# Mother of Hydrogen (part 7 of 11)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [148], part 7 of 11. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (Text), 2012-11 (from the career record), https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the money step (Global Village Development Bank, 2009), before the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Contains Harappa, the target design for mass relocation, expressed as fiction.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - Mother of Hydrogen (2012): Novel drawing on the shelter, meditation and pandemic work.
  - In a Page (2010): A series of one-page papers, mostly from spring 2010, each putting one argument on a single sheet. (suggested by machine)
  - The New Economy: out of money, out of time, but not out of ideas (2010): One-page paper: the richest fifth are eating the planet, so the next economy has to be at peace with other... (suggested by machine)
  - The Big Deal (2011): Four-essay blog series arguing that government has hit hard limits, so civil society, working with... (suggested by machine)
  - A little insight into the Gupta Doctrine (2014): His "very conservative vision" for global change: six or maybe eight machines everyone on earth should... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - fiction draws on: The work that fed the fiction.
  - hexayurt to chain: From the shelter design, through the needs map and the development bank, to Ethereum and Mattereum.
  - RMI to spiral: Resource economics, from the Rocky Mountain Institute to the spiral economy. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - goat rodeo to warlords: The goat rodeo idea, from a 2010 blog post to a 2011 one-page paper to the opening chapter of Warlords, Inc. (2015). (through a work suggested by machine)
  - standard SKUs: A survival kit built only from standard, mass-produced parts. (through a work suggested by machine)
- Ideas whose earliest source in this archive is this one: Harappa
- Ideas developed here: Hexayurt
- Topics: Fiction-led: Mother of Hydrogen — peter, harry, cadets (71%); Fiction-led: Mother of Hydrogen — harry, yevish, president (17%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: Harappa (14 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); Mother of Hydrogen (7 here; 5 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); real assets (2 here; 7 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); camping gear (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); early warning (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); NaNoWriMo (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); refugees (7 here; 84 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 3 undated); social order (1 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); India (7 here; 88 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); citizens (5 here; 63 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): real assets; Harappa; social order; camping gear; early warning
- Importance: core-text score 1.00 (1.00 is the top), number 1 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [108] [User:Vinay Gupta/The Unplugged (2006)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/108.md): The Unplugged (2006): the earlier statement of the same long-term vision
  - [224] [The Unplugged: The Videos - Shareable (2010)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/224.md): The Unplugged (2006): the earlier statement of the same long-term vision
  - [822] [Mother of Hydrogen, a novel (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/822.md): same career work: Mother of Hydrogen
  - [235] [The Perimeter: Mythos as Science Fiction and other works (2024)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/235.md): close in content (cosine 0.92)
- On the same works, just before: [725] [Vinay Gupta l Plausible utopias | Meaning 2012 (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md); [395] Open Data Ireland 25 October inaugeral meeting (2012); [396] [Transparency International launch event, Dublin (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/396.md)
- On the same works, just after: [391] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (4) (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/391.md); [393] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (2) (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/393.md); [394] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/394.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: Mother of Hydrogen, document, 2012-11, https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [148], https://guptaoption.com/texts/148.md.

## Passages, part 7 of 11
[passage 84](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) of the Senior Cadet period. To make sure that I don't fuck up, I spend half an hour in a mirror, practicing The Puppet's ways. I haven't analyzed exactly how it all works but I get the basics. A certain amount of emotion and disconnection is natural enough at a time like this, we're all going our separate ways, all becoming parts of something different, something new. Our lives, for most of us, or another year in the service for the others. It's the same mess hall that we ate in a year ago, when I went under. I look with both sets of eyes at the same time, and it all makes perfect sense. From a human perspective, everything is fine. They're young, healthy, happy, productive cogs, each perfectly its own shape, working in The Machine. They didn't design the machine, they didn't build the machine, they're cogs. Says so right on the box. Cog to my left hands me the water jug to pass to cog on my right. I pass it. I'm a cog too, in the water-jug-delivery machine. That's just good manners. Good cog, good cog. The Machine tells itself, and tells us, that it's saving the world. But as you know, we had to kill the world to save it. That's good ol' John Ford Junior IV, the real architect of our civilization, the Last Good Christian who inspired the Antichrist, President Knight, to turn against our Godly Ways. You hear it in the streets sometimes, usually from homeless people, but a lot of people believe it in the privacy of their own homes, serpents of hatred wrapped around their bibles. I've spent a year dead rather than being a Cog. I realize that inside, from within their own heads, they're people, just like me. Outside, head-heart-and-hands, much the same. Some tall, some short, but much the same, much the same. But it's the patterns of relationships that do it. A brick in a wall is the same as a brick falling from the 99th floor on to somebody's head, the difference is only position and momentum. Every one of these kids is a person, a human being, forced by their parents, their country and their circumstances into these straightjackets. Position and momentum. I'm overwhelmed by the humanity of it all. I must look upset, there's concern from... Berg, William Berg opposite me. He says, and it's completely genuine "I understand what you're going through, Brother, I feel it too, right here" he thumps his chest "in my heart. It's been a privilege and an honour serving with you, and I'm glad we've been friends." I have literally no idea who this man is. He's a performance, going through the motions in his little lost world, and I realize we're all lost here. They find their place in The Machine, and as long as they don't question its overall functions, they're fine. He's not relating to me, he's relating to my function relative to his

