WARNING: The below chapter contains some sexually explicit dialog not suitable for younger readers.
Flushed
Seychelles, September 18th, 2047
While he had seen them dozens of times now, the sight of a large sea turtle always seemed to cheer up Dakila. The tranquility that this beautiful creature represented helped him find his center in these confusing days. It felt ironic that he, former leader of the most technologically advanced cyber army the world had ever known would find himself in so much emotional turmoil over a young woman. It wasn't right but it felt more than right at the same time. It would have been OK if Imelda was just a random 18 year old woman. If she hadn't had been 'her' daughter. If she hadn't been his stepdaughter since she had been 10 years old. How could he have allowed this to happen? But at the same time it felt like Dakila was floating on air every time he thought about her. Imelda was so filled with life, she was only 18 year old but she got him. She understood his constant fears and the uncertainty that had plagued him even in his years as leader and founder of the South Atlantic GNU Defense Alliance. And more than that, they shared their love of, shared their deep feeling of loss about Imelda's mother. Mahalia had been Dakila's childhood friend and his childhood crush. No, more than that. Mahalia, Imelda's mother had been in Dakila's heart and in his head since he had fled the Philippines after his successful blockchain heist. She had been the love of his life, or so he had thought. Eight years ago, Dakila had managed to track her down. Woo her with his wealth and his admiral status. Well, that had been the plan. A plan that Dakila had been forging since the day he left. But then with Dakila's high expectations, things could only turn out a disappointment. Dakila and Mahalia had hooked up. There was love, There was friendship. And yes, there was sex. But nothing like what he now experienced with Imelda. The passion they shared, her young body, the amazing sex they were having 6, sometimes seven times a day. All of these made his relationship with Mahalia feel like the 'just friends' that Dakila now was starting to admit he and Mahalia had been. Despite of their attempt at a relationship built on their deep friendship. Despite of all the sex he and Mahalia had been having. Despite both these things, the passion between him and Imelda had shown Dakila how they had been fooling themselves. Compared to what he and Imelda had right now, his relationship with her mother had lacked real passion, had lacked the hot steaming sex that now made Dakila feel like a man on top of the world. Oh Imelda. Dakila took of his snorkel gear and looked at the white beach. There she was walking towards the shoreline. She was perfect. Curves in all the right places and those perky young tits of her bouncing softly as she strided, toplessly towards the sea. One look at her sensuous perfect body made Dakila forget about his moral struggles with being in a relationship with the daughter of his late wife. As Imelda waved for him to come to the shoreline, both he and his body knew why she wanted him to come over. Dakila had to readjust his swimming trunk as a result of his body's biological response to this realization. Dakila could not get enough of Imelda's young body and she couldn't get enough of his. It wasn't right, but then it was. It was perfect. Imelda was perfect in every sense of the worth. She was everything that Dakila had hoped and expected her mother to be. One kiss from Imelda held more passion, more fire, than four years being in a relationship with her mother. Mahalia had died in an attempt on 'his' life by PUPR agents. While Dakila, Mahalia and her then fourteen year old daughter Imelda had been living in an EMP bubble, safe from drones and supposedly safe from agents, one agent managed to survive the EMP blow-out of his cranial implants and had managed to make it to their condo. She had died saving his life! Saving their lives. It was strange that it was her death that had pushed Dakila and Imelda towards each other, but it also was her death that had Dakila torn morally about his relationship with Imelda today. It wasn't right! But yet it was perfect.
Dakila threw his snorkel gear in the general direction of Imelda and started to swim as fast as he could towards Imelda and the promise of wild passionate shoreline sex. Oh, how he wanted to touch her skin, kiss her neck, hold those perfect yet small breast in his hands while she would ride him in the shallow sea water. As thoughts of lust and passion filled Dakila's mind, all moral considerations evaporated.
