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Subject: {ASSM} Twenty-Five Pairs Ch.18 (Final) by Rachael Ross (MF+/m, Rom, Incest,
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Twenty-Five Pairs
by T.S. Severe
Copyright 2007-2008 Rachael Ross/T.S.Severe all rights reserved.
Intended for adults only.
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/rache/www/index.htm comments: T.S.Severe@gmail.com
Story Codes: MF+/f {TG}, Rom, Incest, [Teen TG] Oral, Anal, Mast,
Petting, SciFi/Fantasy
Synopsis: When 13 year old Jenny moves with her family to Harden Utah,
the girl discovers friendship, romance, and the excitement of being
something more than just different.
BFG Productions in association with Severe Discipline presents...
Twenty-Five Pairs
by T.S. Severe
Chapter Eighteen
Challenger 2026 - 20??
It was hot and humid, and working in the field is a week of twenty
hour days. It's easy to get tired and worn down. When you go to bed,
in a tent with mosquito netting and maybe a generator to keep the
lights on, or more than likely just a gas lantern. When you get to
bed, you don't want sex, there's nothing romantic about it, you just
want someone to hold you and tell you tomorrow is going to be better.
I woke up on the inflatable mattress we used for sleeping, it was
our only luxury, and Cory was sitting upright and bent over with his
forehead on his knees. It took me a few seconds to blink and clear my
eyes and head, to understand that something was wrong. He was pale and
shivering and then I heard him groan.
"What's wrong? Cory?" I moved to look at him, getting closer and
touching his skin, hot and sticky. There was that cold rational voice
in my head that said not to get near him. I couldn't hear it.
"I don't know." He winced, holding his stomach and beneath his
arms I could see the dull bruise-like discoloration.
"Fuck." I breathed. "Lie down."
I scrambled through my clothes, bunched up in a pile, shaking them
out and I found the cuff and then the bulb.
"I think I screwed up." He blinked at me, trying to breathe and I
shook my head.
"Give me your arm." I didn't need to check his blood pressure. I
knew what it was, but I needed time to think and I'd need the numbers
anyway.
"When did it start?" I asked. "How did you get it? Did you stick
yourself?"
"This morning." He breathed. "An hour...I dunno. I woke up and it
hurt. I was careful."
"Ninety-five over seventy." I closed my eyes. "Your hemorrhaging
inside, let me see."
I touched his stomach and then moved him gently. His kidneys, both
of them, they were bleeding. I pressed against the left with my
fingertips against his skin and Cory spasmed with pain. It was Lassa
Fever, which had already murdered some twenty-eight people, Sudanese
tribesman in this no-name village in the middle of nowhere. Cory was
going to be twenty-nine if I didn't do something.
"Hey guys..." Simon was unzipping the tent. Dr. Simon Welling, a
virologist from England.
"Don't come in!" I screamed. "Quarantine this tent! I need plasma,
two liters right now. I want the T-Cells, give me some, uh...Fuck! Just
bring that and water, ice...I need sample kits and..."
"Jen? What is it?" Simon asked, frozen now just outside the flap
because he'd been doing this a long time too.
"Cory's infected." I said and that was all there was.
"You gotta...Ah..." Cory clenched his teeth, frowning at me. "...Get out
of here, before you get it."
"I spent all night with you." I shook my head. "I either got it or
I don't."
I was digging for my stethoscope and I listened to him while I
waited.
"Your lungs are clear, your heart's good." I told Cory, but that
didn't matter. Lassa goes for internal organs, mostly the liver this
time around, but for whatever reason it had gone for Cory's kidneys
and it was eating him alive.
"I'm coming in." Simon said some five or ten minutes later and I
almost yelled at him for taking so long, but he'd had to dress out of
course, and get everything together. He'd moved pretty fast
considering.
"Give me the plasma, his BP is too low." I hung a bag from a nail
on one of the poles and Simon was already opening his case, like a
plastic toolbox. "Out of the way, I'll do it. I'm faster."
"Right." Simon wasn't going to argue because it was true. I didn't
have to be careful, not anymore.
