Hello all.

This is the introduction chapter from the Science Fiction story I have been working on...Please tell me what you think. Or dont.

Part One: Theroy and Exploitation

Kelb

Kelb was right, that's all he knew about it, and for that reason he had nothing more to pontificate, though of course he would. He and Philb had discussed at length the rational, social, and biological influences of the Lars-Wengerman process, and no matter how Kelb looked at it, he was fully right, one hundred and fifty percent; at least. The Lars-Wengerman process was the utmost in physical transformational applied science, or PTAS, a transhumance formation alignment chamber at its center, with twelve asperators fizzing on .45 degrees doctrine, and a seculoid garometer set to seven radio signals at twenty minute intervals. Then when the chamber’s graviviational expecxtancy flograltor had reached domination point a phallix mesormanizer would be fexxed in the contamination matrix. It was a very simple process, but Philb still disagreed. He said you needed a density form generator and a flume ride clumerix boost field! What an absolute and in fact utter moron, Kelb thought as he slowly lowered a particle acceleration formatter across a Helmubt plain, everyone knows clumerix fields are unstable in their natural incarnation. Kelb would have to run this by the grand high Doctriner, Selbus Rex; he wouldn't take to some young upstart spreading his crackpot theories across the campus. 

"You've sent to see me?" Asked a steady yet not altogether menacing voice from behind his cluttered work station. 

"Berr? Is that you?" Kelb moved a few stacks of books out of the way and revealed a small and mousey looking man of twenty five or so, skinny like a malnourished and shaved head signifying his status as a low priest of science. His name Kelb could not recall, Smith or Smythe or something. The High Minds tended to treat the low priests as such, and Kelb was not one to break with tradition. Humans were not to be trusted, shifty vile little creatures, but they were very tasty. Kelb smiled wide, showing his thousands upon thousands of deadly, metal tipped teeth. 

"Right, what's your name then?" Kelb asked in a tone which suggested he had much more important things to do, which he in fact did not, but, you know. His voice thundered over the humans. “Timmus, or Vinnis or something?”

"Trimus," the nebbish little man said, "Smithy." Kelb wrote it down in his big index book in big looping letters. 

"Smithy eh," Kelb said looking down his face, "one of those from the undesirable sector eh? Which township? Chelsea? Sussex? No it's got to be Blackmoor; you got the stink of the whores all over you. AH! Of course I am just having a jape at your expense, please pay it no mind."

"Cornwall actually," Trimus said."

"Ah, a Welsh then!" Kelb wrote a note down to the left of his ledger that read, "Welshman, goes-great-with-Porridge..."

"Yes sir," Kelb continued. 

"You do realize that by being a Welshman you fall under the jurisdiction of the Forswain Brothers; hope you've had a good bath then eh?" Kelb broke out in a fit of what you could vaguely describe as laughter, "god, sorry old man, just a little joke. Anyway, what did I need you for, right! Low Priest of the Order of Cogs and Watchwork! I need you to take this order to Murex Savinium, 499 dolmer plugs and a cruix point for the transition phase."

"Are you sure that will work?" Trimus asked. 

"Am I sure! AM I SURE! Of course I'm sure! I'm a bloody scientist! I'm a lord member of the golden shield of scientific protectorate! And who are you? A MAN! Of low birth as well! I’LL HAVE NONE OF IT!" Kelb was furious. Here, a fledgling, a mere low priest, A HUMAN, questioning his science! He tossed a metal plate at the young man's head in disgust. "You little shit! I ought to EAT you for that!"

"But sir," Trimus said as he ducked the plate, "I believe your theory is incomplete!" 

"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU RUDDY BASTARD!" Kelb was purple faced and shaking, hovering there in the air like some mutilated balloon, "HOW THE HELL COULD MY THEORY BE INCOMPLETE! I AM A GENIUS! A HERO! A MENTOR TO TINY SQUIDLINGS! YOU BLOODY HUMANS COULD NEVER COME CLOSE TO WHAT I HAVE ACHIVED!" He tossed a second plate at Trimus, which glanced off the wall and back at Kelb causing him to hover out of the way.

"You didn't account for Frenand's Principle!" Trimus shouted. There was a brief silence. 

"Fernand's principle?" Kelb thought for a moment. "You mean the idea that heat intensifies the power of the cruix point to expulsion?" Kelb hovered back over his station and began to crunch the numbers, scribbling violently on his desk screen. After a few moments he sat back and sighed. 

