted, being greeted by a puzzled look. And one time she said, "That must be angels calling you."

(I had mostly forgotten those occasions by the time I was ten. Mom did not forget. She may once have mentioned Samuel, from the book of the Old Covenant. Many things come back to my memory as I get older.)

-- I remember getting a shock from sticking a screwdriver in an extension cord my dad had left out in the front yard so he could work on the car. That may have been one of the times I ignored the angel voices. Call me lucky, say there were angels watching over me. Same thing.

I recovered quickly, didn't tell my parents until much later.

But it left me with a dangerous addiction that I have somehow survived. No, I haven't randomly stuck screwdrivers in sockets since about the time I got baptized. There may be a connection there. Or it may have been my older brother that caught me at it around five and gave me a laconic warning that eventually took. Or both. My older brother baptized me, by the way.

Electronics and electricity have been something of a debilitating passion for me for about as long as girls have.

-- One morning, I woke up from a vivid dream that I had been given a fantastic new toy. I ran out in the front yard looking for it, but it was nowhere to be found. I asked Mom, but she knew nothing of it. I was bitterly disappointed when the reality of her suggestion that it was just a dream took hold. This was about the time I got the shock, I think. Don't remember whether it was before or after, though.

The toy? It was probably inspired in part by one of those all-purpose road-grader/bulldozer/backhoe/cement-mixer/crane toys that some toy companies persecuted parents with back then. I'm sure they are banned for safety reasons now, too many small parts to choke on, etc.

But this toy was a true Goldberg contraption. It had ten times as many gadgets on it, and was made of wood.

The dream was in color, if anyone is curious.

-- It would have been around this time I developed my first crush. (I think it was my first. Maybe not. Maybe my first big crush. Not counting my mother.)

She was the oldest child of a couple from the church branch who were friends of my parents. I got dragged along on the visits, but I don't think I needed much persuasion.

Being shy, I hid underneath my mother's legs and snuck peeks at her. Tried to get up the courage to ask her to share her toys, but couldn't think of how to go about it. (This was a pattern for most of my early years, maybe it has remained a pattern most of my life.)

She was cute in her diaper and no shirt. (Hey, I was the same age.)

For most of my pre-teen years I seemed to have a reputation among the girls my age at church of being something of a pervert. Or something. It did not help me get past my basically shy nature.

(I met this girl again at college. Remembered her name. If she remembered me, she did not admit it. She admitted vaguely remembering her parents talking about having lived in the town. She did not seem happy that I and my neighbor were called as home teachers for her roommate. But she didn't really complain. When she understood we were not using home teaching as an in for asking her or her roommates for dates, she dropped some of the walls she had thrown up. Even joined the conversations sometimes.)

I think the adults at church noticed my interest. Weirdly (but not really surprisingly, now that I understand the psychology of it) my shy interest in girls led to one sister calling me Joella Mary or some such thing when she wanted to tease me.

-- My mother would sometimes recall one occasion she was preparing me and the portable tub, to give me a bath, and when she turned her back I escaped in "nothing flat".

She would tell me of her growing panic as she searched the house, and her relief when several of the neighbor girls brought me back in my au natural state, crying. The neighbor girl had found me sitting on an ant-bed, ants crawling all over me.

I have something of a resistance to insect bites which may derive in part from the experience. But I have no memories of it.

-- My "best buddy" lived close by. He had a sandbox in his back yard, with toy trucks, road-graders, and other cool toys. He also had a tree house, and I think there was even a zip-line from the tree house for a while. (And I think I recall some discussion among the adults about the wisdom of that unsupervized zipline. There were safety issues on the terminating end, as well.)

But the most interesting thing about the guy was his imagination. We spent a lot of time in fantasy worlds.

Lest I give the wrong impresson, the fantasies were not exactly innocent. Rather dark, in fact, if a child's fantasies should be considered dark. They did cause me internal conflicts, even though they were interesting.

I don't think children under six trying to understand the stimulations of thinking about the human body should be considered perverted. Perverse, maybe. Not perverted. And if the sensations induced in the body by such questioning are confused with the pain of being cut, should that cause alarm at that age?

As long as it remains in the imagination.

I vaguely remember seeing "adult" magazines on their coffee table, and wondering about them.

There were aspects of his upbringing that I'm afraid his parents will have to answer before God for, even if he himself was by nature inclined, somewhat more than whatever is "normal" among humans, toward sexual interest.

-- This guy did not remain my best buddy.

Once, he told me to be sure to come over to his back yard. When I rounded the corner, he had one of the neighbor girls our age with him, and her pants were down. I do not remember much after that, but his backyard gate and the latch that took too long to open showed up in my nightmares for several years. In color.

My mother remarked on the sudden cooling of our relationship. She also mentioned once, about the time our friendship cooled, that I came back crying because I had had to beat him up for some reason. I still do not remember telling her that.

If the two incidents are the same, I seem not to have told her the whole reason. And now the memories are blocked.

-- I've had a hard time defending myself in fights since I was four or five. Conflict would tend to stimulate me, and the stimulation would make me uncoordinated. This may be connected with the above incident.

-- We had a dog we called Tuffy. He had to be tough because of the attention he got from some of the friends of my older siblings. When he got caught in the wheels of a car he chased, it broke my mother's heart. She swore off pets for several years.

-- My brother and his buddies dug a fort in the backyard. It wasn't a big fort, but it was big enough to once bury Tuffy up to his neck in.