[passage 85](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) I have literally no idea who this man is. He's a performance, going through the motions in his little lost world, and I realize we're all lost here. They find their place in The Machine, and as long as they don't question its overall functions, they're fine. He's not relating to me, he's relating to my function relative to his in The Machine. I'm Bunk 41, I'm Second Rifle, I'm Sim Pod 4, I'm Right Flank, Left Wing, Rear Forward Gunner, I'm... Senior Cadet Vine. Senior Cadet Vine knows the dance. I jam my hand across the table, and he meets it with his, and we shake hands and squeeze them tight for a precise half-second longer than a handshake, and he says "Proud to have served with you!" and I reply "An honor! Will you stay in the service?" and he says "no, I'm going to go back to my sweetheart, and we're going to get married" and I say "congratulations!" and there's a rousing cheer and it's the best thing ever. Everyone thinks it's fabulous. It's the best. It's taken a year of being an automaton to find compassion for them, but I have. I'm going to have to look elsewhere to find a way out of this. I'm going to have to break right through this veil of tears, and out into the wilds. I could even look for whoever's designing the brainwashing, mandating the drugs, all of that. I could look for the unseen hand at the wheel, but when I get there, it's going to be another cog, blindly turning out the specifications for other cogs, in the cog specification subsystem of The Machine. It's just a blind maze. It all drains right out of me, the cadet thing, I'm as empty as I was on that bathroom floor after Induction. It's time to go home. ===== I go home from the base, in my greys, a Senior Cadet in everybody's eyes, but inside I'm a hollow man. There's nothing left. I arrive on my own doorstep a stranger, and ring the bell. Mom opens the door, and she's done something very, very unusual. She's holding a beer, for me, on the doorstep. She presses it into my hand, and pulls me through into the lounge without the traditional Mom Thing we always do. She sits me down, and my father is there too, also with a beer. It's some ritual of adulthood. We clink glasses, and she says "Welcome home, son. What do you need?" I think about whether to give a socially acceptable response, let The Puppet answer, or to say something real. "I don't know, Mom, I don't know" and then I put my head on her shoulder, and Dad comes and sits beside me, and we slowly drink beer and watch time passing. I'm 18 years old. I don't even remember my 18th birthday, but I got through the Senior Cadet year without becoming a cadet. But in the process, I

[passage 86](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) "I don't know, Mom, I don't know" and then I put my head on her shoulder, and Dad comes and sits beside me, and we slowly drink beer and watch time passing. I'm 18 years old. I don't even remember my 18th birthday, but I got through the Senior Cadet year without becoming a cadet. But in the process, I got lost, and I don't know who I am any more. I wonder if this is success or failure from Peter's point of view, and then I start to cry. She puts her arm around me, and Dad too, and they hold me for a while, and then I go upstairs, and I lie down, and the tears continue to come. The World! The World! What has it come to? I can't find a place, I can't find a place to be. ===== I lie in bed for a month, depressed, weepy. It all seems so pointless, so violent, I can't wrap my head around any of this. I put on a brave face in front of my sisters, but when they're not around, I try to let it show, try to make it clear to my parents how fucked I feel. They accept, they understand, but I'm out of their range. Nobody really knows what to do. That's not surprising: we're brainwashing a generation. The others, they're all around me, going forwards with their lives, and I'm stuck out here, alone in the white hell of knowledge, seeing the lies, seeing the lines, seeing what we're really doing as a people and as a culture, and there's nothing I can do about it, there's no way out, back or forwards. Eventually I realize I've shaken The Puppet out of my system, and that helps, but I'm still in dreadful shape. Eventually I decide I need to see Peter. Peter invites me to come out to see him, and it's mid-Summer so I have time, so I do. I fly to Seattle, and he picks me up from the airport in the van, which now sports trays of seedlings against every window. I squeeze into the vehicle, more crowded with junk than ever, and he looks me over carefully. He's driving manual out of the built-up area, on to the freeway. Once we're on automatic, he says "Son, I'm proud of you." More tears. "I don't understand anything any more, Uncle Peter, what the hell are we doing? What the hell is going on?" He takes me by the hand, and says in slow, measured words, clearly concerned "Every generation goes through this, Harry. The accomodation between Man and the Machine." I look at him and realize that he's got me through this with my soul intact, I haven't been hacked by the State like poor Emma, slid and fallen - but I'm not helped, not by any of this. I wonder where we're going. Peter continues, and it breaks my heart "If I had any answers, to the big

