THE OLD-LADIES' DUEL

 

 

  They do not pull out guns or brandish knives in their duel for dominance of Taurus; still, the two act like enemies. Sira has played her wild card, viral modification. Victory depends on it, but if it goes wrong....

  Flop, stomp; someone enters the room.

  As one of the women involved, Sira Leader, a five foot two inch bundle of energy and gray hair, considers whether 'debate' might not better express what occurs.

  A door slams. The smell of baking roast flows in.

  She ignores it. Her mind boils. Realizing the stakes that depend on the outcome of their joust, she ponders like a drunk Russian, What am I doing? I've got to name this correctly. ‘Mutual accusations’ might fit.

  What the dungeons! Static, tromp, shuffle. The air around them grows electric. The tables spark, the furniture glows.

Many in the Blue Glen Retirement Village gather that she and Tory have to do with the servants. However, these retirees do not wonder about that when hungry. Lunch time. Most now stroll through the restaurant door.

  The retirees scoot with walkers or zoom by motorized although some stagger along, guided or not by servants.

Crackle, scrape, clink. Reminds Sira of cups trembling. It’s just the glasses shaking their cubes.

  The retirement complex has two hundred bio-botic servants operational, carrying out tasks ranging from gardening to personal service. Most retirees have surmised that the two oldsters, sitting on the divan in the middle of the rec room, maintain and repair these bios just for them, the semi-helpless; however, that provides a cover for what actually goes on. We do keep them operating. Sira grins. Let them figure out what the reality is.

  Acrid fumes, pop, spurt. And the clanking of silverware deafens. Sira looks around. The restaurant has overflowed; retirees occupy chairs and sofas. Most eat or drink.

  One bio staggers through the room: a waiter named Acme. Built to serve those using the rec room, it waits on the two ancients. However, something has gone wrong with its circuits. It tromps among the delivery tubes, seemingly confused which way to go.

  It lunges into a diversion, yanking out the wiring from the tables and game stations. Sparks fly up and scorch the ceiling; they cascade over the two disputants in their shorts and packs of meds. "Smudge cake!" Tory exclaims as she brushes off the cinders.

4.25 minutes before, Acme, balancing two rum Collins on a tray, had entered. Now, the glasses tumble across the carpet. Wisps of smoke furl from Acme's probes. The bio-bot tears at its vest, yanks its hair out, chews it and glowers at the centenarians.

  Then, it hunkers and lumbers between them to a couch full of multicolored squares. Plops down its 6-foot frame. With its new occupant still flailing, the divan scoots on its rollers ten meters across the floor to come to rest against one of the fake palms.

  After a moment, the bio-bot crosses its legs like a man. The smoke coming from its ears slows to a curl. Its eyes whir and slide into focus on the oldsters. It says, “Acme, get us two collins and make it snappy. We’ll be by the pool.”

  “Slop talk,” Tory Dare, the younger woman by a year, says, “It’ll take more than 'please' to get that bastard settled.”

  "Sure will," Sira Leader agrees. Short and sparkly, privately she wonders if this one has received the virus. I didn't test fully before syringing some of my mods, she confesses to herself. Could this be a backfire? Her ears sink into her mind for the answer.

  She has taken a risk with these viruses. They have not gone through proofing. She has skimped on this because Tory has leapt ahead with her latest, not that Sira will admit that to her opponent. The doubts in her mind spit out outcomes that scare her. My space angel, there's too much at stake, too much.

  The servant sits there with its eyes and lips quivering. As if to demonstrate Sira’s point, it leaps from the couch, dashes toward and smashes into the near wall. It bounces off onto the pink tile floor, then runs back to the couch, and resumes its position between the gobsmacked ladies.

  From her fannypack, Sira removes a terminal. She touches several icons, and Acme's history comes up. 3-D print and muscle-cell seed dates standard, and procedures stable. Cells self-organized to tissue ‒ the bio-bot takes first steps. So far, cookbook. Acme learns movement through pushes, twists, turns, compression and stretching. Organs grow from implants. Drills turn senses operational. Bio-bot 14852 delivered April 19 of last year to Blue Glen Retirement Village along with a manual for development of functionality and a table containing the genetics ‒ all okay.

  She scans through the procedures that made Acme a waiter. All done at the blue-themed village. The next set of notes covers her own research, development and insertion. The encryption still good, no sign of breach.

