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[Story][Season 2]Of science and SCIENCE (in progress)
[Story][Season 2]Of science and SCIENCE (in progress)
#1
Hi, this is a new story project I have been working on for the last month.

Its the first of three (somehow) planned parts, I hope you enjoy it.

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

Down the rabbit hole
[Nina (Nina_Ustinyavna@relay.topirc.au]
[Dr.Steinberg is channel-op]
[27 users in channel]
So we will still use the Large Hadron Collider, even after the International Linear Collider will go online in 2027?
Yes, of course we will do. With the second generation upgrade of the LHC finished next year, we have a lot of unknown physics to discover. The ILC is meant to give us a more precise understanding of the Higgs Bosons while the LHC will look for new particles.
Dr. Steinberg, do members of the CERN facility accept invitations from other particle physics laboratories? We have been working hard on our local particle accelerators and think it is an one of a kind.
Yes, CERN sends representatives to other laboratories from time to time, but why do you think your accelerator is special?
We integrated a faster than light engine field into our accelerator. We had a proton-proton collision at 40c a few weeks ago.
*LOL*
Miss Nina, I assume that you are really from the orbital community, judging from the relay you are using. But if I remember the rumors about faster than light drives correctly, they are not working within our solar system.
That is right. Our labs are a space station orbiting the gas giant Nostromo, roughly 15000 astronomical units away from the sun. A perfect place for particle physics, faster than light research and astronomy!
Miss Ustinyavna, I would like to continue this conversation later in a non-public channel.

~***~

18 months later.

CI-201 Serenity Valley was in a low Earth orbit, slowly approaching the 100 km limit which was used to mark the border between space and atmosphere, her particle shields glowing how from the increasing density of the atmosphere.

"Skyguide, this is transorbital flight XF-1921 Serenity Valley. We request clearance for deorbit corridor to the Geneva airport. Please respond."

It had taken more than a year to finalize the visit from CERN to the Little Big Bang Labs, and more months to get the flight path registered. A lot of catgirls had not even believed the it would happen at all.

When waved space vehicles slowly became legal, flight control operators had to deal with an increasing number of contacts that came out of nowhere, often without concept how international flights would be handled.

At first governments decided to send Fen vehicles out onto the oceans before they got a corridor to outer space, but flight operators quickly became concerned to mix these crafts with their normal air traffic for hundreds or thousands of kilometers.

In the end most countries created new, nearly vertical flight corridors where waved spacecrafts could quickly climb through the busy lower layers of atmosphere.

As long as they registered in advance and had a certificate from a larger Fen faction that both the pilot and the ship was trained to do a controlled atmospheric descent guided by a ground operator you could get a permission.

"Skyguide, this is transorbital flight XF-1921 Serenity Valley. We received the flight corridor and begin our descent."

Nina Ustinyavna sighed and looked to the captain of the Serenity Valley.

"Lets just hope there is no lawyer changing its mind in the last moment" Nina said, "I say we just touch down and grab the group before someone else can react, okay?"

The other catgirl groaned.

"Hey, its not their fault that your plan was delayed long enough for the LHC coming online again. They have been a lot more busy since this time" Alice replied, "but you are right, the legal thing was a nightmare to do."

The Serenity Valley plunged deeper into the atmosphere of Earth, following the invisible borders of a flight corridor it had received earlier through clouds full of snowflakes. Soon the spaceship was deep and slow enough that the particle shield was switched off to take advantage of the aerodynamic shape of the ship.

"XF-1921 Serenity Valley, this is Geneva Tower. You are cleared for landing pad twelve, please make sure to land within the marked area and stay out of the takeoff and landing corridors."

The buildings of the airport became larger and larger until the Serenity Valley finally touched down on the concrete surface in front of a minor hangar.

"Here we are… secure the ship and switch the reactor to standby" Alice, the captain of the Serenity Valley, ordered. "We will keep a sensor watch while we are on the ground. Daria, make sure that the Exocomps stay inside, I don't want trouble because they were caught working on some random airplane!"

"Its freezing cold and snowing outside, where the hell are my winter clothes?" Nina said, looking at the little snowstorm on the viewscreen of the bridge. "It would be just like my old home again."

"What, you need winter clothes to walk a few hundred meters through this weather?" Alice asked and grinned. "No trust in your fur? Its not that cold outside compared to your former home in Russia."

----

Professor Steinberg watched the Fen spacecraft slowly touching down on the parking space of the Geneva airport that normally was used for intercontinental flights.

"What do you think Susan, will it be worth all the time we will be away from Earth?" he asked his coworker, "I am still a little bit skeptical about their claims."

"Are you kidding me?" The woman standing at his side smiled. "Even if all their claims about the accelerator are wrong, I will be able to spend lots of time with my little telescope in a place with better conditions than the old Hubble!"

"You are most likely right, I shouldn't be that cynical." He looked to the four students behind them. "Anyone who wants to leave the boat now? Might be your last chance!"

The four students shook their heads.

"No way Professor" one of them said, "just lets get on board. I know a few other fans of the old computer game who would still pay money for this."

The two scientists nodded to each other and pushed the door to the parking field open, letting in a wave of snow into the building from the outside. The hangar ramp of the spaceship slowly opened and they could see two catgirl standing on the ramp.

The six of them hurried over to the Serenity Valley where they met the two catgirls.

"Hello, I am Alice, the captain of the Serenity Valley" the left catgirl said, shaking hands with both Professor Steinberg and Miller. "Lets get back inside, the weather here is a little bit cold. This here is Nina Ustinyavna from the Little Big Bang Labs."

Everyone shook hands as they moved up the ramp into the cargo bay of the ship.