[passage 87](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) Machine." I look at him and realize that he's got me through this with my soul intact, I haven't been hacked by the State like poor Emma, slid and fallen - but I'm not helped, not by any of this. I wonder where we're going. Peter continues, and it breaks my heart "If I had any answers, to the big questions, about how we live, about what to do next, I'd be a second Krishna and my life's work would be our Gita. I'm just a man too, Peter. I'm Awake, I can see what's happening just the same as you, and I'm 40 years older." It sits between us, this moment, soft and torn, as fragile as a wounded eye. I look at him and say "what the hell are we going to do?" and he says, without any hesitation "keep on keeping on." I ponder, I don't know how to take it. We're headed straight East, into the boonies, middle of nowhere. I realize that I don't understand what he means. Peter doesn't catch the disconnect, and I don't know how to ask him. Then, unexpectedly, he puts on a piece of music. Grateful Dead, nearly a hundred years old. Box of Rain. The music is pathetic, the recording is horrible, and the lyrics are exactly where I am right now, lost and abandoned and, even in the heart of my family, completely alone. I want to punch him. You old hippie bastard. Finally he says something I can understand, something that helps. "We've been at this a while, Son, we've been at this for thousands of years. I don't think it's getting any easier." And then he holds his arms out in a cross, and mimes hammering in nails, and I get it, I understand the whole thing. We're doing the best we can, and it's not really enough. The van drives on, and the old bastard insists on playing more music from the dawn of time, and plinking along on his bloody mandolin. He can't play a goddamned note and I want to wrap the thing around his neck, but he's not going to let me get away with anything. Three hours later when we arrive at... where the hell are we? he switches back to manual, and I feel a lot, lot better. I almost feel like myself again. Most mysterious. We're kilometers up a dirt track in the woods, slightly left of the middle of nowhere. In the clearing, there are four or five small log cabins, one of which may be a chicken coup. There are half a dozen small children, led by a tiny girl wearing dungarees who's the eldest of the group, but very small for her age, carrying an actual chicken across the yard to a strapping woman in a denim skirt, hair tied up in a red scarf. She's about 40. "Here's the boy, Annie! What do you think?" She looks me over, "Needs supper!" she says, and leads

[passage 88](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) a tiny girl wearing dungarees who's the eldest of the group, but very small for her age, carrying an actual chicken across the yard to a strapping woman in a denim skirt, hair tied up in a red scarf. She's about 40. "Here's the boy, Annie! What do you think?" She looks me over, "Needs supper!" she says, and leads us inside, the hen under her arm. We file inside, the kids very quiet and well behaved, and I wonder where the hell I am. Inside the house there are dozens, no, make that hundreds of pictures of old people, mostly black-and-white paper pictures behind glass, yellowed by age. They're tiled on the walls, they're on top of every flat surface, they're laminated under the table's surface. We're in an open-plan kitchen-bedroom-livingroom-studio-loft. An older man, probably older than Peter follows us in from outside and sits down on a chair. He's short, tan, with a mustache and a cloth cap. His forearms are huge, with a faded tattoo of an anchor on one forearm. "Chad." Annie inspects one of the feet of the hen, and applies cream, then instructs the kids to take it back to the henhouse and make themselves scarce. "I've got the kids today." I'm thinking "commune." Peter is drinking water, and engaged in some kind of mindmeld with Chad. They just sit there, breathing in rythm. I'm tempted to join them, but I'm so burned out. Annie washes her hands, then sits down at the table with us. She ignores the men, and looks at me very closely. "So Peter tells me you beat the Induction?" Oh shit. It hits me in a flash. "Peter's Network." I'm a fucking vaccine. There's a moment of rising panic. Tool? Person? Tool? Person? Am I a pawn, or am I... Then I freeze, and relax. "Yes, I guss I did, but it wiped me out. But I don't believe any of it, this New America crap. It's a secular religion over the same old Imperalist bullcrap." Annie nods, approves. "Yep, for a Senior Caded as of a month ago, I'd say that's a bona fides miracle." I think about it. I try to imagine William Berg shaking hands with me over the table discussing the Empire. I realize he'd be as unable to see it as I'm unable to see a way out of this mess. Annie says "I don't think there's any reason to doubt yourself, Harry. You're the first person we're aware of to shake it. They're psychomorphing a generation. They're closing down dissent for keeps." We're part of a proud history, I guess. Civil rights movement, anti-draft movement, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the anti-war movement, Amnesty, all of these things. And I suppose the Induction is, yeah... yeah... I start to cry again, very softly. Tears silently flow down my cheeks. She looks at me sympathetically. "You're tired, man, you're so tired you can hardly stand. Peter, can we keep him on the farm for a

