Chapter 25(OB)
Oh Emperor how it RAINED! It NEVER STOPPED!
It was very aptly called the wet season, as it was wetter than Jen's vagina outside! Night and day, it never stopped raining for even an instant. It wasn't heavy rain like during winter, just a constant light mist that continually drenched the place without fully blocking out the light.
It was hot all the time, absolutely stinking hot. Even in the very early morning before dawn it was always at least 28 degrees centigrade, and during the day it was always up in the high thirties, though rarely above 40 degrees centigrade. It was disgustingly humid, and the constant rain was as warm as the air! Just disgusting weather!
The rivers were steadily rising, but not yet quite high enough for a shallow water cargo boat to get up this far. It was getting harder and harder to find metal as everyone else tried making batteries to make up for the lowered solar power, and the violence was increasing dramatically as rival gangs killed over what little remained.
An army of men had been steadily making the Jen's Town bliss grass into heroin under Jen's direction in preparation for the boats arriving, and they now had over a Terran gravity metric ton of 100 percent pure heroin! WELL OVER ONE MILLION CREDITS WORTH!
If they could only keep the air flowing long enough for the boats to arrive, then they would be able to buy the mother of all solar farms! But keeping the hydrolysis unit powered was getting harder by the hour!
Jen was in the shed as always, alongside her large crew of assistants, her bodyguards, her husband Seth, and a number of Seth's key supporters. A slightly bleeding group of Jen's Shed militia soldiers had just returned from their biggest raid of the day, and had a meagre pile of useful metal laid at her feet in tribute. It was not even close to being enough to keep everyone alive.
"I need MORE metal!" Jen urged the militia men.
"This is all we could steal, we had to kill just to get this much," one of the Jen's Shed soldiers informed her gravely.
"We won't all last the night with this, I can't do the impossible!" Jen stated emphatically.
"FUCK! We are so close to the boats coming! Can you do nothing?!" Seth urged her.
Jen did have one last trick up her sleeve, something that she had been desperately hoping to avoid because of how dangerous it was. Jen sighed and explained the last remaining option to Seth.
"There is one way, only one way, that I can keep the power flowing now." Jen began.
Yes! Anything!" Seth urged her.
"It's extremely dangerous, and we will very quickly run out of food," Jen said fearfully.
"We have little choice," Seth said gravely.
"Yes husband. What I have in mind is using chemical luminescence to "turbocharge" a group of solar panels, use chemicals to make light for the panels," Jen explained.
"Like a child's glow stick or something?" Seth asked curiously.
"Yes husband, exactly the same principle as a glow stick, only thousands of times brighter and more powerful. It will be VERY dangerous," Jen said fearfully.
"How is a glow stick dangerous?" Seth asked incredulously.
"This one will be much larger, and be so many times brighter than the sun that anyone who looks at it will instantly go permanently blind," Jen explained.
Everyone in the room winced in horror at the thought.
"It will give enough light to the solar panels to super charge them, give enough power from the panels alone to run the hydrolysis unit single handedly. But it is horribly dangerous to our eyes, and will require insane amounts of food to provide the chemical energy to sustain the reaction." Jen continued.
"I will need you boys to build a box around a cluster of solar panels, with shiny corrugated iron walls. The gaps all have to be sealed light tight, but need a pair of pipes in the roof of the box to pour in the chemicals. With Seth's permission I will supervise the construction," Jen requested humbly.
"Anything, just keep us breathing," Seth insisted.
"Yes husband," Jen said obediently.
"I need as much yap-yap as we can get, this reaction will consume vast amounts of calories of chemical energy. Hurry," Jen told the men around her.
***...
Jen had serious doubts about how safe this was as she cowered behind a clay earthwork wall, with very thick clay smeared over her tightly closed eyes and face to keep out the light. They were about to test the safety of the new light box.
One poor man had drawn the short straw to be the one to pour the chemicals for the test. If he went blind, then the box needed more work on being light tight. If he was unharmed then the test would be deemed a success...
