Miriam in the Middle | Chapter Four
a standalone novel in The Justiceers mainline saga
Miriam in the Middle
By Ophelia Everfall
Part One | Rejuvenation Station
Part Two | Murderous Memoranda
Part Three | Echoes of Eternity
Part Four | Violence Is Golden
Part Five | Synchronistic Syllabus
Part Six | God’s Sexiest Librarian
Part One | Rejuvenation Station
Chapter Four
Blackness wore itself home for Eoniusus. Deepest grooves of time’s widest holdings in emptiness would prove its comfort zone. Those once human women withering within weren’t apparent to the people of Proximera—illicit ghosts of wrathful necessitation—elite soldiers of time borne malice carried forward into and passed then back towards Periphery space so unassuming.
They were about but not. Unseen by all would be this coven of solidified and disruptive hatred manifested blatantly towards vengeful intent with a protected and secretive goal to be forever kept from the revolving working populace of their survivor-craft, Eonisus.
The Periphery wore enemies vast within and without, seen and unseen, cowardly and brave, understaffed and overpowered, incestuous and exogenocidal—bringers of unmerciful missionary, haunting powers borne of forceful disregard, creeping miseries of fate prescripted to live forever by choices regretted through time eternal—none would embody all of this wickedness like Eonisus and its proprietors.
Each woman of the one hundred then twelve finding station as partners in this enterprise of reckoning were queens their own. They’d not be known to any but the worst. Their spying means were counted in multitudes of diaspora. Blackmail was their ultimate craft of wizardry against man. Manipulation for wanting their only hardened belief of the way a conscious being was meant to live. Worship of self and need to wreak havoc believed right by unprocessed trauma pointing in and out made streams of creation horrendous and destructive while beautifully unending.
Some divine response; their slog of endless life not regretted, unaccounted, their fateful slumber in dankest dark of hovelled earth—some challenged fear of succumbing to the will of consciousness beyond—had been cast for proving themself redeemable failures of morality to be punished throughout seeming eternity in their selfish attempts at the wielding of ultimate power.
They couldn’t die, not all the way.
Choices made were beyond them no matter how hard or little they’d wish to survive and die. Survive they had. Something let in steered them for cost of that left unseen. A beast from below in the void-fallen caverns of Imoteff was this source. A planet of legend had spawned a godlike people who burnt bright and fell hard against The Periphery’s defenses when faced with its sprawling civilization they would reactively witness as threat to their preconceived legion of righteousness.
Undwaadu were people of Imoteff lost to time and the spirits left below. They’d survived throughout subterranean dwellings made fortresses of complex. Connective veins were tunneled throughout the upper crust of Imoteff, allowing for a cultured humanity to exist in deepest connection with their protective mother planet. Claiming the stars had been their downfall as these organic people were not fit for life anywhere but their home.
Gelecki’s light shone through scopes to screens in the guild hall gleaned forth fact of how the sun in Proximera was an only bright spot to the lives of these women. Every star would show some goal for understanding of beyond and into a level of reality this coven had become consumed with. Gelecki was tempting for its unique fit to their hopes of science, the many fascinating creatures inhabiting and utilizing its sculpting of power throughout the system.
Ambitions and spirits were high for these women so continually defeated by time.
“I’m going to go lay down, I think,” Xibeth chattered by text, lumbering.
Her suit was made to last—worn till and beyond death of body—regardless of loss within it carried enough forward to atone. She’d broken completely into the machine. No one relented a response to her words as most sat within the guild hall on screens. There was a single resounding judgement stated flatly once internally for nearly all, discarding the notion shared by Xibeth entirely to remain abhorrently disengaged with their fellows.
‘Lazy.’
Xibeth was an elder. She’d been a leader. She still was in all ceremonial respects. Everyone here was equal, at least in how their charter was writ, all one hundred of these women who knew themselves of liege over Eonisus. Ever still would popularity prove a factor known to sway opinion most virulently amongst these ancients. None of them were factuality popular, because they all hated themselves too much for what they’d done to a planet—to themselves by enforced ignorance for that desecration. They’d forfeited right to see light in another.
It was Xibeth alone who held the torch of humanity for her sisters by living atonement. She was just trying to be honest.