[passage 89](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) anti-draft movement, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the anti-war movement, Amnesty, all of these things. And I suppose the Induction is, yeah... yeah... I start to cry again, very softly. Tears silently flow down my cheeks. She looks at me sympathetically. "You're tired, man, you're so tired you can hardly stand. Peter, can we keep him on the farm for a whiles?" I don't think I want this, but Peter says "only here for a few days, Ma'am, we have plans." I'm grateful, I'm not comfortable here. I ask Annie "Who are the pictures of?" "Saints, avatars and ascended masters." She points out some faces "Gandhi, Ramana Maharishi, Manly P. Hall, Saul Alinsky, Castille Rabat, Robert Anton Wilson, Meher Baba, Da Free John, Jim Morrison, Babaji, you know... the usual crowd." Castille Rabat I recognize. Human rights leader, Turkey I think, sometime before I was born. The rest are ghosts to me except for Gandhi. In the picture, he's a young man in a suit with a huge mustache. "So, who are you people?" I ask, slightly rude, but I'm not comfortable with it all. "Well, my people have been in and out of Seattle since the 60s, when times are good we live in the city, when times are bad, like now, we're out here and we try and keep ourselves to ourselves, let it all flow by. My great-grandmother knew Janis Joplin, they'd go drinking together. Mom kept the land, and after President Knight died, we figured it was time to move back out here when we got a chance, because they'd be back." Chad speaks unexpectedly. "Your uncle's been welcome here for forty years, Harry. We're old friends. We go all the way back." There's something deep here. Some current, something old. Witchcraft, I think, the little old woman who lived in a shoe. Something about nursery rhymes, the little band of feral children (they can't all be hers!) it's all too strange for me right now. I've seen some places with Peter, but never here, never people like this. Chad goes outside. Peter says "you're among friends, Harry. These are my people." Chad returns. He pulls a leather pouch from his pocket, and starts to hand roll a joint. Annie says "if you can beat Induction, I want you to teach my kids when they're of age, I want you to show us what you did to keep yourself free of this bullshit." I feel it close like a trap around me. They've got me. "Sure", I say. "Sure." I'm in now. I'm in the oldest conspiracy in the book. I can't tell if I'm any freer than I would have been if I'd taken the induction on the nose and lined up to be a slave. Although I feel slightly better, there's someting out there in the future to do, I still feel basically dreadful. What am I going to do with my life? Annie gets to making something to eat, while Chad goes to round

