It couldn't be, couldit?He looked up, and saw Paula across the table, wide eyed in shock, with asmile on her face. She looked to her right, and Josie ...ad the sameshocked expression. But everyone else at the table looked relativelynormal."Are you OK Rachel?" asked his mother."Yes it's just..." He tried to clear his throat again, but his voicestayed in the same high pitch. "It's just that I'm overwhelmed. I neverimagined I'd get a pussy."But did he really? It all seemed to add up: being called. With that information, the group decided to return immediately to thepolice station where they found the Inspector conducting a briefing ofhis officers. They were able to convince him to pause the meeting andlisten to what Danielle had to say. With interjections and prompts fromLeigh, the story was repeated and the Inspector convinced.The Inspector was not a foolish man and understood that anyone who hadconducted such a bold and efficient abduction would be a professional andas such prepared. I started with the stasis chambers, as these were the most intriguing of the non-weaponry technology.I was soon able to discover the principle behind the technology, and saw how it was a simple cousin to the same Vortex technology I had invented. I began making experiments, and running tests. I was creating small stasis boxes, and small tools out of carefully constructed atmosphere in stasis.I didn’t have the ability to actually carve the stasis, as Bruce believed he would one day be able to do. Claims and counter-claims led to small skirmishes and eventually increasingly greater armed battles between rival military units. The problem was really that neither side ever had the manpower to securely hold and keep any captured territory. Battles that might have been decisive for most other larger kingdoms became mostly pyrrhic victories here. The entire river valley had become a festering wound that was slowly bleeding both lands dry.Mercifully, the great Caesterian Empire next door to us.