The crude light box covered 10 solar panels in shiny polished corrugated iron to reflect as much light as possible. Inside it was a large clear plastic bottle hanging from a crude metal frame, with a pair of thin black rubber hoses pushed all the way inside the bottle and glued to the bottom of the bottle so they wouldn't accidentally fall out.
The rubber hoses came out the roof of the box, had a LOT of slack all twisted up in loops to absorb as much light as possible, and connected at the ends to steel chemistry stands, plastic funnels over the raised end of each hose. An even longer third hose equalised the pressure between inside of the box and the outside atmosphere, this third hose ended some distance away, coiled hundreds of times and the end hidden inside a light absorbing container that wasn't air tight. The light box was itself covered by an angled tarpaulin to keep off the rain, and every conceivable gap in the corrugated iron was smeared with thick clay to stop the light.
The man operating the box had two chemical mixtures, one for each tube. These chemicals must NOT make contact with each other outside the light box, as the reaction would cause truly dangerous amounts of light, easily bright enough to cause instant blindness!
When these two chemical mixtures were poured into the separate funnels, gravity would push them down the hoses, and into the large clear plastic bottle in the light box. It would mix in the bottle, and instantly become the brightest chemical glow stick 1D8V-44 had ever seen!
The reaction would be over in seconds at this power level, but as long as it lasted, it would be BRIGHT!
If the light box was shown to be light tight, then Jen's crew would keep making and pouring the chemicals indefinitely. The new reagents would then flow into the bottom of the bottle and displace the old spent reagents, which would be pushed upwards and eventually overflow harmlessly onto the ground inside the light box.
As long as they had food to turn into chemical energy, this process could continue indefinitely, but the amount of food it would consume each hour was absolutely terrifying! As long as it lasted, those solar panels would be exposed to extreme amounts of light, giving abundant quantities of electricity, but the food would not last forever...
Jen estimated that they had a few days at most before this reaction consumed every last morsel of food. After that they were fucked, and not in the fun way!
"I'm pouring the chemicals now!" The man shouted fearfully.
Jen frantically covered her eyes with her hands, terrified of going blind if something went wrong.
"I poured it all! AHHH!" The man shrieked.
Jen gulped.
"I, I can still see! It made light but only the hose ends glowed. It just gave me a fright. It was bright but I didn't go blind!" The man called out in sick relief.
The entire crowd cheered.
Jen and the others washed the clay from their eyes with rain water. The experiment had been a success.
"Ok, we now have power for as long as we can keep making reagents from food. Let us pray that a boat arrives within the next 3 days, we are now in a race against time." Jen said gravely.
The crowd around her murmured grimly in agreement.
***...
For two days the people of Jen's Shed frantically worked around the clock converting their food supply into the high energy chemicals needed to create the turbocharged glow stick reaction.
They actually had slightly more air than they needed at the moment, and Seth, true to form, was sending bottles of surplus air to neighbouring towns the Jen's Shed forces had been raiding mere days ago. Seth had not wanted any of the neighbouring towns to die, these people had been his neighbours and friends mere months ago, and only raw survival had forced him to wage war against them.
Seth's generosity was angering some of the people of Jen's Shed, but with Jen obediently agreeing with everything Seth decided, these people had little choice but to accept his decisions.
Seth's generosity to enemy factions was doubtless saving lives, and was the "right" thing to do. When this was all over, these bitter enemies would once more become neighbours. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea to extend an olive branch of peace while the situation remained desperate, it might make the reconciliation process easier later.
The enemy towns had of course accepted these gifts of air frantically, and had not harmed the men bringing them air bottles. The raids by other towns had ceased for as long as Seth kept sending them air, and Jen's Shed had enjoyed an unprecedented two whole days of peace for the first time in months.
Half the food supply was gone now, but the radio chatter indicated that the boats were already arriving further down the river, the boats were so close now! The boats were loaded with solar panels for sale!
The Wsuians had simply been selling the stolen solar panels to the boat merchants for money! The people of 1D8V-44 were now able to buy back their own property!
As well as buying back the stolen property, a merchant ship had arrived in orbit a few weeks ago and the space port had bought a mountain of stuff that the beleaguered population desperately needed.