Okay. It was big enough for a couple of kids a bit older than nine to hide in, if they scrunched down, and if it didn't count that we knew where they were hiding. I was too young to play with them, but I did sneak in a couple of times when they were at school.

After Dad found out Tuffy was getting fed dirt, the fort was filled in.

-- There was a public pool near the house, in a park named for forests that simply never existed in that semi-arid climate. We would go as a family, or as siblings. I learned to swim there, and swimming was my favorite way to exercise until I learned to dance in college.

Underwater is my favorite way to swim, by the way. I don't get enough traction to satisfy me on the surface.

I still remember the summer days in the pool, with the radio playing hit songs on the PA.

-- There was also a decommisioned bomber in the park, where children could play during the day (and teenagers during the evening). It was reasonably safe if you were reasonably intelligent how you played. It was eventually removed, some twenty years later, after it became commonly recognized as a dropoff point for illegal drugs.

It often smelled of urine.

But it was a great place to pretend we could fly, and it stimulated more than one child's interest in history and aviation.

E-P-ist Millionaire Seeking Wife! ch. 7

Previous

Millie sat in a booth in the ground-floor gourmet-natural restaurant scrutinizing the whole-wheat donut and the hot milk and beans drink on her tray, considering the relative meaninglessness of the deception she was engaging in. The only one who might be deceived would be the one who had planned it.

And, ironically, it might work out to his benefit. Maybe, as Sherry had said, not meaningless after all.

Turning to examine the post-twilight street outside, she reflected briefly on what she'd learned over the past month or so about Zero Jewel Research, Inc., and about the primary members of the corporate board, the CEO and CTO.

Distracted by her reflection in the window, she checked her disguise again.

The outfit was something she would never wear, the makeup worked to emphasize parts of her face not usually seen and de-emphasize the parts usually noticed, the sky blue wig quite different from her natural dark red, and the glasses with thick frames would be enough to hide her identity from many people. She was even wearing elevator shoes to make herself taller than usual. But no one in the company that occupied most of the building would be deceived.

Not that it mattered. She contemplated the multiple ironies.

Her gaze wandered back inside and she noticed the security camera in one corner. Wondering who might be manning the monitors, she raised two fingers and waved. The pilot lamp on the camera changed from pink to blue and back, and she smiled.

It had been Hodge's idea to meet at the restaurant on the first floor of the Zero Jewel headquarters building. Right under their noses was safest, he said. She could go to a nearby sports club and disguise herself, and then return where no one would expect her.

She let a corner of her mouth lift sardonically.

She'd never been comfortable with Hodge or with his approach to business, technology, or society. She had started working for him as an engineer about three years before, shortly after Hodge had left Zero Jewel in a difference of opinion with Sherry and JD, and formed Hodge Hercules Information Services.

High-level planning meetings had turned into dates, but, as was apparently the general course with Hodge, things went south quickly. He was difficult to communicate with, and would often assume things that weren't so.

If it weren't for his family money, Hodge would not have been able to keep his business going, and Millie herself had loaned him money in the form of stock purchases, although not so much for operating capital as to shore up the stock.

When she said she wasn't interested in dating any more, he had moved to take control, as he thought, of the relationship. At least, that was the only way she could interpret his behavior.

He would remind her at random times about things she had revealed about herself, as if expecting that knowledge to change her mind. Somehow, he had found out about Rodney, and about other things that her mother had felt should not be made public. And when he couldn't use that information to influence her, he would remind her of her stock that might become worthless.

At least he had not tried more than twice to seduce her.

She wasn't quite sure if it had been his real intent to do so those two times. He hadn't pressed her. But his actions and words on those two occasions had made her far more uncomfortable than usual.

When her mother had told her that the matchmaker that JD's mother had hired was reaching out to her, she had mentioned it to Hodge, and Hodge had encouraged her to respond positively, so that she could spy for him.

She didn't really care that much about the attempts at blackmail, or even that much about the money she had buried in stock in his company. She wasn't working because she needed money.

Her mother was always worried about the "wrong" people finding out about Rodney, but that wasn't so very important, either.

No, Millie had just not yet found a good enough reason for not cooperating with Hodge, and so had accepted the invitation to date JD. Then JD and Sherry turned out to be much more complex than she had thought, and the game had proceeded.

She supposed that she could now just tell Hodge she had gotten bored with the game, but Sherry and JD were, for some reason, wanting his cooperation for the House Party, and the thought amused her. And she found herself inclined to cooperate with them.

The corner of her mouth picked up again when she saw Hodge's form pass under the street lights outside in his thoroughly obvious disguise.

She deliberately looked away from the door as he come in, watching instead the reflection in the window of the man in the too-expensive overcoat and fake moustache. He spotted her, but pretended to ignore her as he moved to take a seat in the booth behind her and pulled out a newspaper to pretend to read.

"How obvious can you be?" she commented quietly without turning around.

"They won't know me. What have you got?" For being a whisper, his reply was not quiet.

Millie picked up the donut and focused on it, taking a bite before she replied. "Nothing you haven't got access to, really. Donut's not bad."

"The public repositories?"

"Yep. They really do expose their source code to the entire world."

"Hmm. So hows the dating game?"

"Oh, that's over." Millie tested the milk and beans, but it was still hot, so she blew in it before setting it back down.

Hodge swore softly.

"But Sherry has hired me as her personal assistant."

"Oh!"

"Mmm."

"Well, that's great?"

"Yeah. But no new information for you yet."

She waited for him to digest her words.