I started an IV, struggling for a decent vein in Cory's arm, and
when I found it I was pouring blood into him, trying to keep the man
alive. I started another one for the T-Cells, antibodies from patients
who'd recovered, sending reinforcements to help Cory's body fight the
virus. It wasn't going to work and he was trying so hard to be strong,
laying there quietly and trying to hide the pain.
I took a sample of my own blood, handing the vial to Simon so he
could put it under a scope and see if I was infected. I had to be. I'd
shared Cory's glass the night before, shared Cory's plate, eating
together. We'd slept together, kissed and said our goodnights. I had
it, but I wasn't symptomatic yet. No fever, no pain. I felt wetness in
my eyes as I bathed Cory gently, and for just a second I felt my heart
freeze, before I touched my cheek and saw my finger wasn't bloody,
merely wet. Some of the villagers had bled from the eyes, which seemed
particularly terrible to me and I was afraid of it.
"It hurts a lot, Jen." Cory whispered and his beautiful green eyes
were dull with pain. "Morphine?"
"You don't have enough blood." I swallowed hard. "You just have to
hold on, okay? I'm gonna make you better."
"Hurts." He sighed.
"I'm so sorry." I stroked Cory's face, wondering how this could
have happened. It was like that though, once in awhile, someone would
get a virus and we'd never know why. Like God had just...Picked him to
die.
"Jen, you have the antibodies." Simon was back half an hour later.
"Yeah." I nodded, that wasn't a surprise.
"No sign of the virus though." Simon told me. "Just B lymphocytes,
but..."
"It's probably too early." I shrugged.
"...The only antibody I found was IgM, there's nothing else there."
Simon said through his suit. "It's just the primary and not even all
of that."
"So, it's just started then." I said. "Six hours I'll give you
more blood. What's going on outside?"
"Seven new cases, we had five deaths over the night, two more
aren't going to make it until lunch." Simon spoke softly, putting his
head close to mine. "We're looking at seventy...eighty percent maybe."
"That's too high." I frowned. "Too high for Lassa."
"Rosenthal wants to call it in as Lassa-B, a new strain." Simon
said.
"I need to look at it first."
"That's what I told him." Simon agreed. "It's your call, but he
says you're compromised, so..."
"Fuck." I looked up at the IV bags. "I need more blood, give me
the real stuff, he's uh...A Positive. And more lymphocytes. Anybody
survive last night?"
"Nobody new." Simon said. "We've got the four stable and eight
presenting with antibodies and no symptoms. But the symptomatic chaps,
they haven't improved that much. Not yet."
"Right." I nodded and it was about what I expected. "Four fucking
days and we lose half a village. Okay, tell Rosenthal he's not calling
in a new strain, not until I look at it. I don't want anyone else. He
tries and I'll have his ass back in Montreal handing out condoms to
college kids."
"Vancouver, I think." Simon snorted. "Either way, I'll get your
blood. Anything else?"
"No." I looked at Cory and he was looking at me with those big
green eyes full of fear.
=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=
I woke up sweating, staring at the white ceiling above me. I'd
been dreaming of Cory and my heart was pounding, my sheets damp and
sticky, constricting me and I had to get up.
The cubicle was barely big enough for the bunk I slept in. It had
some some lockers to hold my things. My few personal possessions. My
bear and book. My snow globe. Everything else was business, books and
binders, all my notes and equipment. I stood in the middle of that
little room looking around, licking my lips and feeling caged. I
wanted the sun and a blue sky and rain. God I wanted rain. It had been
so dusty in Africa.
I coughed, getting dressed and leaving for the head, the toilet,
and after that some coffee. I hadn't been sleeping well and so I'd
been sleeping less. I'd need some pills soon, I thought. I couldn't
keep going this way and I needed a clear head. I had to be stronger
than this. Smarter.
"Hey, Jen." A woman's voice greeted me.
Welsh was on the command deck of the Challenger, but not for any
real reason except that some binder someplace said she should be. The
ship was on autopilot, all the way now. We couldn't stop or turn
around, even if we wanted to. Chin's computers were driving, Welsh and
the others in the command crew just made sure the lights kept
blinking.
"Hi Diana. How are we doing?" I replied, coming up a ladder.
