Author's Note: I refuse to apologize for the title, I don't care that it's a grating pun.
Whey To Be A Downer
C.H.E.E.S.E, Earth's Moon October 15, 2077 AD
Gravity was a truly unusual thing when you stopped and thought about it. It was one of the four fundamental forces of the universe and was simultaneously so strong and yet so weak. Something as simple as a balloon filled with helium could overcome gravity, yet light and even time had to bend under its power.
Gravity is also vital to human survival; when exposed to a lack of gravity for long periods of time the human body loses blood, muscle mass, and bone mass. It takes the human body approximately three years of heavy exercise to return to normal health after spending six months in space. As such the Collective had spent ample time and money looking into some way to create gravity for use in starships. If this problem was not solved humanity might eventually travel to other worlds but would be unable to land on any of them. The sudden shift of weightlessness back to normal was not healthy, it put a lot of strain on the body. Granted, nanites could combat the atrophy as it occurred but that didn't mean the gravity issue was solved. Space travel was incredibly dangerous, there needed to be redundancies and back ups in every system, gravity included. As such, the Collective had developed two different possible methods of generating gravity in their starships and as much as it pained him to admit it, Jeff had no idea how either of them worked. Sure, the drones had explained to him how both methods functioned but he was simply unable to wrap his head around the ideas they were presenting him with and asking for clarification was just...unthinkable. He was Doctor Jeffrey Borg, certifiable genius, he was not some idiot that needed every explanation spoon fed to him...he just didn't understand manipulation of gravity that's all. Jeff knew that one of the systems had something to do with electrical fields influencing superconductive magnets...or was that both of them? Maybe one used electrical fields and the other used magnets? Whatever the case, Jeff had spent so much time handling public relations for the Collective that his brain just wasn't up to the task of learning was all. Yea, that was it. He was turning eighty two in December after all, even with the various implants the Collective had given him over the years, some level of brain decay was inevitable.
Speaking of brain decay, what was the Collective's opinion on that Norwegian lady? She had voluntarily gotten implanted a few months ago but her father had some kind of shady connections because she had been kidnapped from the Collective compound where she was working and her neural transceiver had been surgically removed. And because the surgeon apparently had a brain the size of a blefuscu his 'skills' had resulted in the lady becoming a vegetable (then again, this was the first removal of a neural transceiver that didn't kill the drone so maybe the surgeon wasn't totally incapable). Not only was she brain dead, but because she was no longer a part of the Collective the drones didn't want to waste resources making sure her implants remained functional so her organs were beginning to shut down. The father was trying to raise support about how the evilCollective had taken advantage of his poor daughter after she had just gotten out of drug rehab and was therefore susceptible to the suggestion of becoming a drone and now they weren't willing to help keep his girl alive after butchering her body. Quite frankly, Jeff was amazed the man had the intelligence to manipulate the facts so well. The man looked like a tree-swinger that had only recently descended to the ground in search of the secret of fire. The kind of person with such an overbite that when he ate toast he finished the outer edge first. Thurgood was going to have to go visit the family when they returned to Earth to attempt to smooth things over; Jeff would have to remind him not to wear a watch when he did so, they would probably be mystified by shiny objects.
Jeff glanced over at Thurgood who was taking a long draw from a joint. The first thing Thurgood did after they had exited the Glenn Rocket was to pull out paper and marijuana from one of his pockets and roll a cigarette. Jeff was actually somewhat impressed since Thurgood did the entire procedure while they walked down the hallway without stopping and hadn't spilled any on the ground. It wasn't like there was anything else to do, it was a long walk from the shuttleport to the one of the research centers in C.H.E.E.S.E. The hallway was certainly not designed with any kind of ambiance in mind, it was incredibly minimalistic. It reminded Jeff of an old, poorly illuminated military hangar, the ceiling had to be at least thirty feet above his head and the floor was concrete. Drones were traveling back and forth carrying containers of various sizes, Jeff thought he saw a forklift way down the hallway. He wondered if this is what it was like at airports for the workers that had to move all the luggage around.