Also vital was the number of people who were now officially registered Wsuian customers. Z8C kept detailed records of names of everyone who had placed an order to buy some slave or other Wsuian product from him. Even those who hadn't yet handed over the money were still considered customers in the records, as it took time for Z8C to get to people in person to receive payment. Every single one of these names was given to the Wsuian 302nd light infantry regiment, and added to their "do not rob (too much)" list.
The boat merchants were all Wsuian customers now, as was everyone else who had the money. Z8C now had tens of thousands of customers demanding to buy 679 line wives, and he was apparently moving from place to place with a full military escort in commandeered boats, just collecting payments for the orders and giving paperwork as proof of purchase payment.
As this number of customers exponentially increased, the Wsuian kleptomania was exponentially decreasing in scale and severity, as the S99's were compelled by their own control genes not to overly antagonise Wsuioo's customers. 1D8V-44 was just lucky that the population almost all grew drugs and could therefore actually afford to be a Wsuian customer, on most Imperium planets playing host to a Wsuian regiment, the vast majority of the population were not rich enough to afford this escape loophole...
The planet was still an ongoing war zone, but for now the fighting between the Imperial Guard and Eldar had moved on to other parts of the planet. It would still most likely take many years of bitter fighting before the war was over, but for Jen and Seth at least, the war was over for the moment.
Jen was just directing the creation of yet another batch of chemicals when the sounds of distant cheering filtered through the rain.
"THE BOATS!" The distant voices were shouting.
Jen gasped in wonderful relief, they were now saved!
***...
"3 MILLION credits!" Seth screamed in jubilation.
Jen cheered, she was so proud of her husband's business success! He was now a millionaire from selling over a Terran metric ton of 100 percent pure heroin!
It had actually been more like 3.4 million credits Seth had made, but Seth had already spent slightly over 200 thousand credits immediately buying a truly massive solar power grid big enough to cope with all their power needs twice over. The men were already frantically installing this new power grid, and would have full power for their hydrolysis unit within the hour.
The new solar power grid would generate over an entire megawatt of power, though slightly less in this rainy weather, and came with enough storage batteries to last them the next 3 days. Seth and Jen were currently down by the river and Seth had just finished selling the last of the heroin. Many of the men of Jen's Shed were with them near the canyon.
Jen's Shed had a surviving population of slightly less than 100 men, men who were still unable to safely return to living on their own farms for fear of being robbed again by the Wsuians. These people still needed Seth or another Wsuian customer for their continued survival, and given how much Seth had tried to save every single person he could, most were wanting to stay with Seth.
This left slightly over 3.1 million credits divided between slightly less than 100 people, making about 30 thousand credits each if the remaining money was shared equally. And knowing Seth, it WOULD be shared equally, he was after all an extremely decent person...
"An equal share for every man!" Seth predictably shouted a moment later.
The men all cheered. Jen cheered too, like an obedient wife should, despite personally thinking that Seth deserved more money than everyone else. Seth was the husband, and this was his decision, so Jen accepted it gladly, regardless of her personal misgivings.
"You also get a share Jen," Seth told her happily.
"But, but, but... Yes husband, "Jen stammered in happy bewilderment.
To Jen's horror, men then started chanting her name in celebration!
"JEN! JEN! JEN!" The crowd began chanting.
Jen wailed in horror! They should be chanting her HUSBAND'S name! This was unthinkable!
To Jen's even greater horror, Seth himself started chanting her name too! This was wrong, the chauvinist wife should NEVER get the credit like this! This was against the natural order of things! This was SINFUL!
Jen felt so dirty and bad, but with Seth chanting too she was unable to protest, and just had to stand there as she was given all this credit that should be given to her husband!
It had been bad enough when the town had been named "Jen's" Shed rather than Seth's Shed, she had protested against that but Seth had insisted. But this was even worse! Just because she alone had saved almost 100 lives, didn't give her the right to upstage her husband like this!
Jen could not make a scene about this, that would embarrass Seth even more. Jen merely started to silently cry, feeling ashamed for upstaging her husband like this! She was a TERRIBLE wife!
