"Joe, it’s ti for to visit Rafael Camal de Leon and begin humanity’s colonization of the Galaxy. I’ve put it off too long. Switch my sense over to my adult android form. I’m going to visit Rafael and Maribel."
"As you wish, he has been back in Guatemala for a couple of weeks now, smoldering at being sidelined. Maribel has done a remarkable job of keeping him calm. As you know his tendencies were too well-ingrained to be fully erased by mory implant therapy. Breaking the promise of making him President has been... triggering for him."
"Yeah, I know. That’s kind of why I’ve been finding other excuses not to do this. Where are they now?"
"Rafael and Maribel are currently eting with the community leaders at Laguna Larga. They spearheaded the effort to restore the villagers to their original lands before they were kicked out in 2017. Perenco, the oil and gas company taking their land, wasn’t especially pleased. They are trying to sue the governnt, but the governnt has referred the case to the UEC since it was Maribel under UEC authority who make the decree that displaced people like the Q’eqchi would be restored to their lands and the corporations who claid them for oil, plantations, or other resource extraction would be evicted. Lago Laguna is just one such community in this area of Guatemala and Southern xico. Even when the communities aren’t forced to leave, the industrial mining and drill operations often pollute groundwater to the extent it becos undrinkable."
"Maribel and Rafael have fabricated high tech filters for those areas and forced the work to stop. So of the companies resisted, refusing to pull out, but they started finding their heavy equipnt and even small buildings missing when their people ca to work each morning (via LITV directed by Maribel) and they realized it was not a winnable effort for them."
"So now, they’re taking a victory lap of the area?" I asked.
"Not exactly, because the land has been misused for year since they were forced to leave, Maribel’s Food First and a new dical clinic are provided so support until they get their communities re-established. A significant portion of the people have accumulated so toxins from the water and the clinics are extracting them to prevent long-term health complications. The current eting is part of her outreach campaign to make sure everybody visits the clinic for screening. While they are there, they get a suite of vaccinations and screening for treatnt for a variety of conditions, including a schedule of nutritional supplents as the poor diet in the camps they were moved to has left so deficiencies."
"That was going on under Arroyo’s governnt? Maybe Rafael should take over."
"It was largely a continuation of previous polices, but no, he didn’t take any significant steps to correct or stop the situation. Guatemala isn’t alone in this, by the way, many countries in Central and South Arica actively practice displacing local indigenous people in favor of industry and developnt. The companies offer tax inco, jobs and economic growth, while the indigenous often prefer their traditional way of life and don’t participate in the modern economy in a aningful way."
"I think we disagree over the definition of ’aningful’.", I said dryly. "Obviously that stops and gets reversed in every UEC mber state."
"Yes, but that introduces a sowhat similar problem. Now we are displacing those people who worked for those companies and moved to be near the sites. They are losing their jobs, inco and, if the land reverts to the rightful owners, they beco a new displaced group."
"How are Mom and Maribel handling that?"
"The displaced workers are given a stipend and assistance to find new hos elsewhere in the country, or even in the indigenous communities if both parties find that acceptable. Eventually, jobs won’t matter as we move to the licensing fee redistribution economic model."
"There’s a lot going on that I don’t even know about isn’t there, Joe."
"Yes, but you have good people to look after the details for you."
I sigh. "How about Ukraine, couldn’t they use more help rebuilding? Can we offer any displaced workers a job there? Maybe implant the necessary language... It could be a temporary assignnt, a year or whatever, or if they want to stay there after that, that’s fine too. Rember the UEC requires free movent and settlent between UEC mber nations."
"That’s a good idea, we couldn’t exactly put the Russian soldiers back into Ukraine to rebuild, and there aren’t enough repatriated Ukrainians to rebuild everything that was destroyed in the war."
"So, the only thing I haven’t figured out yet about my plan for Rafael is how to replace Maribel, she’s doing so much with the charity groups. We could use two of her, losing her here is going to hurt. Plus, Mom, I know they can still visit if you jump Mom there, but it won’t be as often and I know they’ve beco very close as long-lost ’sisters’. I really hate to send her away to another planet, but we need her to keep Rafael from reverting to his full-on pre-therapy killer psyche."
"We could just replace her."
"Well, yeah, but with who? We’ll never find another Maribel."
"I think you’re forgetting sothing, King Tim. Maribel is a created being, she is an android with a fabricated personality and mory profile, based in part on the personality traits your mother adopted when she played that role in the early stages. I can just make a copy of her, even remove the attachnt to Rafael that we put in the first Maribel. I can even make two copies of her, or more."
Realization dawned on . Earlier, I had thought that I might want to be in two places at once, so I had started trying to learn how to control my android body and my real body at the sa ti. That was the absolute wrong approach, the real solution was much simpler.
"So, Joe, that gives another idea."
"Uh-oh."
I scowled, "No, hear out. If you can copy Maribel’s psyche, mories, personality whatever, everything that makes her who she is and put it into a second android body, could you do that for a real human, like for example."
"Yes. Piece of cake. Understand though that the two different Timothy Baileys would begin to diverge after the second was created, because their experiences and new mories would be different. Their personalities would drift apart further and further over ti, eventually as different as ordinary brothers perhaps."
"No they wouldn’t, Joe, once again the eight-year-old is outthinking you, the Infinite quantum computing AI that uses the entire substrate of the universe as its ’mainfra.’"
"Oh, really? Explain it to then, King Timmy of the mighty intellect."
"It’s simple really, you use dual direct mory implant either continuously or at periodic, but short intervals to keep the tow minds synced up."
"Yeah, well that would work. I’m still smarter than you though."
I smiled, "Not for long, I just doubled my processing power, your already operating at your maximum potential. I’ll pass you by like... well, like sothing really fast passing sothing really slow."
"Like the hare and the tortoise?" Joe supplied.
"Exactly!" I agreed, "I’ll pass you by like the hare running by... Hey, wait a minute. You tricked ! The tortoise won that race!"
"Yes, he did, because the hare couldn’t focus on the goal long enough to use his superior abilities to win. Did you want so ice cream, King Tim?"
"Ice cream would be great, let’s invent a new flavor! I’m thinking... blackberries and... blueberries. We’ll call it Black and Blue Berry Ice Cream. Have the synthesizer make a a bowl. OK, what were we talking about?"
"The lesson of the tortoise and the hare I believe."
"Oh, right. Anyway, I’m way faster than you, Joe. You won’t have a chance."
"Oh well. Say, your ice cream is ready."
"Aweso! Give a few minutes will you, I’m taking an ice cream break."
For so reason, Joe found that funny, and his laughter rolled around from thin air as his android form was currently engaged elsewhere, doing what was probably very important stuff.
When I finished my Black and Blue Berry Ice Cream, which was excellent, by the way, we decided we would make one replacent Maribel, but another copy of with our mories to be kept synchronized with rolling direct mory implants so that all our experiences would be shared between us almost as if we were one person in the two places at once. Joe said he’d have to use an intensity fade in on the transferred mories. In other words, the implanted mories would sort of seep into my awareness growing stronger over ti, so they didn’t overwhelm my current sensory inputs and leave all disoriented and confused about where I was and what I was doing. The second would be full-ti in an adult android version of . I decided to keep the sa form and face as my other adult android, figuring it would be too hard to keep track of who did what if each of used a separate na and face.
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