[passage 90](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) than I would have been if I'd taken the induction on the nose and lined up to be a slave. Although I feel slightly better, there's someting out there in the future to do, I still feel basically dreadful. What am I going to do with my life? Annie gets to making something to eat, while Chad goes to round up the children. They're babysitting for the other folks who they share the land with, who're out in the fields farming by hand. I think "wood fires and animal skins?" and, actually, I'm not far off the mark. We talk into the evening, and after the kids have gone to bed, two other couples and a young woman come over to Annie's. The two couples are straight from central casting. Dave and Mysore. He's a plant biologist turned "applied agrnomist." She's a craft weaver who teaches in highschools, but mostly farming right now. They're maybe 10 years younger than Annie, mid thirties perhaps, but it's hard to tell. No cultural cues, they could be a very young 60. The very small girl is their eldest daughter, she's had various tests, she's just tiny. Almost elfin, I comment. They smile warmly, "our little elf!" The other pair I understand a little better. John's a field engineer, power systems and mechanicals. Joanna, his wife and her sister Laurie are from out here, grew up on farms, a journalist and not a journalist... I look at Laurie. She's... maybe 22 or 23, she looks like a woman to me, not a girl, but I still want her. Dark, long hair, dark eyes, very quiet, very... feminine. She hardly says a word over dinner. I think maybe there's something there, some eye-contact, a held gaze, but I'm not at all sure of my ground here. But... it would be good, it would be... I don't want to admit how broken and fragile I feel. Peter, mercifully, keeps the conversation off me. Nothing to do wit Induction, nothing more than a brief family background and I tell some stories about our travels when I was a child. Peter says "he's been like a son to me" and I realize, yes, I've been lucky on this too. I might feel hollowed out, but there's something here, something real. There's red wine, and music, some recorded, but also a few songs. Annie and Chad do a very, very good impression of having walked straight out of the mythic past, right down to their folk music. Vegetarian food, rice... I wonder if, at some level, they're hiding in the past, some kind of... the word comes unbidden. Ashram. The next day, it's clear something else is up. Not just a social call. Peter and Annie seem to have come to some conclusions about me, without me. Annie's as frank as a pimp. "Laurie thinks she'd be good for you, Peter, and I agree." I'm speechless. I'm about to say something, when Peter continues. "They're friends, here, Peter, they

[passage 91](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) The next day, it's clear something else is up. Not just a social call. Peter and Annie seem to have come to some conclusions about me, without me. Annie's as frank as a pimp. "Laurie thinks she'd be good for you, Peter, and I agree." I'm speechless. I'm about to say something, when Peter continues. "They're friends, here, Peter, they know... how to help." I'm not sure what that implies, but I get the general idea. Either way, this is good for me. I say "that would be great, I feel like 50 miles of rough road" trying for an approximation of how they talk to me. "Great. Talk to her tonight." ===== It gets weirder. Laurie and I sit on the porch of her end of the cabin she shares with her sister and brother-in-law, and Laurie says "Peter's been my teacher too. It's so good to meet you. We've travelled the same path for years." I want to ask her who Peter is here, and I'm feeling frank "So... he's your... guru? To me he's just Uncle Peter." Rubicon. Crossed. "Harry, Peter's about the most powerful magician we have left in North America. He's like a king." I ponder this. I realize that, at some kind of absolute level, I've never seen him put a foot wrong. In his own way, he's fighting the State, fighting the Powers that Be, living as free as anybody can imagine, fighting his own battles, struggling, but... "Oh. I see." She comes closer to me, presses her leg against mine, shared warmth. "He really is just family to you, isn't he?" She's curious, not just friendly, but curious. "What was it like growing up with him, Harry?" I try and explain. Summers, the meditation, the travel, the... people... the sense of somehow falling into step with him. I don't tell her about the spear, but then it's blindingly obvious, really, isn't it. I realize I have no control of my life, or the situation. The Cup. The thought forms, and she catches it. All she says is "you're wounded." Yes, yes I am. I'm less confused than I was with Emma. I'm in lust, she's beautiful, she's on my wavelength, she understands. I'm here for three days, then we'll be on opposite coasts. I don't think this is... love? But also... Spear. Cup. Spear. Cup. Magic. ===== Harry stands inside the tiny room. He's wearing a towel, and two strands of red beads. Perhaps unexpectedly, Annie and Peter are there too. Laurie is naked. Annie and Peter are normally dressed, except for Peter's wearing a red shirt, and Annie's wearing a red jacket, corduroy, and (absurdly) a red neck tie. I feel like I've fallen through a hole in time. Peter opens the circle. Wand, chanting, invocation, meditation, it's the full production. I'm higher than a kite, but in the open circle, I feel... chewed. I get weaker and weaker as the space opens up until, at the peak of the clarity,

