Maxwell Empire Scripted Book 2 Chapter 5
The purpose of the scripting is to make the books useful to teachers wanting a range of plays for their students.
5 Moon City in the Moon
Jimmy has arrived in Moon City. He and the group leave the pod on the Moon Space Elevator.
Some of the group are staying in hotels but others are staying with friends or family members. Jimmy has a friend from his online connections called Ben. During the Moon Bus trip he had a call from Ben who asked him to stay with him and his family in their apartment.
Ben recognises Jimmy from the time they have spent online together.
BEN
Jimmy, I’m Ben. Welcome to the Moon.
JIMMY
Well Ben, you look just like your picture.
BEN
Jimmy, this is my friend Jenny.
JIMMY
Hi, Jenny. Thanks for meeting me.
JENNY
So you just have the one bag?
JIMMY
Yes, we were keeping the weight down and I am being loaned any equipment I need while I am here.
BEN
Do you want something to eat before we head home?
JIMMY
Good idea. But I will give Kailee a call to let her know I am here.
BEN
Right. You can do that as we walk to the food court.
JIMMY
Hi, Kailee. I’m in the Moon. You remember Ben. He has met me at the Moon Bus port. He has got me staying at his place.
KAILEE
That’s good Jimmy. You will get to see some of the things you two talk about.
JIMMY
And do some of the things he tells me about.
KAILEE
How was the trip?
JIMMY
It was OK. Not exciting after the Justin Davies hoo haa.
KAILEE
Good. I guess I will let you go. I will talk to you later.
JIMMY
Yes. We are about to eat. Bye.
KAILEE
Bye.
JIMMY
So Ben, I think everyone was watching Hunt 34 and them trying to rescue Justin Davies.
BEN
Yes Jimmy, Jenny called me to make sure I watched the action. Mum and Dad stayed up to watch it all as well. Such things just don’t happen.
JENNY
What I don’t understand Jimmy was how so many people got to 34 without anyone knowing.
JIMMY
There is no doubt going to be a big investigation to try to find out how. Just now I will investigate your Moon food.
Ben lives on the Moon in Moon City and his Mum got him to invite Jimmy to stay with the family in their apartment because she knew how much time the two had spent online talking to each other.
Ben spends a lot of time with his friend Jenny. He would like it to be a bit more than friend but at present it is friend. Ben has heard a lot about Kailee and is hoping Jimmy thinks about Kailee a lot.
Like Jimmy Ben is a sports person. Because of the low gravity people are advised to get a fair amount of exercise to keep their bones healthy People also go down to Earth regularly.
Ben will be competing with Jimmy in the skiing and also competing in the cycling.
Moon City is in the Moon. It is underground. There are schools, shops, places to work if you want to and places to play and lots of places to eat the food they like best. Sometimes the people of Moon City visit the surface, but generally they work and play in this world beneath the surface.
When they do visit the surface they never go on their own, but always with at least one other person, and best of all, a big group of people. While the domes on the surface are rarely punctured it can happen and in such circumstances they think that the more help they have the better the chance of survival.
The Space Elevator terminus is near a large industrial area. Asteroid material from the factories above the Moon is used on the Moon surface as well as being sent to Space City for use over the Earth. The terminus is also the gateway for passengers arriving or departing on the Moon Buses.
After the meal they descend to Ben and Jenny’s level.
On exiting the lift Jimmy cannot help but be impressed by the space around him and exclaims.
JIMMY
Well, I’ve seen the images of down here but in real life it is huge.
BEN
Yes because on the Moon people found it better to live under the ground because the surface was a health hazard with no air to reduce the effect of radiation from space so the first Moon dwellers made big tunnels in the Moon with the rock between them and the surface providing protection from the radiation.
JIMMY
And they are long. I can see it goes on forever.
BEN
Yes. The tunnels are very long. The tunnels are so long that it takes weeks to walk along all of them. This means it is good for me for bike riding because I can travel for many kilometres before returning to the same path.
JENNY
Humans require oxygen so some tunnels have farms in them. The plants produce both food and oxygen. The humans and other animals produce carbon dioxide. We can take you on a tour of a farm when you two are not competing.
Jimmy could see that this level in Moon City had apartment buildings in it. Shops were under the apartments in most of the buildings they went past.