"Can you maybe see if they can move our luggage into your ship" Susan Miller asked. "Its the two pallets just behind the door. Just be careful with the larger one please, I hope its not too much weight."

"I will get the pallets inside, don't worry about them" Nina said. "And don't worry about the weight either, we have a large and mostly empty cargo bay at the moment."

She quickly went down the ramp and through the snow towards the airport building, looking for someone with a forklift.

"Excuse me, I am looking for the person who brought the pallets here" she asked an airport official in the terminal, "Is there someone who could bring them into our ship?"

"I am sorry, but the forklift was needed at a different terminal, the regular airlines have priority" the man in the suit said and grinned. "But I think we have some emergency lifter you might be able to rent! Are you interested?"

"No thank you, we will deal with them on our own" Nina said with a sigh and raised her wristcom. "Daria, here is Nina… I have some lifting work to do, could you send out your horde of little helpers?"

Before the person in front of Nina could decide if he should protest or not, a swarm of Exocomps raced out of the Serenity Valleys and surrounded the two, eagerly hovering up and down.

"Okay my friends, these two pallets have to be carefully moved into the ship's cargo bay" Nina said with a smile. "And nothing else, the rest stays here… we want to lift off soon!"

----

While Nina was taking care of the cargo, the captain was slowly leading the guests through the elevator into the meeting room on the upper deck, giving them a short tour through the ships rooms in between. Just as they arrived at the meeting room Nina finally caught up with them.

"I wish they had given us a parking slot with a gangway, but they say our docking adapter isnot compatible with the gangways" Alice said as they entered the room, "but this way you already got a tour through most of the ship. Maybe we can show you more details of the ship later."

"Thank you for the tour, but let me introduce myself and my coworker and students" Susan Miller said with a smile. "I am Professor Doctor Susan Miller from the Astrophysics department of the university of Cambridge and this here is my co worker at CERN Professor Doctor Frank Steinberg."

Professor Steinberg nodded and Susan turned to the four students.

"These four are two students from Cambridge and two from Heidelberg which will come along as a long term practical course. The two on the right are from the department of Astrophysics in Cambridge, Joseph Singh and Amanda Fox." She smiled and looked over to the other two students. "And these two are Julia Machold and Ingo Bartels, both from the Particle Physics department at the university of Heidelberg."

"Then I am happy to welcome all of you on board. Thanks to all of you for joining us on this unusual trip. I am Alice, I am the Captain of the Serenity Valley" the captain answered and looked to Nina, "and this is Nina Ustinyavna, the person who came up with the idea for your visit."

"I noticed the Serenity Valley has an interesting design for a spaceship" Susan Miller noted, "was it necessary to make it that aerodynamic?"

"No, it wasn't… and there are a few flying bricks out there in the solar system" Alice chuckled. "But there were quite a few fans of the original Mass Effect games among us, so we tried to replicate the outer form of the ship as much as possible."

"But?" one of the students asked.

"But we were unable to replicate the nice Tardis effect of the computer games ship" Alice explained. "Because of this the ship feels a little bit tight if you spend a few weeks on it. But our journey will not take that long, we should arrive at the Labs in three days."

"Damned, no Tardis… with all that crazy rumors what is going on in orbit it would have been a nice surprise" Susan said looked around. "So where will we live in the next few days?"

"It is a good thing that we didn't even tried to do something crazy as a inside bigger than outside" Nina interrupted Alice, thinking back to the long discussions during the creation of the first Normandy class. "The Normandy class have been designed as ships that can fights for their own, too much Handwavium can ruin a project like this."

"So even with your wonder material called Handwavium, sometimes more is less?" Professor Steinberg asked and Nina nodded.

"To answer your original question, the Normandy has been designed for a total of seventeen people. Four shifts of two, an away team of up to six persons, the captain and the ships digital intelligence Daria" Alice said. "The two cabins for the away team are empty at the moment, you can use them until we arrive at the Labs."

"That sounds fine, must be one of the most comfortable spaceships we have ever used" Professor Steinberg said with a smirk. "I hope we will have a chance to watch the start through a window."

"Yes and no… yes, of course you can watch the start. But no, you cannot watch it through a window because this ship has no windows" Nina answered with a smile. "Windows are a weak spot in the armor, we use large viewscreens instead."

"No windows" Julia murmured, "what happens if your electronics have a malfunction?"

"We have a few emergency fiberoptics for this, but if our internal systems will not work, we will most likely not be able to do anything at all" Alice explained. "Which brings me to the last point that keeps us from starting. We need to assign each of you a space suit."

----

Since the flight of the SS Uncertainty the Fen had to tackle the problem of space suits. Most Fen were aware that the space suit might become the only thing between them and the cold vacuum of space. Some decided to skip the whole space suit creation because they planned to live only in one of the large cities like Kandor.

Every year there are a few idiots who got themselves a new Darwin Award.

Luckily the creation of space suits has a lot of overlap with environmental systems and life support, which means they normally work very well and have only a few quirks, if any at all. You can get away with a lot of Handwaving on space suits. This also explains that a lot of space suits are custom made.

Every biomod with a tail has more trouble with getting a space suit. Normal suits are just unusable because of the tail and quite a few 'special made' suits are uncomfortable, difficult to reproduce, quirky… or all three of them.

When Catgirl Industries was founded, the catgirls decided to use a material Cathy had brought back as a bounty from Nehalennia, a specially waved plastic that could change its form and structure based on the input of an attached computer system. But this turned out to be a lot more difficult than anyone had thought.

While theoretically very flexible, the plastic was difficult to control by external systems through lots of tiny wires or optical fibres. The original waved plastic quickly began to split into a large number of very specialized variants, each of them 'programmed' with a special transformation.