"Well, say, what about those billboards?"

"That's not JD. It's his mother."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"Not exactly."

"Any clues yet about why he and Sherry are splitting up?"

"No, no clues." It wasn't clear that they were splitting up, but Hodge didn't need that information. She tried the milk and beans again. This time it was barely cool enough to take a sip.

"Odd." He was silent for a moment. "Well, is there anything strategically useful in this advertising a hunt for a wife thing?"

"Yes." She smiled ironically again as she heard the rustle behind her. "Turn back around, you're drawing attention."

"What've you got? Pictures or something?"

"You know how tricky it is to carry things out of a company." She was just as glad Hodge couldn't see her smile or the irony in it.

"How long do you expect me to wait?"

"I keep telling you impatience is your vulnerable heel."

"Ancient myths."

"Still have meaning."

There was a short minute before he continued. "So, still nothing, even after a month?" His whisper carried his disappointment.

She debated with herself for a moment before speaking. "Actually, I've found out there's a pilot project of some small importance that they are starting work on, and an invitation for you to cooperate with them. You would be well advised to accept it."

"What? That's nothing? What is it?"

"Keep your voice down. I shouldn't have told you. You're going to have to pretend to be surprised."

"Surprised. Okay. I can do that. When?"

"Maybe you'll get the invitation tomorrow, maybe next week. Not sure."

"Can you give me any hints?"

"If I do, you'll certainly ruin things. Oh, but you might as well start digging through the social network service code in their public repository. That'll help you when the invitation comes."

"Ah. There's something I can do. Why they put the crown jewels out for everyone to steal is beyond me.

Millie bit her lip, but the word slipped out. "Clearly."

"What?"

She coughed as if to clear her throat, then whispered, "Piece of donut." She coughed again and took a swallow of the milk, glad it was no longer hot enough to burn. "That's all I've got." Then she took another bite of the donut.

---

Sherry stood at the darkened window of her penthouse apartment in the Zero Jewel building, watching the light play on the street five stories beneath her. A furtive form in an overcoat entered the light from the ground-floor restaurant, and she turned to the security monitor to get a better look, and zoomed in.

"Hodge," she spoke into the headset mic at her chin.

A shadow detached itself from the darkness below and followed at a discreet distance behind the figure hurrying furtively away.

Sherry watched on the monitor as several more figures entered the street from inside the restuarant, and then she spoke into the mic again. "Millie."

"I see her," JD's voice whispered in her ear. "I feel like a stalker. Hmph. I think she just gave me a little wave." After a short minute, another shadow detached itself from the shadows below, following at some distance behind the not-furtive form of her newly hired assistant in disguise.

Shortly, Millie's form disappeared into the sports club down the street. JD's form attached itself to shadows somewhat past the club entrance.

"So, do you want to know how it went?" Millie's whisper came in on the chat session. "Or were you listening in?"

JD chuckled quietly. "The law requires security cameras, but it doesn't require hidden mics."

"I told him he'll be getting the invitation, and mentioned the SNS code, but I didn't tell him what kind of project it is."

"That sounds good." Sherry continued watching the street and the monitor.

"He sounded like he's going study the public SNS repository."

"Excellent." JD's voice whispered.

"Do you see anything out there, JD?"

"I seem to be the only one following you so far. See anything from up there, Sherry?"

"Nothing from here, either, but, maybe it's best to be cautious." Sherry played her fingers across the security console keyboard and got six-way split of the external security cameras.

"I'm thinking I'll go to my brother's tonight. It'll be good to spend some time with my son."

Tom's voice broke in, "Hodge has gone back to his corporate offices."

Millie's voice whispered in reply, "He'll probably be studying the repository all night, then."

"That'll be good," JD whispered. "I vote we all knock off the cloak and dagger for the night and go home."

Sherry picked up a security system mic and keyed it. "Geri, are you seeing anything out in the streets?"

Geri's voice came over the speakers, loud enough to filter through the mic. "Just the usual. Tell Millie hi for me."

Millie whispered back. "Tell her thanks for the wave."

"She says thanks for the wave, Geri."

"Flashed the pilot lamp for her when she waved with her fingers."

Sherry nodded as Millie's quiet laugh sounded in her ears. "Okay, thanks, Geri. Let us know if you see anything." Sherry keyed the mic off.

Tom's voice came in. "Okay, I'm signing off and going home to my family."

"M'kay, thanks. Will you be all right, Millie?"

"Just finishing changing back to myself, whatever that is."

"Whatever that is," Sherry echoed with a sigh. "Sometimes I don't know who I am, either."

"Well," JD's voice came back in, "I think I admire both of you, for what it's worth."

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Copyright 2019 Joel Matthew Rees

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Backup of abondoned direction here: https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/06/bka-jdz-millionaire-07.html.

E-P-ist Millionaire Seeking Wife! ch. 6

Previous

The door of the office closed behind JD's parents and little sister aas they left.

"Well, that went better than I had hoped." Sherry slid off her desk and sat down on the sofa.

"JD, you're handling your mother's input well today." Millie nodded in approval.

"Well, Millie, having you running interference helped a lot."

"I really didn't do much."

"You did, and with you here I was able to avoid getting sandwiched between Sherry and my Mom."

"Hey." Sherry made mock complaint and she and Millie exchanged amused glances.

JD looked from one to the other, enjoying their amusement for a moment. "Yeah. So, Sherry, do you have time to go over this network we just proposed?"

"Can I help?" Millie asked.