Jen was then lifted aloft by the cheering crowd, and carried all the way back to "her" shed by the jubilant crowd on foot! She could not stop crying, SETH should be getting all this credit! She should be the carpet beneath the feet of her heroic husband, the adoring crowds were not supposed to carry the CARPET aloft like a hero!
Jen could do little besides just go along for the ride as she was carried for miles through the rain by the jubilant crowd. She gazed around to take her mind away from her unladylike hero worship.
The rain was constant but not heavy in this heat, and she could see 50 meters through this gentle soaking mist. The farm was barely recognisable now, it looked more like a demilitarised zone than the mostly empty bare land it had previously been. Short curving defensive clay earthwork walls were everywhere, with piles of fist sized stones set up behind them to provide ammunition for the crude slings the soldiers used with the recent ammunition shortage, a shortage that Seth had just ended by buying thousands of surprisingly expensive bullets from the boats.
The unbroken original solar panels all over the farm had been lifted up and moved far closer to Jen's Shed, right into the town to prevent theft, and the wires had all been shortened to let Jen corrode the extra copper in her batteries. The shrapnel from the eldar plasma bombs combined with the recent fighting had unfortunately destroyed more than half of Seth's original panels, and the broken solar panels had been ripped apart for the conductor metals they contained. The radio antenna had likewise been moved into the town, as had everything else essential that could be moved.
All of the other sheds had been disconnected from the power grid, to let the wires be used to make batteries, making Jen's Shed the only shed to still have power. These other sheds had been fortified with sandbags and clay to function like outlying fortifications, both to store the recent excess of bliss grass and to act as defensive points for squads of Jen's Shed militia soldiers.
At its height, Jen's Shed had had over 150 men, but the casualties had been gruesome in the raids over air and metal. It had taken tens of Terran tons of metal to keep Jen's batteries going, and it had cost far too many lives to provide this much. That pile of corroded metal slag outside the shed was now so big that it was just ridiculous!
As well as the excessive militarisation of the farm, the crop fields had been expanded enormously, expansion eventually limited only by manure shortages. Without the massive labor force, it would be simply impossible for Seth alone to work such huge amounts of crops, it was agriculture on a gigantic scale. It was now obvious how they had made so much bliss grass and kept such a large food surplus, almost every bit of muddy clay ground available had been used to grow crops.
Jen's too large borrowed white tee shirt was completely soaked from the rain, and had become totally see through. It clung to her skin in a hot and clammy way, showing every curve and contour of the skin it no longer hid from view, revealing her white lace bridal lingerie bra, her bulging pregnant belly, and her complete lack of panties! The only other things she wore right now was her bridal sandals and a backpack air bottle.
The boats today had unfortunately not been carrying any women's clothing for her to buy, as there was such little demand for them out here, and such items needed to be specially ordered over the radio. Given that the boats had only just arrived to save their lives today, the women's clothing was pretty low on Jen's current list of priorities.
The rain was very warm, 36 degrees centigrade at last check, and it was completely soaking her slender body. Unlike the cold season, Jen was perfectly built to cope with this disgusting heat and humidity, and was coping far better than the men were. The men were mostly stripped right down as much as modesty permitted in this terrible heat, wearing only backpack air bottles, shoes and underpants, and a few were wearing even less!
All around her was glistening wet bulging muscles on ruggedly manly men, but Jen was not even remotely interested in any of them, except Seth of course. Jen had been greatly enjoying the way the wet season forced Seth to wear practically nothing at all times, the sight of HIS glistening wet bulging muscles gave her a noticeable dampness problem!
If Jen was not so mortified about the way that she was so rottenly upstaging Seth, then she would be admiring the loin enflaming view of Seth right now. As it was, she was in tears of distress, and just wanting Seth to be being praised instead of her!
To a woman with Jen's upbringing and control genes, being socially elevated above her husband was deeply distressing. She was the quintessential submissive woman, desiring to completely submit to her lover. She craved a Dominant and submissive dynamic, with her husband dominant over her. She did not especially like pain, but she LOVED submission, and felt at her most complete when her imprinted husband took control and got all the credit.