I smiled weakly and the physics guys had been wrong about one
thing, hyperspace wasn't black at all. It was measly white, like
looking at a snowstorm. An infinite number of snowflakes, not falling,
but twinkling in and out of existence, making you wonder if your were
really seeing it or not. I thought sometimes that we were in a snow
globe of our very own.
"Still on schedule." She smiled, holding up a magazine. "Seen this
one?"
The command deck was reasonably roomy, with a big curving flight
control console beneath an equally curved window that covered a full
180 degree view, looking forward from side to side. The habitational
section of the ship was a great sphere, over five hundred meters in
diameter, and rotating to produce artificial gravity, but we couldn't
tell, not without an external reference. We now weighed about seventy
percent of normal, which was kind of nice, but bad for our bones and
muscle, so we all had to work out.
"People magazine?" I laughed and shook my head. "No."
"You're in it, page..." She flipped through. "..Eighty-seven, best
dressed for '26 issue. 'Astronaut Jennifer Pinchbeck puts a spin on
Washington in a Joni Stur original' it says."
"Oh God." I sat down in one of the chairs.
"Nice picture too." Diana held the magazine open so I could see
myself in that red dress I'd worn to the white house.
"They cut Josh off." I frowned.
"Yeah, they're bastards." She chuckled and narrowed her eyes at
the photo. "What do you wear under a dress like that?"
"Nothing." I laughed.
"Yeah?" She raised her eyebrows. "I'd be scared shitless to meet
the President with no underwear on."
Diana sighed and she was an attractive woman of a certain type,
masculine and well, butch is a word that comes to mind, I suppose.
Only her father had ever called her beautiful and Diana's dress that
evening had been something much more practical than mine. I don't
think she regretted it either.
"Well, it was a little weird." I nodded.
"I'm gonna keep this page, I think..." Diana said slowly, tearing my
picture out and I blinked at her. "...Put it on the wall next to my
pillow."
"Oh." I cleared my throat.
"It'll remind me that I'm not as brave as I pretend I am." She
grinned at me.
"Ahhh..." I was blushing actually.
"Besides, it'll give me good dreams, thinking about you in that
dress." Diana was getting up, touching my shoulder. "Time for me to
wake up Allen. Come by later, if you want. I have a feeling I won't be
able to fall asleep right away."
"Right." I licked my lips.
"We can talk..." She smiled at me. "...Or something."
I watched the woman leave, short and somewhat stocky, but in a
good way. Her blonde hair was cut like a man's and Diana had those
cobalt eyes. She'd be firm and hard all over, and soft in all the
right places too. A serious fuck, the Colonel, who'd been promoted to
full bird a month before lift-off. She'd do me right.
Diana...I sighed. Six days down and twenty-three more to go before
we reached Pelham, and she'd finally hit on me. I closed my eyes and
smiled, wondering why it had taken her so long. I'd been going out of
my way to give her time alone with me, not a lot, but every now and
then. I'd probably find her later, since there wasn't any real sense
in playing hard to get. I wanted someone to wear me out, push those
dreams out of my head for awhile and Allen was fun, but...
"There she is." Allen said softly, bending over and kissing my
cheek from behind. "I've been missing you."
"Uh-huh." I smiled as he took the chair next to me, turning in it
so we faced each other, rather than forward.
"I'm serious, Jen." He rubbed the short bristling hair on his
head. "I think you've been avoiding me."
"The ship isn't big enough for that." I said. "I've just been
busy, you know."
"Busy, yeah." He was unhappy with me. "Too busy to talk?"
"I know what you want..."
"I want you." He said. "Is that so wrong? I thought we had
something going."
"Allen, it was never going to be serious." I sighed. "I'm
engaged."
"He's not going to wait." Fuller said and this was what I hated.
"Don't." I warned him.
"I love you, Jen." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his
knees. "We're not like other people. We belong together. People like
Josh...He'll never do anything."
"You don't know Josh." I smiled, resisting the urge to slap the
man's face hard. "And if this is how you plan on making me fall in
love with you, Allen...You're making a big mistake."
I stood up and he just watched me leave. Ever since he'd met Josh,
some four months before, Allen had been jealous. It was an emotion
that he was singularly ill-suited for, in my opinion, more than most
men. It brought out the bully in him, the arrogance that he needed to
do so many other things well. In love, it made Allen unattractive and
abrasive. It made us both unhappy and now he'd driven me away with it
completely.