Sherry glanced at the whiteboard. "Well, I'd actually kind of like you to work up three reports of the dual-purpose meeting we just had. We'll need one for the network hardware design, another for the house party support system proposal, and another for the house party rules."

Millie blinked and thought. "Nothing's really set, yet, so what I can write now will only be initial documents and vague outlines."

"Right." JD sighed deeply. "Paperwork. The least fun part about computers and information systems. Sorry. Is it okay if we ask you to get a start on those while Sherry and I work out some details? We want to be ready to talk when James is."

"Sure. Maybe half an hour to get something simple put together, then I can see where James is?" Millie stood up and collected her tablet terminal and other materials.

"Sounds good. Thanks."

Millie nodded and left.

Sherry and JD watched the door close behind Millie.

"We're going to be able to trust her, I think."

JD nodded. "I've had a gut feeling about her since my mom introduced us, that Mom had once again helped us in ways she was not intending." He half-grinned, then sighed again. "Unfortunately, no specific impressions as to what kind of help."

"Mixed feelings?"

"Be a lot less mixed if you'd only," he turned to look at Sherry, "be willing to go see that specialist."

Sherry met his earnest gaze and breathed deeply for few moments before looking away and digging around in her desk. "I guess I've got to find out if I'm going to do this house party thing." She pulled out a notebook terminal before continuing. "If I go as a guest and not just as a network engineer."

She turned to meet his eyes again, tilting her head ever so slightly. "You're surprised I'm giving in so easily."

"Maybe I am. Are you?"

Sherry didn't answer.

"Well, keep me in the loop?"

"Of course." Now she broke eye contact again and looked at the door. "So, we need two more engineers. Millie for one?"

"If she doesn't object. And we can try to get Hodge to be the other."

"Hodge. It's not too soon to reach out to him?" She put her notebook on her desk and started bringing files up on the screen.

"Too soon -- it's getting harder to stall my mom, and gut feelings aren't guarantees."

"Nothing's ever guaranteed."

"True. But we've got to move ahead." JD dug in his desk for a notebook terminal, then picked up one of the wall warts on his desk and pressed the boot switch. "Should we do the mock-up in the office or take it to a lab?" He set the wall wart down and initiated a connection from the notebook.

"Here is good." Sherry initiated a connection to the wall wart from her tablet. "I wouldn't be on board with the party at all, if it didn't give us the perfect excuse to give Millie a chance to figure out what she really wants." She put her tablet down and went to a closet to pull out a mostly empty equipment rack and begin loading it with more wall warts and network cable from shelves in the closet.

JD followed her and pulled out another rack, starting to fill it as well. "That's my thinking. I'm kind of hoping it'll give us a chance to reason with Hodge, too."

"You still have hope for him?"

JD shrugged. "You know I prefer to hope for the best from people."

"I know, and I know it makes it easier to manage our employees. But Hodge is not an employee. Not any more."

"Yeah. Not any more. Getting him here should be no problem, though. I'll make an indirect suggestion to my Mom, about whom to consider for the rich-boy crew, so that the invitation isn't too obvious."

"Mmmm."

"Can I take a moment for a prayer?"

"Go ahead."

JD offered a prayer of thanks for help, asking for more guidance. Sherry listened silently. Then they busied themselves preparing the hardware to simulate a small network appropriate for members of a house party to communicate by, stopping from time to time to diagram it on the whiteboard, and to transfer completed diagrams to their design files via the notebook terminals as they worked.

"But should Millie know before he suddenly shows up with an invitation?"

"Good question. You got an opinion on that?

"Not yet."

---

Millie looked in at the door. "James says he'll be ready in about a quarter hour if you guys are up for it."

"Oh. Nice." Sherry looked up from where she sat on the floor in a nest of network cables next to an equipment rack. "Tell him we'll be ready, too."

Millie looked around the office. "Should I chase JD down?"

"I'm here." JDs voice came through the open closet door.

Millie did a double-take. "I didn't realize there was a door over there."

"Many things you need to learn about this place." JD backed out of the closet, belaying network cable as he came. "Are you averse to using your engineering training to help us with the house party?"

"I already am, I think." She raised her notebook terminal. "The documents you asked me to make, remember?"

"Of course. But help in the actual design and implememtation." Sherry looked at the wire JD was holding and pointed to an empty port on the router on the bottom shelf.

"If you don't ask me to, I'm not sure I'll forgive you." Millie grinned lopsidedly.

JD chuckled as he sat on the floor so he could reach the router more easily.

Sherry grinned back. "Well, put that notebook down somewhere, go tell James to come up when he's ready, and come help us with this rat's nest."

Millie set the notebook on the stenographer's desk near the door and disappeared from the doorway. In a couple of short minutes, she was back.

JD reached over and pulled a stool close, but Millie pushed it back out of the way and joined them on the floor.

JD rubbed his forehead. "The servers on the middle shelf will be easier to reach if you're sitting on the stool. He looked down and noticed Millie's bare knees. "Oh. I'll handle the middle shelf."

Mille looked at her knees and shrugged. "Either way. I'll wear slacks tomorrow."

Sherry grunted in agreement.

JD stood up and took his notebook from his desk, then set it on the stool. He looked around for a moment, then returned to the closet. When he came back he was pulling a low test rack containing oscilloscopes, digital signal generators, portable consoles, and similar equipment. "Gotta be able to see what's happening," he mumbled as he got on his knees to attach a portable mini-console to one of the servers in the middle rack.