  I'll work on this further when I'm alone. She closes and secures the port, nods up from her inspection to find Tory and Acme staring at her.

  "What's so interesting?" her rival says.

  Acme gibbers.

  Both Tory and she use ploys against the other. Omitting her concern, she says, "I tried to find evidence in the programming, but it all seems ship shape. I guess we should keep to our duel and not bother with errors in development." She slides her right hand over her heart, the sign for truth speaking on all of Taurus's eight planets.

  For thousands of cycles, using any advantage, Sira's and Tory’s families have contested for possession of Taurus's lands. To settle this finally, the two came 9500 million light years to this field, birthed as humans, worked jobs until too old, then retired. They still duel in retirement.

  The duel? Simple: to produce the best servant, although as Sira says, "Earth has got into us, and we make too many mistakes."

Each differs in what "best" means. “To me,” Tory says, fingering her nose, “It is efficiency, that is, follow the programming to make servants useful."

  Sira, opts for self-generation and self-determinism. "Bios will guide their own evolution. That will work out best in the end."

Arguing such proves to their husbands that the wives' minds have slipped. Retirees should relax and enjoy their decline, so they remind Tory and Sira at every opportunity. "Not good to excite the aged.”

 

  Lathered with excitement, the two ancients edge off the couch, careful not to slice their toes on glass littering the floor. Bio-mechanic eyes flicker, pulsing in confusion as the distance between the women increases. Tory spins the couch on its rollers, disorienting its rider. Sira shoots a blast of disabler into the servant’s right thigh as the divan swings by. Then, she binds its wrists and ankles with elastotape. Could the virus have caused this activity?

  Acme's eyes and mouth click open. It groans and flings itself off the couch, tearing its black and white in knocking Sira to the floor, then, half rolling, half crawling, it makes for the windows that face the commons. Five meters shy of the wall it stops, attacks its bindings with its teeth, and when that fails to loosen the appendages, sputters bio-computerese. It pounds its head with its fists and mutters something that sounds like "ficures."

  “I suppose you sustained a bruise or two out of that, Your Beneficence.”

  “Nope, just fell to make its escape look good.” Actually, she came close to busting a hip. The right one aches something fierce. Pans it off to the trials of adventure.

  She gives the servant another hypo, then lifts its jacket to expose the access in its back. Inside the circuits have fused, but that does not explain why the servo had not kicked in. She puts the bio-bot on standby then hooks a bio-analyzer to the terminals. “Space Eyes!” she says. “This fellow's messed up. Look at this readout screen.”

  Tory bends her gauntness over the display. “Ah hah, that’s one of your mods. Looks as if you’ve lost another round. Maybe it did it itself. You know, viral-wise.” She guffaws. “Let’s deep six the bastard. The idiots who run this place won’t miss one servant.” Officially, Tory and Sira function as repair technicians. None of the staff have guessed that the two use that guise to carry on a duel that will determine the fate of eight planets.

  Brushing out the creases in her blouse, Sira says, “Deep six? Whoa! Tory. Are you going cuckoo on me? Observe the rules, or I’ll win by default.”

  Tory’s face turns more purple than the soil of Taurus Five. “To hell with the rules! That’s one of your mods. That’s a mark against you.”

  “Okay, it’s my mod. Whether it’s a mark against me is not your decision. You just keep to the rules or you might lose.”

  Tory grins like an old lady with a pat-canasta hand. “Oh, touching ‒ you concerned with me losing. Don’t worry yourself, Most High.” On Taurus, Tory would not have chanced ridicule, but here, she tries to put her nemesis off balance. She needs an edge. Sira is too damn good at creating advantage.

  “Nobody would accuse you of being a sycophant. Let’s get this servant on a cart.”

  Mumbling, "sawbucks, fug nuts, damn your eyes," Tory searches for a gurney. After they load the servant, she pushes it toward the door.

  Sira limps alongside, thinking to herself while waiting for Tory's next diatribe. I've taken a risk with the smart virus. If it backfires, I might just lose this duel and, more importantly, the lands of my ancestors. Space above!

  Tory keeps goading her portly rival, “You should have left your traits on Taurus. Here, they’ll be your downfall.”

  “What the devil are you talking about? Am I supposed to change just because I’m here rather than there? What’s bugging you, bitch?”

