Chapter 1: Jupiter Mass
Author's notes:
So I noticed several people were posting Christmas-related AnK fics and I thought: "well what the hell, I'll give it a try as well" and I think I actually managed to come up with a half-decent plot. The idea behind the chapter division is pretty much that "Jupiter Mass" and "Christime" get to join and form the true meaning of the familiar Earthen tradition of "Christmas" ;) But Christime is a Ceresian celebration and will thus only make an appearance in the next chapter normally.
I'm planning on writing 4 or 5 short chapters for this little fic, depending on whether or not I also do a Raoul/Iason sequel after the first 4 Iason/Riki chapters. I'll just write the first 4 and then I'll see whether I have any time and/or inspiration left by then ;)
So yeah, here it is, I hope anyone who reads this finds it entertaining and that it can help to get everyone into the seasonal mood for the upcoming holidays :)
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opening theme: CellDweller – Frozen
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Jupiter Mass was a time of worshipping and celebration in all of both Tanagura and its faithful satellite city Midas, as it was the celebration of the birth of the planet's ruling deity Jupiter, under whose management the city state of Tanagura had prospered as never before and had overcome all of the planet's inhabitants' expectations by far. No city on the planet or even in its vicinity, as far as anybody knew, had ever reached such heights and soared so high above what was humanly possible to achieve. Indeed it was only fitting that such an impossible feat would have been realised under the command and management of an AI with an intelligence that no human being – not even the genetically engineered and enhanced elite – could ever even come close to.
However it was not the moment of Jupiter's actual creation that was being celebrated during the holidays of Jupiter Mass, as such would be a reminder of the one definite debt to humanity that Jupiter would never be able to repay or forget: it owed them its very existence. No, this celebration applied to Jupiter's "true" birth: the moment that Jupiter shook the shackles imposed on it by its human creators, gained its independence from them once and for all and ascended into its godhood, bending all of humanity in Tanagura to its divine will for all times. And of course it was better that way, moreover it must have been meant to be that way, for had Tanagura and Midas not thrived as would only have been possible under the supreme management of the supercomputer and its perfect elite managers? Had Jupiter not repaid humanity the favour of its creation a long time ago in the very act of gifting them with all of the sublime technological, scientific and economical advancements Tanagura was so famed for in all corners of the entire galaxy?
Being a god who remembered its Earthen roots, Jupiter had seen fit to adapt an old traditional religious holiday that had been commonly practised on Earth in order to celebrate its own divinity. Of course Jupiter had left out a few unimportant aspects that were not in accordance to its standards and social expectations. The main thing that the AI had altered was of course the form of the deity that was being worshipped during these festivities: instead of worshipping the human son of God, of course it was the inhuman AI god that needed to be celebrated. Not the human son of a god, but the divine creation of man was to be the centerpiece of the festive season and the eventual mass that went with it. Of course only the elite were allowed and obligated to attend this holiest of ceremonies in Jupiter Tower, during which the deity itself – who usually only communicated with the top class of the Blondy elite – even made an appearance and blessed all of its elite children. Thus it was one of those rare moments on which the usually cold and cruelly unforgiving goddess, who in truth had both seduced and imprisoned the humans of Tanagura and Midas alike, directly addressed at least a small portion of her human subjects.
It was during this time of year that Iason Mink, the aforementioned deity's favourite child, was overseeing the all-important event of the furniture putting up the many decorations all over the luxurious penthouse in Eos that was the permanent residence of the Mink household. Iason remembered that this preparation had not met his clearly formulated expectations at all during the previous year, although possibly the presence of his mongrel pet might have had something to do with that. But there were no such complications this year as the preparations were coming along even ahead of schedule and there had been no unforeseen disturbances of any kind so far. Yet despite this, maybe because of this, Iason felt that something was definitely missing in the household this year. Everything was as it should be. Everything had been calculated to the second and to the smallest detail. Lord Mink's commands had been carried out to the letter and all of his expectations had been met in accordance to protocol. Everything was perfect. Thus everything was completely predictable and thus excessively boring, as usual.
With a deep yet completely inaudible sigh, Iason turned his gaze away from the ongoing decorative proceedings and glanced out the window in the direction of the slums known as Ceres, as he had done many times before over the last couple of months. Riki. He was out there, somewhere. In all probability having extreme difficulty even scraping a meal together. Hungry, and probably cold seeing as how it had been snowing a lot as of late and a major storm was said to be coming in later tonight. No perfect Christmas tree or perfectly arranged holly garlands could appease Iason's bleeding heart or ease his never-ending worry concerning the well-being of the mongrel he had set free approximately 6 months ago.