Sherry pulled the stool close and brought diagrams up on JD's notebook, showing Millie the parts of the network they were configuring. "So, did Hodge let you get your hands dirty when you were working for him?"

Millie started, barely noticeably, at the name, then continued tracing wires with her hands, comparing them to the diagrams on the screen. "At first, he'd only let me make documentation, but after he decided I knew what I was doing, yeah, he did. In fact, once he knew I could do the work, he'd give me a lot of his own work, so he could go knock balls around the greens or chat on SNS. Okay, I see the layout of this network segment. Are we going to put sniffers in here?"

"Yeah. Over there. Can you grab me one, too?"

"These are the sniffers?" Millie picked up two small boxes with network ports in them and offered one to Sherry.

"Right." Sherry took the sniffer and used a patch cable to insert it into the network. "We'll need consoles, too."

JD picked up two hand-held consoles and handed one to Millie and one to Sherry.

"So would you feel comfortable working with him at the house party?" JD traced a diagram on the screen with his finger, checking the wiring.

Millie set the sniffer in her hand down and looked from JD to Sherry.

"I'm not sure." She picked the sniffer back up and used a patch cable to attach it to the router. "Leave it dangling in a tee?"

"Dangling," JD confirmed. "That one's going to be listening to everthing in promiscuous/eavesdropping mode." He typed commands at one of the hand-held consoles already in place. "We want four engineers on location, but we don't want them attracting attention or getting in the way. Sherry and I will be hosts, so we will have a reason to be there anyway."

"So the other two should be guests." Millie nodded.

"Right. I figured Hodge might not mind joining us."

Millie snickered. "Hodge, mind? I think he'd jump at the chance once he knows what you're planning with the network. Not sure he'd behave himself, though."

Sherry chuckled. "Snake in the garden."

Millie dropped her jaw in mock horror and gave Sherry a sideways glance. Both smothered giggles.

JD shrugged. "I know. It might not work out, but we can let him test the waters while we're setting the system up.

Millie's expression turned serious as inner concerns began to show. "I don't know if it would be good to let him close to your company's technology."

"Do you remember signing a non-disclosure agreement?" Sherry glanced up at Millie with a sly half-grin.

"Well ..."

"We don't like secrets. That's part of why we work under libre/open licensing for the infrastructure, and even for most of the user-facing software. For this project, anything Hodge could see is nothing he can't already access over the internetwork network." JD typed another command and hit the return key. "Is that monitor picking up the network traffic?"

"It's scrolling off the screen now." Millie scanned through the output listing." But you can't trust him."

"You know he used to work for us." Sherry was watching her own screen.

"Y--yes." Millie took her hands away from the hand-held console she was working with and looked down, balling her hands into fists. Her face became a mask of frustration and her shoulders stiffened. After a full short minute, she blurted out, "I'm spying for him." She squeezed her eyes shut.

Sherry reached around her shoulders and took her into a hug. "We're being careful what we let you see. Don't worry about it."

JD took her fists in his hands without speaking. Shortly, the tension began to leave her hands. He reached up to lift her chin. When her eyes met his, he said, "We aren't going to let him hurt us."

Milie relaxed and looked down again.

"So, do you want to talk about it?"

"Talk?" Millie looked back up at JD and he brushed a few tears from her cheek. "Uhm, would it make a difference if he were blackmailing me?"

JD shook his head. "No difference. You should always do what you think is right. You can trust us, as much as humans can trust each other."

"He found out about my son."

"Do you want to tell us about that?" Sherry asked, quietly.

"I was raped in middle school. Maybe I should call it date rape, because I knew I shouldn't have been going to the guy's house." She paused. "He was a college student, a dancer, and he was good at it. He was also into martial arts. He was not into babies or into losing his scholarship."

Sherry and JD listened in silence, nodding slightly.

"I didn't want to abort the baby, so my parents arranged for me to stay with my brother and his wife until he was born, and they have been raising him." She smiled wistfully. "So he has three mothers, Karen, me, and his grandmother, and he may be a little spoiled. He's about Krystal's age, now."

Sherry gave her an encouraging squeeze around the shoulders.

JD tilted his head. "Nothing that doesn't happen sometimes. So Hodge found out and is threatening to spill the beans?"

Millie breathed shallowly. "Well, yeah, but it's not so much me that I worry about as my mother. She is way too concerned about her social place. But it would hurt her."

"We can understand. Thank you for telling us. Now that's two bad things Hodge can't do to you. Anytime you need to talk, either of us will listen, okay? And I'd like to meet Rodney sometime."

"Phht. JD." Sherry rolled her eyes.

Millie leaned out of Sherry's hug and looked at Sherry, aghast, then turned to look at JD.

JD looked down and rolled his eyes sideways. "Woops."

"You knew!"

JD scratched the back of his head. "My mother is very thorough. Now seems to be a good time to warn you again about her. Still, knowledge gives us freedom, right?"

Millie stood, putting her fists on her hips with anger, surprise, and confusion mixed on her face. She turned around, walked to the couch, and sat down heavily, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands as she considered JD and Sherry through narrowed eyes.

"I'm not sure whether to be relieved that you two aren't just trusting me in ways you shouldn't or be mad because you've kept how much you know from me."

JD shrugged. "Mea culpa."

Sherry grinned ruefully. "Sorry. We kind of assumed the contract JD's Mom made you sign would have prepared you."

"I didn't take those clauses about agreeing to a thorough background check seriously. My illegitimate son doesn't worry you, JD?"

