Chapter 5 - Something New

- 17 years before Singularity.

9 months past since Genevieve's mother left for China, via Rome. The trip kept her away through the holidays, but the Quartet kept the girl learning through both the winter & spring breaks. Cardinal Rothschild's appointment to establish the new Beijing Parish kept Joy McTaggart from even being there on Genevieve's 9th birthday. Graduating 3rd grade was the most recent of her mother's slew of emotionally abandoning disappointments. She was really missing her today, it was raining just as it had the day she left. The humidity took the crispness from the food on the plate before her. Her father Nathan sat across from her. Antoinette paged her Google/Corning:Augmented Reality communication system. The contacts in her eyes lit through the normal quick rainbow of red, green, blue, and yellow as Genevieve answered it. Her father cleared his throat and asked sternly, "What have I told you about using your G/C:A/R at the table?" as Antoinette says in her ear, "Guess what I'm holding?"

"I can't hear either of you when you talk at the same time. Daddy please, it's Antoinette!"

Genevieve knew what she was about to be told, but she "guessed" anyway. "Narwhal Sperm?!" Her father understood what those words meant & relented, and began using his own G/C:A/R at the table which he opened as a virtual newspaper. He saw the twinkle in his daughter's eyes. As he looked over it, & Antoinette answered her in an affirmative. "I'll be at the lab as soon as David can drive me." she hung up with Antoinette & contacted David, "I need to be at the lab an hour ago, please get the car started, I'll be at the front door in 5 minutes. Thank you, David." Genevieve tore the A/R newspaper from his hand and tossed it in the air, as it "crumpled into a ball" hanging above them in augmented reality. She embraced her father around the neck, giving him a kiss on the cheek, before running out of the room, squealing with delight. Reaching up at the "crumpled" A/R image, Nathan uses his hands to make the motions of bringing the newspaper back into his view. The headlines read; "LUCII Complex Complete, AI begins Download, Sum Human Knowledge."

***

It finally stops raining along the way. Genevieve sees a rainbow in the sky, ending at the building she's heading towards. Her pot of gold was waiting.

***

The Quartet was waiting for her, in her office when she arrived. She smiled at the red bow on the large silver refrigerated box, sitting on her desk. It was the last piece of the puzzle she needed. She took the bow off & held it up above her head like it was glowing. "TO THE MAD SCIENTIST LAB! BwAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" she mocked the situation for her own amusement. Half the Quartet chuckled & half shook their head, as they followed her.

********************

Hours later, deep in the basement laboratories of McTaggart Industries Headquarters, Nathan arrives with pizza & refreshments. "Thank God, I'm starving!" Genevieve says, as she grabs the boxes from her father & opens them until she finds pepperoni, "We're at the boring part now, waiting for the computers to isolate the Narwhals horn creation gene sequences. Then we'll modify the horse genes accordingly." taking a big bite of pizza she mumbles, " gMhe embryonic thlbrt-cks are already waiting for gestation." she finishes saying with a swallow. Her father smiles at her & at the Quartet, who are now also reaching for pizza too. As Nathan lays out some paper cups and fills them with soda. Giving one to his daughter, they hold their cups up & bump them together. "Congratulations on your milestone." he says to the room. "So, how much longer until I get to feed this thing a carrot?" Nathan asks to no one in particular.

As project lead, his daughter spoke up, "Assuming successful gene re-sequencing & implantation happen by the end of the month, it should be born by this time next year. Maybe you can give it a bouquet of carrots about a month or so later." He looked to the Quartet for confirmation, each of them were chewing on pizza & nodding, unconsciously in unison.

***

The privately paid nurse in orange & white, wiped away the sweat from what should have been Joy McTaggart's brow. She was really out of it from being in a deep, quiet, trance. Cardinal Rothschild had placed her into this state, long beforehand. When her water broke, it triggered the Hope alter taking over, who knew to head straight for a cab, to the hospital, & deliver quietly.

Her mind became numb and blank as Hope faded away into Charity, Joy's body delivered her second child. The doctor held the red headed newborn while a second nurse cut the cord. He passed the little girl to the other nurse, who took her from the room in swaddling clothes. Charity's face continued looking at the nurse taking her child from her. Giving, was what she was, the nurse did what she must in the taking of what is given. It was just that simple to her.

