Inner Man Theatre

Cigula and his queen sit ever so still in the throne room as laughter comes from what seems to be the emperor until a little scrutiny brings us to three men laughing on the other side of the wall. Behold, Ray the Daring and his two followers!

“Mankind is a world of sheep!” boasts the Daring, “In our society, each individual is covered in and filled with nanotechnology, making any one of us superhuman, and yet these worms swoon over our tin can puppet simply because his eyes are different.”
The one standing on the right, Idden, casually interrupts the proud rant. “Ray, Genui was able to attain the schematic for the Ultimate Machine in our library.”

Ray pounds his fist on the desk, “Exquisite! We must act quickly and find the thing! Surely, we are not the only ones to have dreamed of this device. Our sporadic attacks succeed in distracting the other nations from our goal, but we do need to get the upper hand quickly, or else we shall be easily overwhelmed. Nonetheless, this is a power well worth the risk.”

Switching to Hannes and Avi in Hilmsland, we see that Ray is right. Hannes growls and hisses, “That maniacal monarch shall burn the world for this Ultimate Machine. Luckily, his army is feeble, but I foresee a bigger problem arising. Our nanotech allows us the quickest, most convenient forms of communication, as we just speak and our voices carry into the ears of the listener miles away, and yet one dreadful side effect is the occasional mass dreams that flood the networks.”
Avi chortles, “That troublesome spam.”
Hannes is not amused. “Mock all you want, but with that fashion disaster, Ulfrix, YOUR brother chose to serve possibly having the same dream, we are all in danger.”

“Did you just bring accusation against my family?” taunts Avi.
“No,” assures Hannes, “just against your quisling brother.”
“Aren’t we harsh, darling? At any rate, what is the big to-do with this Ultimate Machine?”

Her husband explains, “It is a weapon that amplifies a man’s iu status beyond imagination.”
With a dull expression, the lady complains, “iu? Speak my language, dear. You know such talk bores me.”

“Forgive me, precious indeed. We forsook guns and tanks long ago for nano-based warfare. By now, every Ruyngardian is improved with nanobots to be cybernetic titans, able to become walking weapons of mass destruction. iu refer to the amount of stamina or power drawn from the soldier and amplified by the nanos within him. If the soldier trains hard enough, not only will he become stronger and put out more strength, his nanos will likewise upgrade, raising the level of his iu status.

“Let us say that a giant war robot of old has a level of fifty iu and the soldier has forty. After training, he may raise his iu to that of sixty, thus faring better by himself in battle than with a giant machine.”
The prime minister continues, “However…our ancestors created new walking tanks that could also amplify the iu level. The Ultimate Machine, if I guess correctly, amplifies iu by one hundred. So that same soldier would have six hundred iu, but then could train for another ten, making his own level seventy and the combined level with the Ultimate Machine seven hundred.”
Rolling her eyes, Avi states, “Well, that is too much math for me, but I do like the sound of that. Build me one, dearest. I should like to ride in one.”
“I shall not only build one for you,” says Jeffery Hannes, “but for every one of my soldiers. The ancients called these machines “the powered” and made great gains in military prowess from that point on…but it is unknown why they stopped using such beautiful constructions.”
“And, of course,” his wife reminds, “we need to find the Ultimate Machine before the Christmas Tree does because it is the most powerful ‘powered’ of them all, and perhaps the only one left from which we can mold others.”
“Exactly, my dear…exactly.”

Speaking of the Great Christmas Tree, we can find him and Iusticea riding their hovering segways, which we’ll call hover carts, along the royal garden as they discuss the recent events.
The queen asks, “My dear, what shall be done about Cigula? Do you not think it is time we deal with him?”
“I do,” answers the king, “I also have much to think about with this Ultimate Machine. Such a weapon would give us the power to make everything right on this planet.”
Iusticea responds with another question, “How do we claim such a prize?”
“I’m not quite sure, but it is undetermined if I should use such a weapon or destroy it. It is my mission to rid this planet of these hypnotic trinkets of technology. It is a necessary evil to use this tempting convenience until our dream is fulfilled, but after such has been accomplished, we shall return the world to horses and buggies.”

Tracing her finger sheepishly along her console, she offers one more question. “May I keep my hover cart?”
He smiles. “You may keep your hover cart.”

Yeah, that was all I had to show of them. Now, jumping over to our final group of interest for the day, Axer and Kim are meeting up with the cast, allowing me to identify everyone for you.
Ax starts, “Sup, Jason?”
“Bout time, man!” exclaims the dude in blue.
“Hi, Ramji.” chimes Kim to Jason’s little brother.
“Hey, Kim.”
You already know the girl Axer addresses next. “Roxy.”
“Axer.”
The two sisters are greeted next. “Hey, Marna and Haley.”
“Hi!” is, of course, returned.
“Hey, Bailey!”
“Hello!”
“Hey, Ax….” Uh-oh! Looks like the last person to be introduced beat us to the punch with greetings.

“H-hi, Mandy. I didn’t realize you were here, too.” Axer is apparently very happy to see her.
She smugly replies, “Ha ha! I’m good like that.”
Bailey nudges Marna and whispers, “Best friend, ask him”
Marna passes the buck to Haley. “Uh, sister, you ask him.”
“Wait, why am I asking him?”
“Oh, come on, guys!” an annoyed Roxy butts in, “Axer, we want to go find the Ultimate Machine.”

Axer coughs in amazement. “Well, that was direct. What on Ruyngard ever possessed you guys to want to do something so ridiculous?”

Jason makes sure Ax knows it wasn’t his idea. Axer coldly retorts he’d never expect such a bold suggestion from the coward.  “And that’s why you’re my best pal,” Jason so proudly informs, grinning all the while.
Brushing back her gorgeous hair, Mandy doubts, “You guys can’t seriously go after such a thing. We just got into a war with Lyger. This is no time to be flying around the globe on your own with explosions everywhere. In the real world, it’s—”

Suddenly, a literal alert goes off in Mandy’s head for an incoming text. (I know, right?) The text reads “SUSIE”. She reads the text in her mind and begrudgingly mutters, “Zombies….”
Axer hears this word. “Did you say zombies?”
“Zombies?” Mandy makes a nice save. “What junk have YOU been watching. Sorry guys, I gotta go. Bye!”