Then as Dakila was trying to swim towards the shoreline, he felt a strong pull in the currents. This wasn't right! The waters surrounding his private island should be free from strong currents. In all the years he had lived here. Never had he felt a current even half this strong. A strong pull of current pulled Dakila under for a moment. Then a second time. As Dakila turned around underneath the waves and opened his eyes, a deep black darkness was there pulling him towards it. Without his snorkel gear, Dakila could not see what it was. Everything was blurry as trying to see in the salty sea water with his naked eyes was not at all optimal. But whatever this darkness was, it couldn't be good. This had to be tech! Even though the war had been long over, there always were formerly powerful people with a grudge against him. If this was another attempt on his life, he might be done for. What tech is this? Just as Dakila felt the need for air become a desperate concern, the darkness turned to bright white light as Dakila felt himself sliding over what felt like smooth tiles.
As Dakila, greatly disoriented, looked around he saw a wall of blue tiles before him coming closer to him. He was no longer emerged in water, not completely at least. He was sitting up straight until his belly button in water, sliding towards this wall. As Dakila hit the wall, so did a larger mass of water and for a short moment the salty sea water washed over him, lifted him off the ground and then landed him with some force on a surface of white tiles. What … ?
"You must be Kotu, sorry about the way I contacted you, but I need your help sir and there is not much time.", a voice that sounded nervous and menacing at the same time spoke.
Dakila looked around in fear. Where was he, who was this talking to him? Dakila was completely disoriented. One second he was swimming in the sea, being pulled towards a darkness by sea currents, the next second he was in what appeared to be an almost empty swimming pool. As he looked up, he saw who was standing there. An old shabby looking bearded man in a long old Kashmir coat that looked like it hadn't been washed or dry cleaned in two decades. Them Dakila noticed the contours of the cranial implant.
"Shit! PUPR!, sir, don't kill me sir, I can offer you riches beyond what you can imagine, sir.", Dakila spoke out in a desperate tone of voice.
"Don't be silly Admiral, I'm not here to kill you and I'm certainly no PUPR agent. Have you ever seen a geriatric agent you silly twit? I am here because I need your help. Because the world needs your help 'Admiral' Kotu.", the old man spoke.
"What? Who are you? How did you find me? And if you are not PUPR, what's up with the implants?"
"You want to know who I am and how I found you Kotu, I have two words for you my friend: Roverandom interface"
"Roverandom?", the word resonated through Dakila's mind. Roverandom, the laptop that started it all. Dakila had never told anyone about the Roverandom document. He had worked with his people on trying to figure out part of the content, trying to find out what it was the document was a blueprint for, but only he himself knew the original file name of the document. 'Roverandom_Interface.odf'. Dakila's mouth dropped open as he stared in disbelieve at the old man.
"It is? …. You are? …."
"Yes, yes, no time for all that now, I'm the guy from the laptop that accommodated your rise to power, please call me Wietse, OK. I need your help Admiral Kotu, the world needs your help and we desperately need the Roverandom Interface. I trust you know how to build it by now."
"Build it? No sir Wietse, no! We never figured out how it works or how to complete the quantum trinities. I'm so sorry sir Wietse, we got a long way in building it according to specs, but without the final components, we couldn't finish it. Neither could we figure out what it is supposed to do. It is an honor finally meeting you sir."
"What kind of a silly hacker are you mister Kitu? Guess your reputation has been a bit exaggerated then. The trinities, they are inside of the broken speaker, stupid. I hid them in the most obvious of places. How in heaven's name could you not have found these even after twenty years?"
A shock went through Dakila. In the broken speaker? Damn? Could it have been that simple?
"I still have the laptop, I kept it. It will be an honor to work with you, we can make this thing work I'm sure of it sir, but what's the problem you so desperately need my help with sir?"
Dakila stood up and walked towards the shallower end of the swimming pool where Wietse was standing.
"Are you so excited about quantum trinities, or did I just interrupt something in fetching you?", Wietse said while glancing at the outspoken bulge in Dakila's swimming trunks.
Imelda! Dakila thought. She must believe I have drowned. As Dakila put both his hands on his private parts to hide his continued arousal from the old man, his worries about Imelda grew. What would she think right now?
