This is Altahalib-6. Here, the OPEC nations are superpowers.
Ah, the Brazilian States... Out here, the grass grows like weeds. It should; it's always rained on. It's a great place to raise cattle. Hence, the Ewings have a rancho out here...or two dozen.
Welcome to Southfork Mato Grosso. Out here, the herds of zebus breed like rabbits...or cavies, rather. The Ewings pay well to have them fed, watered, birthed, branded, and slaughtered...ESPECIALLY branded. Now, they've a more unique branding: the mark is shaped like the letters "JR."
More so than any of that, though, the Ewings pay well to have the cattle groomed. All over the ranchos, bugs fly. Alas, they only look like bugs from a distance. In reality, they're nanites.
What's a nanite, you ask. It's essentially a small robot; smaller than an android, but bigger than a microbot. Hence, they're also called nanobots. Because of their size, they have an infinite number of applications. In fact, many, for decades, have dreamed about having nanites replace insects in certain natural roles...or, perhaps, even be employed as pesticides in situations where chemical sprays would be too dangerous to use.
Hence, all of the gnats and flies have just about been replaced, on this rancho, with robotic gnats and flies. In their absence, they protect the cattle from pests; ticks, mostly...and vampire bats, from time to time.
They do a variety of things to fend off pests. Sometimes, they shoot optic blasts from their eyes. Sometimes, they shoot electric blasts from their antennae. Sometimes, they generate sonic/concussive blasts from their wings. And that's just PART of what they can do.
Here and there, throughout the ranchos, there are wooded copses. Here, hardwood trees grow tall, and conceal a little. These copses are home to the tamandua, the barbet, the manakin, the cavy, the sunbittern, the euphonia, the porcupine, the tinamou, the thrush, the opossum, the potoo, the nighthawk, the hoatzin, the tapeti, the wren, the wood-warbler, the tuco-tuco, the guan, the pampas deer, the screamer, the agouti, the grosbeak, the peccary, the ground dove, the quail-dove, the three-banded armadillo, the swift, certain salamanders, certain toads, certain tortoises, certain lizards...among other southern species. It's a shadowy pocket world where leaves fall and mushrooms grow. Within these copses, the fabric of reality tends to...unravel, a bit.
Atop a hardwood branch, a Rhipidomys climbing mouse perches...on his hind legs, wiggling his nose and whiskers. He's got a belly full of beer, no doubt; grass seed beer, to be more specific. (So...would that be a substitute for the hops, or for the grain?) He's got no opossum in a sack, though; he's too small, and not to mention to herbivorous, for that.
Some of his neighbors are opossums, in fact; Marmosa mouse opossums, to be more specific. Their mates, if you asked this climbing mouse, can be quite seductive. But then, they do raise their young in navel pouches...rather like the rat kangaroos of Oceania. He'll probably fall for such a female opossum's charms, later in life. It probably won't even matter to her that they're not the same genus...if she even knows what a genus is.
Something similar will happen sooner than he thinks...as a tiny portal of bovine magic opens, just above his furry midriff. Outside of his knowledge, a naked woman falls through that portal, and lands in his fur. Via a prolonged stay in the Bovine Dimension she's just fallen out of, she's now a ten thousandth her normal size. Hence, her world is now ten thousand times bigger. Both to her advantage and not, though, this world is NOT Dallas...the corporate city where most of her family lives.
Meet Hillary Barnes. Her hair is raven, and her boobs are big. Not too long ago, they were ten thousand times bigger...as she was. She's a scion of the Barnes family...one of Texas's richest families. For now, though, she might as well be a peasant girl. She's been stripped of everything...including her stature...and not to mention at least three dozen pairs of shoes that would've fit her, until now.
Above her, the portal vanishes, trapping her here. It's just as well; she has no idea how to use the Bovine Dimension to get back to Dallas. Plus, she might not want to go back right now. She's not sure...but she thinks the cops might be looking for her, back there...
It takes her a while, to absorb her new surroundings. She's like a flea hanging from a mouse's belly...if she isn't one. From where she hangs, she can hear her mount's belly, digesting all of those grass seeds. Sometimes, she feels like puking, hearing these noises. But then, she should try eating some of the algae that Ewing Oil sometimes uses to make biomass, sometime.
Not only that, but he's very high up, from the ground. Ms. Barnes isn't sure how she feels about that...yet. She doesn't like to see herself as a coward...even if she is a woman. O.T.O.H., her circumstances are VERY different from what she's used to...
The mouse hears a noise. He turns his head a lot...throwing his little passenger off-balance. But then, as far as a lot of people who she knows are concerned, she's ALWAYS off-balance. And the Ewings, a family who's rivals with hers, would always say that ALL the Barneses are off-balance, not just Hillary.
Before she knows it, her mount has taken off, up the tree, running. Now, she struggles more to hang from her mount's belly. Also, she bumps from the wood, as his fur bobs. It's a bumpy ride. It's about to get bumpier.
As he runs, his stomach makes a noise. Hillary wants to vomit. She falls off...and is lucky to catch his tail, while falling. From here, she still hangs. Alas, her ride is more precarious than before...if not just as bumpy.
Higher up, her mount stops, and listens. He seems secure enough; he doesn't keep running after he's stopped. This, Hillary is relieved by...although she must confess that she might be...falling in love, with this new spontaneous lifestyle of hers...needed though it is...
With thighs and arms, she clings to the mouse's tail. She's so hot right now...with estrus. And this mouse's tail...is so big. It's a lot bigger, in fact, than anything she'd expect from a mouse.