Jeff was curious why the Collective had bothered putting the majority of C.H.E.E.S.E. underground. After all, they were on the freaking Moon. There weren't any nosy neighbors, protestors, or corporate spies that might come poking around and screw up an experiment. Granted, anyone on Earth with a sufficiently advanced telescope could probably find the shuttleport but it wasn't like they would be able to look in a window and read research notes. Maybe the Collective was thinking long term, eventually a lunar colony consisting of people besides drones would probably be established and this way they wouldn't have to do any drastic alterations to the infrastructure to ensure privacy. Then again, maybe it had something to do with the Outer Space Treaty though Jeff wasn't quite sure what. Articles I and II said that no one could claim the Moon (or other celestial bodies for that matter) and that they "shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind" so maybe the Collective was worried about other countries using that explanation to force their way to look at what the Collective was working on? Except the wording of those Articles implies they are only supposed to apply to States, not private companies, so the Collective would probably win a court case against anyone trying to force their way into C.H.E.E.S.E. Article VI said the national government of non-governmental entities would be responsible for their actions in space, but since the Collective now claimed Brunei, rather than the United States, as its home country they didn't have to worry about governmental oversight so that wasn't an issue at least. Maybe they were concerned about the Moon Treaty which declared all celestial bodies the property of the international community? Except that Treaty hadn't been ratified by any space-faring countries so it didn't have any legal weight.
Jeff suddenly had to wave his hand in front of his face to clear the air as Thurgood blew out the smoke he had been holding in. "So J-dawg, did I tell you that I bought a racehorse last week?"
"No you didn't, and frankly I'm immediately concerned for the well-being of the horse. I cannot imagine you owning an animal. That is a big responsibility, you can barely take care of yourself."
"Oh, that's all taken care of. The Collective already has a jokey picked out and a team of vegetarians to make sure it stays healthy."
"You mean veterinarians."
"No, I don't think any of them served in the military.
Jeff sighed and shook his head. "Alright Thurgood, why did you buy a racehorse?"
"So I could name him 'Oscar Takes the Lead' obviously."
Jeff thought about that for a moment. "You spent thousands of dollars on a horse, as well who knows how much more money you will have to spend taking care of it in the future, just to screw with the people listening to horse races?"
"And you say I'm bad with money," Thurgood said smugly. "I'd say this was a worthwhile investment."
"Remember when you hired two private investigators to follow each other? I consider this about on the same level."
"Oh come on, that was funny. It took them two months to figure it out."
"Whatever, it's your money. Spend it how you like," Jeff said, not feeling like arguing about Thurgood's lack of financial restraint.
"So why are we on the Moon?" Thurgood asked after several minutes of walking.
"We had this discussion three times already, how do you keep forgetting?"
"I dunno, though I imagine this has something to do with it." Thurgood said while holding up his joint.
"Thurgood, you have smoked yourself retarded."
"Seems like a good possibility, but you didn't answer my question."
"Primarily, we are here to examine the Collective's newest artificial gravity generators. Should the mood strike us there are also several other experiments we can check in on. I want to at least look at the Struldbrug and Ketteract Projects before returning to Earth," Jeff explained.
"The who what projects?" Thurgood asked. "Those were not English words."
"Nevermind, you will just forget anything I tell you so I'm not going to waste valuable brain power thinking up a way to dumb down the explanation to a point that you will comprehend it."
"But I thought you liked a challenge. You're just giving up on providing me info? I might need to know this stuff for work."
"Thurgood, you are really good at your job but if you ever had an informed thought it died of loneliness. In fact, you knowing 'stuff' will probably hurt, not help, your ability to do your job."
"Alright, so if I follow what you're saying..." Thurgood paused and stared blankly at Jeff's face for a few seconds. Jeff wondered if Thurgood had followed the conversation at all or if he was going to go off on a random tangent. "...You think I'm stupid." Huh, Thurgood actually stayed on topic.
"If, at any point, I ever think of you as smart Thurgood, chaos theory dictates that I would shat a diamond in my pants."
"You know, I feel like I should be mad at you...but you make a pretty good point. Kinda hard for me to argue against hard science like that. Let me know if you ever find that diamond. We can sell it and take the money to Vegas. I went to a fortune teller a little while ago and she told me my lucky numbers, I wanna play those while they're still hot."
"Yes well unfortunately for whatever casino you are sure to lose your shirt in, I don't expect to be defecating a diamond anytime soon so a trip to Vegas is not in my foreseeable future." Jeff said while trying to ignore the mental image of what pooping a diamond would do to one's intestines.
"Loki damn it," Thurgood muttered.
"Blaspheming of your gods will have to wait, we're here...I think."