"Are you..." He trailed off into the midst of his thought, "good god. You're right." Kelb searched him with his eyes, "where did you say you we're from?" 

"Wales sir," Trimus said, "Cornwall to be exact." 

"Are you sure?" Kelb asked, "I mean of course, are you sure you're a human?"

"I have blood sir," he said, "but I'm not wise to reckon." Kelb studied him for a moment. 

"Quite. Who did you say was your Caliph?" Kelb asked whisking through his assorted papers. 

"Didn't sir," Trimus replied, "but it's Greenmarket in case you were wondering."

"Greenmarket? That old phony!" Kelb laughed, "He wouldn't miss you for a second. No, no my boy, you shan't be working another minute in that drab dungeon he calls a mewing hall, you belong to me now."

"Oh what an honor master!" Trimus exclaimed, "You really think I'm good enough?" 

"You have the mark of a scientist yes," Kelb said scratching a few of his sparse chin whiskers with a soggy red tentacle, "all in due time of course...at the very least a brilliant mathematician." Kelb soared back over his desk to crunch more numbers. 

"I really can't thank you enough!" Trimus exclaimed and took a hold of Kelb's tentacle, shaking it so violently, Kelb was not no certain it would remain attached, "I promise," Trimus went on, his eyes fixated on Kelb's like the two vast, inexpressive and greying orbs they were, suddenly brazen and bursting with life and color, "I won't let you down." Let's hope not, Kelb though, but wrung his tentacle of it. At least I have lifted him from the clutches of that vulture! Greenmarket! What was the station head thinking! This young man was headstrong and rash for sure, but with a sharpness of mind so uncommon with Human science wizards these days. Trimus had a glimmer, a rage in his stomach. He had a reason. Like Kelb did once. Plus, if he wasn't all that, Kelb could always eat him. He motioned to Trimus, who was still standing wild-eyed with excitement, to sit.

"I've had filled out for you this letter of transit transfer from Greenmarket's unit to my own," he handed Trimus a signed affidavit complete with the royal seal of the St Julius Pasternak-Jones Kremgork Academy of Science and Scientific Pursuits and Pursuitists, "you'll be under my command from now on so I want full reports on everything."

"Everything?" Trimus asked. 

"Yes, is there a problem with that?" Kelb looked up from the papers, once again showing his massive teeth. 

"What do you mean by that? Everything?" Trimus asked again. 

"Quite," Kelb rose and hovered around his desk, knocking over a stack of papers as he did and motioning for Trimus to leave them be, he slid up next to the young man and put a few tentacles around his shoulders. 

"Every experiment you do, my boy," Kelb said, "I want a full report every week."

"Every one?" 

"Even the really secret ones," Kelb slapped him on the back, "welcome to the high class world of science my boy! It's not all beakers and boring lectures! Why even now as we speak a man in The German Quarter has found a way to reverse the Otto Method and create water molecules in deep space! Why, what a marvelous time we live in!"

"But..." Trimus began, and then stopped short. 

"But what my boy?" Kelb said, "Don’t tell me you don't have any secret, perhaps forbidden experiments locked away in that cabin of yours? Of course not, you are a statistical anomaly." Kelb laughed again, hideous and sour like a braying donkey. 

"I...may, but I don't see why I..." He cut off once more. Kelb finished for him. 

"You don't see why I NEED to see?" Kelb said, "Is that what you mean? You don't see what reason I, your mentor and teacher and protector, should need to see your...other works."

"It's my own time..." Trimus said, "Isn’t it?"

"Is it?" Kelb scratched at his beard, "Well, now I'm not sure. You do belong to me now."

"I don't belong to anyone," Trimus said, "I just serve beneath you."

"No." 

‘No?"

"No," Kelb said, "I OWN you. No other way around it. I OWN you. Your life is now general property of the Science Department for the National University of Science and Understanding." Kelb's eyes shimmered in the fluorescent lights. He produced the transit papers with a victorious smile.

“My life belongs to me,” Trimus said.

"Belonged, dear sir. You signed it over to me."

"You...that contract is in Squid Language…"

"Welcome to this man's army boy-man wonder," Kelb said, hovering at his desk, "anyway I'll be needing that first report on my desk first thing tomorrow, and also any particular visual aids of illegal substances you may or may not have among you residence's possession," Trimus looked as if he didn't have the stomach to argue, “your first experiment will be conducted in the Biological Reconstruction Apparatus. See Martin; another human. Like you.”

“Yes sir.”