So, she starts jerking off...against the mouse's tail. Moments later, she's moaning. Now, she's in sexual paradise. Whoever knew that a mouse's tail could make such a magnificent dildo?
As she jerks off, she generates a lot of estrus. This attracts other males; rival males, if Hillary dares call them so.
From behind both her and her mount, a new fling creeps. It's a mouse opossum. He smells her estrus. And he's been inspired...both by her smell, and by the sight of her.
Gradually, he collects her nude body in his claws. He holds her up to his nose. He smells her, and brushes every corner of her with his whiskers.
She lies upside-down with her bare ass facing his face. He sticks out his tongue, and licks her from behind. For now, she feels like barfing. Then again, she might warm up to this, a bit later...assuming that a man who can see her doesn't come along.
Never before, as a man felt like this against her. If she was hating being small before, she could get used to this. It seems that men are SO much desirable, when she's more than ten thousand times smaller than they are...
Loving of what he's caught, the mouse opossum sticks Hillary into his navel. Naturally, male opossums don't have pouches. Even so, that's not to say that a male mouse opossum's navel can't hold a few things. Hillary, for example, doesn't fill up half his navel, when she's in it...or a tenth of it, even...
For now, it seems Ms. Barnes has found a new pimp. He's cute, too. Good thing he doesn't get eaten with her still inside his navel...
Within this copse, there's a house. It's on a cement platform, and has a lot of windows; glass walls, even. It's got water features, and dark-green landscaping plants. Everything is at right angles. There are wind chimes that're made of chrome metal.
A bronze Texas star makes up the keystone of the archway at the front gate. Such stars also hang from the outer walls of the house. A sign sits on the lawn...which is mostly Stenotaphrum grass. It gets watered a lot...both by the rain and by the irrigation system. It's the main estate of Southfork Mato Grosso...and hence, an Ewing facility.
In the gardens, many of the flowers grow to be as big as hibiscuses. But then, most of them ARE hibiscuses. Some, even, are isolated roses-of-Sharon.
Throughout the day, the bugs pollenate the plants. Alas, they're not actual bugs; they're nanites. Here, all of the bees, wasps, and stinging garden pests have been replaced by nanites. So far, they've been very loyal to the Ewings' will. The flowers couldn't look better. Too bad few ever come out here to see them.
Inside the house, nanites are being made, and repaired. Bionically, they resemble bees, wasps, gnats, flies, or other bugs. None of them look like bats or birds yet...but might start to, if the main Ewing who lives here gets greedy...
Meet Clement Ewing. He's an analyst, by nature. He's also the main creator of the Ewing cattle's grooming nanites. He clearly has an obsession with entomology. It's...just unclear as to whether it's a left-brained one, or a right-brained one. More regularly, though, he's a left-brained person.
He wears a helmet with a visor, as he works. The visor is programmed to offer HUDs of many different details about an object. One such HUD software highlights all of the main problems with something that's to be analyzed, and saves the wearer the trouble of having to do that himself.
In an aquarium, a sleeping tuco-tuco lies on his side. A tuco-tuco is like a gerbil. In the wild, they spend most of their lives beneath the surface. Here, this one gets all of the sleep he needs. Never does he ever fear of dying by a caracara's swooping.
Lately, Clement's been preoccupied with the ends of his nanites' "legs." They look good and all, but...he's wondering if they could potentially do more than look like an actual bug's legs...
His radiotelephone rings. He answers it, and puts it on speaker.
In many ways, Clement is still just a boy...despite being an Ewing. Even so, he has some sexual experience. As it usually goes, his best experience is currently his worst. As fun as it was...the girl who he did it with just so happened to be a Barnes.
Her name is Circe. At present, she's doing time in the Tarrant County slammer. As much as Clement almost hated to press charges against her, the other Ewings did. She was charged with sexual assault. It didn't even matter to the rest of the Ewings that they were the same age...or that it likely would've become completely consensual if the "assault" had lasted eight more seconds.
Clement almost doesn't believe it; Circe's calling him from prison. It seems she's adapted to prison life better than most of the Ewings would hope. Personally, though, Clement's kind of glad. He's rather warmed up to her, ever since the "assault."
Circe's not sure...but she thinks she's calling to warn Clement. All she knows is that her mother's been reported missing...and that there's at least three outstanding warrants for her arrest.
She's wanted in Lamar, Hopkins, and Dallas Counties, for sure. Circe is pretty sure that most of them are for sexual assault charges...but she doesn't know. She and her mother have fallen out of touch in recent years. Or rather, that's what Circe says. As for Clement, it's really hard to tell. But then, as an Ewing, it's virtually a family crime to concern one's self with such matters.
"I'd hate to think that she's coming your way," Circe tells him. "Seems unlikely that she could thumb a ride all the way from here to Mato Grosso. Anyway, I just feel like I have to tell you. I've been told that I get a lot of my sexual habits from her."
"I'm sure it runs in matrilines," he tells her. "And thank you, BTW. If your mother does attack me, and I survive, I'll try to put in a good word for you...with Tarrant County, if not with my family."
She smiles. Clement can't see her do it...but he can tell that she is. "Thanks. Not sure how much good it'd do...but thanks."
"Uh... Could you tell me what your mother's first name is, again? I know she's a Barnes, but..."
There's a disturbance in the magnetosphere, which causes Circe's answer to come through the receiver broken-up, and hard to decipher.
"Could," he asks her, "you go through that again? You broke up, there."
"My mother's first name," she tells him, in a lower tone, "is Hillary."