  "Well, well, hit a spot. Be kind to your creations. That’s your motto. Mend them; set them right. This planet doesn’t work that way. It’s rigged that some survive, some don’t.”

  Ashamed of her outburst, Sira checks her ire. “Tory, ambition is not the end-all of existence. You may ridicule, but I’ll not leave this playing field a mess.” I was out of control there. Too much Earth in me. Keep it tight girl, keep it tight.

  Tory stares sideways. “If the rules didn’t require us to share information, I wouldn’t bother with you. Let’s get this moron to the shed.”

  Sira opens her pill case and pops a nitro and two artery cleaners. Their belligerence palpable, she and Tory start down the walk that runs between the rec hall and the maintenance shed.

  Sira reruns the episode. Despite Tory’s antagonism and slights, I like talking to her. She keeps Taurus alive on this field. She forgives her rival for a time and changes the subject to home. “Two nights ago, the blue light changed to aquamarine. The lead controller said, ‘Watch out for variables at the close of the duel.’ What do you suppose that means?”

  “It means,” Tory smirks, “watch my derriere when I take the prize. That’s what, you fool. You should have simply given up your domains and saved me the trouble of whipping you.”

  Tory has a burr and doesn’t want it removed. “Tory, your attitude is endearing ‒ same curmudgeon I knew back on Taurus 1." On Earth, Tory and she had ended up after graduate school working at Amalgamated Robotics. They had recognized each other immediately, and their prelude began. "Our visions portend more than a duel."

  “Bull. You always look for significance beyond meaning. The visions just keep us going. That’s all they’re good for.”

The two women interpret their identical visions differently. They agree on little except that they come at intervals of fifty-two hours twenty-six minutes and eleven seconds for each, Tory's first, Sira’s ten minutes later.

  “Ah, but the controllers keep tally.” The Taurian arbiters extol neutrality, but she has faith that they want the optimum. Devoted toward her goal, she has no doubt what seems best. If only I weren't so decrepit and weak. I need Tory to hone my results, to provide the muscle I lack.

  These disadvantages mean something to Tory. Mentally, patting herself on the back, she pushes the gurney up the grade. Guides it into maintenance, onto a floor littered with appendages, circuits, electronics, controllers, quantum-number generators, a duplicator and hundreds of parts. An analyzer and several of the boxes have disappeared from the shelves, all overturned and trammeled.

  Sira surveys: Gone the servants deactivated for their performance and maintenance reviews. Feedback from the motion cameras shows everything neatly in place that morning, then a servant appears near the control panel. The screen goes blank. Sira chuckles. Tory says, “What’s funny? Someone activated them, They weren’t ready.”

  “Calm down, Tory. Perhaps this is an opportunity for them to adapt; self-generate maybe." She warns herself nevertheless, I better not tell her anything about the implants, bio-bot modification excepted from the share-info rule.

  Tory resets the remotes. “Why do you think that's great? I don’t like the idea of my mods self-generating. That’s not a trait I’d want. Can you imagine the laws of robotics thrown out the window?”

  Sira walks to the back of the lab where Tory stands, hands on hips, gray eyes jutting out. “Look, the making of a self-generator would be the epitome of bio-botics." Yikes! she exclaims to herself. That's got to be the mother of all slip-ups. Maybe I am turning senile after all.

  She throws in a cover-up: "This planet is full of legends, so the people might have some fun with self-generators. Besides, nothing like conundrums to start an age.” Grins while wondering how a retrovirus would function in a self-generator. Its ancestor, the progenitor of her retrovirus, arose 450 million years ago on this planet ‒ a wild variable for sure. By the nova of novas, it’s ready for me to put on the finishing touches. No, I can't share this!

  Tory paces in circles. Fidgets with her hypo. “I think sometimes you try to be obtuse. Biologicals are servants, period. Self-generation would destroy any usefulness they might have. I spent years as a engineer. You were in genetics. Didn’t we find our jobs at the village because of our backgrounds? The servants are only computers. Don’t deny the obvious.”  

  “I'm not so sure. Bio-machines or not, our being here must yield some benefit for this planet. Otherwise, I’d never agreed to using it for dueling.”

  “Benefit? Imagine a servants going crazy in a school and then tell me about self-generation.”