"Look at you." I smiled at Arthur Nielson, the surgeon as he
pushed some weights in the small gymnasium we had.
"Heh." He smiled at me, a little ruddy in the face, a little
sweaty in his shorts and t-shirt. "I can bench two fifty now."
"What's that on Earth?" I asked, crossing my arms over my breasts,
leaning against the bulkhead. "About one eighty?"
"Spoil sport." He grinned at me. "You been exercising?"
"It's in my log." I nodded. "Sixty minutes a day. About fourteen
hundred I was thinking we could run some of the labs?"
"Sure." He nodded, sitting up on his bench. "Spectography?"
"Yeah, that looks like an easy one." I agreed. "We'll get David to
help, he has some of his own to do anyway."
"Sounds good to me." Arthur looked at me a little closer. "How are
you doing? How's your sleep pattern?"
"There's supposed to be a pattern?" I forced a little laugh. "I
don't know, I have...A tough time sleeping."
"Taking your vitamins?" He asked and I nodded. "Any other
problems?"
"No, everything else is fine." I said. "Slightly elevated blood
sugar, but we expected that anyway."
"Yeah, I started Zach on insulin." Arthur nodded. "Glucose in his
urine."
"I checked mine about eight hours ago, I'm fine." I said. "Just...
Bad dreams."
This was part of Nielson's job, mine too, monitoring everyone and
each other. We tended to ask a lot of questions, pay a lot of
attention to what people said. We were the doctors. I wouldn't hide
anything from him, because everything is a clue, but Nielson and I
were the only ones we could trust that much. We had to assume that the
others, being people like they were, would lie about their health. It
reminded me why I was a lab rat.
"When did they start?" He asked.
"About three days ago?" I shrugged. "It's anxiety. Loneliness, I
suppose. I'll give it a few more days and try changing my schedule a
little.
"Quit the caffeine, that'll help." Nielson nodded.
"Yeah." I laughed. "I know, but..."
"We got decaf around here someplace, Jen." Arthur chuckled and I
was a coffee fiend, which was a contributing factor, of course.
"I'm cutting down...Um, Arthur?" I cleared my throat and this was
going to help too, but I was nervous.
"Yeah?"
"I...You asked me once about that Lassa outbreak, in the Sudan.
Remember?"
"I remember." He nodded slowly and after a pause, "Is that what
you're dreams are about?"
"Yeah." I closed my eyes for a second and then opened them,
looking into his face. "I told you I didn't kill anyone. I lied."
"Jen, you don't have to explain to me." Arthur said gently,
standing up.
"Yeah, I...I want to, see I was..." I frowned. "...There was a man with
me, my assistant, my...Friend. Dr. Schiller, Cory, and uh, he was there
because of me."
"Okay." Arthur sighed and he was standing close, touching my
shoulders, ready to comfort me.
"He wanted to be a baby doctor." I smiled. "But he wanted to be
with me and so he was there."
"What happened?"
"He got infected." I coughed lightly, looking down. "He got
careless, or unlucky or...Something. We never found out why. And he
died."
"Okay." Arthur hugged me, softly, pulling me off the bulkhead and
I wasn't crying. This was two years old and I'd already mourned
enough. "He was so...good. An angel, you know? And I killed him."
"You can't blame yourself for that." Arthur told me. "If he was
there, it's because he wanted to be. We choose our own lives, Jen."
"I was infected." I sucked my lips, taking a deep breath and
looking once more at Arthur. "I stayed with him. I watched him die and
I had it in me, but...I didn't even get a fever, Arthur."
"Then you were lucky, that's all." He told me. "You don't have to
feel guilty for surviving."
"I've never been sick a day in my life." I stared at him. "After
Sudan, I, uh...Started running tests, on myself."
"What kind of tests?"
"I wanted to find out why." I nodded. "I...I tried different things,
but I never got sick."
"You were...Exposing yourself?"
"Yeah." I shrugged. "I gave myself tuberculosis, first. It lived
in my body for, oh, twenty minutes before I killed it. Malaria lasted
an hour. I gave myself Ebola-Zaire and I didn't even get a secondary
immune response."
"That's not possible." Nielson blinked at me.