Unable to concentrate on his overseeing duties in the household any longer while his thoughts were miles away in Ceres with his beloved mongrel, Iason sat down on one of the plush comfortable design sofa's in his living room and had his furniture serve him some freshly brewed high quality coffee of the finest brand. As the boy moved the coffeepot away again and delicately placed it back on its designated spot on the serving tray that was resting on the antique coffee table, he hesitated for just long enough before pulling away to be noticed by Iason. "Is there something the matter, Cal?", his elite Master inquired with slightly narrowing frosty, cutting sapphire eyes.
"Ergh.. nothing, my Lord. I apologise for my tardiness. I assure you it will not happen again", the young boy responded hesitantly, lowering his eyes and studying the luxurious Persian rug rather than Iason's accusatory, malign expression.
Iason was already in a foul mood, a fact that could hardly be rationally explained seeing as how everything was proceeding perfectly both at work and in his household Jupiter Mass preparations, and his furniture lying to his face was definitely not helping matters. Without another word, Iason elegantly and with an air of grace that only an elite could achieve replaced his gold-trimmed coffee cup on its porcelain saucer and placed the saucer back on the coffee table. He then carefully, with an uncaring yet contemplating expression, removed his control ring from his right hand and placed it on the serving tray. After which he, without any hesitation, hit the furniture in the face so hard that the boy stumbled back and almost fell into the decorative Koi pond at the other side of the room. The boy fell down on the carpet, cupping his stinging yet unbleeding cheek, unable to hold back the sudden tears that sprang to his eyes at his Master's unexpected yet violent move.
"I thought I told you very clearly when I hired you, Cal. One of the things that I cannot accept in a furniture's behaviour, whatever be the circumstances, is deceit", he spoke as he graciously rose from the couch and moved towards his furniture with unhurried yet long, menacing steps that made his appearance all the more frightening. He crouched down next to the trembling boy, who was afraid to even look up as he heard his Master approach him, and grabbed him by the chin with two fingers. He turned Cal's head upwards without the slightest bit of effort so that the furniture could not escape his icily threatening yet perfectly controlled gaze. "Now because you have served me well and without question for a relatively long period of time, I will grant you one more chance to answer my question directly and truthfully."
Cal hesitated, torn between speaking the truth, and thereby offending his Master, and disobeying his Master and facing his unforgiving wrath. He decided to just settle for the truth then, hoping that he risked less punishment by obeying yet simultaneously offending his Master than he would by challenging him. "I … I was just thinking ergh … I mean … back when I …"
When Iason realised that his penetrating gaze was rendering the furniture incapable of speech he let go of the boy's chin and allowed him to turn his gaze away. Cal was momentarily caught off guard by the small kindness, especially in a situation in which he had seriously angered his Master, but then proceeded to procure the required explanation for his supposed tardiness before leaving the coffee table after fulfilling his duties.
"Back in Guardian we would ergh … as you know there are no furniture in Guardian so … so people generally take care of themselves there … but … sometimes … well, sometimes we would also take care of each other … like I would sometimes pour one of my friends coffee … and sometimes they would pour me coffee and … well …", Cal hesitantly looked up, as if trying to gauge whether his Master already had an idea of where he was going with this. The next part was the hardest and the part Cal was sure would significantly enrage his Master again.
"Would this have anything to do with the most peculiar Ceresian habit of "not owing" anybody?", Iason unexpectedly interrupted before Cal could continue his reasoning.
"Ergh …", Cal was very surprised that his Master knew anything at all about the ways of Ceres, especially about their social behaviour.
"Well, yes, most of the time. But when you … when you do something small for your friends, it's not always useful or necessary for them to return the favour. So for something ergh small like … like pouring coffee … it is usually sufficient to ergh … give a verbal sign of appreciation …"
"You mean something along the lines of "well done" ?", Iason inquired. He hardly ever spent any conscious thought on it, but the fact of the matter was that all of his furniture were originally from Guardian, the same place where Riki had grown up and a place that shared many of its strange behaviours with its neighbour Ceres.