  “Always a downside to free will.” Sira tosses off Tory’s remark, but the ramifications trouble her, to wit, If servants self-generate, where would it stop? They could become something far more than I intend. They might evolve beyond servant-hood, for bad in one scenario or for good in another. The planet would accept obedient bios. Would humans allow for another self-generating species, perhaps a mockery of themselves?

  “Bios and free will. What an oxymoron. Enough claptrap. Let’s find the mannequins that did this.”

Sira shakes herself and leans straighter. “Okay, let’s go.” The two old ladies stumble from the shed and follow a path of crushed grass that leads over the commons toward the pond. They have stopped at the shore when the alarm blares from the shed. Tory snaps around so fast she nearly falls into the water. The door lies open. Through two windows, forms move jerkily about. Sounds of metal hitting concrete and glass shattering drift across the lawn.

  The two women anticipate the nets dropping. When the servants trip the levers, they will find entrapment under mesh. But the nets do not drop, and the servants continue to rampage. Tory says, “Oh, damn. Looks like a half dozen or more. If they knew how to switch off the camera, they could close down the net ejectors. The switches are in the same panel.

  “No option but to hypo all of them, Could be dangerous. We should call for back up. However, we might lose research privileges if the retirement-village guards show up." So, the two, Sira concerned, Tory worried, recross the commons under a cloudless sky. Tory sets her hypo for maximum, then whispers to Sira, “On three, we rush in. You go left, and I’ll go right. Start yelling when you hit the wall.”

  When they slip through the door, five servants, freeze and stare at them. Dents cover the walls, and the windows lie shattered. After a moment, the servants resume their destruction. They lift equipment from the floor only to dash it down again. With hammers, brooms, and variety of other objects, they pound the walls, cabinets and racks.

  Sira reaches the wall and begins yelling. The servants turn toward the sound. Tory hypos two in their rears. They thrash on the floor for a few seconds before shorting out. Then, she backpedals to the wall, whereupon Sira stops shouting.

  Off to Sira’s left, one servant does not turn toward the new shouts. Its face contorting, it watches Sira hypo another servant. Then, it whirls its eyes back and forth between the old women and the servants on the floor. When Sira yells, this befuddled bio-bot stumbles in her direction. Tory hypos another. The distressed bio-bot ignores the thrashing. Its eyes remain on Sira as if it recognizes some quality there.

  Now, only she, Tory and the strange one stand. The servant appears perplexed as if stumped by a problem. Tory sneaks up from behind. The servant knocks her hypo away with a broom. Tory staggers back to the right wall and falls against it.

The bio-bot's eyes never leave Sira's face. Orbs lock. Rolls reverse. An impossible tear glistens blue. With its hands extended to Sira, the servant beckons and, as a child uncertain with newly-learned words, whispers, “I ... see ... pictures in the air.  Help me keep ... pictures.”

  Sira wrenches her brains and cogitates. Probably, the servant has copied someone’s speech, but nobody I know has that intonation. A bio-bot can't dream; it's a machine. Having dreams, ideas, cognition are what distinguish us from computers. But the virus implant, what about that? The servant seems to sense Sira's perplexity. Its eyes narrow, and it moves on her with the broom upraised.

  “Get away,” Sira yells. As she back pedals, the servant keeps pace, repeating “I see pictures,” over and over.

  The two circle. “Tory, I’m going to bring it around. When it passes you, I’ll say ‘pictures’ a couple of times. You can hypo then.” As they pass by, Sira stops, holds up her hands and repeats, “pictures, pictures.” The servant attends by bending its neck toward her. Tory nails him with three shots. The bio-bot collapses.

  “Space, you didn’t have to overdo it.”

  “Hell, you say. That bastard leads them for sure. Reminds me of the Greens on Taurus Four. We should terminate it right now.”

  “Nope, I have to find out what’s changed in its innards. Help me get these strapped down.”

   Tory grumbles, “Well, okay.” In twenty minutes, they have all the servants lashed to tables. The berserker Acme lies on the second table, the servant who has pictures on the third one.

  "I claim research time," Sira says. The most solid agreement the two have says that each has a right to, unobserved, time for research and development. Tory leaves. As soon as her nemesis slams the door, Sira removes Acme's access and extracts a square millimeter of muscle. She verifies her observations made in the rec hall. It received the non-contagious variety.