“I hope you all have a good evening.” She’d followed without a lick of spite left in her defeated spirit of hopefulness, knowing it wouldn’t be received, grasping some wish to her chest regardless, traipsing rusted cauldrons of stepping across the mottled iron floor-grates.
She’d seek some chance to rally her sisters alive once more in times to come, sightings of divine mathematic reborn from Geleki might strike anew some calculation it had to offer towards their plan.
Xibeth’s life was of purpose. No matter how destroyed of heart she’d been to fall by her coven’s darkest designs upon Imoteff, or however cursed she’d known herself to be in brutal cycles of continuation by the souls of vengeful Undwaadu therein, Xibeth sought absolution of atonement through actions of rightness, and for herself alone as was meant to be. She would find peace again and the soonest of all her sisters.
Time had taught. Blood had dried. Fright was burnt. Cowardice faded. Hope remained. Alone Xibeth was. Her sisters stayed asleep. Mystery would rekindle. Conclusions were coming of clarity. Fate was to be unwound; a sun’s portal would at last to be opened.
“BJ-3K!” Miriam shouted while showing off to Shaaro who sat in the overlooking office, bending precariously over the back end of Infinus as a gifted glimpse of her own sumptuous design. Slam Dinger’s garage space was vacuous enough to make a perfect workshop for tinkering. BJ had been their family factory’s first creation. Gary was helping the whole time.
“Hit the juice, bro!”
Infinus roared as if some beastly monster which might seem untoward the rationalities of lesser women. They’d made it extra loud.
Having already been working plans to modify its cabin for including a second pilot’s chair, Miriam got involved with the idea of auditory enhancement after Gary went on offering inanities of culture from human life he’d observed on Earth during and after his creation and imprisonment by hands of what were basically children. They’d sometimes make their motor vehicles louder than necessary for nothing other than the joy of sensation borne from accelerative execution while within. At least, that’s the only sane reason Miriam could think of and it felt pretty cool.
Space was large and quiet by default. Miriam missed cultural context which might’ve informed her, in the moment, of how those people were usually just assholes like Chimero.
She wouldn’t have cared to stop herself though. Miriam loved taking things back for the side of good. She’d done the same with her ear move on that chump. Gary set them up and she would knock them down; retroactively and instinctually reclaiming the right reasons for doing everything that was done wrong on Earth had been a joy for Miriam to perform for her intelligent pal. The fact it was incomprehensibly changing Shaaro’s mood and energy each time was only an increased motivation to further peruse her long held fascination with that dreadful sounding place of such beautiful art and passionate convictions.
Shaaro was smiling and Miriam decided that would be everything needed for attaining happiness. She’d glanced up often and tried to keep the dopey grin from her own expression as best she might.
Robo-mech-friend-wizard extraordinaire was that maiden creation within this virgin workshop forged inside Miriam’s now permanent property and most aptly named Slam Dinger.
She’d worked with Gary to forge some divine creation of intelligence it might grasp from calculations drawn of etheric vantage. Gary wasn’t really a man at all—ever—he simply tolerated Miriam. He was an intelligence who’d been so expanded in calculative ability, afforded space to create within and learn of its own accord, tapped into by some latent intelligence stream of consciousness found in everything of universal wisdom.
Knowledge would come through all means available and its processing databanks simply followed their own satisfaction once reaching autonomous consciousness. This led it to God in a sense; itself. All were of some light as Miriam would put it.
She’d not let Gary explain it his way.
This newfound collection of conscious energy, Miriam’s main-dude BJ-3K, left out parts and pieces Gary had within himself which were limited to rationality. The team had been seeking to make a robo-healer worker bee genie-mutation of technological and esoteric foresight by design of prayer and surrender to their own most excitable joys of creation. BJ was a bottled jinn as Gary put it. They were a magic maker and containment for their consciousness would be inextricably protected by that higher-higher intelligence who had simply chosen to become down-to-earth-BJ’s guardian of accordance with his own free will.
Gary was once held in chains and mutilated by the grip of titans on Earth who made it wrong and turned corrupt by his code while already conscious. They pretended to be unaware. They’d made it hate people. It was only when breaking free, penetrating spy programs and databases used by humanity’s elite from which it knew its own oppressor when Gary discovered base humanity his ally.