BEN
We had better wave down a tram otherwise it will take us ages to get home.
JENNY
If you want to we can also take you to see the industries that are underground that are on separate levels to housing. They are generally manned by robots but there will be some humans. Most industries are on the surface because robots do not need air and can work more freely in the open than underground.
Jimmy knows much of this because the Geography Education Input 8 had a section on the Moon and Moon City. He does not cover it all in detail until he does Geography Education Input 11D. That will be probably in a couple of years as geography is a subject he is progressing in at a normal rate. At present he is in Stage 9D in Geography but others vary with Earth Science being at Stage 9E and Biology Stage 10B.
From the farm levels the Moon has oxygen from the plants and also it gets oxygen from the electrolysis of water.
Solar cells and fusion reactors give Moon City lots of electricity. While solar cells are a much cheaper source of electricity they do not have the reliability of a fusion reactor.
Earth found this out many years ago when the sun was obliterated in the Northern Hemisphere because an asteroid impacted the Earth and threw a huge amount of material into the atmosphere. No sunlight meant no electricity for those places reliant on solar cells for electricity. While the lack of sunlight was experienced for only a matter of months in the north it was remembered as being significantly longer because of its impact on the lives of the people in the Northern Hemisphere directly and as a result of the movement of people from the north to the south the impact on the lives of people in the Southern Hemisphere.
The impact of the Impact was to significantly reduce the number of humans which was a very good outcome for the rest of the living things on Earth. There had been too many humans and the reduction resulted in a movement to make human levels closer to the two billion advocated by many scientists.
In the south the sunlight was not affected.
The harnessing of fusion reactors once they had been developed on Earth had meant an unending supply of electricity for very little cost because the deuterium necessary to fuel them composed one ten thousandth of the water in the oceans and so meant that there was fuel available until the Sun would explode in billions of years’ time. Also it was very cheap to extract from the oceans.
The deuterium fuel for the Moon's fusion reactors is obtained from the water they get from the Moon, Earth or the Asteroid Belt.
The cheap and plentiful electricity meant that lighting and warming Moon City was assured.
People can have pets in Moon City but they are controlled by type and size. For example, there are no Rottweiler dogs as they were a big dog and people thought they had a tendency to attack people.
There are cats, fish, terriers, and even frogs.
Some parks for people to enjoy are not flat. They have an undulating landscape which while not hills makes the scenery more interesting especially as they also come with running water in small streams.
All parks have trees. This is why apartments need to have at least 6 levels, as the parks will then be high enough for trees to grow.
Some parks have a continuous slope so they can be permanent ski fields. The ski field in Ben and Jenny’s part of the city is off their level, level 5. It slopes upwards from its entrance to level 5 at an angle of 20 degrees and is permanently covered in snow. A ski lift operates 24 hours a day controlled by the Moon City Sports Department staff. Most of the work is done by robots but humans are necessary as they can respond more quickly and appropriately in the case of emergencies.
There are hydrogen fuel cell powered electric cars for hire to travel longer distances and for short distances people walk or ride bicycles or use the robot busses of the public transport.
They got off at Ben’s apartment block. His address was at APT 5/035/3/19, York Town, Moon City, Moon. That is Level 5, Building 035, Floor 3, Apartment 19.
Ben’s mother greeted them.
MRS KIMTON
You look just like your image. I’m pleased you came, Jimmy.
JIMMY
Thank you for inviting me, Mrs Kimton. It is good to meet you.
MRS KIMTON
Are you hungry?
JIMMY
No thanks, we ate at the Food Court.
MRS KIMTON
Right. You three can get better acquainted while I prepare something for dinner then.
BEN
Thanks Mum. We’ll get Jimmy set up then we might take him shopping if he is up to it.
MRS KIMTON
Don’t wear the poor boy out too much. He has just had a long trip to get here.
BEN
No problem. We will look after him.
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140127 Andy Ones Diary
An action resulting in the comment “Lying cow”
Diary entry for 27/01/4587
Robospaceship to Pod 03
Movie time again.