[passage 92](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) jacket, corduroy, and (absurdly) a red neck tie. I feel like I've fallen through a hole in time. Peter opens the circle. Wand, chanting, invocation, meditation, it's the full production. I'm higher than a kite, but in the open circle, I feel... chewed. I get weaker and weaker as the space opens up until, at the peak of the clarity, I realize I'm a ghost in my own skin, my own shade haunting my flesh. I'm... unwell. I've never seen somebody around my own age in the circle. Laurie was compelling clothed and in normal space. Naked and in the circle, she's every woman I've ever seen, combined, squared. She's amazingly easy in her skin, not the nudity of girls in the shared showers, but naked. It's fully sexual (Peter approves and Annie is at least appreciative) but it's also... just Her. She's just being who she is. Peter and Annie hold hands, and smile. After a few minutes, Peter leads her to the bed and sits down. She puts her head on his lap, and curls up like a cat. Peter absent-mindedly strokes her arm, and they look like lovers. I can't quite tell what's going on here, perhaps it's not my business. However. Laurie's beating a smal drum. On every stroke, her breasts, below the deep tan-line of her t-shirts, jiggle. I fall further into trance. She's walking around me very slowly, and she occasionally reaches out and touches me in a very probing way - back of my heart, top of my neck, and just above my groin. I'm fully erect but I don't sense any immediate... it's not quite sex, whatever is going on. "Lie down." There are a couple of large cushions on the floor, square, flat pillows. I lie down on my back, and she lies down beside me, and presses into my side. She puts a hand on my forehead. "Breathe." Slow and clear, like a breath for meditation. Laurie synchronizes her breathing to mine, and slowly, slowly something begins to happen. We're physically close, skin touching, but the sexual heat begins to change, and... we start... to... merge. It's like sex. It's very, very like the best parts of my time with Emma, but we're not fucking. We're lying there, and she's inside my world, and I'm inside of hers, and we're entangled, but there's no... sex. I feel good. She starts to hum softly, a low constant tone, sometimes higher, sometimes lower. Sometimes Peter and Annie will join in on a note, and I realise that this is a practice they all know, something I haven't seen before. This is ritual to help me. I'm slightly disappointed, in that... girl. I'm also chastened, in that I'm thinking with my dick but, what did they expect. Nobody seems to mind. Laurie gets up, and moves to my other side. She lies with her head on my heart, ear to the beat, and taps her hand on the ground at each beat. My

[passage 93](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) to help me. I'm slightly disappointed, in that... girl. I'm also chastened, in that I'm thinking with my dick but, what did they expect. Nobody seems to mind. Laurie gets up, and moves to my other side. She lies with her head on my heart, ear to the beat, and taps her hand on the ground at each beat. My heart slows down in response. I feel love from her, a tenderness and a care, and my breath changes, deeper, fuller and easier. Eventually, she gets up and puts on a bath-robe. Peter and Annie excuse themselves. "See you in the morning, Peter!" and Annie says "good night, kids!" They walk out arm in arm, a pair of happy con men. Laurie and I sit on the bed, close. The sexual heat is completely exhausted, there's nothing there but an enormous tender intimacy. After a while, as the night closes in and there's a slight chill, she gets up, changes into soft white pajamas, and gets into bed. I find my underwear and join her, and we curl up under the blankets, and I sleep like... Life is worth living. I wake up in the morning, and she's gone. There are a couple of scones on a tray and a glass of milk beside the bed. I sit up and try to reach the milk, and I'm almost too weak. I don't feel ill, I'm just... weak, tired. Hungry! I get the tray, eat the cakes and drink the milk, and curl back up under the covers. What the hell is going on. About half an hour Annie comes round. She knocks on the door, and a second later opens it pokes her head in. "How are you, young man?" "So tired!" "My girl take good care of you?" she says, without the slightest trace of sexual innuendo. "Yes, I'm... better in the heart?" I say, a bit quizzically. "Sure, good, good. Ok, lunch soon, come and get it" and she's gone. After a few minutes, I feel a lot better, and get out of bed. I'm wobbly, but I'm hale. Annie's outside at a table on the deck of the other cabin, and I sit down opposite her. She serves me a very substantial hamburger ("never touch the stuff myself!") and more milk, then honey and yoghurt. She herself has a salad and a sandwich. "Don't worry, kid, we got you covered." I shrug, then say "I don't understand anything, do I?" "Well, you've figured out the problem, and you've got through a very nasty hurdle, but we'll see how you're doing when you're the old man's age, eh?" and a hearty laugh. It's good to not feel in control right now. It's good to be taken care of. This is all very right. Peter and Laurie come in half an hour later, have a sandwich, and then walk into the woods together. Business, business. In the evening, they leave Laurie and I alone again, and again there isn't