Jen would far prefer to be cleaning a toilet while being taken for granted than being praised far above her imprinted husband. She was intended to be a doormat for abusive men, but had instead been sold to a kind and good man who truly loved her. It was wonderful the way he was so kind to her, but sometimes he went too far, like now, was TOO nice to her, and she got upset.
On other planets 679 wives were right now fearfully giving head to abusive tyrants who beat them with bottles and punched their faces. They were scrubbing toilets while their husbands cheated on them and took them for granted. They were desperately in love with husbands who did not truly love them in return. Jen had been prepared from birth to marry this sort of man, had been taught that this was not only acceptable but actually commendable.
But Seth was so different, and it scared her sometimes. Jen was duty bound to accept her husband just as he was, but his relationship behaviour still scared her. Jen had grown up in fear of the domestic violence she had been promised would happen, been so terribly afraid of the bottles and fists of her future husband. When she had been instead sold to the kind and gentle Seth, Jen had been so relieved that she had cried. But now she felt a different sort of fear, a more philosophical fear.
Jen's feelings about her marriage were deeply complicated. She loved Seth in the all consuming way that only an imprinted 679 line wife could love a man, she was bound to him for life, would never forsake him. She had absolutely no choice, but she felt that she would choose to love him even of her own free will if she was able to, as he was just so incredibly kind to her. But she also had deeply different cultural values from Seth, values that were completely incompatible.
Jen very firmly believed that it was a mandatory religious requirement for her to be a complete and total doormat for her husband. Her submission genes already compelled her to obey him completely no matter what, but it went deeper than that. This was about attitude and intent.
Jen always sought to be submissive to Seth unless it was an absolute emergency situation. She always sought to give away what little autonomy her submission genes allowed her to have, but Seth consistently tried to give her MORE autonomy from his rightful rule! She kept humbling herself lower, and Seth persistently lifted her back up higher than her natural station!
Normally Jen just obediently tolerated her husband's bizarre will, but this right now was a step too far, this right here was a wake up call that something was TERRIBLY wrong!
To Jen's added horror, the crowd of men started singing respectful songs about her!
"Who's the leader of the group that's right for you and me?"
"J-3-N, J-E-N, R-E-N-WICK!"
"Jen Renwick, Jen Renwick, she's the best, Jen Renwick, she really saved all of our hides hides hides hides!"
"People came from near and far to use her bat-teries, J-3-N, J-E-N, R-E-N-WICK!"
"Hidey hodey hidey we were as welcomed as could be, she's the girl, that saved our lives, won-derful lady!"
Jen shook her head frantically.
"No! I'm not the leader! My husband is the leader not me!" Jen insisted.
"Jenny Jenny Jenny she's as humble as can be..." The men began singing.
Jen was programmed not to create an embarrassing scene in public, so she quieted down and just let them carry her and sing. Seth was helping carry her, so that made her instincts somewhat calmer about these men carrying her, and she did not resist, merely felt really distressed that Seth wasn't getting all the credit.
The men were clearly very nearly overheated, and took it in turns supporting her weight in this warm rain. It was like living permanently in a warm shower, making it difficult to do much without overheating. Jen at least had the body to cope with this heat, but the pregnant belly wasn't helping.
Jen's baby was currently kicking in her womb, helping take her mind off her current situation. It was such a weird feeling when it kicked, it's way of letting her know that Seth's baby was in there. Jen found it deeply comforting to be reminded that a part of Seth was growing inside her. Jen focused desperately on the reassuring little kicks to take her mind off all the people praising her for saving their lives.
Jen was too tired to deal with this singing crowd. She had not slept for longer than 40 minutes at a time in over 2 months! The last two weeks in particular had seen her sleep time reduced to almost nothing, she was woefully tired. Jen was getting close to her 19th birthday, but she felt more like a thousand years old right now! She was just wretched with fatigue.
Jen gasped with relief as the outer earthworks around the town of Jen's Shed came into view up ahead, this nightmare was almost over.