***

In the waiting room, sat Father Ramirez, staring at a Pomegranate 3. A nurse enters and approaches and gives him the news, "Sir, the little girl is in the nursery, would you like to see her?" Ramirez, seeming impatient, was looking forward to this being over with. "Si." The tall, broad shouldered Spaniard loomed over the small Chinese nurse as he stood up. She led him down the hall to an elevator, where they got on. Two floors up, they got off, & proceeded to the New Born Care Ward. The nurse pointed out the tiny child, "She is the 3rd one from the left, healthy, and sleeping." He lifted his data-pad, zoomed in on the infants face, & took a picture. He was reminded of his seminary education, an old Hebrew word that meant new thing or something new.... What was it? Ah ha, he remembered; Chadash, was the word he was looking for. He added the picture to the Catholic Adoption Services profile he was viewing & finally typed in Chadash as her first name. "Gracias." he said to the nurse, as he strode away, back towards the elevators.

***

Father Ramirez studied the business profile he'd compiled as he rode up the outside elevator. The view was a beautiful & momentary distraction from his Pomegranate 3 displaying statistics about Jin-Kang-United. JKU had been the most failing conglomerate of pharmaceutical companies in China during the 2020's. When the world needed pharmaceutical companies to step up the most, they failed the hardest. They didn't change to keep up with the times, but the United-Kang merger in 2021 created so much redundancy within the companies, they began to decline as a whole, stock prices and profits, which left them open for Jin's takeover in 2022. JKU was still recovering from the merger, but finally working out all the major concerns; except the biggest, having enough revenue to survive the next 2 financial quarters.

BING, as the doors opened behind Father Ramirez, he took in one long deep breath & appreciated the view of Beijing for a final moment before turning around & leaving the elevator.

The secretary bowed & showed him into the sales managers Father Ramirez was set to meet. They also bowed to him. He was intimidatingly larger than everyone else around him. Father Ramirez's torso was so long, even when he sat down with them, his chin was above their foreheads, across the table. "How may we assist you today Father?" asked the one representative. "Discretion. Put mildly, it all boils down to, Discretion. What is the price for your complete & total discretion gentlemen?" as one of the sales representatives of Jin-Kang-United began to fidget in his seat slightly as they looked at each other. "May we assume you are asking for more than a simple non-disclosure agreement, correct?" asked the one on the right. "You assume, correctly. We've seen the way doctors and psychiatrists maintain order in the world & gain repeat customers through writing many prescriptions. We of the priesthood, wish to be able to do the same with our parishioners globally. Something we could add to sacramental wines, which has been recently debated about it being something the church was considering returning to, for all it's parishioners enjoyment."

The word "globally" made the salesmen look at each other with greed & seeing signs of Renminbi in one another's eyes. "Jin-Kang-United is capable of offering many kinds of behavior and mood enhancing additives. Is this the kind of benefit you are seeking?"

Father Ramirez glared at them sternly, "Yes gentlemen, that is precisely what the church would like to contract with you."

***

"Yes gentlemen, that is precisely what the church would like to contract with you." said Cardinal Rothschild, as he looked over the designs with the engineers of the weapons manufacturing company, Qiang-Jian-Dun. QJD were a recent start up firm to go public, the Cardinal used his families own funds to buy them out after only 6 months of being publicly traded. His lawyer edited the contract accordingly as the bishop spoke. He looked up from his Pomegranate 3, "Are you sure the added weight from the material enhancements to this model won't affect the reaction speeds?" The men all shook their heads, one spoke up, "No, as a matter of fact, using Tearson's new methods of metallurgy, it will make this product line both denser and lighter, which will increase both durability & mobility. Including the additional offset strength bonus, this will be an overall 7% better product than we had initially designed for you 6 months ago. The best part is that it will be even cheaper than the original, by....."

"Give the difference to the design team as a bonus, make them all like this." the Cardinal asserted. "The shield?"

None of them spoke up, & many of the engineers began looking at their feet. Eventually, one of them spoke up. "The ultrasonic shield weapon, keeps jamming up the amour, your eminence. It's been suggested by one on my team who's not present, that, your grace, should reconsider the Holy Shield. Maybe instead of ultrasonic, we should use LRAD? or microwaves? The suit could still carry the shield, & this technology worked well for crowd control during the American food riots of the mid-2020's. We can have them all ready at the same time. Including the Holy Swords."

"The swords still ignite?" Cardinal Rothschild questioned with a quirky smile.

"Yes, do you want the Flaming Pikes as an option still, they cost about the same to make?" asked the engineer.

"Let them be only 1/3 of the total. Taser nets?" the bishop asked.

"They will hang 2 on the back of each ..."

"I said 4. Make it happen!" he snarled at the team. "All of it, or no bonus! Remember they must be Orange & Blue VERTICAL stripes..." he lorded over all of them. As his lawyer continually retyped the contract in the air on his G/C:A/R's. "...not horizontal. Now, tell me about the lasers?"

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