“The experiment will be on the dangers of carbon based life forms in relation to the human conditioning project of 773-4A,” Kelb produced a booklet, red velvet covered and bursting with leaf papers, “Martin knows the details.”

“But I thought…” he began, but Kelb shot him a look, and squashed the question immediately.

“You have your orders,” he breathed.  

"Right sir, see you then...then," he stammered, and then stumbled like a drunk out of a pub from Kelb's office. Kelb wrinkled his nose. 

"Low born types," he said to his robotic associate, a tiny computer which hovered in the air above him, "are such a pain. And that awful smell, don't they ever tongue bathe?"

"The Glorious and All Knowing Community of the Willing Governing Body allows each common citizen only the amount of soap and water they need to remain healthy and productive sir," hummed a robotic tone, "as the chair would say, a clean worker is an unproductive spy for the Fundamentalists."

“Soap? Disgusting creatures…” he hovered over to his pure sea water bath, “they are so advanced, yet still incapable of properly secreting their used fluids. Truly, not the gods of this world.”

“Would you like to look over his case file sir?”

“Irrelevant,” he said, “there is nothing you could tell me that I don’t already know.”

“There was another bombing at the Prime Minister’s Mansion this morning sir,” the computer trailed on, “fourteen dead squids, forty six humans captured; all of them executed.”

“And Prime Minister Malice?”

“Safely transported to an undisclosed location until further notice.”

"I see," Kelb uttered, then pulled up the file on Trimus, "there's something strange about this one. Something different. He's...very talented to say the least. Gord?"

"Yes sir?" 

"What do you think of the Lars-Wengerman process?" Kelb asked abruptly, "you think it would work better with a cellular node in the cursix foil?"

"If the user assumes all risk, sir," Gord replied. 

"The user always assumes all risk Gord," Kelb said, "otherwise, what fun would it be?"

"I don't know anything about fun," Gord said, but Kelb ignored him. These new Overlord Personal Assistants were malfunctioning left and right, so he had dug up an old model and tried to splice the drives together ala the Sears-Bozak Treatment, but it only caused one drive to fry and go haywire. Gord was trapped somewhere in between. Not quite sure how to get himself back to where he belongs. 

"Look now Gord," I only want to know if you think it works or not"

"149.7827529% inconclusive," Gord replied. 

"That makes NO GODDAMN SENSE Gord!" Kelb was furious when his machines made mistakes, "over 100% inconclusive? God, I've got to send you back to Peirs with a stern reminded that when I ask to fix my appliances, I want him to FIX MY GODDAMN APPLIANCES!" 

"The math is strategically retarted," Gord said, "the lack of sleeping is driving you mad, you need to relax." He reached out and handed Kelb a relaxation bicarbonate pill. 

"Thank you," Kelb replied waving him away with a lean tentacle, "but no thanks, I've been feeling a bit gurgly lately in the abdomen, and I need to finish these equations." he scratched at his beard, which reminded him he needed to get a new one. His had fallen into some disrepair after a row with Philb in the canteen, when his cohort had pulled at it to show the vastly non superior humans that Kelb did not in fact have a real beard. Philb, that rat bastard. He was always getting in the way. Him and his damn Religious order, the scared brotherhood of the crimson cross, who apparently believe in the squid who was born of gods and hovered on the earth doing good deeds. Posh right? Well, Kelb was a staunch Dominican, and believed the only real truth of Squid kind; Facial Hair is most sacred like the bearded man once said. Oh, and the octopi are the enemy. Kelb looked out his window in the direction of the Octopi district of town and shot it a glare. 

"I hate octopi," he said to no one in particular. 

"I am a doctor-o-matic," Gord said, "you should listen to my advice." Kelb didn't like that tone very much. 

"You are still a robot," he said, "a lower form of life. You may have a squid brain, but you lack the tentacles to be truly grand." Kelb flashed his own tentacles in a fierce display. 

"I am certified by the government," Gord protested, "and I am telling you," he pushed closer, shoving the pill into Kelb's bulbous facial region, "take the pill!"

"NO!" Kelb let out a shriek and twisted out of Gord's grip, dropping on the floor with a thud like a pile of wet blankets. Reaching out with his tentacles he pulled himself up against his desk. 

"Damn it Gord! You idiot!" Kelb shrieked, "That really hurt you imbecile!" He closed his eyes and spoke soft a mental incantation, and after a moment lifted off the ground back into a hover. 

"The pill," Kelb said suddenly, "give it to me." He swallowed the vile little thing thinking that would be the end of it. 

"So there!" Kelb said.