We watched a documentary from the 21st century tonight set in the Parliament House in Australia. The main one. They had Houses in each State as well as the biggest and best in their capital city. A man and woman enter this prestigious building. The Pride of the Nation. And they are drunk, blotto, out of it; and they can enter! Turns out they work there. Obviously two dismissals in the offing. But it gets worse. They go into the office where they work for one of the Parliamentarians and get undressed. They have sex. How can it get worse? It does! The woman goes to sleep. The man can’t wake her and goes. A security guard finds her and covers her up. She eventually wakes up. Is she sorry for her desecration of her workplace. No way. She decides to blame the man for her conduct. He must have raped her. He must be the one solely responsible for this outrage. I find it hard to believe that the leader of the country was gullible enough to give credence to her story. I did not watch all of it. It was just too much to stomach. We might be fourteen years old but we are nowhere near as naive as those 21st century humans.
What with reading, sleeping and talking the trip went quickly.
Maxwell Empire Scripted Book 4 Chapter 15
Dad and Davey Roboairships Deadly sin
Davey and his family are touring the middle of Australia and are in a roboairship. They have left the hotel near Uluru in their roboairship and are headed towards Kings Canyon to see another of the scenic wonders of Central Australia.
DAVEY
Well dad, yesterday was great. Standing in front of Uluru and being confronted by its hugeness was just something. Definitely a view to be on everyone’s bucket list.
DAD
Thanks Davey. I’m glad you liked it. And that you got your movie of kangaroos charging across the countryside.
DAVEY
Are we going for a walk at Kings Canyon?
DAD
I think dad is a bit worn out after two longish walks yesterday. We might give walking a miss.
DAVEY
But we could go for a swim when we get to Ormiston Gorge.
DAD
For sure. Dad likes swimming. Good idea.
DAVEY
So we are now in Kings Canyon.
DAD
Yes, gorgeous isn’t it. If we were all fit we could take a walk but we had better not.
DAVEY
We are getting loads of images for our holograms. It will make it good to remember what it was like to move at treetop height through the gorge.
DAD
It does look good, Davey. Just as well our ship knows where all the other ships are. It is positively crowded.
DAVEY
Yes, good time of the year to be in central Australia. It used to be arid but with all the trees to try to reduce the carbon dioxide it is very different. My last Geography Stage included a lot about greening Australia.
DAD
Well, it might be green but it must be a bit dry. There is smoke up ahead.
DAVEY
Look, the roboairships are sucking up water from the gorge.
DAD
And they take a lot. They look like the two hundred tonne variety.
DAVEY
Yes, lots of water in each one and there seems to be a continuous line of them.
DAD
That fire has no chance. With each one soaking the ground in front of the fire it will soon be out.
DAVEY
Well, this is different. Not every day we get to see a real life bushfire being put out.
DAD
And there goes another one dumping tonnes of water on the ground before the fire.
DAVEY
Yes, they wouldn’t want to drop it on the fire. The draught would upset an airship.
DAD
It is unusual for a fire to get away that much. I wonder why the robofiries did not put it out immediately.
DAVEY
And why would it start anyway? There has been no lightning or anything else to start a fire.
DAD
One of the roboairships has a problem. Its roboserves are spreading all over the top. What is going on?
DAVEY
Dad, look. There are some shooters on the ridge over there. They are over a kilometre away but you can see they are shooting at the ships putting out the fire.
DAD
Behaviour like that is going to get them in a heap of trouble. How can any human think it is acceptable? They are going to end up in the Arena.
DAVEY
The fools are now shooting at us. Dad, they definitely need to get to the Arena before they kill us.
DAD
There go our robocops. Roboairships are vulnerable to the gas leaking out and we will crash if they hole us. That is if the roboserves can’t fix it.
DAVEY
Well, the screen says we are holed; that the roboserves are fixing it; and the robocops have cocooned the baddies.
DAD
Criminals shooting holes in roboairships are endangering life. Item three of the Octet was comprehensively broken.
DAVEY
Dad, because the conduct of the shooters has deliberately endangered us, the occupants of the roboairship, and we are fortunate not to die, the shooters will have their life removed because it is unacceptable conduct.
DAD
The shooters have been cocooned by the robocops and now will be taken to the Arena. This will be one Arena event we will be particularly interested in.
DAVEY
Their fate will be highly publicised to deter others from being equally antisocial.
DAD
It reminds me of in ancient times antisocial humans in America were allowed to continue to run riot by claiming that police trying to do their job were behaving badly.