  She places a sample of flesh in the sequencer. Insertion sites should show up. The membrane containing glycoproteins will point to binding sites in the host. That should hint at what went wrong.

  The readout flashes on her analyzer screen. "Damn! The insertions, two wrong ones!"

  She puts a milliliter of the infusion into the chromatograph. No binding shows. Simple is usually the best solution. Now let's see. Meme iron strengthens viruses. She programs the compounder to add 100 milliliters of meme iron to the mix.

 

  “Next thing you know, they’ll turn quasi-human.” Sira adjusts her pantaloons.”Maybe they will tell us where the others roam. Wouldn’t that be something, one machine knowing the whereabouts of another?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t you like that?” The whine of an air-glider winding down outside the lab cuts short her next remark. She exclaims, “Oh yellow skies, guess who’s here?”

  Sira grimaces. “Al and Bob, no doubt, come to lecture us on the signs of decline in the elderly.”

  “Time for a nap.” The women sink down in recliners as the door to the lab opens, admitting two old men in Bermuda shorts, African dashikis, St. Louis Cardinal baseball caps and beach thongs.

  “Well, the sleeping beauties,” Al, the one with the cane, says. He hobbles over to the recliners followed by Bob, a wizened fellow with chameleon lips. Al jabs Sira with his cane. “Sira, what’d you biddies do? Have an orgy with the servants? Romping through your second childhood, eh?”

  Bob sniggers and rubs his crotch. “Ooooooh, why didn’t you invite us, Tory dear?” He notices her peeking out through slits. After 75 years of marriage, he recognizes most of her tricks. “Bet that crazy dream feeds their senility, Al.” Like their wives, he and Al contest, although in different guises, each trying to bring his woman to heel.

  Tory raises up, snarling. “Can that crud. We have to take the glider, get some more hypos and track down the recalcitrant servants.”

  “You’re going to leave us without the glider?” To steady himself, he takes five-deep breaths.

Sira tries for contriteness. “Sorry. “We’ll drop you at the rec hall on the way.”

  Just then, two servants begin struggling against their restraints. “What’s going on?” Bob asks.

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” replies Tory. “Some sort of glitch in the circuits. They’re acting strange. We have to check on the rest.”

  “Uh, uh,” Bob says. “They're not the only ones acting strange. I bet this has to do with your attempt to out-create Sira. You can’t fool me, you bozo. Pooh, pooh, the perfect servant, hah. Why can't you knit or play bridge like other old women?”

  “You two are not coming.” Tory waves her hand.

  Not put off easily, Al says, “Sira, you are so deplorable you can't even recall what you had for breakfast. I’m trying to help.”

Bob joins in, “Tory, you’re hiding something. What is it?”

  Tory turns her back on him. She snarls, “You wouldn't understand.”

  “Okay, have it your way. I’ll follow you,” he says. “It’s my duty.”

  Tory’s face purples. “You can’t come!”

  Al pipes in, “Sira, you need help. Don’t go into denial.”

  “Forget it. Most likely, the servants have undergone some change to account for their behavior. Until Tory and I find out what that is, I can’t have you exposed to danger. Your safety is paramount.” Tory turns away, hides a grin.

  “Don’t humor me, you forgetful dear. All servants have the fail-safe patch.”

  “That one over next to the wall attacked us in the rec hall, Something may have inactivated its patch. Best to be cautious.”

  “Tory, if any danger hangs, you’d be the first to scat,” Bob says in his usual invalidating tone. “Those robots look tame enough to me.”

  “To me, too,” agrees Al.

  “Why do you think we have them strapped down?” Tory says.

  Al studies the servants. “Why, they remind me of napping babies who've just gotten their fill from the tit.” Then, turning on a face like one could when eating ice cream, he says, “Dear, you just go ahead with your adventure.” He pats Sira’s tousles.

  Sira mocks. “Ah, honey, I can’t take the slightest chance of any harm coming to you. As soon as everything checks out okay, we’ll bring you up to date. Promise.”

  Bob tries a different tact. “Remember what tonight is, Tory? Oh, of course you don't. I have to remind you of everything. It's your monthly release.”

  Damn that man. At 109, she prides herself on her sexuality, but her husband uses her itch as if she portrayed a lonely spouse.