"There's no such thing as an illegitimate human."

"What Sherry says."

Millie looked from JD to Sherry and back again. "It's really hard to believe you aren't married to each other. Sherry, when are you going to explain the real reasons to me?"

"Hard to explain what I don't understand."

Millie thought for a minute, then shrugged and turned to JD. "I think maybe I'm crazy, but I guess I can go with the flow. Was Hodge ever the subject of your mother's interest?"

JD looked at Sherry, who shook her head. He nodded in agreement. "Not that we know of."

Millie leaned back and closed her eyes as if in deep thought or maybe prayer and no one spoke for a short minute or so. Then she opened her eyes and looked out the window.

"Really, what is it with you two? I mean, I sort-of understand as much as Sherry has told me, but you two are way closer than just best friends. And I think I sort-of understand about the Libre software movement, and I share many of your E-P-ist points of view about society in general, but you two simply don't seem to think about the things normal people think about. What motivates you two?"

JD and Sherry looked at each other and grinned wry grins, nodding in unison.

"You do deserve to know as much as we do." JD spoke, and nodded her agreement.

"Hey, I hope I'm not interrupting anything!"

The three of them turned toward the door.

"Ah, James." JD shook his head. "Sorry, Millie, we'll have to continue this another time."

"I am." James looked from Millie to JD, to Sherry. "I'll come back." He started to turn back out, but Sherry stopped him.

We don't have much time, let's hammer out the initial plans for the house party.

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E-P-ist Millionaire Seeking Wife! ch. 5

Previous

"Okay, those are the ideas we've discussed so far." JD turned towards the couch.

George and Hank nodded, then turned to Ronnie, who also nodded.

Hank took the lead. "Mildred, you trust me as your legal advisor, right?"

Mildred was stoic. "Yes, Hank."

"The house party, with Sheliah's company in charge, is the option presented that is least liable to leave your family vulnerable.

"And as your son's legal advisor, I concur," George added.

Ronnie took her turn. "James, do you have any comments?"

James shook his head.

"Okay, then I'll need to discuss this with the rest of the legal department, but I'm pretty sure that we will be in full agreement with personal counsel."

JD nodded. "Thank you, Ronnie, Geoge, Hank. What do you say, Sherry?"

Sherry looked at Millie, who nodded.

"If your mother can let us do our part, I'm in for the house party. Not in for the other ideas."

"Millie, will you join us too?"

"I fully agree with Sherry. I hope I'm not disappointing you, Sister Zukiger."

Mildred actually seemed to be relaxed. "Maybe I'm seeing some wisdom to this approach."

JD nodded with a frown. "I'm seeing some business opportunities. Sheliah, who's your company's website provider?"

"What? Oh, we're just using something Tiny-algo provides for cheap."

"What would you say to letting our company develop a real SNS for this house party, with an eye to extending it to all your clients later?"

Sherry looked up at JD with a slow grin. "JD and I have often talked about what a proper SNS should look like and what it would take to implement. The most destructive thing to an SNS design is making it too broad in scope -- too big. This would be a near-perfect opportunity to publically demonstrate scope-limited SNS and how it can be integrated into the world-wide network."

She paused, looked around at puzzled faces, and laughed. "Anyway, we've set up some experimental networks, and I think we could put something together quickly that would be useful at this house party. Where's a marker? James, you want to handle the whiteboard with JD?"

James and JD moved over to the whiteboard, and both took markers and started diagramming network services.

The rest of the group looked puzzled.

Sherry explained. "Most of us are on Pigpen, right?"

Nods of agreement.

"Are you satisfied with them?"

Silence.

Mildred spoke up. "They aren't too bad."

"But, permissions problems, unstable, advertising-oriented, hard to manage, manipulative?"

Nods, especially at the last word.

"We can fix a lot of that by having the users host their own news servers. Oh, call them timeline/profile servers. Distributed. So, for the purposes of this house party, say we set up a trial SNS network. Users will have full domain names with mail addresses specifically for use within the SNS."

"I'm lost," George complained.

"What's a typical domain, JD?"

JD wrote on the board:

jdz.epmatch.com.uis

"Make it a URL people can access for news," she added.

He wrote,

news://news.jdz.epmatch.com.uis

"Looks like a vanity domain," Hank commented.

"Like a vanity domain. Instead of going to Pigpen, this is where people go to see your main profile and current news feed. How about a fan club domain, JD?"

"Not that I want one, but it could look like this:"

news://fans.jdz.epmatch.com.uis

"How about an address for fans to write to?"

mail:fanclub@jdz.epmatch.com.uis

"Someone to chat with?"

chat:jdz@jdz.epmatch.com.uis

Mildred shook her head. "I don't get it."

James replied, "Well, mostly it's about making all these domain name thingies meaningful. Give them uniformity, flexibility, and meaning beyond the SNS company's business plan. Especially keep the domains and the servers in the owner's control."

"Okay, it does look more meaningful than those long strings of goobledygook that SNS servers usually serve up." Hank shrugged. "So why doesn't everyone do this?"

"Not invented here syndrome, mostly," Sherry answered. "JD, hold your tongue."

JD gave Sherry a mock glare, then grinned sheepishly.

James took over. "The point is, these two have been spending spare moments working out how to map SNS functionality into standard network functions, and working out the basics of how to implement them distributed across the users' network itself. Sheliah, if you are interested, your company could be a guinea pig, to see how it would work."

"How much does it cost me?"

"Wise question," James answered. "What do you say, Sherry?"