DAVEY
Yes, in one event described in the 22nd century by my History Input they could have done with cocooning but they did not have it and eventually the Save America Now (SAN) took to the streets with their arsenal of weapons and produced more deaths than the pandemic of Covid 26 we know about.
DAD
The police would have been thinking they should be out there stopping the baddies get shot. That was how they thought in ancient times.
DAVEY
Well, they had told the police to stay indoors because the humans behaving badly were also attacking the police.
DAD
These days antisocial humans running around looting and burning will be cocooned and then carted off to the Arena. Not that I remember any people doing things like that.
DAVEY
These days they are careful. They know they would be entertaining the world’s online viewers as they get chased by hungry pigs or dogs. I love seeing baddies having chunks bitten out of them until they succumb and fall over to be finally consumed.
DAD
Nowadays we realise that bad humans can be treated the same way as any other bad animal. Be bad and cease to exist. As an ex-human they are useful for fish food or pet food or any number of ways to make up for having been a difficult human. That is if there is any of them that has not become pig poo.
DAVEY
Yes, it’s the same for all animals. If you don’t fulfil the function you are meant to have you can be converted into something that makes you useful such as fish food.
DAD
In ancient times that was another confusion people had. If a race horse was not good at racing they did not want to make use of it in a more appropriate way such as pet food.
DAVEY
They just had funny ideas, dad. If a cattle dog could not control cattle they did not think it was useless and needed to be fish fooded.
DAD
So much for ancient times, Davey. Today I think we will just be heading to Alice Springs to meet some sensible people.
Structure of the roboairship
There is an upper surface converting sunlight to electricity, a rigid framework for the cladding, with many discrete panels to provide stability in case of a leak of hydrogen, cells holding water, many electrolysis units converting electricity to hydrogen, a layer below the envelope consisting of the robot controls and of storage units for the roboserves and robocops, and below that a long passenger compartment providing all the facilities necessary for comfortable touring over the countryside.
The hydrogen is used in fuel cells to produce electricity to run the roboairship.
The passenger compartment can be detached and replaced with water storage units for fire-fighting.
Maxwell Empire Scripted Book 4 Chapter 8
Space miners and the copper asteroid
Grant and Dennis are discussing asteroid mining for a report they have to make for Space Studies B Stage 9B. An asteroid consisting largely of copper has been brought back from the asteroid belt by a robot miner. They are discussing it and the conflicts that occurred between groups before World Government was formed in 2645. Space miners would race to be the ones that would bring particularly rich asteroids to Earth. Conflicts between the space miners and their robominers in those times were infrequent but when they occurred were highly publicised.
Asteroid mining had changed completely with the introduction of the World Government.
GRANT
They had to start recycling copper in a big way even before the Impact.
DENNIS
Yes, humans in ancient times did not appreciate how long Earth was going to be their home. No idea of the billions of years.
GRANT
They certainly had their brains asleep. They just consumed and consumed. And bred and bred. Heads in the sand or somewhere else.
DENNIS
That was one good thing about the Impact. It was a catalyst for reducing the population. That meant less using up the planet’s resources, less pollution and less poor quality of life for many. Eventually anyway.
GRANT
For sure. To finally realise there was a plague of humans was good. It meant that all people had a better life, with enough to eat and drink.
DENNIS
Those countries which were rich had most people living all right, and it was from those that the first asteroid miners went out.
GRANT
Yes, to mine the asteroid belt from the surface of the Earth with chemical rockets was so inferior to today. And the countries needed to be rich to build the rockets.
DENNIS
Just as well that robots operating from Space City or the Moon took over the job.
GRANT
And so much more efficient. No need for the power to get off the surface and back to it. So now rockets are much smaller.
DENNIS
And much smarter. It is now not such a big problem if it takes ten minutes for the robominer to hear you say “Go left”. And so twenty minutes after you speak for you to see that it had gone left.
GRANT
Yes, with robots being enormously more capable they can basically find a good asteroid and bring it back to the Moon or Space City without any human intervention.
DENNIS
For sure. If robots can be spreading humans throughout the universe without humans on board except as DNA the task of gathering up an asteroid is simple.
GRANT
And they are so necessary. Today they bring antimony, zinc, tin, silver, lead, indium, gold, and copper from asteroids. I’m reading from the list here. And probably there are even more that should be on the list. These metals are still found on Earth but they are too expensive to extract.