'Here' turned out to be an opening in the wall. Jeff would have called it a doorway except he didn't see a door, not even a spot where it could slid out of the wall. Shouldn't C.H.E.E.S.E. be designed like a submarine or ship with sealable hatches in case of a breach? Considering how long that hallway was he and Thurgood had just walked down, it would make sense to make the area self contained. So long as it didn't happen while he was here, Jeff supposed it wasn't that important. Stepping through the hole, Jeff and Thurgood found themselves in what appeared to be a fabrication shop. Drones were standing around operating machines to create sheets of metal in various shapes and sizes. Jeff had to wonder about the justifications for it all, was it really more economically feasible to ship raw materials to the Moon and then alter them instead of shipping the finished parts to the Moon? Economies-of-scale wasn't Jeff's area of expertise so it probably wasn't worth worrying about, the drones certainly knew more about certain subjects than Jeff did so it made sense that economics would be one of them. Then again, assuming the drone at the spaceport had given them correct directions, the Collective had decided to test artificial gravity generators right next to a bunch of fast moving machinery so maybe they weren't as quite as smart as Jeff was giving them credit for. Maybe there was a virus on the neural network? Could they have been distracted millions of time per minute by the beauty of computing pi and so forgot about basic safety standards? Something to ponder on the shuttle ride home.
"We were told this was the way to the Galilei and Newton Experiments. Is that correct?" Jeff asked the nearest drone.
The drone stopped pushing buttons of the machine it was standing next to and turned to face the pair. Jeff noticed that this drone looked significantly different from any other drone he had seen before. For starters, the drone was fat. It wasn't morbidly obese but there were definite rolls underneath its chin. The nutritional augmentation should have corrected any weight problems that drone had prior to assimilation. The second thing Jeff noticed was the drone's skin color, or rather its lack of skin color. The skin was totally white, not peach color like someone of European descent, but full-on eggshell white with black veins visible in places underneath the skin. Jeff would have assumed the drone was simply an albino except its eyes were brown and what remained of its long matted hair was red. This drone reminded Jeff of a walking corpse more than anything else.
"Yes Dr. Borg, the directions you were given are correct. Continue through this room and you will find the Galilei and Newton Experiments at the bottom of the stairs."
"Thanks tubby," Thurgood said as he began walking ahead of Jeff. "Be careful going through the room J-man, some of the edges on these machines look sharp and you ain't as spry as you used to be."
"I may be an old fart that remembers the ancient days of yore back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth and dirt hadn't yet been invented but didn't you turn fifty this year? At half of century old, I don't think you should be allowed to make age jokes anymore." Jeff grumbled as he followed Thurgood's path through the room. As loath as he was to admit it, Jeff probably could seriously hurt himself if he tripped and hit one of the machines.
"Eh, what's that Jeff? I can't hear you over the sound of your bones creaking."
Jeff grumbled at Thurgood's teasing as they navigated through the room. He had intended to come back with "laugh it up now, in three more decades you'll be in the same position as me," except right before he had opened his mouth Jeff realized how old that made him sound.
As the two men finally made their way past the obstacle course that was a machine shop, Jeff got a good look at the spiral staircase and was not pleased. The big problem was the lack of any kind of handrail, which meant he was either going to have to lean against the wall the entire way down, have Thurgood hold his hand like a freaking toddler crossing the street, or get one of the drones to assist him. Not one of those options appealed to Jeff but his decision was made for him as Thurgood disappeared down the stairs.
Deciding he didn't want to risk falling, Jeff realized he would have to abandon his dignity and deal with whatever teasing he was going to endure from Thurgood. "Drones, I require assistance getting down these stairs. One of you will have carry me, preferably one that still has hands."
After an extremely awkward ride down the stairs during which Jeff's face was resting on the drone's shoulder like a swooned maiden in Victorian England, Jeff saw Thurgood running up to him as the drone gently released Jeff from the bridal carry method it had been using.
"Dr. B, since when have the drones been allowed to carry us? If I had known that I would have gotten piggy back rides everywhere. And why did you get the good looking drone? Hogging all the hotties for yourself, you pervert. You know what, I bet you're naked under your clothes, you dirty old man."
