Chapter 12: Pussy Riot - In The Park

Then, the harem almost bit off more than they could chew. It happened this way...

Rachel, Cathleen, and Hannah were all on the ground leading small, targeted pickups of various specialists that colonies had requested. These excursions also let them extract a few specialists for the Harrad Colony. Having a list of needs from the various colonies greatly assisted in identifying probable needs for their own.

While waiting in their ‘ready room’ should backup be needed, Michael, Patricia, and Naomi were kept company by Gingerbread, Carole, and Katie -- the family’s operations and strategic planners. The ever-present Dora floated her avatar in its usual posture and position. Dora was chastising Michael, assisted by his ladies. “Michael, this whole family is woefully under concubined! Your only remaining official concubines are Victor, Vicky, and Ayesha.”

She floated over to Michael, and he was quite glad she couldn’t grab him by the ears like his other wives. “With the colony’s new CAP guidelines, most of the family’s companions will graduate as soon as you decide to implement them, and the remainder are quite likely to become sponsors in the predictable future. I don’t see how you can avoid marrying Abigail and Naomi, even if you want to, but I think you need to encourage your other companions to establish satellite families like the Nerds have. If you don’t, this whole colony is going to consist of two families - yours and Jonathan Hoag’s!”

Dora assumed the posture and demeanor of an old-fashioned college professor, even donning a robe and mortarboard hat and carrying a pointer. The effect was somewhat negated by the sexy, semitransparent harem pants peeking under the too-short robe. “You would set a bad example by not extracting as many concubines as possible. More important, you’ve already shown that proper guidance and example help concubines achieve sponsor level scores - though I will say that proper selection helped a lot. You can’t just fill the Lolli with filles du roi. They need guidance and protection.”

Michael’s ladies looked at him as Dora continued, “Plus, my review of all colony records show them to be woefully short of dependents in the ages between infant and thirteen. While there are exceptions, the majority of concubines extracted are teens without children nor experience rearing them.”

“Think about it. If we are to breed fighting forces, there is a huge deficit in numbers between the coming tsunami of new babies and those of the current age of majority. And that doesn’t take into account the need for a minimum of two concubines for every sponsor. What’s going to happen to our supply of troops and baby-makers if and when Earthat is interdicted? That’s virtually a 14-year desert -- talk about a generation gap!”

She put her hands on her hips, lost her robe and cap, and then resumed her usual posture sitting at eye level. “I’m done. I showed you the issue. You’re smart. You figure out what you are going to do about it.”

So they did.

In the Chicago suburbs, just north of the Botanical Gardens, previous site of an extraction, was a music venue formally known as the Ravinia Festival®, occupying thirty six acres of parkland and lawn. It was the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and also the location for a wide variety of summer concerts held in the three thousand, four-hundred seat pavilion. The music could be piped through high-quality speakers to the lawn, where an additional audience of upwards of twelve thousand could picnic before and during the concerts. While there were several high-quality restaurants and a take-out café on site, most lawn goers brought their own meals, wine, and other adult beverages.

Okay, time out for a question and answer period:

‘Why keep returning to the Chicago area for extractions?’ Well, Chicago was on the Swarm’s projected advance route. It seemed prudent to look in an area that would need to be evacuated anyway. In fact, folks were already heading south. Chicago area parents, desperate to get their children to safety, had begun following versions of the British during WWII -- foster their children to volunteer families far out of the projected path of the invaders.

Then, some bright couple had each child carry a notarized contingency custody authorization with the space for the guardian left blank. The practice caught on, and prudent parents only allowed their children to accompany an adult they would trust as guardian. Imperfect -- yes -- but the number of children extracted increased exponentially.

‘Why the northern ‘burbs and not the Southside or center city - you prejudiced or something?’ Not really. With all the high tech companies and research located in the northern ‘burbs, extractions were netting a widely diverse population in terms of ethnicity and skill sets. Plus, contingent custody authorizations were much more prevalent in the north.

Okay, boys and girls, back to the main attraction.

The Ravinia concert venue attracted the harem’s attention. They were about to break the pattern again, planning back-to-back extractions from the same location. The first extraction was a dream.