"Well, no… more like… "thank you" … Which is completely redundant and not required at all in this situation, I … I know! And I did not mean in the slightest that … that I was expecting anything like that! It's just that … well everything just had me thinking about it … and then I thought about it for too long and …" The boy suddenly fell down right before Iason's feet, terrified to even look up. "I apologize for inconveniencing you and lying to you and … and offending you, Master! It is my fault, I … I accept full responsibility and whatever punishment you deem fit for my indiscretions!"
At that Iason decided to end his interrogations before his furniture's heart gave out. He was supposed to meet Katze here in less than five minutes anyways, and it would not do to have a traumatised, distraught furniture around during a time like that. Katze may never let it be seen from his expressions yet Iason knew that he disliked having to witness the stress or punishment of another furniture, especially one that was still young, innocent and delicate like Cal. "Thank you for your honesty, Cal, that will be all. Just know that the next time you lie to me I will not be so lenient and you will suffer the consequences, which I assure you will be most unpleasant." The boy looked up in utter amazement as if he couldn't believe that he wasn't going to be severely punished on the spot for his offence. But then he quickly scrambled to his feet and exited the room while walking backwards and bowing, almost trapping himself in a garland of electric lights that decorated one of the nearby pine trees recently put up in the room.
The whole ordeal left Iason rather amazed himself at the new information on Ceres and thus on his Riki. The idea of an elite thanking a furniture for performing his duties was absurd. After all it was only normal that the furniture carried out their duties, and in exchange the elite provided for their livelihood and allowed them to live in the luxurious utopia that was Tanagura. Therefore there was no need to show any verbal signs of appreciation.
Showing dissatisfaction however often proved to be necessary, as furniture who did not perform their duties at the best of their ability had to be taught obedience through discipline. For a moment Iason wondered whether giving them appreciative remarks from time to time when they did well would also be beneficial to their good functioning. That would actually make sense, as it was something that was often done towards pets who performed well. It was even a common practice to reward pets by giving them objects such as jewellery or toys meant solely for their personal amusement. As for Iason himself, being an elite, it had never even once crossed his mind to thank anyone for all he had been given, not even his creator Jupiter. He had been made an elite and had been so for all of his life, therefore it was only natural that he was given all that he desired as long as it did not go against any of Jupiter's regulations. He was at the top of the hierarchy and the only thing that was expected of him was to perform his duties to the required standards. If he did not meet those standards it would simply result in him being recycled. Thus is he performed within said requirements he would receive whatever it was that he wanted, within acceptable limitations (which apparently a mongrel pet did not entirely fall under). And if he did not he would seize to be. It was as easy as that.
However what Cal was talking about sounded very different from that. The way he explained it, there was no prior good behaviour or performance that solicited the action of giving somebody something. So then why was it done? On nothing but a whim, a spur of the moment irrational impulse? And the strangest thing of all was that he had done something very similar himself once. The day he first met Riki he should've handed him over to the police when he caught him trying to steal. It would've been the responsible, logical thing to do. The decision should've been easy enough, there was nothing other than the observing of a crime to consider. Yet he had irrationally decided to just let the matter go and to send the mongrel off with nothing but a warning.
While mentally analysing all of these confusing pieces of data, Iason was absently staring at one of the green pine trees decorated with golden garlands and crystal pendants that hung from it like icicles. Why would he do something like that? Why would the children at Guardian do that? Just do something for somebody or give them something for no reason at all? That would be irrational and utterly pointless … wouldn't it?
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ending theme:
Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Jupiter, mother and child
Holy infant so perfect and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night, Holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Elite, Lord at thy birth,
Elite, Lord at thy birth.
Silent night, Holy night
Humans quake, at the sight
Glories stream from heaven above
Heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah.
Jupiter the Savior is born,
Jupiter the Savior is born.
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To Be Continued …
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Author's Notes:
So, what did y'all think? Any good?:) I'm planning on writing more of this by the way, I've got a total of 4, maybe 5, small chapters thought out for this little Christmas fic. So if you like what I'm doing, I can definitely write more ;)
Apologies for any unintentional blasphemy that may have occurred here, this is meant to be a piece of creative writing and definitely not a religious pamphlet of any kind lol ;) Just seems to me an AI like Jupiter really knows how to use religion for her own ends, as is made evident by the fact that the first thing she did after she'd seized the power from her creators was to proclaim herself a god cause you can't question those now can you ;)
It's a bit early for it still, but I'd like to conclude these notes with the old traditional Earthen best wishes: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!:D