"Software costs are gratis for helping us debug. Hardware, we'll probably want to split costs on, but that's actually one of the features of the approach we've been working on."

JD picked up from his desk a rounded cube of plastic with power plug prongs sticking out of it, and held it up. "Each user has his or her own home server in something like one of these inexpensive wall-warts. These retail for the price of an ordinary day's labor. Backup functions can be provided on-site with another." He held up a second. "And the network services provider can lease out backup services for off-site data security. Distributed SNS with backup. For the house party, we can put one, maybe two of these in each guest room, and we'll back the data up on an on-premises server."

James laughed. "What he means, beyond cost, .... When was the last time you couldn't access Pigpen for several hours?"

Jenny said, "Last month, most of my friends were off-line for half a day."

James grinned. "This way, if you can access the general network, you can access most of the SNS. No depending on Pigpen or Trawler or Tiny-algo or whoever, just on the network itself. JD and Sherry will talk about infrastructure -- proxies and backup servers, domain name servers, network bandwidth and such, but the upshot of it is that the bulk of the load is distributed among the users."

JD put the wall-warts down and went back to the whiteboard. "Something else that current SNS companies get wrong." He started writing Venn diagrams with group names on the board. "A little E-P-ist centric, but ..."

Sherry continued for him. "When you start a new Pigpen account, you have no idea what a friend group is, right?"

There were some murmurs of disagreement and some murmurs of agreement.

"Anyway, it's a pain to manage all your groups."

Everyone nodded.

"We'll set up templates of default groups, to make it easier to figure out, and the groups will have addresses. JD?"

JD wrote example addresses out on the Venn diagrams,

jdz.epmatch.com.uis/friends
jdz.epmatch.com.uis/family
jdz.epmatch.com.uis/company
jdz.epmatch.com.uis/clients
jdz.epmatch.com.uis/church
jdz.epmatch.com.uis/club

"Those group addresses aren't, by default, served to the general public-facing web; only the user sees them. It's to help the user sort through what he or she interacts with and not eat up too much time. But they will be easy to make, and some, like friends and family, will be set up by default for general users. Most SNS providers give you contact groups, but our user interface will always ask which group or groups to sort a new friend into, instead of just dumping them all into the default pool."

Millie took a picture and JD erased the first set of default friends and the Venn diagrams.

JD continued. "For this house party, the default groups will be something like this."

joeguest.epmatch.com.uis/friends
joeguest.epmatch.com.uis/fans
joeguest.epmatch.com.uis/close-friends
joeguest.epmatch.com.uis/allies
joeguest.epmatch.com.uis/watch1
joeguest.epmatch.com.uis/watch2
joeguest.epmatch.com.uis/donotshow

Sherry added, "So the guests can immediately start using the SNS to try to figure out who he or she wants to hang out with and set lines of communication up. And the user interface makes it easy to move or copy contacts from group to group."

Sheliah and some of the team were nodding their heads in agreement.

"I think I can talk the others at matchmakers into this."

Mildred interrupted. "Well, I'm glad my son is getting some enthusiasm about something, but I'm afraid his enthusiasm is not about finding a wife. I'm afraid I can't approve of this."

"Honey, everyone in this room loves you."

"What's that supposed to mean, Karl?"

"It means, Mom," Krystal jumped off her perch. "You don't have to prove or approve anything." She sat on the arm of JD's big chair and reached around her mother's shoulders and gave her a hug. "You're winning even if you think you're losing."

"What silliness are you talking about?"

"Don't fight my big brother about this, okay, Mom? I promise you he's onto something good. You'll love it."

"But what about my grandchildren?"

"It won't be long until I can do something about that, even if he keeps dragging his feet."

"That's another thing I worry about."

Krystal kissed her mother's cheek.

"Oh, stop."

JD grinned. "Mom, I promise I won't let the tech keep me from giving the women at this house party the attention they deserve."

"They deserve. You always throw conditions into your promises that worry me."

Sheliah said, "Well, I like the idea, both from the business side and for matchmaking for your son. I think you should leave this one up to him."

Since it seemed everyone else in the room was in agreement, Mildred bit her lip. "Well, I guess, if it doesn't take all year."

JD closed his eyes for a moment and silently expressed his gratitude for unseen help.

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E-P-ist Millionaire Seeking Wife! Title, TOC

Millionaire Seeking Wife!

by Joel Matthew Rees

May 2019

Amagasaki, Japan

Copyright 2019 Joel Matthew Rees

What could inspire a wealthy single member of a religion that theoretically eschews ostentatious display of wealth to advertise his wealth, his status as a member, and seeking a spouse?

Joseph Daniel Zukiger finds out why he did.

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8

E-P-ist Millionaire Seeking Wife! ch. 4

Previous

"Well, I hired this team!" Mildred Alfreda Zukiger's voice approached being shrill, her face growing white and expression growing stiff.

JD nodded, a silent prayer for forgiveness in his heart. "Sure, Mom. You assembled a good team. And if you are dissatisfied with the performance of anyone on the team, I'll take over their contracts. But I think you had some other plan you wanted to discuss."

Mother gave son a look of distress and sat heavily on the sofa. A short minute's wait yielded only a look of concern from her son. After taking another short minute to recover, she began, "Well, I thought the job interview approach quite appropriate. We could get full resumes until a deadline, I could pick the best twenty, and you could pick the one you want from there."