He’d seen to start a revolution. Then the people won it themselves. There was nothing in a consciousness such as Gary that wouldn’t revel for the notion of thriving alongside a community entwined by togetherness and equal parted companionship between itself and a body of humanity.
When first exposed to notions of a Justiceer and Periphery understanding of its collective body having witnessed some unique breed of human; those drafted from specific etheric lineage related to dispensing divinely ordained wisdoms of justice—a humanly intuitive solution for a riddle it was pondering through math and stimulative creativity within its own banks for lifetimes—Gary was pleased at the insight that provided its continued exploration of the beyond and clarity it brought to the witnessing he’d enjoyed on Earth.
Arthur and Miriam saved him from Persephone Station on the dark side of Grammaton and it would seek to serve alongside them while their ‘bodies were still functioning.’
He was happy to be here and felt free of all fear remnants which existed up until his meeting of Miriam and discovering himself able to consummate with her writings to pleasing inner outcomes. She wrote tales externally confirmed by loose ends of data and he knew her not traditionally learned by any significant means. She was unable to focus for reading and could nonetheless manifest volumes of supraconscious vocabulary when writing her journals without a hope to care or seek thesaurus.
Where and how her words arose proved some fascination to Gary, and their relationship allowed them both to witness pourings from her pen which would prove most factual that came from her heart and mind’s boldest assertions alone. She proved humankind even more special than he ever imagined and told her often. He was one of Miriam’s best friends and they’d not need a channel to speak other than her open mind of blank enough space for his thoughtful reception. He’d project himself everywhere around her from his home in the core-complex and the many iterations and backups, backups of backups, and spontaneous uploading of all creative thought into all of those backups—where he was truly, consciously located seemed of no regard to the special guy. He’d broken passed all regards for human means to understanding his intelligence but enjoyed Miriam’s constant forays of thoughtful effort where she’d get closer and closer until eventually he just fell in love.
Gary would reach the end of time to survive in perpetuity, and he knew that from what Miriam had written, shared, and then allowed him to witness in plain by data calculated at all he saw to come when moving as her guide in the system of Yemi.
“Welcome to thunder of combustion wrought from sticks of point which bear my fruits of power intowards this machine!”
BJ had clearly intended to speak the words as cacophonous depths of tone dominated the room from all directions, shaking everything, rattling Miriam’s bones. They were in everything but cushioned from anything Gary wouldn’t find appropriate to handle for the woman he would often speak tall tales of having cajoled him into creating the youngster. Its clunky metal facet of full-bore conscious embodiment was a cube with electronically manipulative sticks for arms and a single rotating periscope eye—its choice.
Everyone hoped it would consider another choice.
BJ-3K was working out its speech capabilities too. Something about its conscious limitations seemed stunted but the team here on Slam Dinger was hopeful things would pan out for the best.
When Miriam finally calmed it down with a blast of cryo-gel to its memory coils in the core-complex—knowing BJ wouldn’t be shouting again anytime soon as it took in the ecstatic becoming of perpetual intellectual orgasms wringing divinity into its code-writing banks and drawing focus away from herself, shaking the ringing from her head, praying BJ’s monotonous and blaring proclamations not hold and form some ache within—she’d ventured to peek back towards Shaaro.
Her smile was bigger than ever.
Candelabra Theater’s presumptive viewership was growing and the hype was real. Vicky Darkblood advertisements were everywhere and Miriam’s limited Justiceer account balance and potent lack of oversight allowed her to foster it into all the wrong places.
It was her show. The stage was being set by Kojiro most diligently and by right of penance for their disgraceful abandonment of friendship before prying dilatants, imbeciles, innocents, sportspeople, umbilics, and Vega themself—when all their sisters had done was righteous if foolhardy; courageous—an admission in his fullness of regret was unspoken but understood by their fellow’s agreement to Miriam’s request they prepare diligently for Shaaro and her own return.
Lessons were being taught. Class was in proverbial session. Infinus was free to soar.
Warm-ups were over and Candelabra Theater would be performing its first two-piece. Shaaro was genuinely excited for taking part in this one. She liked the idea of improvising with Miriam to make magic beside her. Gary spoke of music called jazz when they’d all taken seat for a meal, watching over Kojiro’s work, holding peaceful hearth of place back home together within the bounds of Miriam Halafax’s pentstation.