"No Thurgood, I can assure you I am wearing underwear." Jeff said while turning to look at the drone that had carried him down here. Its body was covered in the exo-plating that was becoming common on all drones, effectively hiding its original gender. Various tubes were bulging out from underneath the skin on its shaved head which connected to a variety of places on its back. In lieu of a face the drone had around a dozen cameras sticking out the front of its skull. All in all, not something anyone with a functioning brain stem would find remotely attractive.
"Gross dude, I don't want to hear about your underwear."
"But you just talked about my being naked...you know what, forget it. Let's just going find the gravity machines."
Locating the gravity machines was actually quite easy. There was only one direction to go from the staircase so it wasn't like they could get lost. Thurgood and Jeff eventually came up to an actual door. Not only was it a door, but it was a sealable hatch like on the space shuttles. Jeff wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. Why would this door lead to an area that needed to be pressurized but not the giant hallway that they had spent the better part of an hour walking down? Thurgood approached the door and knocked out Shave and a Haircut and stepped back waiting. After a few seconds the door swung outward and Jeff got his first look inside the room. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all padded like a scene from a stereotypical movie about old mental hospitals with a second door on the far wall. Surrounded by drones in the center of the room was what Jeff assumed was one of the gravity machines, it was rather unimpressive all things considered. He had expected it to be...well he actually wasn't sure what, he just expected more. It looked a motorcycle engine that was built around a big lava lamp. Jeff assumed the other machine was through room's other door. Probably didn't want to turn them on at the same time, they might adversely affect each other's gravitational field or something.
"Drones, what is the timetable for getting the artificial gravity generators tested? It's getting late and I need some sleep," Jeff asked.
One of the drones, Jeff couldn't see which, spoke up. "We are rechecking the alignment of some of the parts that may have shifted when we brought the Galilei Mark I into this room. Once that is done, we will turn it on."
"Sweet, we're about to bitch-slap Einstein's corpse." Thurgood said with a laugh.
Before Jeff could respond to Thurgood's comment, the same drone spoke, "Everything is in order. We will turn on the Galilei Mark I."
"Awesome, let's kick this pig!" Thurgood shouted.
Jeff had to ask. "Kick this pig?"
"Yea, you know, science. We're going to leave it squealing from the feeling."
"Huh?"
"Oinking from the boinking."
"What?"
"Squeaking from the freaking."
"Thurgood, what are you talking about?"
"I have no idea."
Jeff was about to rub his temples in an attempt to prevent the headache that he knew was going to form because of this conversation when he felt his entire body begin to lurch to the left. Jeff immediately adjusted his footing so he could stay upright. He glanced around and saw that some of the drones were tilting to the left at odd angles, apparently they hadn't bothered to adjust their stances. Thurgood was actually sitting on the floor giggling when suddenly Jeff felt the gravity shift even more and they began tumbling to the left. He was very thankful this was taking place in a padded room, Jeff was gaining too much momentum and he knew he was going to hit the wall rather hard. Jeff had his breath knocked out of him as he slammed into the wall but was otherwise fine. As he stood up on the wall Jeff began examining his surroundings. He noticed that the drones standing directly next to the Galilei machine were unaffected by the gravity shift whereas the ones that hadn't been so close were now standing on the wall with Jeff and Thurgood.
Standing on the wall was not as strange a sensation had Jeff had been expecting, at least not now that his inner ear had adjusted. Logically, he knew that he was standing on a wall which meant his body was now parallel to the floor but looking around it felt like he was on the floor and that the drones near the Galilei machine were the ones on the wall. Once he got over the shock of the Collective having just altered gravity, the whole experience was rather boring. Jeff walked over to where Thurgood was lying in a heap on the floor...well the wall actually, not the floor.
"Thurgood, are you alright? I know you get airsick rather easily, that probably wasn't too pleasant for your stomach."
"Ever been on a roller-coaster Jeff? You get off the ride and want to throw up and yet you also want to get back in line so that you can do it all again. That's about how I feel right now." Thurgood said without getting up from where he was laying.
"Well," Jeff said while turning towards the nearest drone. "I would say that was a successful proof-of-concept test. However, given Thurgood's health and the fact that I want to go to bed, what say we cut this experiment short and continue tomorrow?"