Even then, the project "Mimetic Plastic" stayed a labor intensive and obscure side project of the catgirls until Cortana and her project group came up with a way to use the substance as a computation substrate in 2020.

----

"Ahh, we already wondered if we would need a space suit on the station" professor Steinberg said, "getting ESA space suits wasn't really an option and Miss Ustinyavna suggested you would deal with things like this."

"Please, my name is Nina professor, being called Miss Ustinyavna make me feel old. In theory you wouldn't need a space suit on one of our space stations, but we have a policy that everyone should have one" Nina replied. "In addition to this the experimental chamber with the particle accelerator at the labs is kept in constant vacuum, so you need it anyways."

"Is a space suit even useful for working on the delicate components of a particle accelerator? I have seen some pictures of the new ESA suits, but it still seems to be a handicap" Steinberg continued. "On a space station it should be much easier to get the air out of the accelerator chamber than in a cave below Switzerland."

"We would like not to waste that much air on a space station… its considered wasteful. Many Fen are used to work in hard vacuum, its a typical environment out here" Nina replied. "And I can assure you the space suits the Fen are using have not much in common with the models ESA uses at the moment. Some use the same inspiration, but Handwavium allows for a much more flexible design."

"Finally we come to the interesting part of this discussion. Because half of your group has to make a decision" Alice said and grinned. "We have six space suits we bought at Kandor for you on board. They are modern Fen hardware, comfortable and reliable inner pressure suits with a bubble helmet. You have to practice a bit to get in and out, but that should not take long."

"Miss Miller, Miss Machold and Miss Fox, you three could also take one of the suits we use ourselves at Jenga and the Little Big Bang Labs" Nina added, "they are counter pressure suits we developed in the last years. They might be better for delicate work, but you might need a few hours training for the control system."

"Is there a special reason why you only extend this offer to us" Susan Miller asked with a puzzled face, "do you have only three spare suits?"

"No, but as I said they are counter pressure suits and a suit designed for catgirls might be a little bit painful for a male human" Alice said with a neutral voice, careful not to laugh out when the two students suddenly got a red face. "I see you understand what could be the problem."

After a moment Susan Miller finally broke the awkward silence. "I understand" she said, not willing to add more to this topic.

"Ehh… good" Alice continued, "but you three should make a decision."

"I think I will just use the standard suit you bought for us" Susan finally said, "but if my student wants to try I will not intervene. What do you think Amanda?"

Professor Steinberg nodded to his coworker. "I agree, thats something Miss Macholds can decide this for herself."

The two students looked at each other for a moment.

"Is this some experimental space suit?" Amanda Fox asked thoughtful, "we are not used to things that can go wrong with your technology."

"No, the suits are at least as reliable as any other space suit in Fenspace" Nina replied. "In fact nearly all catgirls at the Labs use them personally."

"And the rest?"

"The rest of them has good friends at Jenga who send them a prototype of the next generation of the suits, they have additional features but are still a bit quirky" Nina chuckled, "think about it as a mixture of 'beta testing' and 'my cool new toys', nothing you need to worry about."

"Thats sounds okay, I think I will try your own suits" Julia finally said and Amanda nodded. "Yes I agree, thats one of the reasons why we wanted to visit Fenspace, to learn about new things!"

"Perfect, now we just have to get each of you into his or her suit and we can lift off" captain Alice said. "I will send you to Masami, a member of my crew. She will give you an introduction to your suits in the ships Medbay while Nina and me help the rest of our visitors with theirs."

----

When the two students entered the Medbay of the Serenity Valley, another catgirl was already waiting for them.

"Hi you two I am Masami, one of the pilots of the Serenity Valley" the catgirl welcomed them. "You are Julia and Amanda, right? Oh, I may call you Julia and Amanda?"

Both students nodded and Masami smiled happily.

"Perfect, just perfect. The captain told me that you two would like to try out our own space suits, so I got two of them from storage for you" Masami said and put two sealed bags with a black 'fabric' on the desk. "But before we open this, you need something else."

"Wait a moment, we were with captain Alice until a minute ago and she never told anyone else a word about our decision" Julia Macholds asked irritated, "how can you already know about it?"

"Oh, that is a little secret that we three will find out during the next days, but I want to keep it a surprise" Masami said with a grin and took two neckbands from the desk in front of her. "These collars are augmented reality interfaces we call Third Eye's, you need them to control the space suit. Please put them on."

"Augmented Reality you say? It doesn't look like this" Amanda Fox said and looked at the collar with a grin, then put it around her neck. "I hope we don't damage them accidently."

Masami waited patiently until both collar had locked themselves with a magnetic seal.

"Oh, don't worry. The outer layer is an armored material, its difficult to damage" she said and snickered about the surprised look of the two students. "Now touch the collar and say 'open' to unlock them. The collar automatically reacts only to the voice of the user to prevent accidental commands. Oh, we also have a version with a small bell attached if you like!"

Both Amanda and Julia quickly took the collar off again, snickered and put them on again. Masami nodded and gave each of them one of the space suit packs.

"As you will see our space suits are made from four pieces, tights, t-shirt and boots." Masami explained, "They are the basic parts of our Dynamic Pressure Suits, which means that they can produce the necessary pressure on demand."

"What material are they made of, I could swear I have already encountered something like this but I cannot name it" Amanda said after she opened her package. "Is it really safe to make a space suit from fabric?"

"Oh, I don't think you ever had something like this in your hand, it is something that had not existed a few years ago" Masami objected. "Its a multilayer material made from a substance we call 'Mimetic Plastic', which can constrict and even move on its own when controlled correctly."