The town of Jen's Shed was a crude affair of tiny clay mud huts, with a mixture of clay and rocks for the hut walls and with corrugated iron roofs, the roofs little more than single corrugated iron sheets weighed down with rocks to keep them from being knocked down or blowing off in the wind. The huts were all clustered closely around the shed at the centre of the settlement, and small groups of men shared each hut as a place to sleep.
The town was tiny, maybe a quarter of a hectare in area including the outer earthworks, and it was very muddy and dirty, but not too unsanitary due to how vital sewerage was as fertiliser. It was currently very soggy from the rain, with the walkways turned into muddy streams in this incessant downpour. The clay structures of the town were continually eroding away in the rain, and clay had to be daily reapplied to the structures to maintain them. The town was especially muddy as a result of the "runny" clay structures.
The huts did not have power, but did contain large air bottles to last the entire night when power generation was good. The huts provided little more besides shelter from elements and enemy fire, and were only really used for sleeping. They were too low to stand up in, more like a child's cubby house in size than an actual building, as they were labor intensive to make and didn't really need to be any bigger than this to serve their basic purpose. At least 3 men lived in each hut, depending upon the size and location of the hut in question.
Around the town was a system of long raised clay mounds that were large and bulky enough to provide some serious cover for soldiers hiding behind them. The mounds were all at least a meter tall, and all had long bits of thick rebar or even rebar mesh embedded in the top of the mounds like a fence to make it more difficult for invaders and unwanted intruders to get in over the top of the mounds, but still let defensive sling fire pass through mostly unhindered. The mounds did not have sheer sides, but rather had gently sloping sides that were more stable in this high gravity, especially in this weather.
In between the ends of the various long mounds were crude metal gates and doors, made mostly of hinged rebar mesh frames covered in corrugated iron, with metal crossbars holding them closed against invaders. One of these gates was large enough for the quad bike to get in, and was the strongest of the crude defensive gates and was the main entrance to the town.
The original surviving solar panels had been put on mobile frames and were moved around the town as needed, often resting on the roofs of the huts, and constantly angled to point at the sun. At the moment a vast new solar farm was taking shape in a field of bare bedrock to one side outside the town, and the still growing solar farm already covered an area larger than the entire town!
At the very centre of the town was the shed, the most important part of the town. The lower half of the shed, and it's external rain water tanks, was hidden behind a 3 meter thick layer of crude sandbags, with well tied unused sturdy synthetic fabric grain sacks full of rocks and clay to make the sandbags.
The sandbag wall was currently over 4 meters tall, the maximum safe height for sandbag walls in this gravity, and was getting gradually wider over time. This wall of sandbags protected the occupants of the shed from small arms fire, something proven effective many times during the course of the recent troubles, but unfortunately still left the roof of the shed exposed to enemy fire.
The entrance to the shed was protected by a series of carefully angled separate sandbag walls that let the quad bike in with only slight difficulty, but protected against all possible angles of enemy small arms fire.
It was a low tech but very effective fortification that had kept Jen safe from countless attacks. The roof had unfortunately been shot full of holes, but these holes had been plugged with a thick chemical resin Jen had made, which at least kept out the constant rain.
It was just a shame that the wall of sandbags also trapped in rainwater, which was now steadily flowing in under the corrugated iron walls of the shed to flood over the floor with a few centimetres of water, which then required even more sandbags to redirect this water out the shed door and away from as much of the floor as possible.
The other notable feature of the town was the massive corroded metal slag pile, beginning just to one side of the shed entrance and extending away in a line into a more out of the way place. At the far end of this vaguely tadpole shaped pile the pile got really massive, and locals had been trying with limited success to shape the pile into a crude snowman shape for fun.
Jen thought that the slag pile was tadpole shaped, but the men all insisted that it was shaped like a sperm cell, and called the crude slag snowman "Spermy the slagman", and had impaled bits of rebar in the sides to give "him" arms, legs, nose, and... genitals. Jen found it slightly creepy, and occasionally during her brief naps even had nightmares about Spermy the slagman trying to rape people with his fearsome rebar genitalia!