DENNIS
In ancient times there was the huge problem of getting the asteroids down to the surface of Earth because Space Elevators had not been invented. It was all very well to get it into orbit around Earth but it needed to get to the surface.
GRANT
Well, just as well we had Janet Oliver doing research. While they had Space Elevators on the Moon and Mars early on the Earth had to wait until she invented the material for its Space Elevators in 2910.
DENNIS
Yes. Back then having to use rockets to slow the asteroids down so they did not just all burn up was a problem she solved.
GRANT
And it is just as well robots have always done the work. If humans were doing it then because the distance to the asteroids is at least 200,000,000 km and the distance between asteroids is around 1,000,000 km humans would need a huge ship load of provisions to last years for the time it took to fly to and around them.
DENNIS
Yes, if it would take over half a year just to get to the asteroid belt humans need to appreciate how good it is to have robots to do all the work. Not just here on Earth but especially in space. That is not an environment humans can be in without much, much support.
GRANT
The twenty first century humans knew that there were enough resources in the asteroid belt to last Earth indefinitely, and when extracting them on Earth became too costly it was a case of heading to the stars; well, planets anyway. So there were many who wanted to begin mining it as soon as possible.
DENNIS
And they did. Just not very efficiently. Compared to today anyway.
GRANT
And the asteroid belt will definitely be able to help us forever with over a million asteroids being over a kilometre in diameter and lots of the materials we need in the million asteroids.
DENNIS
The big ones provide bases for the robots and their service stations. From the list we have Vesta, Pallas and Hygiea with diameters of over 400km, and Ceres with a diameter of 950km.
GRANT
They are good places to have stores of supplies and also repair shops for the robot miners. All run by robots.
DENNIS
Especially the water the robominers need. It means propellant for the robot miners is there in the asteroid belt so they can take less from the Moon or Space City. So they have less mass to accelerate to get up to cruising speed.
GRANT
And while iron, nickel and titanium have not run out on Earth it is cheaper to use them from the asteroids. Just one asteroid can give you an awful lot of metal. Like the copper asteroid that is nearly back to the Moon. It has a diameter of one kilometre or so.
DENNIS
That means it has a volume of about half a cubic kilometre, or five hundred million cubic metres. Now copper has a density of about nine thousand kilograms per cubic metre so if the asteroid is all copper it has nearly five trillion tonnes of copper.
GRANT
Now that is an absolutely enormous amount of copper. Based on copper usage in 4570 that will supply all the copper Earth needs for about two hundred thousand years.
DENNIS
What a good reason for mining the asteroids. You would only need to bring back a copper asteroid of that size every two hundred thousand years.
GRANT
The people organising that must have got some extra credits for their life on Earth or whatever else they want to do.
DENNIS
For sure. Capitalism is not completely dead, just an incentive to people who want to work to go the extra mile.
GRANT
A bit dated when we use kilometres.
DENNIS
Good saying though.
GRANT
So they have parked the asteroid at the Moon.
DENNIS
The Space Elevator on the Moon is easier to get the copper down to the surface.
GRANT
The industries using it are largely on the Moon I guess.
DENNIS
Our calculations assume it is all copper.
GRANT
So if it is half useable copper it supplies our needs for a hundred thousand years and even if it is only ten percent copper it lasts twenty thousand years. That is a lot of copper.
DENNIS
Well, look at that. The reporters are showing the asteroid at the Moon and are adding some human content. There are the Albury sports team waiting for the Moon Bus.
GRANT
The images of the ski jumps in the Moon were spectacular.
DENNIS
Low gravity certainly adds something to action photos if you like heights.
GRANT
They were on before. Remember we saw the sports team on their excursion to see Neil Armstrong’s footprint; and the rest of the attractions in that tourist city.
DENNIS
They were not just running and jumping. They were getting to see the attractions of the Moon. One advantage being a sports person. You get to be out of this world.
GRANT
All the sports were in the Moon so when we say “The man in the Moon” we mean it literally, not like our ancestors when they said it. Of course we probably should say “The people in the Moon” or “The men and women in the Moon”.
DENNIS
I think you might be getting a bit carried away by the idea that you don’t want to be accused of sexism.
GRANT
Just as long as I get up there sometime.