"Okay, that sounds complicated" Julia said with a smirk, "but I don't think we will have to build our own."

Masami laughed about the joke, thinking back to the time where the suits still had been a huge experiments with lots of participating catgirls. Luckily the time where everyone had to build his own suit to prevent friends from sneaking in quirks was mostly over.

"No, you don't need to, the suits became very user friendly in the last year. There is a research group on Jenga which is still improving them, but they got good enough for normal use." Masami said. "You can wear them directly on skin or you can keep underwear below them, but I would suggest not putting anything else below them. Oh, there is just one other thing we have to do."

Masami opened a drawer and took out two tiny sealed packages, each with a needle inside.

"The suits must be personalized before use, otherwise the handwavium will not work correctly, you have to put a drop of blood on the little bump on the center of the back" Masami said and handed both students the sealed package. "Don't worry, the needles are sterilized and a small drop should be sufficient. Can you put the suit on too, so I can show you how it works?"

It took a few minutes until Masami had put up a screen for Julia and Amanda to stand behind while they exchanged their clothing with the space suit.

"The material feels comfortable, I hope sweating will be an issue with it" Amanda said with a nod. "So how does this transform into a vacuum prove space suit?"

"The suits interior surface has been waved with a high-quality environmental Handwavium strain, it should cause no issues even when you would have to wear it for days" Masami explained, "but let me explain you the basic functions."

Masami put her hand on her own Third Eye collar, explaining the 'command voice' interface would have to wait until they had more time.

"You control the suit by touching the collar and speaking one of the command words. I have programmed the suits with two basic switches, we can worry about more options later. The first switch has the command words 'seal' and 'unseal', it connects all the parts of the suit and activate the counterpressure and environmental sealing. The second one is 'helmet on' and 'off', which deploys the helmet."

"Are you kidding us? This thin fabric contains some kind of helmet?" Amanda spat out, running her fingers over the upper suit. "Okay, its a little bit thicker on the top and back than the rest of the material, but it cannot be much more than a few millimeters!"

"You will be surprised what you can do with a lot of research and a bit Handwavium" Masami chuckled, "just don't be frightened when you activate the suit."

"Lets give it a try" Amanda said, "what would be science without experiments. SEAL."

Obediently the mimetic plastic of the space suit began to change.

First the material of all four parts began to stretch towards each other, quickly joining into a single piece. The arms began to extend until they formed a pair of gloves around Amandas fingers.

Then the structure began to change. The suits became both thicker and skintight as tiny cells in the the middle layer of the suit extended to form a half a centimeter thick impact absorber. The surface layer closed its openings and a number of blue glowing lines began to appear.

"Woah… that feels strange" Amanda said, walking a few meters to get a feeling for the new suit. "But it looks really nice!"

----

"Captain, everyone is suited up and we finally got a clearance to leave our parking position."

Alice smiled, finally they could get away from this cold and snowy airport and up into space where the Serenity Valley should be.

"Very good, lets get out of here before they decide that we have to wait even more time" he said as the a holographic projection of their new flight corridor lit up. "Daria, is everything ready for takeoff in our ship?"

"The Serenity Valley is ready captain. All hatches are sealed, all Exocomps are within the ship, Mass Effect engine and forcefield ready for full power" the ships AI Daria replied. "I am also listening to the towers conversations with the few other planes still incoming in this weather, there is no one in range anymore they could use as a valid reason to delay us."

"Don't call for Morphy Daria, just don't do it. They might just decide to close the airport because of the weather and demand we stay" Alice joked, then she turned to one of the catgirls in front of her. "Betsy, take us to fifty meters height, then align us for the outgoing vector and get us out of here and on our way to the Limit."

The Serenity Valley shivered for a moment as the drive field went active, but then internal gravity took over and the feeling of movement vanished.

Further back in the Meeting Room of the Serenity Valley the six visitors from CERN and two crew members were watching the start of the ship on a holographic projection.

"Damned, thats just not the same as I hoped it would be" Professor Steinberg said and sighed. "No windows and we didn't even feel the acceleration when we took of."

"The monitor is showing the same thing you would see looking out of a front window of a normal ship, we even can get some visual enhancements" Masami said. "At Nostromo you wouldn't see a damned thing except for the stars without. But I think we have a shuttle with an acceleration drive there if you want to get a flight where you can feel the acceleration!"

"I know, I know… its just you feel a bit cheated when things go this way" Steinberg replied, then he looked at his student Julia Macholds. She was looking around and smiling… while keeping her eyes closed. "Miss Macholds, can you maybe explain what you are doing?"

"I am sitting on top of the ship and watching our takeoff. It is looking fantastic!" Julia said without even opening her eyes. "Oh, sorry professor… I am using this augmented reality neckband and asked the ships AI to let me look outside. I think its a projection from the ships sensors."

Professor Steinberg blinked a few times, then he looked to his coworker Susan Miller and back to Julia.

"What?"
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#2
First two pieces of part 2 of the story... progressing only slowly. Sad

##################

Meeting the Cheshire Kittens

"Falling back to sublight speed in 30 seconds… please remain seated during the transfer!"

Darias voice was echoing through the Serenity Valley as the ship raced towards the the invisible border around the gas giant called Nostromo. Then, just fractions of a second before the ship hit the Limit, the engines of the ship forced it back into realspace.

"Engine field reconfigured for sublight propulsion, all markers green."

In the visitor room the light darkened and the wall screen began to show the starscape in front of the ship.

"Wow, thats a lot of stars" Ingo Bartels said, looking at the holographic image in front of him. "But I wonder where the gas giant is we were talking about."