"Sir,..... Wietse! My girlfriend needs to know I'm OK. Please, sir, she can't think she has lost me, sir! She can't think I'm dead!"
"In a minute Kotu, in a minute. First I need to explain what you need to know. There isn't much time. The world is under attack, I will tell you by who when we get to it. The important thing is right now I am it's only line of defense. I'm an old man." Wietse pointed at his cranial implants. "This and the trinities is what is standing between the most vicious enemy this world has ever seen and their domination of our planet. For now, I am just one, but with the Roverandom interface, with all the quantum trinities it can add to the grid, we should be able to put together a whole team of M-brane warriors."
Dakila's mind was torn between curiosity about what Wietse was telling him and his concerns for Imelda. Another war? It had to be Mars-One, or had it? Imelda would be at a point of panic right now.
"What is an M-Brane warrior?" Dakila asked as he climbed out of the pool.
"Follow me Kotu, you will understand." At the moment Wietse spoke these words, a huge black sphere formed behind Wietse. It was the same pitch black darkness that had startled Dakila when the sea current was pulling him towards …. Then Wietse stepped into the dark two and a half meter high black sphere and disappeared. The sphere flickered from black to a silvery color. The image he saw mirrored however wasn't here. It was the beach. He saw Imelda waist deep in the sea, her body language showing the despair Dakila had feared his disappearance would have installed into her. The old man was on the beach now. The sphere was some kind of portal technology.
Dakila touched the sphere. It was solid. Then as he touched it, the sphere went pitch black again and now there was nothing to feel. His hand disappeared into the sphere.
Dakila closed his eyes and with a leap of faith stepped into the sphere and at the same second stepped out of a same sized sphere on the beach behind Imelda.
"Imelda, my love. Don't be startled sweety!" Dakila shouted.
As Imelda turned around Dakila saw the fear still in her eyes. Then as she realized her fears had been for nothing, a huge disarming smile formed on her face and Imelda came running towards him.
"I need to go talk to this old man now sweety. Important business my love. No need to be alarmed now, you hear?"
The young girl looked at him smiling while approaching him. Then she ran her hand through his hair and kissed him as if the old man wasn't standing there.
"Don't ever scare me like that again Dakila. I wouldn't know what to do without you." Imelda whispered as she took his face in her two hands and kissed him once more. "Your friends are my friends, love, why don't you introduce us, who is this homeless looking old man?
Imelda might be young, she had inherited her mother's intelligence and wit. She was everything Mahalia had been and more. She was in fact like the picture Dakila had created in his head about Mahalia for all those years away, the image that the real Mahalia hadn't been able to live up to. That image fitted Imelda like a perfect glove.
"The old man is a quantum physics wizard, love. It is him! It's the man that created Quantum Slicing. The man that made me the richest man on the planet, that allowed me to found SAGDA and free the world from PUPR. He needs my help dear. He needs 'our' help."
Dakila looked at Wietse. This M-Brane worrier thing was something alright. Wietse apparently had tamed M-Brane folding in the most unexpected of ways. Any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic, but magic needed a touch more than advanced technology. It needed a touch of theatrics. Looking at Wietse's shabby looking clothes and his PUPR brain implant, then looking back to his beautiful young girlfriend, a thought started forming in his mind.
"We are going to give old Wietse what he needs. Wietse want's a team of M-Brane warriors. We shall do better than that. Let's give old Gandalf here a small army of 'Wizards'."
Dakila softly kissed Imelda, touched her chin and then smiled at her for a second before he turned around to face Wietse.
"Let's look at getting you a small army wizards Wietse. First, let's look at that old laptop. I do however have one important condition for my help old man: We really need to accessorize."
If you enjoyed this chapter, you can find the rest of this story so far through this index. If you would like to win some SBD, I am running a Beta Reading Lottery each month to help me improve my work and to help you win one of the prices ranging from $ 1.8 STEEM to $12,- STEEM. You can find this month's beta reading lottery/contest here.
Cover art by Keith Draws