"I thought I could use my immune system to create a vaccine." I
said. "I mean, I thought...Well, at first I thought if I'd given my
blood to Cory, I could have saved him. You know? I was right there, I
had the antibodies but we didn't understand it. I thought it was just...
Too soon."
"You're saying, what?" Nielson searched my face. "You're the cure
for cancer?"
"I tried to make a vaccine." I nodded. "Using my DNA. I didn't
tell anyone where it came from. I made it and I used my work, my
position with CDC and with WHO...That was Tempest. I was inoculating
people with my immune system. Playing with it, looking for the key."
"Did it work?" He asked and the hope was in his eyes, the
possibility of a miracle.
"No." I shook my head. "I tried a number of variations, but none
of the vaccines were successful."
"So..."
"It's just me." I sighed. "I tried for two years. I tried
everything, but I couldn't get it out of my body and into someone
else."
"There must be a way, something you overlooked." Nielson rubbed
his jaw. "You shouldn't be out here, it's too dangerous. You should
be..."
"In a lab someplace?" I stared at him. "Locked up, stuck with
needles and wires...Arthur, that's what they did to my brother. I'm not
going there."
"No, I don't mean that, but...Jen, think of what it means!" He
blinked at me as his mind caught up with what I'd said. "Brother?"
"You know what it means?" I ignored his questioning look. "I'm not
human. I'm the alien we're looking for and I know what they'll do to
me once they find out."
"Who are they? What will they do?" Nielson shook his head. "I
don't understand."
"Be glad of that, Arthur." I kissed him on the cheek. "You're a
good man."
=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=
"Hmph." David Rogers was sitting at his science station. "Thin
atmosphere, mostly carbon dioxide, trace nitrogen, methane, hydrogen...
sulfuric acid."
"You sure that's not Venus?" Joan chuckled.
"Looks like it, doesn't it." Rogers sighed. "No little green men
down there."
"What's atmospheric pressure?" Nielson asked.
"A lot. Reading 32 bars at the surface." David shrugged. "Sorry,
no walks in the park today."
"A dead planet." I sighed.
We were looking at it through cameras because the windows were
shuttered. The slow relentless spin of the habitation module made
everyone sick now that there was something to see and we'd discussed
turning roration off, but working in zero-G was a real pain.
"Yeah." Brittany shook her head. "That sucks, huh? Nobody to
kill."
"Yeah." I frowned and maybe I deserved that after briefing the
entire crew just the day before on the presence of PK1.00 in my lab
and why it was there. It hadn't made me very popular at all.
"Knock it off, Chin." Nielson gave her a look and he'd taken a
little beating as well, since he'd kept the secret faithfully.
"There could be microorganisms." I said. "Bacteria. We'll start
prepping the collector tonight for a noon launch tomorrow."
"Works for me." Nielson agreed, and that was our department. "Up
for that Zach?"
"Yeah, Doc." The systems specialist nodded and he was the driver
of the probe, which would land on the surface, scoop up some rocks,
and a bladder full of atmosphere, and then come back...Hopefully.
"No oxygen." Rogers was unhappy. "No water. No ice."
"It could be trapped in the rock." Joan shrugged.
"Maybe." Rogers shrugged and he looked over at Allen and Zach who
were performing radar mapping of the surface, which was largely an
automated process. Diana was leaning between their shoulders.
We all had a lot of stuff to do, which was nice for a change. We'd
been conducting experiments in hyperspace as well, studying the
effects of traveling through that other dimension at roughly 300 times
the speed of light. We'd checked everything from ourselves, to fungus,
green beans, and rats. After a month we were ready for something else,
something a little more tangible than twinkling snow.
"We'll do a high resolution microwave survey and x-ray after your
collector is finished." Rogers was checking the binder, because this
really was all scheduled, so much as possible. "See what the place is
really made of underneath all that pollution."
"I'm taking one of the sisters offline tonight for ten hours."
Chin reminded us, meaning one of the two main computers.
They were Angie and Betsy, Alpha and Bravo, and at least they
didn't talk. They were redundant, like everything else, one backing up
the other, and Chin needed to run her maintenance to make sure we
could get back home.