"Oh, we asked for a virtual window out of the front of the screen, without any enhancements" Amanda replied and chuckled. "We are 15000 Astronomical Units away from our sun, that is nearly 400 times as far away as Pluto. Its just to dark to see the planet!"

"Not quite true Amanda, take a closer look" Dr. Miller said as she looked over the sea of stars, "in fact its quite easy to notice if you do not look for a bright shining planet."

"You are right, but fortunately we have some another option, lets see how this planet really looks like" Amanda said. "Daria, can you give us some enhancement so that we can see Nostromo more easily?"

Before the Astrophysics Professor could protest, the image on the screen brightened and the black circle without stars transformed into a planet with blue-green bands of clouds and a tiny ring around it.

"So this is Nostromo… a huge planet, much larger than even Jupiter" Dr. Miller said. "I wonder how it got here, there shouldn't be enough gas to create a large planet that far away. Most likely it was captured, a rogue planet captured by the Sun."

The group silently watched the monitor while Nostromo got larger and larger until they could see a small dot shining with a bright light. Within minutes the Little Big Bang Labs came into view.

----

The Serenity valley shivered slightly as the docking clamps made contact with the ship and pulled it tightly to the gangway on the outside of the Little Big Bang Labs.

"Do you think we got everything from our cabins" Susan Miller asked the students and all of them nodded. "Would be funny to have misplaced cargo to be found a few thousand astronomical units away."

"We looked through both cabins twice, we are confident we did not forget anything" her student Amanda replied, "its not that we have used much of our luggage during the trip."

"Oh, don't worry too much about it, the Serenity Valley will stay here for at least 24 hours! You will have enough time to unpack your hand luggage on the station and see if everything is there." Nina Ustinyavna replied as she approached the group from the cockpit. "come with me to the airlock, we have just connected to the station and can finally debark!"

The small group followed Nina through the corridor of the ship and into the the airlock. The door behind them closed and a sensor screen acknowledged that there was air on the other side of the outer door. The group left the ship through a small docking tube that led them into the space station.

A catgirl was already waiting for them at the end of the tunnel. When Nina left the docking tube the catgirl smiled and hugged Nina hard.

"So our travel agent finally manages to find her way home, its good to have you back here" the catgirl said and then looked to the six people behind Nina. "So you are our visitors from CERN? I am Jenny and I am happy to finally see you here. Welcome to the Little Big Bang Labs!"

"We have to thank you that you invited us… I am Professor Doctor Frank Steinberg, University of Heidelberg and this is my co worker at CERN, Professor Doctor Susan Miller, University of Cambridge." He smiled and then turned to the four students behind him. "And these four brave individuals are students from our universities which will do this journey as a practica for their studies."

"I think we will have a lot of fun together in the coming months, everyone is already curious about you. We have already organized a small tour through our science labs tomorrow" Jenny said and shook the hand of Dr. Steinberg and Dr. Miller. "But lets first show you your rooms. Unfortunately we had to redistribute the rooms over the last year, but we have four free rooms for you, each of them large enough for two people. They are all in the same area and you can split them among you as you wish."

"That should be no problem, we managed to do so with only two cabins on your ship" Dr. Steinberg replied. "We might just need a guide for the first few days to find our way on the station."

Jenny just looked to Nina for a moment.

"I will show them the canteen in one or two hours, I will send you a message" she said and turned back to the visitors. "Just follow me and I will show you your rooms."

Jenny led the group through a few corridors into the residential area of the Labs. A few catgirls waved to them as they passed the group from CERN. Finally Jenny stopped at a dead end of a corridor.

"Here we are… the two doors on the left and on the right are your rooms. We selected this dead end corridor so that you have a bit more peace while you live here" she said. "The other modules can become a little bit chaotic when the racers do an unannounced practice."

"Racing? What Racing" Dr. Steinberg asked with a puzzled look, "I haven't seen any vehicles on your station!"

"Oh no, not vehicles, I was talking about Exocomp Racing… you know, the small floating robots you have seen all over the station" Jenny explained with a smile and within moments an Exocomp rushed around the corner, beginning to jump up and down in front of Jenny. "Sorry my little friend, I still have to show our guests their rooms and bring them to the canteen."

The Exocomp instantly stopped hopping and rubbed himself against Jennys leg, whimpering quietly.

"Maybe later, its not that my timetable is completely full today" she replied and petted the drone a bit, which made the Exocomp to purr for a moment. Then it raced away again and was out of sight within moments. "They are really nice friends and always helpful when you have to carry, repair or build something… but at the moment we are a little bit busy because we have the first offspring on the station."

"Oh, I didn't know you had children on your station" Dr. Miller said and smiled. "I hope you don't have too much trouble with them."

"Oh no, they are absolutely beautiful and cute, its just incredible to have them" Jerry said with a big smile, "unfortunately there are a few more of them than we expected… we are just eighty adult catgirls on the station, but having 25 children here is quite a lot of work."

'25 children? What the hell has happened here?' Dr. Miller wondered. 'I have to ask them later about it.'

"Good, but back to your rooms… I don't think you need much explanation, especially because you already know the shower controls from the Serenity Valley. But if you ever need some help or advice, be it here in your room or somewhere in the station, just ask one of us or call Cortana."

"And where do we find this Miss Cortana?" Dr. Steinberg asked, which made Jenny stare at him for a few moments.

"Oh dear, I am really sorry… that was stupid by me, but we are all accustomed that everyone knows Cortona" she said and facepalmed. "Cortana, can you…"

Before she finished the sentence a small holoprojector at the ceiling activated and Cortanas translucent Avatar appeared.

"I see you are talking about me, maybe its a good idea to introduce myself. I am Cortana and I am the cybernetic intelligence of the station" she said, looking at the six visitors. "If you ever need advice or help, just call for me. I am present practically everywhere in the station."

