FSE

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I have, in my work for the MMIB, done many horrible things. I've blackmailed heads of state to manipulate their country into war so our scientist could mutate their soldier on the battlefield. I've shot down alien space craft so they could crash land on helpless planets and transmute their populace into (muscular) members of their alien species. I've even tossed a sack of werewolf puppies into a river so they could be rescued downstream by some well meaning twins who would soon become the new alphas of a wolfpack. But never, in all my work as a Muscular Man in Black have I ever encountered something as evil as chocolate chip cookies.

I will resist you!

OK, maybe just one more.

Taking one more of the sacrilegious morsels, I stuff it into my mouth before getting back to the book at hand. Literally, I was reading a book on geography and geopolitics of the Queendom of Australia.

While in practice a monastery is isolated from the outside world, such practices are only rarely taken to extremes. The nuns have to eat, and the nobility who sponsor them want the contradiction of being connected to modern life while they escape from it. This leaves their libraries well stocked with a wealth of knowledge about this world; knowledge I planned to use.

Negotiating with 83N wasn't going to get me anywhere. His arguments are circular in nature and and he knows it. I've come to the conclusion that he's kidnapped me just to have someone to talk to... and cook for, as he spends the rest of his time baking tantalizing pastries, mouth watering roasts, and frying up more kinds of fish than exist within the waters of any one reality. He assures me that the nanites he injected me in will scale back their auto substance in relationship to the calories I ingest naturally, but even then I'll be putting on more than rock hard muscle if I don't get away from this out of control foodie soon.

Mother Superior was even less helpful. I'm not sure if she is normally very isolated, of if Sister Mabel has just been industrious in spreading the bad word about me, but I have been unable to get an audience with the head of the monastery. Not that it would have mattered much. The longer I stay here, the more I'm convinced that she's addicted to his baking.

Grumbling at allowing myself to walk into a trapped thought, I snatch another cookie from the platter and turn the page.

So, if I can't negotiate with 83N, and I can't talk to Mother Superior, that only leaves me with one option. I need to construct a distress beacon. Which isn't too hard; even on a bronze age world I could construct one in maybe two years. But I just don't have any workspace here, meaning I have to venture out into the unknown. I could leave right now, but it is a foreign world out there, and I'm not foolish enough to underestimate the dangers that 83N warned against.

Which, assuming every single book in this place isn't fake, was a good thing. Sister Mable mentioned three apocalypses since the disappearance of men, and I will admit things have been rough for the ladies since the divergence from the NexCorp controlled timeline. Kaiju, undead, and karaoke; fate's thrown just about all it could at these ladies and they keep on ticking.

As was often the case with any sentient life, though, their greatest threat to themselves was each other. Currently the world is divided between domestic conservative, and liberal capitalists. The capitalist stronghold was the heavily industrialized North American continent, protected by a forceshield literally powered by money. The conservative stronghold was Russian and it's all powerful ice princesses. The rest of the world was taking sides; Australia was official on the side of Russia, but the allegiance of a government doesn't mean the consent of all it's people.

Australia was a surprising financial powerhouse. When the kaiju attacked they left radioactive corpses. While Africa was famous for having a living population of Kaiju, the world's top supply of Kaiju corpses is still Australia and will be so for several more centuries. This left them with the financial clout to be on whatever side they wanted, but social pressure to be on the side of the capitalists. Unfortunately, Australia was very conservative after the karaoke phage meaning the lifestyle the capitalist lead was... something best behind closed doors.

Sighing, I thump my current book close and push it aside. This entire ordeal was a pain. Normally all the information I need to know is packaged nice and tight in a mission briefing. I haven't spent this much time slogging through pointless details since my thesis. There was just so much repeated information amongst all these promising books... and searching through them by card index was daily motivating me to just give up researching here and risk heading to one of the major cities where they had public computer libraries.

Breaking me away from contemplating a suicide mission, a distinct sound repeats itself three times. "Arf arf arf." I look over to my right and see black speckled white seal, Flipper, sitting at attention as if it's constant barking was the most important thing in the world. Honestly, child stars... with a sigh, I reach into the small 'magic' sack of infinite raw fish that 83N gave me and toss a large perch towards the big baby. He inhales it like so many of the other scaled sacrifices that I have buried in his gullet to get some peace and quiet.