[passage 94](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) and a hearty laugh. It's good to not feel in control right now. It's good to be taken care of. This is all very right. Peter and Laurie come in half an hour later, have a sandwich, and then walk into the woods together. Business, business. In the evening, they leave Laurie and I alone again, and again there isn't enough sexual tension to light a match, but she's very close to me the whole evening, as we sit and talk, and we sleep in the same bed, curled up. I wake up in the morning, and this time she's still fast asleep, and I don't wake her. I get dressed and go and find Peter. He says "well, son, just about ready to get out of here?" "Well, the company's very nice!" "Isn't she great?" Peter looks at me in a very direct way. "Behaved yourself, son?" "Yes, yes... but..." "I'll explain later." Laurie's up and about half an hour later, and Peter hustles us out and on to the road. He and Annie have a fully five-minute hug, then part and don't look back. Laurie holds both of my hands on her heart, and says "you're beautiful, Harry, and I'm so glad to have met Peter's nephew. Take care!" and, just like that, they're gone. Peter drives the van down the dirt track in manual. Half way down, I say "Peter, what was all that?" He slows down for a moment, pauses to think and says "They're healers, Harry" as if it was a complete explanation. There is only silence. I no longer feel dead, and I'm no longer confused about what comes next, only what has gone before. I want to go to college. ===== I am no longer a Senior Cadet. I am a college student. Cognitive Anthropology. I realize I'm going to go utterly insane exposed to too many former Senior Cadets, so I wind up at a liberal arts college with a heavy bias towards people returning to education in mid-life. It's in Ottawa, Canada. Four years of Eh? and nice, nice people. I live in an apartment with two former nuns in their 50s which is a constant source of amusement. They're a couple, broken out and headed for the real world. We have a lot in common - we all like girls. It's very... collegial, an easy companionship between people who are so different on the outside, but share the same basic cultural cast - out of the system, out of the game, outside. Laurie and I meet a couple of times a year. We never have sex, although we do kiss once or twice. Peter and Annie explain the details on a later trip out there, the concepts of tantra, the non-western renderings of Spear and Cup, the different conceptions of male and female roles. It gets a lot clearer. I start to understand sexual energy as a choice. I have girlfriends. They also understand sexual energy as a choice. Life

[passage 95](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) once or twice. Peter and Annie explain the details on a later trip out there, the concepts of tantra, the non-western renderings of Spear and Cup, the different conceptions of male and female roles. It gets a lot clearer. I start to understand sexual energy as a choice. I have girlfriends. They also understand sexual energy as a choice. Life is, hey, good. Cognitive anthropology is riveting, filling in the gaps, the background. And the people are still humans, still free to think, while on the US side, the New Senior Cadet Induction cohort, 11 years of them by now, start to march into business and government, solid, patriotic citizens, not overly-given to religion, not overly-given to dishonesty, start to march into history. They are very, very good for America. They are friendly, they are cooperative, they are upstanding, honest, and they have no souls. We've brainwashed our way to a better world. I hide in Canada, and I wait, and that's four years of my life. I won't tell you about the time I walk in on the nuns. It wasn't good. Half way through the last year, Laurie comes to visit me in Canada, and we have sex. Magical, ritual sex. Sex that peels the stars out of the sky, and puts them in her eyes. Then she tells me that she's going to marry somebody else later in the year, and wanted me one time before she fell into monogamous partnership. I'm, curiously, not only not heartbroken, I'm grateful to her, pleased we got to have the experience, and happy to see her happy. It's one of the best things to ever happen to me. I graduate. When I look back on my life later, I wish I'd been in a world when every year of my life had so little to report, had so little strife, so little anger, so little grief, and so little had happened. Then I go home, after four years at the edge of the game, and I'm back in the thick of it. ========================= ========================= =========== book two ========= ========================= ========================= Dad suggests Africa. 23 years old. Senior Cadet (liberated), Cognitive Anthropology, which is exactly the right field for understanding what's happening to African societies from the quad-pressures, * climate change technology colonial powers, including China, America * and Europe 2.0 demographic collapse There's a huge population cliff approaching, as the huge AIDS-vaccine generation approaches old age, completely distorting their societies. It's a good topic. Dad has a better idea. "There's a group that's been working with State, a charity" I wince "that's got a very successful methodology for rebuilding society in refugee camps, working with the traditional wisdom people of those cultures. I think you'd like them. A lot." There's a soft click as he says it, and I know I'm back in gear. This is What's Next. Sure enough, it all makes sense. They have an opening for a field guy, there's no problem with funding, they're funded by