"Everywhere on the station?" Dr. Miller asked, "even in our rooms?"

"Oh, I am not directly present in private areas. But I have non-sentient subroutines which can detect someone calling for me or certain emergency conditions that would contact me." Cortana quickly explained. "Don't worry, I will knock at the door before entering, everything else would be a bad violation of privacy… oh, if you use a Third Eye like your two students over there you can contact me with it too. I will project my avatar on your internal display so we can have a private conversation."

Dr. Steinberg still looked skeptical.
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#3
An hour later the group were finally meeting Nina again.

"Ahh, there you are… I hope you liked your rooms" Nina asked as she approached the group of visitors that Jerry was leading to the cafeteria of the space station. "If you need a minor change, just ask a Cortana about it… or if you feel adventurous you ask a group of Exocomps."

"A group of your tiny flying robots?" Dr. Steinberg asked. "I think I saw a few of them closeby."

"Yes, exactly. They are always eager to help and love all kinds of construction, if you announce that you want to build or repair something, you will quickly gather a small crowd of them" Nina explained with a grin. "But if you are not careful, they might misinterpret what you want to build and you need to do even more work to get things done."

"Which might be exactly what these little devils wanted the whole time" Jerry explained. "they have an interesting way to express their humor."

"I will keep this in mind" Dr. Steinberg said, "but I think we came here for dinner, right?"

"Yes, of course we did… just follow me, the Cafeteria is just around the corner. You might find it a bit unusual, but the food is really good." Nina led the group through a door and a small corridor where they could already hear other people talking. "Oh, just as a warning… the room here on the right is reserved for people who want to take a nap. You can use it too, but you might find someone else sharing the couch with you when you wake up. Better go to your rooms if you don't like this idea."

"Just don't say I didn't warn you" Nina said as she lead the group through the corridor. She could hear two of the students chuckle. "I can tell you some people don't see it coming."

"Less warnings about catgirls, more talking about food!" Jenny suddenly said and pointed at the Cafeteria at the end of the corridor. "I am hungry, lets get something to eat!"

The Cafeteria at the Little Big Bang Labs was a room with enough chairs and small tables for a few dozen people. A couple of booth walls partitioned the room to give the visitors a bit privacy. At one wall there was an counter and an open door to a kitchen where a catgirl with a chef's hat was working.

"This is the place where you can get fresh food and all kinds of packed stuff. Luckily we have a group of seven catgirls that like to cook and experiment with food, so most times at least one of them is here" Jenny explained. "If not, you will find a note when someone should be back in the kitchen again or a name you can call. In an emergency, there is a fridge with sandwiches in the kitchen just behind the door."

"The signs on the wall will tell you what are the normal dishes today and what are the suggestions for the next week" Jenny continued, "You can make your own suggestions of course. The most popular ones have a good chance appearing on the 'todays dishes' list if someone knows how to make them."

"I am sorry, but what signs you are talking about?" Dr. Miller asked, "I don't see any signs describing dishes… in fact I don't even see something to attach a sign to."

Nina instantly began to laugh.

"Oh oh, this will take a long time until people will not talk about this day anymore" Nina said. "Jenny, did you forgot that they cannot see the sign because its not real?"

"But, but, but! Damned, I really forgot about it."

Jenny looked confused for a moment and then facepalmed.

"I am really sorry but we are all just used to it" Jenny said and looked to their visitors from Earth. "You cannot see the sign because it does only exist in cyberspace… we all can see it because we are using augmented reality interfaces like the Third Eye Julia and Amanda are using."

"You mean everyone here on the station has one of these mind-to-machine interfaces?" Dr. Steinberg asked, "They are not special equipment that is handed out when necessary?"

"We have been using AR technology for a long time… in the first years we used special glasses or contact lenses connected to the local computer network" Nina explained, "but when the Third Eye technology became reliable enough all of us dropped the old stuff. It makes interacting with cyberspace much easier!"

"Really, its fun! We really have to get everyone of you a Third Eye or at least some contact lenses and earplugs" Jenny said, "there is too much important information on the station which is only visible through cyberspace."

"We can talk about this later, I think we want to have a little bit more time to think about this Third Eye thing" Dr. Miller said. She quickly looked at her student Amanda Fox. "Mrs. Fox, can you maybe tell us what we can have for dinner today?"

All of them quickly decided for some dishes and Nina told the kitchen about their choices. While they were waiting, Amanda began to look around in the room for more augmented reality objects.

"Hmm… where do I find the prices for the food?" she finally asked. "I found a list of dishes of the past months, there are even reviews what was good or bad… but no price."

"We don't use money internally anymore, currently we are experimenting with a reputation based economy" Nina explained. "You can get the normal dishes for free, but if you want something special you need to ask. If enough people want it too or your own reputation is high enough you will get it!"

"Ehh… reputation?" Dr. Steinberg asked.

"Yes, reputation… everything you did what someone else liked. Maybe the great Science experiment that you published… maybe an online video everyone likes. I still remember the insane amount of reputation someone got when she solved the problem of hairs clogging our shower drains" Nina replied. "The whole concept is still a little bit rough, but it is fun to do and much better than to deal with money that is just circulating around locally."

"Thank you for this explanation" the doctor replied slowly. "I think it will take some time to get used to the way you do things here."
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#4
I think I will give this a last try... in theory we are half through the story.

#####################

"Good morning everyone, sorry I am a little bit late" Julia said and yawned. "It took some extra time to figure out the controls in the room this morning."

All six of the visitors had met in the corridor in front of their rooms, Nina promised to have a breakfast with them and then take them to the particle accelerator.