She'd also send a transmission to earth, all of the data collected
so far and a status report. It would take twenty-three years to get
there, of course, but if anything happened to us at least they'd have
something. We tried not to think of it like that and we'd all made
little messages, funny personal ones to our future selves in an effort
to relieve boredom and a little stress.
I'd finished mine with, "I miss you, Jenny."
"Arthur, let's go take care of..." I cleared my throat and he knew
what I meant, they all did.
"Yeah." He smiled agreeably. "Let's do that."
As I'd promised, we were destroying the PK virus I'd engineered.
We incinerated it together, venting the gasses and what few ashes
there might be after ten minutes at 3500 degrees Fahrenheit into the
cold vacuum of space. It was gone forever and once more the organism
existed nowhere but inside my head.
"Thank God that's over with." Arthur grinned at me and I nodded.
"Yeah." I breathed. "There's only one thing left."
"What's that?" He narrowed his eyes.
"Me." I sighed. "I can't go back."
"What?" He laughed nervously. "What do you mean?"
"The virus is still here." I tapped my head. "As long as it
exists, we're all in danger."
"Jen, it's gone. It's done with." He told me. "You're going to go
home and be a hero and give speeches and open shopping malls like the
rest of us."
"They'll make me do it again." I said. "They'll never let it go,
now that they've seen it. Once they find out I'm immune...I can't keep
that secret long, not from them. I've had two years already, my luck
won't last forever."
"You're paranoid. You haven't been sleeping well, the dreams..."
Nielson rubbed my shoulder. "...The stress. You're not being rational."
"I'm completely rational, Arthur." I reassured him. "Did you see
that planet out there? It's dead. That's Earth if what I know ever
gets loose."
"Jennifer, you're famous. You have a Nobel Prize, you've been to
another planet." Nielson laughed. "What can anyone possibly do to
you?"
"I could die in a car crash." I shrugged. "So far as anyone would
ever know or prove. I could spend the rest of my life in a basement."
"They don't do that..." Nielson shook his head. "...Whoever 'they'
are, nobody does that sort of thing."
"You have no idea what they do." I sighed.
"And you do?" The man took a deep breath, not believing any of
this.
"That's just it." I shook my head. "I don't want to find out. I'm
tired of being Pandora and sitting on the box, trying to hold it
closed after taking a peek. I'm so tired of it."
"You didn't come all this way to commit suicide." He squeezed me
firmly, bringing my eyes to his. "I won't let you do that."
"I have a letter. I'm still writing, but when it's done..." I licked
my lips. "...You bring it back for me, okay?"
"No."
"Arthur." I smiled. "It's why I'm here."
This was why I'd been sent, how Mr. Fox had made me untouchable.
He'd known everything and all along and Mr. Fox was my father as much
as he was anything else. He'd loved me too much, the way everyone
does, and he'd put me on this mission knowing I'd understand, or
perhaps only hoping, but no...Mr. Fox had never underestimated me.
He'd sent me away so that I could make my own decision, free of
everyone who could change my mind, or bind me to a dream I didn't
share. It was in the book he'd given me, a scientific study of devils
and witchcraft, and in the end we all die for another's fear.
Mr. Fox was giving me another reason. The devil was in me and I'd
play the witch no more.
=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=
And that is my story, so much as I care to recall and reveal. It
will return without me. Doctor Nielson has promised me that much,
although he doesn't know it.
There's nothing down there. Not even bacteria. Pelham Bravo is a
planet without breathable atmosphere or water. It's a disappointment,
but not a terrible one. The FTL Drive works and we've traveled safely
to another star. That's a victory all its own and a triumph for our
species. There are billions of planets and we'll keep looking and soon
enough find life; it's inevitable and I'm greatly cheered by that. It
gives me hope and I pray that the next would-be xenobiologist is
stronger than I've been, and better able to resist the fears of lesser
men.
I know I can't return to Earth. The things I've done and been
willing to do, the terrible things of which I'm capable, makes me the
enemy of our future. They would use me again, I know, as they have
used me all along. I have a child now and a man who loves me. I have a
house that I'll never see. I would die a thousand times before I'd
ever surrender any of that to the abyss.
I love you, Josh.
Jen
End of Part 18
End of 25 Pairs
rache696@yahoo.com
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Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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