On the selected Sunday, Ravinia featured Bugs Bunny At The Symphony with a guest orchestra playing Looney Tunes cartoon soundtracks based on famous classical compositions. The cartoons were shown on screens in the Pavilion and on a huge screen erected on the lawn. Turnout for this concert was typically very good, with lots of children of all ages and just as desirable, attentive parents and older siblings. To increase turnout, lawn passes were purchased by the harem and distributed free to all the area’s libraries, schools, and religious organizations.

For the week prior to the scheduled pickup, Dora’s drones patrolled the park, looking for suspicious people, activities, or anomalies. The park’s security continued to search bags and coolers, but given the volume of people entering, the drones’ remote sensors were more effective than could be achieved without shutting down an event.

When the interdiction field came down at the concert’s end, Dora projected Michael’s image and voice to all the screens and speakers. He announced the extraction, and then told his audience that stripping and concubine selection would take place in the moon. After the usual stipulation that weapons would not be tolerated, interested adults were to remain in place while those not wishing to join the Confederacy were to gather at the north end of the park or pavilion, as appropriate.

As it happened, there were four Earth Firster families present. Three, in the interest of protecting their children, elected to surrender their weapons. The wife of the fourth decked him with a bottle as he started to draw, and Dora’s nearby drone was able to retrieve his pistol without a problem. When he sat up, holding his head, the unhappy wife told him, “Get your sorry ass to the north end of the park. Me and the kids are leaving!” No one told her that he was extracted into orbit sans spacesuit. Attempting to disrupt a Confederacy extraction - especially with deadly force - was a death sentence.

Michael chose this extraction to violate - well alter - another Darjee imposed rule, law, directive? Whatever. Using Dora’s input, carefully selected grandparents were surprised to be asked if they would like to be extracted with their grandkids. With the number of children being ‘targeted’ for extraction, having some mature, experienced adults available who were not going to be baby machines made a lot of sense to him. Not too many, mind you, but leavening. He planned to extract a few others who were beyond child bearing, but that was for another time and extraction.

The targeted artist to headline and open the second night’s concert was a pop teen vocalist known as Inkie. She wrote and produced her own songs and had topped the charts for three years. In short, Inkie was brilliant, a genius in her own right, and not a teen product (however talented) of a Disney TV series or movie.

Inkie was anointed with a heavenly voice, a nubile body, her self written and produced weekly teen-oriented TV show, and a fan base that spanned tweens through college aged girls. She and the people with whom she worked in ‘the industry’ were known for their joint disgust, frustration, and antipathy towards scalpers. Considered leeches on the butt of the music industry, scalpers offered nothing to the production. They often sucked out more money than found its way to the artists and the venues that did ‘real’ work, and they added significant additional cost to the audience.

Finding a hole in Inkie’s touring schedule, the harem used a blind company to approach Inkie and her manager to offer a free trial of a new technology and procedure that promised to almost totally cut scalpers from the picture. All ticket purchases had to be made through a chipped credit or debit card that was required to be in the possession of the ticket holders at the point of entry.

Contrary to the norm, anyone could sell tickets back to the venue at the original price. The tickets became available for resale by the venue. Without a card that was known to the database, tickets would not be honored at the gate. Ticket sales were limited to eight per purchaser, and sold out quickly. The new policy offered a perfect excuse to increase security at the entrances to the venue; a company tied to the blind ticket company was brought in for this purpose.

The addition came well after Ravinia published their original schedule, and her pairing with a more mature artist proved to be Ravinia’s most desirable since their Tony Bennett - Lady Gaga concert.

The new technology and procedure worked with no glitches. Behind the scenes, Dora ferreted out most scalpers, and as soon as they tried to resell their tickets, the tickets were invalidated and the price refunded. In most cases, the scalpers’ potential customers were offered the repossessed tickets at their face value. Only the scalpers were unhappy. Actually, they were highly pissed.

The lawn filled blanket-to-blanket, chair-to-chair. A typical pattern was one adult and five hormonal, giggling, excited girls. Another was a gathering of adults seated around a table laden with specialty edibles and adult beverages. Surprising no one, this was Ravinia Festival, and it worked.