'Sure, it was just the controls" her roommate Amanda thought with a grin, 'not the fact that you wanted to have a longer shower'.

"We are still waiting for Mrs. Nina anyways" Dr. Steinberg replied, looking at his wrist watch. "I hope she did not forget our appointment. Maybe we should already leave to have breakfast?"

"I just sent her a message, she replied she has been delayed and will meet us during breakfast" Julia said with a smile. "Lets go, I am curious about the Sunday breakfast here!"

The group quickly headed to the cafeteria and sat down with their breakfast. It took nearly ten minutes until Nina arrived at their table.

"Hello everyone… a personal friend had a problem and called in a favor, thats why I am late." she said and put down her tray. "But I made sure we have a car waiting for us at the airlock and the accelerator will be be open for a first tour!"

"Excellent, we are already looking forward to see this machine. An experimental facility where you can change the speed of light should be very useful for all kinds of physics experiments" Dr. Steinberg said. "I know a few coworkers at CERN who spend countless of hours with me to come up with some predictions how the machine would behave."

"Welcome to the club of people hurting their own mind by predicting handwaved hardware capabilities" Nina said with a grin, "I think we all got it wrong before we had the chance to work with the new accelerator. One thing is the speed of light acceleration… whatever a handwaved FTL engine is doing, it fortunately does not simply raise the speed of light."

"Yes, we concluded that just raising one of the universal constants of the universe should be quite unhealthy for anything as complex as a human being" Dr. Steinberg said with a nod. "Just too many things in chemistry and atomic physics would change. Getting 250.000 times the energy from radioactive decay would be quite spectacular. But what does it change?"

"Our best guess is that it modifies the Lorentz factor of General Relativity… it allows you to go faster before relativistic effects make further acceleration difficult" Nina tried to explain. "At least that is what we see with our own Mass Effect engines… but there is also a lot of crazy things happening at the edge of a faster than light field, otherwise each of these engines would be a death trap."

"I am sure this would also kill everything inside instantly, but we should continue this discussion after we have learned more about your current physics experiments" Dr. Steinberg replied, "maybe we could get some hints about the real physics happening. I know that all attempts to understand Handwavium have ended badly, but its effects should be within the real laws of physics!"

'Shit, shit, shit… he nearly managed to drag me into a discussion about the nature of Handwavium within the Cafeteria" Nina thought as she tried to smile calmly. "That could have taken hours and hours of debate until someone got calm enough to stop!'

"What kind of experiment do you have planned for the accelerator today" Dr. Miller asked. "I am just curious, CERN experiments are scheduled for weeks, months or even years."

"Oh, do not worry, we will have the whole machine all for ourselves for the whole morning" Nina said with a grin, "we can do whatever you want to show you how everything is working. And if you have suggestions for experiments in the next weeks, just tell us!"

The group quickly finished their breakfast and Nina guided them out of the central living space of the Little Big Bang Labs back to the spaceport of the station.

"Here we are, our shuttle is already waiting for us… please put on your spacesuits and we will be off to the accelerator complex within a minute. As I told you before, most of the complex has no atmosphere." Nina told the group. "You can use the changing rooms behind these door. I will help you to check if everything is alright as soon as you come out."

The group quickly got into their spacesuit and only not even 15 minutes later they were in a small Shuttle towards the second installation around Nostromo.

"There it is, I can see the blue lights on the surface" Ingo Bartels said as the shuttle moved around the station in a wide circle to get towards the hangar doors. "Similar to the other installation, but more larger blocks and less windows!"

"Makes sense, the accelerator at CERN is also below the surface" Dr. Miller replied. "You don't need that many windows for the experimentation areas."

"Ahh, I hear that you already discovered the heart of the Labs" Nina said from the pilot seat and stopped the Shuttle. "Please put on your helmets, I will open the shuttle's door so you can get a better look."

Nina closed her helmet too and the whole group assembled in front of the open door of the shuttle.

"Originally this part was attached to the other station, but it sometimes produces gravity shockwaves, which makes sleeping a bit hard… so we positioned them on opposite sides of Nostromo" Nina explained. "The large three dimensional cross you can see over there with the central bulb is the particle accelerator. That is where the best Science is done!"

She waited until everyone had got a good view of the station, then she returned to the pilot seat and closed the outer door. Just a few minutes later the group finally arrived at the entrance of the particle accelerator room.

The space was dominated by six long tubes, each of them at least a meter diameter and leading to an empty area in the center. Each of the tubes had multiple power cables connecting it to the walls and tiny blue-glowing spheres every few meters. Small handmade stickers with catgirl faces decorated the tubes all over the surface and large red arrows on the tubes pointed toward the central area of the accelerators.

There were a number of small floating platforms near the center, buzzing around like a mob of tourists taking pictures of an invisible attraction. Two large robotic arm with flexible tubes mounted on them completed the picture.

"Ladies and gentlemen… I present you the Little Big Bang Accelerator!" Nina said proudly, pointing at the large tubes. "One of the most powerful and versatile particle physics research centers in Fenspace."

Dr. Steinberg rolled with his eyes when the catgirl started again with some pseudo-scientific explanation about what they had done in this room. He was more interested in the small details that he found in the room.

'Its a bit like we guessed back at CERN, some parts look more like a movie prop than scientific devices. I wonder how reproducible their experiments are.' he mused as they walked through a door that lead out of the experimentation chamber.

There were already a few more catgirls waiting in the control room, sitting in front of large consoles with lots of blinking lights. A holographic projection in the center of the room showed schematics of the six accelerators and all kinds of things that were attached to them. As soon as the door to the control room closed the room

"Experimentation chamber is empty, switching accelerator to particle physics mode."

