"Punks on Earth" - Part 2 (Fiction Story)

here you find part 1 >>> Emily Davis Eyes

Valerie and Zuri

"Okay, so the truth thing doesn't seem to be working", Jeff said as he now turned to his food, "Why don't you just tell me what you've been up to?"
Emily, however, didn't answer further, but seemed very busy with the salad and the fork. Already he was about to ask again, but his smartphone rang. No phone number, that was strange, so he took the call.

"Good afternoon, I want to speak to Emily!" immediately sounded a very matter-of-fact voice.
"What do you mean, who is this? How did you get my number?"
"Too long to explain. Emily please!"
"No, why would I?" now Jeff was starting to get a little indignant "I would very much like to know what machinations I'm getting involved here right now!"

Silence on the other end of the line, silence on the questioning face of his counterpart.
"Valerie is here" finally chimed in
"I see, and how did you get my phone number? Not even Emily herself has it!"
"Oh, man. Why are you humans always so complicated?" it sounded in unison

"What is it?" now asked Emily
"That's a conversation for you from a Valerie" Jeff said tersely as he considered just getting up and leaving this strange spectacle. But curiosity won out, so he took the phone to his ear again "Okay, Emily is here, but I want the call to be on speakerphone so I can hear it too!"
With those words, he placed the smartphone in the center of the table.

"Emily?" it also sounded immediately.
"Valerie? ... Valerie Patrick? Why you, where is Ann?"
"Well, she needed my help to locate the human's phone. Wasn't so easy, but eventually we were able to filter it out through the log in points and dwell time after all. Ann, meanwhile, has moved on to other things. I'm supposed to remind you of the mission instead of lingering there in that bistro!"
"Yes, but I needed to recharge and the food is fun".
"Fun? What's that now!"
"Well, that's..." but Valerie immediately interrupted her, "Yes I know the definition of fun on earth, thank you. You guys are such crazy chickens, just launching into the blue without really having thought it through! Good thing we're in on it now too, to get it over the line somehow."
"We?"
"Yes, of course. So I'll get over there first, then we can set up the equipment together in a safe place to get the others!"
"Wait" stammered Emily "who exactly is everyone with us now?"
"Zuri of course, she's also taken care of our legal issues before and set everything in motion so that we'll have official paperwork. Then also Elyse, who is currently working on getting us the necessary change. With enough money, it will be easier."
"I see."
"Well and you already know that Luella is coming along, though I still have my doubts about whether she will be useful to us."
Emily was indignant "How could you decide all this without me? And Luella is definitely useful, she just belongs!"
"Has human sentimentality got a hold of you now, or what?"

Emily was silent, put her head on her hands and looked at Jeff, whom she had almost forgotten, but who was listening to the conversation rather amused. Obviously he had not yet been able to understand what was being talked about here, well how could he. "Yes, and how does the plan go on now?" she asked, slightly annoyed.

"I'm sending the coordinates to this Jeff's phone. First you pick up your own phone with headset, it's ready for you in a cell phone store just around the corner. Then the next instructions will come without this person eavesdropping on us!"
"I'm not eavesdropping, I'm just listening completely without hiding" Jeff interjected, but no one responded to his words. The conversation seemed to be over. A message came in on the cell phone and at the same moment the route planner opened.
"Okay, let's go!" said Emily and stood up.
"No!" he said "What's the big deal?"
"Fine, I'll go by myself!" chimed in defiantly while she was already on her way, his phone in hand.
"Oh man!" groaned Jeff, quickly putting the money for the waitress on the table and hurrying to get after Emily. They walked in silence for a while, but Emily felt like she had to explain herself, "I'd really love to explain all this to you in detail, but the girls are right, we're running out of time. We can't keep this a secret from the others over there much longer, but it's doubtful that our discovery would do much good if it were available to everyone, or to certain people. Yes, I know you don't understand, how could you? Once we get back to the lab building there might be some time, then I'll show you!"
"Back to the lab building?" he stammered, confused.
"Yeah right! And let's hope there will be enough seawater on hand!"
"Seawater."
"Right" she smiled mysteriously "Do you have a notebook in the company?"
"No."
"Too bad. Can we buy one, will you lend me the money?"
"No, of course not!"