The plan was to conduct the extraction in two segments, the first to begin after Inkie finished her final encore. Her fans would be invited to be extracted immediately, or to stay for the second concert if desired and then be offered extraction. Hannah and Patricia had charge of the pavilion’s security - Hannah over-all and Patricia the stage and the performers.

Of the performers, only Inkie was told in confidence of the impending extraction. Responding to a moment of prescience, Michael was able to get access for Hannah and Patricia to speak with her both to offer extraction and to ask for assistance should it be needed for crowd control. Plans being subject to change once on the ground, her help was definitely needed.

As groups and individuals presented themselves, Dora was to sort them. Any group declaring or known to have health problems was to be transported immediately to waiting med tubes. Groups with likely candidates for the Harrad Colony were transported to a separate reception area, but both areas were staffed with lots of the sponsors and concubines needed to help take charge of the surge of excited youngsters.

The evening’s main problems were twofold, and neither were Earth First. The first problem was the density of the crowd and the dearth of space for folks to sort themselves into ‘going’ and ‘staying.’ The second - that was the aforementioned gaggles of hormonal, giggling, excited, and now screaming, girls.

When the young performer finished her last encore, she asked the crowd for their attention - that she had an announcement. Over the semi-silence, she declared the extraction and that she was going. Several things happened immediately. The gray barrier descended around the grounds, pandemonium erupted, clothes began flying, and fifteen misguided teens rushed the stage intending to be extracted with Inkie as her sponsor or concubine as the case might be.

None of these lust driven suitors gave a thought that she might be touring with her own prepack. Four were persistent enough that they needed to be stunned to dissuade them.

‘Twas Inkie that saved the bacon. Recognizing the fast developing problem, and having been thoroughly briefed on crowd issues by her very competent security staff, Inkie took matters into her own hands. Somehow she managed to get her sound technician’s attention, indicated to turn on her microphone and raise the volume, and launched acapella into Zombie Jamboree. Her high clear voice brought everything to a halt, “Back to back, belly to belly, don’t give a damn ‘cuz I’ve done that already!... “ Inkie’s band picked up instruments and enthusiastically followed her lead with the full-out calypso version. The crowd seemed evenly split between those too young to have ever heard the song, and those who started singing along. Dancing was enthusiastic with all ages rubbing backs and bellies.

At the song’s conclusion, Inkie told the crowd. “Listen up folks, I’m told that everyone who wants to go will get the chance as a sponsor or concubine, so don’t kill yourself or your neighbor. While you wait, my band and I are going to play every dirty song we know. Maybe our rescuers can pipe our music to wherever they are taking us, so you won’t miss anything.”

Inkie and her band knew a lot of dirty music, as they had entertained themselves on many a road trip jamming out a repertoire they never thought they would get to play in concert. The highly entertained crowd became more manageable, though there were some scandalized parents - who were outnumbered by delighted teens and preteens. After an hour the band romped into Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts’ version of Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box and concluded with a close imitation of the Uppity Blues Women and How Can I Say I Miss You, When I Can’t Get You To Leave? Inkie thanked her remaining fans, declared a good night, and departed.

Unable to consider following an act such as had just preceded him, the night’s second entertainer offered his concert wherever they ended up after extraction, and those remaining sorted themselves and departed as well.

An exhausted Michael returned to Lolli to find his family’s conversation pit occupied by an equally exhausted, naked Inkie and her four naked concubines. Inkie’s arms were draped around Hannah and Patricia. Dora and Lolli floated nearby, while a rapt appearing Helva sat at Inkie’s feet. The discussion between these latter two was animated and music centered.

Inkie, an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction, was a huge fan of McCaffrey’s ship series and recognized the implications immediately upon introduction to Helva. Already somewhat concerned about constant exposure to a shipload of fans, Inkie requested that Helva be her transport while in route to her new home.

Having extracted a full symphony orchestra, a soca/reggae band, a pop diva, a renowned vocal icon, and a wide variety of very talented musical backups and hangers-on, Harrad was not going to lack for live and innovative music. Later, Michael had the thought and proposed to Katie that that they offer live concerts in trade to any colonies they visited while on their journey. That would prove to be a bonanza!