"Electron/Positron source is ready, accelerator 2 and 5 are showing condition green."

"Speed cameras initialized."

"Wait, what?" Joseph Singh's head shot up. "What do you mean with speed cameras?"

"Oh, we use a series of waved Speed Cameras to measure the energy of the particle beams."

'Keep calm, keep calm… there is nothing to worry about' Dr. Steinberg thought, breathing in and out slowly. 'This whole insanity is about the end and they will show us some real science soon.'

"Just one question before we start, I noticed that place where the beams intersect is empty" Dr. Steinberg said. "Where is the detector? I mean, without a detector the whole accelerator is nearly worthless."

"Unfortunately we did not know how to build a modern one, and this is a kind of low budget facility anyways" Nina replied sadly. "We managed to come up with a waved gas that works like an improved Cloud Chamber, with different colors for different types of particles. We just have to filter out the cat pictures it draws during the collisions!"
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#5
We have the particle collider, but no detector.

Why do I get the feeling that one of the scientists is going to involuntarily become a particle detector. And shortly afterwards, turn green and big? This is the perfect setup for a superhero origin story.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
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#6
Heh, a cloud chamber that has a tendency to do art. I like it.
Kittens? We can has kitten page time?
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.
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#7
LilFluff Wrote:Heh, a cloud chamber that has a tendency to do art. I like it.
Thank you... Smile

(but I assume there are people at the LBBL that would not agree with you ^^)

Quote:Kittens? We can has kitten page time?
*looking at outline of next chapter* hmm... maybe. Wink
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#8
"Compu… ehh… Cortana, can you show me the way to Nina?"

The voice in Julia's head snickered for a moment.

"Well trained by all these stupid voice recognition system, right?" Cortana asked. "You know, you can easily ask me a direct question… no need to ask me what I could do."

Julia laughed.

"Sorry, voice recognition became really good, but when you would have used a smartphone for nearly a decade you would also ask questions like this!"

"Yes, maybe… on the other side the Fen smartphones were already quite clever years ago" Cortana said, "but you really tempted me just to say yes and wait how you react."

A number of green floating blobs appeared in Julia's field of vision, marking a way around the next corner.

"Nina has switched of her public position marker, but I know where you might find her most days at this time. Just follow the markers and see if you can find her!"

"Thank you, I will try" Julia replied and began following the virtual waypoints. "I really have to ask them if we can keep some of the equipment."

After a short walk and two changes of the direction of gravity her green breadcrumbs ended in front of a door with the a 'Kindergarten' floating in front of it.

'A place where they send silly catgirls' Julia wondered and stepped towards the door, which quietly opened to let her in.

The room behind the door was padded with a thick soft carpet, a few boots and sandals were standing right next to the door. A number of toys were laying all over the free space. A small group of catgirls were sitting on a large couch and an armchair. A passage in the back lead to another room, color marked as a zero-g transition.

"Excuse me, I am looking for" Julia started as she noticed something else behind the catgirls.

At first she thought it was another catgirl sleeping on the couch, but the fluffy shape was far too diverse in color… it was a group of catgirls, just much smaller… children? Kittens?

"Shh…" one of the adult catgirls replied quickly, "they just have fallen asleep!"

Julia was still looking at the kittens as one of the kittens lifted her and, yawned and looked around. The catgirls behind them rolled with their eyes and sighed.

The little kitten finally looked at Julia with large blue eyes, her ears twitched and she tried to stand up, only to fall back onto the couch.

"Ahh, Mikaja… our little precious trouble maker" the catgirl on the left said and grinned. "You wouldn't believe how often we had to look for her because we left her out of sight for a second!"

Mikaja was already climbing down from the couch, falling onto the padded carpet and turned her head again to Julia. On all fours she began to move to the human student, her tail wagging slowly back and forth.

"Ohh… I met any children on the station" Julia whispered, keeping her eyes on Mikaja. "Hmm... didn't they say you all were humans in the past and that there are no catboys here?"

"Oh, these are the first ones that were born here at Nostromo, just nine months ago. But there is also a group of kittens at Jenga, they should be one and a half year old" the catgirl replied with a smile. "This here is one of our Kindergarten groups… they are really wonderful, don't you think so?"

Julia was about to answer but Mikaja had reached her and was pulling herself upright with the help of Julia's leg. The kitten meowed loudly and looked up to Julia.

"UP!" the kitten demanded, stretching her furred arms in the air. "UP!"

"I think thats the second word most of them learned" the catgirl said and chuckled. "First Mama and then Up!"

Julia reached down and picked Mikaja up on her arms.

"You are Mikaja?" she said with a smile, "You are really a cute one."

But Mikaja was busy taking a closer look at Julia. The kitten carefully touched Julia's nose and cheeks, then reached for her ears. Finally she looked back to the two catgirls, visibly confused by something.

"I forgot you might be the first human she meets in her life" the catgirl said, "don't worry they are all really nice kids… most of the times."

"So you are a really nice one, right?" Julia asked the kitten and stroke slowly with her hand over the kittens head. "I am Julia, nice to meet you!"

Within moments Mikaja lost her confusion and pressed her head against Julia's neck. Julia could her a low purring coming from the kitten.

"I think we are lucky… please just keep her on your arms for a while so she can sleep in, can you?" the catgirl asked Julia. "If you put her down she will most likely start crying and wake up the rest of them."

"I had planned to look for Nina, I wanted to ask her a few questions before we all meet at the accelerator in a few hours!"

"That is no problem, just send them a message that you are here… no plan survives contact with the Kittens!"

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

Bonus points for recognizing this Kitten. Wink
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