Looking at the blubbery fool inhale his bribe and promptly breaks the unspoken promise of silence by barking for more, I sigh as I think what my life had degraded too thanks to that... rat. A married gay man, hiding from a world full of woman in a monastery... whose only nonfemale was a fugitive from the mafia like organization he was an agent of. Getting cooked delicious food all day while his body just gets buffer and buffer thanks to some miracle nanites giving him the equivalent of a full body workout twice per day. Oh, and his roommate was a feral seal that might explode and take out the continent of Australia at any moment.

...actually if you replace Flipper with Nathan the entire situation wouldn't be too bad. Goodness knows Nathan would love having a personal chef so they wouldn't have to clean up takeout boxes whenever we slept over at his apartment. And maybe lose all the uppity nuns in skirts, though aside from Sister Mabel they weren't that bad. Seriously, you attack one person in the line of duty and suddenly they appear to hold a grudge for life...

Pausing in thought, I suddenly realize that there was another cookie in my hand and it was being raised to my mouth. Sighing for a third time, I decide it's time to leave my room again for another jog before I turn into something round enough to accuse 83N of being skinny. Putting the cookie down on the table, I stand up to leave the room before stalling.

I will resist. I will resist. I will resist...

With lightening fast reflexes, I reach back and snatch back the cookie on the table before Flipper can snarf it up himself. Stuffing it into my own mouth, I give the black spotted white seal an apologetic shrug before walking out of the room. Making sure the door behind me is closed and locked, I head off.

The monastery isn't what one would expect. For one thing, it was located in the Australian outback, so this focus on medieval stonework was very out of place. More importantly, a monastery is normally manned by monks, but obviously this place was populated by nuns. I asked once why it wasn't called a convent, and Sister Caroline just gave me the oddest stare like she never heard the word. After so many generations without men, certain words concerning gender lines fell to the wayside and it wasn't always the side of the line you would expect.

More importantly, there were things in this monastery one would never find in a place of remote spirituality and meditation on most worlds. Case in point, when I round the next corner I have to deftly dodge a pair of running girls in full length grey dresses, their caretaker quickly following behind.

Those two small girls, and the other dozen like them at the monastery, told me more than any assurance from 83N that NexCorp had nothing to do with this dimension. Without any men to continue breeding with, a planet of only woman would surely die as a planet of only men. And yet it persevered for one very bizarre reason; they population spontaneously started giving birth... whether or not they had sex or not.

Seriously, reproduction without sex. If that didn't scream "The Nexus Conglomerate would combust into flames if they set foot in this dimension" I'm not sure what else would. It's also the reason why conservative values took such a strong hold in some parts of the world. If you didn't need to have sex to reproduce, why have sex at all?

If Nathan was here I'd give them an answer to that question three nights straight, but then again Nathan was here I'd have a let less reasons to be concerned with what other people where getting up to.

...gods my balls are getting bluer than plates under a diner's dinner special.

Rounding pushing open an inconspicuous door, I exit the maze of internal corridors on the monastery and exit onto one of the balcony walkways. To my surprise, I find 83N gazing out over the parapet to the road below. Not interested in another circular conversation, I politely squeeze behind him and almost move on before curiosity tugs at my peripheral vision enough to notice what he's staring at.

"I thought the monastery only received trading caravans quarterly," I query aloud. It's one of the facts I researched, knowing that it would be less conspicuous to any city officials if I had the word of a traveling caravan that they picked me up at a monastery rather than just showing up alone with no identification. It was somewhat annoying back when I thought my research would take no time at all that I would have to wait two months before leaving.

83N didn't respond right away, and for a moment I thought he was worried about just that. But then when he spoke, "Yeah... guess we better pack our bags." ...there was a complete lack of disappointment or hesitation in his tone. Instead he expressed just... apprehension. Noticing that he had yet to make eye contact with me since I exited onto the balcony, I took a closer look at the approaching caravan.

Six covered wagons, each with a single bull and driver... and no discernible decoration or signs of external wear and tear. Six perfect nondescript wagons with six perfect nondescript drivers; the level of uniformity carried about as much suspicion as freshly printed ideal condition dollar bills with identical serial numbers.

...guess I'll be getting more exercise today than just calisthenics.