Tereshkova Rocket, Earth's Moon October 18, 2077 AD
As intriguing as the experiments on the Moon had been, Jeff was glad to be going home. The Nadion Project was particularly interesting, Jeff had been unaware of the problems that the Collective's plasma weapons were facing. Who knew the plasma toroids would dissipate when they struck something as simple as raindrops? Certainly explained why slug throwers hadn't been phased out of use. In retrospect, that really seems like something Jeff should have caught. Plasma guns had entered widespread circulation after the riots in 2060, and it wasn't until seventeen years after the fact that he learned about a rather large flaw in their design. Hopefully, the switchover to accelerated particles would fix that problem without creating some new one. The Collective still held most of the rights to plasma weapons, it would be a shame to lose control of the profitable non-lethal firearms market.
As Jeff finished strapping himself into his chair he got his first look at the Tereshkova's pilot. It was covered in the standard metal exo-plating and its skin had the same incredibly white tone to it as some of the other drones in C.H.E.E.S.E., but other than that it actually looked normal. Its head didn't have any weird machines attached to it, its hands were unaltered. It might as well have been wearing a metal jumpsuit to cover up its paste skin. Wait the white skin, he forgot to ask about that. "Drone, I have a question."
"Yes Dr. Borg, what would you like to know?" The drone said without turning around from the various monitors it was looking at.
"I've noticed that several drones on base, including yourself, have lost skin pigmentation. What is the cause of it? Anything to be concerned over?"
"There ain't nothing wrong with it J-man, I like me some white meat." Thurgood said from his seat by the window before their pilot could answer.
"Mr. Jenkins is partially correct in that there isn't anything wrong, per say. It is a side effect of the nanites used in the Torricelli project. We have determined that it is not a health risk so we are not going to spend resources attempting to fix it. It is a superficial change, nothing more."
"People tend to care about their appearance so I doubt we will be able to sell those nanites to most space travelers, even if the effects are only temporary. Then again, I suppose the fear of being spaced isn't that big to start with so I doubt we'd sell many anyway. At least you drones don't have to waste time get outfitted with space suits every time you go out an airlock." Jeff said.
"Tell me about it, they take ten minutes to get in and out of and they ride up your butt so fast it's like they're trying to start a fire," Thurgood interjected.
"If you do not have any more questions Dr. Borg, this drone shall continue preparing for take off."
Jeff nodded his head in affirmation and fidgeted in his chair, trying to get comfortable in all the safety straps. He wished the Collective had installed more ergonomically designed seats. He understood that drones didn't care about comfort and that this particle rocket had been built with the single purpose of transporting drones and cargo to and from the Moon but that didn't make the trip any easier. They ought to build a hotel on the Moon just so then the Collective would be forced to build more comfortable rockets, then Jeff and could ride one of those whenever he had to fly out here. Of course that would mean he would get stuck traveling with tourists so maybe some discomfort was worth the peace and quiet.
Jeff's thoughts were interrupted when Thurgood decided to speak up, "So I was thinkifying this morning-"
Jeff had to cut in at Thurgood's choice of words. "You were 'thinkifying' Thurgood?"
"Well it was really more brainificating if you want to be technical about it. Anyway, it occurred to me that given how the Collective has changed its home country from the US to Brunei, where almost the entire population is now on the neural network, and how the Collective is the only group with a permanent residence on the Moon as well as plans to expand to Mars, is it really accurate to describe us as a private company? We're a mega-conglomerate that runs a country with holdings in outer space, seems like the people that write dictionaries should come up with a new word to describe us."
Thurgood's question caught Jeff by surprise (and not just because of Thurgood's use of a word like conglomerate) because it was actually a perfectly reasonable question. Despite its massive size, the Collective had never made a public stock offering. From a legal perspective, the company was owned by about one hundred drones and was subject to the laws that privately held companies had to abide by in various countries. Yet from a practical perspective, the Collective was one of the largest companies on the planet; owning majority shares in numerous companies worldwide, had a larger yearly income than most third-world countries, had effectively merged with the Brunei government, and was currently exploring the Solar System. The Collective should not be treated as just another company to be taxed and regulated, it should be welcomed as the savior it was.
"Drone, Thurgood brings up a good point. You guys should put some thought into it, I will as well."
"Very well Dr. Borg."
Author's Note: I tried to find some answer in the Star Trek Wiki as to how they create gravity on their ships but the closest I came was that the Federation technology was derived from a "flying belt" found in a Slaver stasis box so unfortunately I have to handwave this particular issue.
Also, did you know the Outer Space Treaty and Moon Treaty are real things? I didn't make them up for the story, the Outer Space Treaty is a legally binding document.