Emily just shrugged "Well." she muttered and entered the cell phone store. Shortly after, she came back out and handed his smartphone back to him with a curt "Thank you." The shopping tour continued, in one store there were already suitable clothes ready for her, while all the time she talked and consulted with someone over the headset.
"Sorry about the notebook" he finally said "I haven't had the job that long and couldn't afford one, you know?"
Emily stopped, seeming to focus on the conversation over the headset as she said "Oh Jeff, you're completely penniless, your bank account is negative!"
"What, from where...?" he stammered, but already he heard her say "Yes exactly, Elyse, please transfer a reasonable amount of money to that account, after all, he's done a great job helping us so far! What, why should he be in trouble....? Ah, okay. Well, come up with a way to make this look legal, simple as that. An inheritance maybe?"

Jeff had given up asking. He was far from sure he was doing the right thing here, but he just couldn't help himself. Curiosity wouldn't let him go, and the more time he spent with Emily, the less he wanted to lose sight of her again. She was simply enchanting, in her very own way. Extremely intelligent and at the same time full of innocent naivety.

It was late afternoon, they had finished some shopping and entered the laboratory building with two large suitcases. When the security officer asked them what was inside, they replied that Emily, the new colleague had just arrived from the airport. A check in the computer revealed that she had an appointment with the top boss, so the good man didn't dare question that.

Jeff was visibly relieved when they finally arrived in the small room on the first floor. Here they would now wait until the building was deserted to go up to the lab room to, yes to do what actually?

"Okay, I guess it's time to explain something to you?" Emily had started up the new notebook and beckoned him over. A web page was open, showing strange punks. "NFT Punks," he read aloud.
"Right!" she replied happily "and look, here, that's me. So that was me until recently. Here this is Ann and Luella, my best friends. And, wait...over here, look! Valerie, Zuri and Elyse!"

"What are you talking about, Emily!"
"Well, that's the truth, what am I supposed to do if you don't believe me?"
"Okay, let's say that was true, how did you get here?"
"Simple. Annalise and I have developed a process for transforming ourselves."
"Yeah, right. So really, what..."
"So believe me. You have accidentally created something with your research project that can actually transform seawater into a living being with appropriate genetic information! Annaliese is a marine biologist and recently discovered your project by chance. Of course, being typical humans, you had absolutely no idea what you had discovered and how incredibly groundbreaking, but also dangerous, it was!"
Jeff was silent. Of course, he still didn't believe a word of it, but it seemed pointless to argue against it, so he just kept listening
"You don't believe me, I'll prove it to you tonight!"
"How are you going to do that?"
"Well, we'll get Valerie here first and then Zuri. Then you'll see it with your own eyes!" she beamed at him
"You're crazy!"
"No, you'll see. We just need to somehow refill the seawater tank after Valerie, can we do that?"
He shook his head "So besides I think that's bullshit anyway! It takes three people to fill the tank, there's no other way. But" he smiled wryly "once your Valerie is here, she can help us with that!" now he really couldn't contain himself and snorted out loud with laughter. "Sorry, Emily, but that's just hilarious now."

Emily didn't feel like laughing at all though, "No, Valerie will need at least an hour to come to consciousness, she can't help us there yet!"
"You're serious aren't you?"
"Yes, of course, damn it, why else would I be hosting all this?"
"Well..." he couldn't think of a coherent explanation.
"Exactly. So who could be the third person to help us?"
Jeff sighed, he really had never experienced so much stubbornness "Jules" came spontaneously to his lips.
Emily listened to her mysterious headset again, then she repeated "Jules is your colleague, he works in the same lab as you, but for much longer and he is more into the computer programs. Oh, he's not penniless like you either, he's amassed quite a handsome fortune for the average person - and oh, cryptocurrencies too."
"I'm not penniless!" protested Jeff loudly.
"Ah, over $10,000 in debt, no real estate, no collateral, what do you call that then?"
"Yeah, that's..." stammered Jeff, "just normal in this world!"
"Hmmm, that's the problem with you people, you think so much is normal that really isn't at all from the ground up!"
Jeff gave up arguing with her about it and just shook his head, grabbing one of the water bottles to make himself comfortable on the floor in a corner of the room. Emily, on the other hand, paid no attention, typing away on her notebook for a bit. Finally she turned to him beaming "Great! Jules will be here in half an hour!"
"What the..."
"Well he likes to come by again to check the security system in the lab room with you, because he also thinks you were wrongly accused today" Emily grinned.
Jeff sighed. He leaned against the wall and just closed his eyes, a little rest would definitely not hurt anything before this long night. After that, yeah what came after that. At best, just a resignation here, at worst.... better not to think about it.

Punctually there was a knock on the door and Emily opened it. She eyed Jules, the second person she was about to meet, carefully. Smaller and much rounder than Jeff, he seemed much more nervous, however, you could see immediately that he was very clever, which was probably not only due to his nickel glasses.