  “Enough jabbering,” Sira says. “To the glider, compatriots.” Figuring the servants on the tables will seek out their brethren, she unties them. After a few moments, the servants tromp out the door.

  After Tory padlocks the place, the four oldsters leave. Sira programs its course for the rec hall. Meanwhile, her mind whirs, Can't wait to try out the new concoctions. Wonder if they'll work. They've got to.

  The two old men crawl off the vehicle still mumbling threats. Al says, “Sira, if you don’t call me in half an hour, I’ll assume you forgot and come after you. And don’t over-stress your heart. Remember your heart-doctor’s warning."

  As the air glider zips away, Bob says, “Women. Don’t they ever outgrow their games?”

  “No,” Al says. “They were brainwashed as kids by those science shows. They replay episodes in their dotage. That's a sign of dementia. You ask any expert. Our kids are trying to talk Sira into assisted living, but she won't listen to reason.”

  Bob sympathizes. He has had many talks with his son and daughter about Tory's decline and her refusal to visit a doctor.

Both he and Al have attempted talk and logic, but neither of their wives will sway. Forcing smiles, they enter the rec hall for drinks and a game of snooker.

  Ignorant of why they changed employers so often, they both had searched for meaningful roles by moving from company to company. That ceased when they met their future mates. Then in flashes of understanding, each realized why these women had come to the fore and they pursued them with the dedication of a Marquis de Sade.

  Al opens his backpack. Deep down, almost to southern India, lays the straitjacket. He smirks. When the time comes, when the time is right, out it will rise to spring its clamps.

 

  As soon as their husbands smash through the door of the hall, Sira and Tory forget about them and continue their quest. Sira stops the glider at her condo. She hobbles in and comes out with two dozen hypos and a supply of the new virals, in such a rush that she doesn't replenish her heart medicine. Her brow furrows as she remembers her doctor’s warning. Should I go back and get them? No time. I'll have to tough it.

  She sets the glider controls to manual before she notices Tory has settled into a funk, chin slumped on her chest. Sira checks the time. More than a funk ‒ the vision has arrived. These two have experienced the visions since before their duel began. The first several proved educational, for neither Tory nor Sira had any idea why they received them. Not until their first encounter did they gen to the reason. Then Taurus memories flooded into them, changed them, rattled them, and they began the duel.

  Sira drives over the trampled grass the servants have made. She arrives at where the path enters the waters of Blue Glen Pond. A dozen old women swim out there near a raft.

  When Tory returns from her vision, she says, “The machines went right into the water.” Sira drives the glider around the pond. On the other side they pick up the trail again. The path continues over a rise, leading to a derelict pavilion set back five-hundred meters to the west of the pond. Blackberry bushes surround the building. As the glider approaches, Tory spots something move off to the right. “Head toward that wisteria,” she says. Sira jerks the glider into a forty-five-degree-angle turn. Clearly visible over the top of the bush wags a head.

  When they come close, a servant staggers out and trudges toward the pavilion. Sira brakes. Tory fires off two shots, and the servant collapses on the steps, thrashes for a moment then lies still.

  About to say, "Let's check it out," Sira's vision begins. Her head lolls to her left shoulder as she leans back to accept the message that has traveled instantly 9500 million light years across the blue highway.

  A photo gallery of familiar Taurian faces and landmarks laps in. Next, appear the three controllers. Ninety years have passed since her first vision, but the three seem only slightly aged. The controller that Sira has named Eve, says the apple has passed. At the end of the vision, the blue-light beacon zips out of Sira’s mind, leaving her confused. She opens her eyes, trying to answer this question, what am I doing here?

  Tory fidgets and stares at the door. “They’re in there. Let’s circle the building and scope out the entrances.”

  If only I could get it right, Sira punches her fist into her temple:

  The controllers did not need to communicate to find out what went on. Even at that distance, they read the minds of Sira and Tory. Their comments and orders blazed down the highway. Not equivocal, not subject to other than plain meaning, still because they had entered subjectively, Tory and Sira had to interpret them.

  Head awhirl, Sira drives the air-glider around the building. In the rear, faces stare out of gables like Jews waiting for the SS to bust into their hovels. "Tory. If I have meaning correct, we should research developments before we tackle these bios."

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  A new story from the book Eve of Valor will post on or about 1 Mar.

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   To get the book Eve of Valor: click here.