[passage 96](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) in refugee camps, working with the traditional wisdom people of those cultures. I think you'd like them. A lot." There's a soft click as he says it, and I know I'm back in gear. This is What's Next. Sure enough, it all makes sense. They have an opening for a field guy, there's no problem with funding, they're funded by the State Department, a different division from Dad's people. It all makes perfect sense, the job could have been made for me. I suspect the old men have been at it again, but Dad denies everything. "I heard about it, I didn't twist any arms." He's aged a bit in the last four years. Hair's starting to go white. Mom's just the same. The girls are in their final and next-to year of high school, and - thank god - neither one is going cadet. It wasn't very likely, but it was possible. They're free, it's their right. Peter's in a rut, he's not aged a day, he's in the damn van, he's failed to either settle down or make any progress sorting his life out. But he's... happy. I don't know why, one of those "blows against the empire" things with me seems too small, too subtle to really matter in the grand scheme of things. Even if what I've learned about our brainwashing turns out to be transferrable to others, which I can doubt, wouldn't they be better getting out of the country and waiting for it all to pass? And, really, are the Senior Cadets so bad? Are they really? I'm sure we're crushing a lot of delicate artistic souls under the boot here, but I'm also becoming acutely aware of how good the Senior Cadet programme has been for our country. The Marching Morons are straight dealing, civic minded citizens, and they're cleaning house. The older generation of crooks, theives and liars better watch out, these guys might just clean house when they reach 45. Not that I voice that to Dad and Peter, and not that I'd change a thing about the course they took with me. I know there's a price to pay, and I wouldn't be the man I am now if I'd paid it. Man. No doubt about it now. If there's a line, I've crossed it on all counts. Only thing I haven't done is had kids. ===== Kinshasa, Spring 2066. Kinshasa's been through boom and bust so often that I think it's soul must have metal fatigue. The company office is on the 47th floor of the sole real skyscraper, a tubular steel construction of 120 floors which is visible half-way across the country when it's lit by lasers from the roof. The top two floors are obscene parodies of a pagoda, with Chinese formal gardens within. There's an atrium, and it's infested with singing crickets and Chinese fast food vendors. You can even buy little busts of Chairman Mao from Nigerian vendors with carts up there who have no

[passage 97](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) half-way across the country when it's lit by lasers from the roof. The top two floors are obscene parodies of a pagoda, with Chinese formal gardens within. There's an atrium, and it's infested with singing crickets and Chinese fast food vendors. You can even buy little busts of Chairman Mao from Nigerian vendors with carts up there who have no idea how offensive what they're selling is; they only know that people smile and buy them. They can't believe they're on sale. Ah, Africa, Africa. The Chinese did a lot of work when they were running the place, then left when they had... trouble at home is how they refer to it here. A lovely euphamism. But they did get this building up, and their influence is everywhere. It's the foundation for a thick layer of European influence, from a series of commercial adventures where the solar revolution went through, and then the Europeans had sold everything they could, then when they, too, had trouble at home, back it all went. The Russians never got to their holdings in Africa, mind you, so quite a few European ex-pats still litter the place. Then there's us, the Americans, New Manifest Destiny mandate edition. There's a thick layer of US military, mostly hardware, smeared over the entire damn continent, just as there is everywhere which is off the grid, and if it's not the US it's the Chinese or the Europeans or the Russians or the Japanese or somebody. There's not a cubic meter of earth which isn't checked at least once a year by a remote system looking for labs. If it's not on camera, all the time, by default, streaming, somebody will make sure it's examined. Once in a while, maybe every five years, there's a mobile lab on a ship or even in a truck discovered, usually selling designer embryos or growing organs for people too stupid to die, but we've all agreed - the Global Consensus - that biotechnology and nanotechnology happen in orbit, and nowhere else. There are a few exceptions, traditional crop varieties which were engineered before the Second Holocaust, and that's it. You can't buy precursors, you can't assemble a single base pair, you can't sneeze a replicator without getting carpet bombed by Global Peace & Love, Inc. Sometimes Dad does the raids, about once in five years, if he's really lucky. State Department often have the only hard assets out here, we're a long way from the war zones. We've had 35 years to seal this planet up tighter than a drum, and it's exposed damn near every other dirty, filthy evil thing we're doing. Transparency is Hell. I'm sitting by my desk, staring out of the window at the smog. They're burning coal to run the city during rainy season. They don't have enough panel capacity - well, enough batteries, really - to keep the city full steam ahead during the low sun periods, and they supplement with coal. It's insane, it's very

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Continues in https://guptaoption.com/texts/148-8.md (part 8 of 11).
End of [148] Mother of Hydrogen, part 7 of 11. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.