"Wow, how did you do that?" without greeting he stormed into the room "the security guard didn't ask any questions at all, just gave me directions and said I was late!" Jeff didn't say a word, closed his eyes again and left the other two to talk about this and that.

Emily packed up all the things and shortly after they arrived on the upper floor, entered the lab room in the quiet, sleeping building. The purple neon lamp shone on the transformation chair, but otherwise it was absolutely dark. Emily was glad it was starting already, so she didn't have to explain everything again. Once they see it for themselves, they will believe it. She wanted to tell the two boys to be as quiet as possible, but that wasn't necessary at all, because they stood rooted to the spot and stared at the most incredible thing they had ever seen.

Very slowly, the seawater was pumped out of the tank, taking on a still undefined shape similar to a soap bubble. Then slowly the shape changed, the elements seemed to group together. Very slowly, a shape crystallized out of the shimmering, transparent bubble. And it was clearly the shape of a human body that was being formed there before their eyes. The entire transformation took almost an hour. An hour that they just stood there, not even thinking of moving, watching the spectacle with fascination.

The computer activated, signaling to Emily that the process was now complete. "Okay, I guess you guys believe me now? But don't touch her yet, now it's time to refill the tank, how do we do that?"
Neither Jeff nor Jules were capable of an answer. Jules just vaguely pointed to a door at the far end of the room.
"Come on now, get moving, you two!" Emily shouted out.

As if in slow motion, the two young men started walking. Something like that had to be understood somehow first. To see the impossible, how should one function there immediately again? So it took longer than expected, but finally the tank filled again with fresh sea water.

"Okay," Emily said "Now let's carefully lay her down on one of the blankets I prepared there and then we'll go get Zuri!"
No one spoke a word, they just did as they were told and right after they carefully placed Valerie on the blanket, the whole process began again. Jules was the first to regain speech, "Who's controlling this?" he asked meekly and hesitantly.
"Oh, Ann does that! She has already done it for me. Luella is busy with the video system and Elyse. Elyse what are you doing?" she asked into the headset.
"Ah, very good." she turned back to Jeff and Jules, "Elyse is checking out the purchase of the warehouse we'll need.... Very good! Tomorrow morning we can pick up the keys. Well done, thank you Elyse!"
Jules looked at Jeff, but he just waved it off "Never mind, you can't understand it. Not yet at least."

When Valerie opened her eyes the first thing she saw was Jules. She was very serious and also seemed a little worried. But Jules broke the ice right away "Hi, I'm Jules he said with a grin" and held out a bottle of water to her "Here, maybe you're thirsty?" Valerie nodded and a very uncertain "Thank you" escaped her throat.
She gave Emily a long look that made her understand "Yes, now I see what you meant! It's actually quite different from what we had imagined."

While Zuri was now laid on the blanket to come to life, the others had to hurry up again. Valerie had been top fit after a short time and instructed Jeff how he could help her to remove the important parts from the transformation device.
Jules, on the other hand, had been dispatched with the headset to work with Ann to transfer the programs to the notebooks and then completely erase all conceivable data in the lab center.

Meanwhile, Emily dried the chair and removed all further traces. Finally, they filled up the seawater tank. When Zuri woke up, everything was done. The two newcomers changed into new clothes to avoid attracting attention. Afterwards they left the laboratory room, which lay there as if nothing had happened. No traces at all. The computers and equipment would not work tomorrow, but a cause would not be found.

"It's as if we were never here", Emily thought as she briefly looked back at the place of her birth as she left.

This is my contribution to the scholar and tribe / dreemport challenge
It is part 2 of a fictional story and of course I hope you liked it.

These are the three Punk Ladies I own

These three lovely punk ladies belong to @melinda010100 who told me, she would be glad to have them join in the story :-) Thank you Melinda :-)

Please just let me know if somebody of you owns a hive punk and thinks this punk could play a role within my story?

I cannot promise, if and wich punk I will choose, but if you like the idea please introduce your punk here in the comments

• name / photo
• what is his profession
• wich personal properties would you give to him or her
  This is only possible if it is YOUR hive punk and also if this punk is not for sale at the moment.

If I choose your punk, I will use his full name in my story and also insert a picture, so please make sure, this is okay for you!

I hope you enjoyed reading, the next part will be published next Friday for the dreemport challenge once again :-) Yours, B.

my screenshot from punks.usehive.com
all words by @beeber
mostly translated with www.deepl.com (free version)