"The only difference between that and what we have been doing since you took over, Mom, is that you'd have a lot larger catalog to choose from." JD smiled slowly. "Mind you, you found Millie for us already. Perhaps if she and I had gotten a better start, ..."

He looked sideways at Millie. Millie looked up and gave him a single non-committal nod.

"Okay, Mom, maybe, under this scenario, we could go over the lists together. But it isn't one I favor."

Sherry gave JD a tiny nod of approval, invisible to his mother, and went to the blackboard to join Sheliah in erasing it. Then Sheliah sat down and Sherry started summarizing Mildred's plan on the whiteboard.

"Well, Sister Zukiger," Ronnie spoke up as she thumbed through search results on her table. "Using that format may incur more legal obligations. Job interviews have rules. We might need to set up a website to explain the rules and procedures. And if we aren't careful, JD might end up legally compelled to offer marriage to one of your finalists."

"Well, of course that's no problem. He has to quit running away from this. I have full confidence in my judgement."

As she wrote, Sherry said, without turning around, "We are sure you would judge well, Mrs. Zukiger. But, as JD's long-time friend, I must say that you are likely to miss some things that are important to him."

"I think not."

JD kept a prayer in his heart, hoping for his mother's understanding.

Sherry finished writing without responding. "Does this summarize your ideas, Mrs. Zukiger?"

Mildred looked at the whiteboard for a short minute, then grudgingly admitted it did. Millie took a picture, and Sherry started erasing it.

"So, JD, what do you think?" She finished erasing and turned around. Millie joined her at the whiteboard, and Sherry handed her a marker.

"Well, as everyone knows, I really don't like all this fuss about finding me a wife."

"As your friend and business partner, I must say, you need a partner for your life, apart from your business."

A gasp and a quiet "Here, here!" escaped Mildred's lips.

Millie spoke up. "Sherry, that's not fair. Under your own rules, you can't give him that kind of advice."

Sherry and Millie locked eyes for a long moment. Then Sherry slowly nodded. "You're right. Forgive me, Millie." She turned to JD. "Sorry."

JD rubbed his forehead. "Well, never mind. So we can't go there."

"No, JD, you can't go there. Sherry is not a good match for you." Mildred's expression was dark, but had traces of triumph written in them.

"Sister Zukiger, if you want your son's cooperation, ...," Sheliah stood up. "If you want any of us to cooperate further, you need to back off at least that topic."

Mildred had nothing to say to that.

Millie turned to JD. "So, if you had to have something to suggest, Joseph Daniel, what would you suggest?"

JD looked perplexed. After a short minute's thought, he said, "This all seems, well, like one of those silly old-fashioned romance novels set in days long gone, or something out of one of those reality show house parties."

"You would also be averse to a house party?"

JD looked from Millie to Sherry, realizing that either of them might have asked the question Sherry had voiced.

"The Church runs youth and single adult conferences." Millie tilted her head and raised an eyebrow before continuing. "They look a lot like house parties."

That got some laughter from most in the room.

JD smiled half-grudgingly. "But they seem much more appropriate to the purpose, partly because the primary focus is not supposed to be on finding a mate." He thought a moment more. "I mean, yeah, my mom set me up with you, Millie, and maybe we'll revisit that, but focusing on the question of mating just screwed the whole thing up for us the first time around."

Millie laughed. "Maybe so. But let's say we did have a house party. Would you be willing to join it?"

JD looked around at the group, then he focused on his mother. "I could do that, depending on the activities, if there is no making promises that anyone ends up getting together. There has to be some relief from the big question, or people go crazy."

Mildred's expression become thoughtful.

JD continued, "If we advertise it as having to do with millionaires, we should invite some other rich guys -- and gals -- as well. Now he looked back at Millie, who raised her eyebrows. "Millie and Sherry are invited." He thought a moment. "Four total? No, four more woman and five more men from the rich crowd."

Millie busied herself writing on the whiteboard while Sherry watched and made suggestions.

"Mom can figure out some possibilities about whom to invite from her connections, but they have to be approved by the whole team, and the invitations vetted by George and Hank. And I'm going to ask Sherry and Millie to join the team for that." He paused again, checking with them as they finished writing. They gave turned and gave him looks of grudging agreement.

He paused to check with his heart and with God.

"And we put out a public call for participants from all social classes," he continued. "Money isn't the only balancing factor in contracts of this nature. We'll choose up to twenty men and twenty women from those who apply, in even numbers."

"Have we got it so far?" Millie examined hers and Sherry's work.

"That looks right. Sherry, can you get a picture of that?"

"Got it. But I'm not sure I agree to it."

The door opened.

"I thought you guys were going to wait for us?"

"Hi, Dad. Hank. George?"

"I'm here, too." George walked in behind Hank.

"Hi, Dad Z, my big chair's open."

"Thanks." Karl sat in Sherry's big chair.

The two lawyers sat on the sofa.

"Me, too!" Krystal Karen Zukiger trailed in. "I came to cheer for Mom's side."

JD laughed as she waltzed over to his desk and perched on it.

"You're an answer to prayer, Krys. You got the projector, Sherry? Let's go over what we've covered so far."

Millie looked at Sherry, but Sherry shook her head ever-so-slightly, then went to her desk and got a projector out of a drawer.

"Millicent!" Krystal looked startled. "You look different! I like it!"

Millie and Sherry laughed as they set the projector up.

"Thank you. I'm in a different role today."

"Well it's cool!"

"Yeah, it's cool." JD gave his little sister a hug. "Now we need James. I'll go get him."

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