Chapter 493: Prior Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Most of Milo's thoughts were of his upcoming trip to Blothmazdan, but as usual, there was always part of him that refused to get with the program and meandered down different paths. As he'd become better and better at separating his consciousness and thinking in multiple channels, he'd tried to reign that part of himself in. It hadn't worked at all, and in time he knew why. That part of him was most active when he was worried about something and it went to work imagining things and running down those new pathways, no matter how illogical. 'What If?' was a popular game for that part of him.

What if teaching strategy to the Myconians led to a more militant society? What if it didn't, and instead of allies he was creating boardgame junkies addicted to beer-flavored mulch? Had he already started trouble for them by killing three Ur-Khemysts? Did all the people of Bloth have the same attitudes about slaves and slave races as those three? Was it really an evil city? Or just ruled by evil people? In Blothopoly, money led to power and power to money, was that reflected in the city itself? And how different was that from Gadobhra where the ACME corporation was so obviously motivated by profit, but were doing a terrible job of being evil?

Did Bloth have corporations? The game spoke of Guilds and Houses and Societies, but what were their org charts like? Did they have cheese factories in Bloth? A guild of cheese makers? How sharp was the cheddar? How creamy was the gouda? Were the sewer gators intelligent? Did sewer gators eat cheese? Did they eat ratkin? Did ratkin eat sewer gators? What kind of cheese went with gator steaks?

He could generally judge his stress level by how many questions his roving conscious came up. Right now, it was working triple-shifts with few breaks. Probably because Milo was doing the same. The most important idea he had gleaned in his research was that some of the people in Bloth were very intelligent, and very powerful. He didn't want to underestimate them, and put his mission in jeopardy because he hadn't done enough preparation. Part of that preparation was learning to walk properly.

Milo missed his tail. Walking on two legs without a tail to balance was awkward. And there were so many simple tasks where a tail was handy to have. But he needed to get used to being human. He was going to Blothmazdan, and however good his Invisible Tail illusion might be, he couldn't chance being discovered and blowing his cover as a traveling human Sage. He'd started working out for two hours a day, walking, running, and bouncing from one rock to another. It wasn't nearly as easy as a human and his balance was off. The game got tougher when Rosie and Buttercup started showing up, delighted to play 'Follow the Leader'. They constantly yelled at him to go faster and encouraged him with gentle 'tags' that rattled his skull. Brutus had come to watch and play referee as needed. Also to make sure his dainty little girls didn't edge over into predator mode. Keeping control of that side of themselves was important, but so was not breaking their playmate. Milo could have asked them to stop, but didn't. He was improving faster with their help, pushing his acrobatic skills further and further. When done, Gendifur examined them all for booboos and gave them cookies. The girls went off for a nap, and Milo retreated to the library of Number Thirteen to continue his research.

The library and personal notebooks of Number Thirteen had convinced him that the true rulers of Bloth were both competent and paranoid. They liked being in power, and saw conspiracies against them everywhere. Mostly they were right. Scheming and power grabs were a way of life for the Nobility of Bloth, and doubly so for the Ur-Khemyst societies. One slip of his illusion would have half the people wanting to execute him as a spy, and the other half would try to put a collar on him and put him to work. He needed to infiltrate a huge, complicated city, find one person who was certainly being held someplace out of sight, and formulate a rescue plan. All while hiding who he was, and not stirring up the kind of trouble that would affect Limburger Hollow, Shadowport, the Myconian City, and all the other places in the Deep Down he was connected with.

He had no illusions about staying out of trouble, it found him too easily. With that in mind, he decided that he needed to be someone with no connections to those people. Just a lowly traveling sage who didn't know what he was getting himself into by entering the city. Milo found the last part easy: No matter how much he could read about a place, gain clues from a strangely complicated boardgame, or glean from the personal writings of a madman, it wasn't going to be enough to keep him out of trouble. Traveling along with the caravan would be slower than going alone, but had the advantage of helping him to establish his persona as a sage. He needed to create Sage Babbage, and distance himself from both Tallsqueak the ratkin Hero and Senior Brother Milo, the Engineer.

Which is why for now he was going alone, despite many of his friends and family wanting to go with him. There was no advantage in numbers, not when you wanted to go unnoticed and blend in. He had gone over his plans with everyone and while there were some people very disappointed about not being included in what they saw as a fun adventure to an evil city, once he explained his reasons, he gained grudging approval from most of them. It helped that there was so many interesting things to be involved with besides Bloth. Nina was throwing herself into understanding what Number Thirteen had accomplished, combining her real-world knowledge of biology and genetics with the laboratory notes she found. Onyx was working under Sledgemonkey on magi-tech projects, using his knowledge of airship controls and linkages to create systems for guiding submarines through the inky depths. Zander was all over, involved with any mechanical project, especially the system of locks that would allow ships to travel from the ocean to Rumbottle Bay. Algernon was often working with Professor Arlothe on the electrical and Storm Mana systems.

The two of his siblings who weren't absorbed in the projects of Rumbottle Bay were Belinda and Bork. Belinda was taking on more and more work in the real world, managing Manpower, half of Rhebus, working with Sydney on Claw Master, and expanding the envelope of Prometheus over all their businesses. With Erik's help, they were keeping their corporate structure tight, weeding out spies and informants, and protecting themselves from other corporations and even governments.

Fusion power plants were being re-developed all over the world and the Fusion Care system was bringing in a steady stream of profits. She was constantly fending off rival corporations that wanted to gain control of the technology. They were frustrated that while they could retro-engineer a large chunk of the code used, it was the safety net that Fusion Care gave them in extreme events that they needed. Without out that, they had the choice of operating plants at much lower power levels, or producing far more power and paying Prometheus some of the profits. Since that final safety net was provided by Rusty hidden behind several layers of defenses, they were never going to get what they wanted, but that didn't stop them from trying.

And they tried continuously. Bork was spending most of his time upgrading their security systems, building upon what Milo and he had started, and adding what he'd learned from trying to hack into Wally. The people trying to hack the Fusion Care system came in two flavors: Corporate professionals who were caught and had interesting things go wrong in their lives, and the very annoying phantoms that attacked and faded away, constantly testing Bork's defenses. He admitted that the latter people were very good. They were using advanced technology to speed up their mental reflexes, and were impossible to trace back to their origins. Based on their behavior, Bork was certain some of them were the same people who continually tried to hack into Wally. And while Genesis was fascinating and fun, to Bork it was still a game. Defending his cyber fortress from attack was more important. As was his special project that was slowly percolating. He needed to get back to it and check on the evolution of the Clowns, Coffee Addict Tribes, and Psychotic Plush Animals.

Milo heartily approved of Bork and Belinda's work. He trusted them and didn't worry about things on the outside for the time being. He had enough to worry about in Genesis...especially if the alligators were real.