Spermy the slagman was getting very runny and droopy in the rain, and was now a significant local hazard for lead poisoning. Being pregnant, Jen had been absolutely obsessed with keeping herself safe from accidentally ingesting this pervasive lead, using a homemade soap she had produced in the lab to scrub herself nearly raw with surgical levels of cleanliness.
When she found the time, Jen would have to get poor Spermy the slagman all dug up, dissolved in chemicals, and put in a high wattage electrochemical reaction to retrieve every last atom of the hazardous metals if possible. In fact the entire town and surrounding areas would need to be dug up and chemically purified of the hazardous metals, something that might take many years. The environmental impact of Jen's batteries had been devastating, especially as this area grew food!
The main gate to the town was opened for the crowd carrying Jen as they approached, held open by jubilant Jen's Shed militia soldiers. The singing had not stopped and now other people in the town were joining in with singing these songs about Jen!
She was carried through the town gate by the joyful crowd of half naked men, and carried by sloshing feet through the lead contaminated muddy water that flooded the "streets" of the town. Jen was secretly glad that she wasn't herself walking through that contaminated muddy filth. She was actually very clean right now from being carried through the rain for miles, which might save her skin from such a harsh washing today.
The men carried Jen into her shed, but didn't seem in any great hurry to put her down, just holding her aloft and singing as she was "crowd surfed" hither and yon around the crowded shed. About half the population was currently involved with the new power grid installation, the remaining half were mostly now in the shed celebrating.
Jen almost wept with relief when the 3 Plowman brothers lifted up Seth and added him to be crowd surfed with Jen, and the people FINALLY started singing songs about Seth's generosity in trying to make sure no one was left behind. Jen happily sang along with THESE songs, and got more into the spirit of the celebration.
Jen calculated that the town now had enough new solar panels already installed outside to provide 100 percent hydrolysis unit power, and she had humbly made sure that Seth had bought enough fully charged rechargeable grid storage batteries to last them 72 hours anyway, giving them all 3 days to get the new solar farm installed before it was a problem, letting half the men slack off to celebrate like this.
The vicious fighting over air was now over, they were all making a fortune, and had all survived the most deadly period of their entire lives. They had every reason to celebrate like this.
***...
The celebration did not slow down as night fell, more and more men were calling it a night from installing the new solar panels, and were coming into the town to add to the feverish celebration. The fully charged purchased storage batteries were now all safely installed inside the shed to the power grid, and the hydrolysis unit was running at full power rapidly refilling empty air bottles. They were all safe now, though the celebrations were getting ever more raucous.
Jen's chemistry assistants had gotten into the distilled alcohol in Jen's stock of chemical reagents, and were sharing this alcohol with everyone to celebrate surviving what was now dubbed the "air wars". The alcohol was only fuelling further revelry, and the singing was reaching maximum volume.
Jen, true to form, had been trying to wait on people, but the men had started to show sexual interest with the alcohol lowering their inhibitions, and Jen had had to flee to Seth's side before any overly excited drunks got too hands on with her.
Jen was utterly exhausted. She had worked longer hours than anyone else, and been the only one who was not able to have proper sleep breaks. For months she had worked literally around the clock to keep all these people breathing, had simply not had time for sleep beyond a few short naps each day.
She had given everything she was able to give, with duty and devotion, at all times being as humble as she possibly could, and had saved a lot of lives. And now people were trying to PRAISE her for it!
Wsuian wives should NEVER be praised like this, their services should ALWAYS be taken for granted! Jen neither expected nor desired nor APPRECIATED having her hard work and service acknowledged like this! A 679 line wife should not be THANKED! Her service should be taken for granted!
Jen was a carpet, a doormat, something that serves faithfully without ever drawing attention to herself. If people feel the need to thank a carpet they are walking on, then obviously that carpet is doing something wrong!
To be honest Jen felt almost offended in a way. She also felt deeply troubled because a small sinful part of herself was actually enjoying being acknowledged like this. This sinful pleasure made her feel even worse, and was upsetting her deeply held religious beliefs about wives.
Jen was just so tired, she wanted to sleep so badly, but the celebrations just went on and on! And it was all focused on HER!
Would this nightmare ever end!
***...
To be continued