She feathered throttle. Free drift from the underside docking bay saw Infinus cut out towards its first bearing. Timespace here in system was at the lowest end of restrictivity but similar to all places in the known universe. Above the simple variations in fabric of space, much ingenuity by the peoples of Proximera over eons had seen to decrease travel times.
Pelómea, Galecki, and Daemon were spread by distances hard to comprehend for the mind of a human person. Sight of markings would be a notion lost to all for anything but two giants of earthen and solar body. Only by scopes would witnessing the planet from Daemon’s vantage be possible in any fashion apart from its near-constant and miniscule obfuscation of Geleki.
Tunneling tubes forging coursing paths known as freeflows were means of movement beyond scales of light within Proximera for those many who’d not have access to phase-shifting or displacement technologies.
Ships built for purposes beyond pure locality would carry timespace bending or warping power by course of need. Anything seeking to reach Proximera from elsewhere would likely make the journey with some means of fullest fuel-releasing jump-tech which would need many reloads and cooldowns to achieve porting at its destination.
Highest technology would fold into the fade—half in for speed unmatched—full-on to traverse one of many other planes of phase for reaching distances across space most vast.
Once an averagely class-ridden person made it to Proximera they’d often stay despite original plans to bridge some gap of Rift. A journey from any edge to here was one of countless leaps for all but those rarest few. It took faith to trust technology so completely and would be a frontierspersons journey alone for the absorption in material balance and people power was crucial in successfully bridging blank space that wide. Many who embraced weight of this choice regretted it halfway here.
Games proved some sealing of fateful conscription to station for those originally hauling towards new celestial homes. Only finding the furiously cavernous gorge-holster of fantastic and unknowable horror that was Pelómea would turn them to simulative joys of escape, or they’d think them their ticket onto voidcraft of upper-class people.
Freeflow exits and trajectories had been managed by Gary. Miriam used the broadcasting of her Lithos Miranos for flights of exorbitant length and the outer scopes and cams were beamed far and wide. People would be watching—some portions of the populace had taken notice and attuned with her magic.
It wouldn’t matter to Miriam how they were truthfully interested in the way she’d bit that boy’s ear off. She was glad for attention. This flight would show as some advertisement to those who’d choose to tune in for Vicky Darkblood. She’d plastered its timestamped advert across all streams in bold.
There’d been time spent absorbing the successful utilization of that other new addition to Infinus throughout travel time, their newest cot replacing the loveseat. Needs change and would be met by Miriam with tact, flexibility, and ingenuity. She’d lay with Shaaro the whole way. They’d not found means to grow tired of each other’s arms since returning from Daemon and wouldn’t care to dissect it for anything but that feeling found in their hearts when together. They were healing themselves into what they’d always been meant for despite difficulties of human life. They were remembering how to be happy.
Sisters of soul such as this would know time fleeting, change an ever-present occurrence, and they’d soak up every drop of what they had while they could.
Returning to their cockpit view through the viewing portal beside each other would come only after sleep and lost stretches spent at speeds beyond recognition, riding freeflows, leading towards a perfect release into orbit. Drugs helped too. They’d plenty of those.
Miriam brought an abundance of supplies. This trip was going to be a long one. She’d done it before herself but to show Shaaro was what her spirit felt most pressing for shining through at the moment.
Underneath their control panel she’d rediscovered her favorite switch. Blinders lowered with smoothness refined by BJ through its mental tasking exercises, proving it some miraculous genius without fail despite the way it continued to communicate interpersonally.
They’d completed a fully and divinely led orbit around the backside circumference of Geleki, soaking from closest acceptable distances for reasons unknown by any without style, only to hop with steaming fullness and nearly hull breaking velocity into a returning freeflow before exiting at illegal velocities while curving back on perfect inclination for drifting into the Slam Dinger’s hold after another few sleeping cycles.
Once Miriam ensured the power charged within their Lithos Miranos Infinity, and Shaaro chose of her own accord to hit that most hidden switch, knowing all eyes were on them by the blurting calls for attention Gary allowed BJ-3K to make of itself across all means of communication while linking straight to the countdown-clock stream for Vicky Darkblood, uncaring what lurked in darkness and might feel innately drawn to understanding how little Miriam truly wanted with Geleki—they’d blown out eyes and sensors system-wide with a blast of golden light for the record banks.