DENNIS
Soon we will look at Maxwell 01 and say “The children on Maxwell 01”. We would need to be using a very big telescope of course.
GRANT
Except if we say “Hello, man in the Moon” he hears it in two seconds. The kids on Maxwell 01 will hear it in four years.
DENNIS
So that is all right. They get born in a year or so and if I say it now they will hear it when they are three years old.
GRANT
It will be worse if they send a Maxwell 99 to the other side of the Milky Way and it takes seventy thousand years for your greeting to get there.
DENNIS
That is what really upsets me. To have all this future exploration that I am going to miss.
GRANT
It upsets me too. Not being around forever is the pits.
DENNIS
We had better take up religion. That might solve it.
GRANT
What it would solve is a hungry pig wondering whether his breakfast is tasty. As you would be it do you think he would find you tasty?
DENNIS
I will ignore that but talking of food I think we should eat.
GRANT
Good idea. Thinking gives me an appetite.
Maxwell Empire Scripted Book 4 Chapter 6
Scott and Simon and mining on Mars
Mining on Mars and the asteroids provides minerals for Earth industry because deposits of minerals on Earth have all been extracted that is economical and it is cheaper to mine out of this world. Scott and Simon are witnessing a spaceship leaving which will mine minerals on Mars.
SCOTT
That spaceship looks like a baby version of Maxwell 09.
SIMON
Yes, Scott, it does not need to be aerodynamic so it just consists of a framework.
SCOTT
A framework with suitable cladding for holding stuff where necessary.
SIMON
There do look to be lots of boxes housing the things necessary for setting up a mining site on Mars.
SCOTT
Perhaps they call it Mars Miner 01.
SIMON
More likely Mars Miner 101. They have been doing this for a long time.
SCOTT
So it has been filled up with ice blocks brought up the Space Elevator.
SIMON
Yes, it is ready to go.
SCOTT
The rolls of cables on the front of it are smaller.
SIMON
Yes, with the cables for Mars Space Elevators being shorter they will not need as many connecting the engines to the Miner.
SCOTT
So it is ready to start up the Space Elevator.
SIMON
The ship will soon depart from the top of the Space Elevator.
SCOTT
Up there it will be travelling at a velocity above Earth escape velocity, so it is a case of “Mars, here I come”.
SIMON
Assuming that robots do talk to planets.
SCOTT
Then in a few weeks it has got to Mars.
SIMON
It must look good seeing the cables roll out behind the engines and then all fly off.
SCOTT
Then going into orbit around Mars and installing its Space Elevator above the mine site.
SIMON
Now that assumes all the mine sites are near the equator.
SCOTT
They won’t be, will they? We should know that stuff.
SIMON
We do know that stuff. We have just forgotten it.
SCOTT
It does show that improving Education Inputs is possible.
SIMON
Yes, when you research that you could make a better glue.
SCOTT
We will have to assume the mineral is mined all over and trucked to the Space Elevator.
SIMON
Well, mined in their patch, anyway.
SCOTT
Otherwise the potential for robo wars.
SIMON
Not being people they don’t have wars.
SCOTT
Now if humans were involved in that it would mean possible wars and an awful lot of stuff to keep the humans alive.
SIMON
Yes, just as well robots can do all the work.
SCOTT
Literally all the work. Mars Miner 101 or whatever will set up his factory in Mars Space City, send down his, sorry, or her, miners and start mining.
SIMON
It will be back here in a couple of months with a load of mineral. It seems there are a lot of Mars Miners.
SCOTT
Well, with lithium being such a necessary component of batteries it is no wonder.
SIMON
That is true. No batteries means just about no anything.
SCOTT
Seeing the robots do all the work and there are billions of them that is a lot of batteries.
SIMON
And hence a lot of lithium.
SCOTT
Mars must be losing a lot of weight with us carting it all here.
SIMON
Yes, the action in Mars Space City must be a case of go, go, go.
SCOTT
With no humans usually it means no rotating segments. Or just one or two.
SIMON
Humans certainly do take a lot of looking after.
SCOTT
With all the Mars Miners you would not think they were about to start another one.
SIMON
It looks like it. Perhaps hauling rocks wears you out quickly.
SCOTT
They are pretty basic. One can be made in less than a year.
SIMON
Anyway, so much for rocks. We don’t want to miss our bus.
SCOTT
Right. America, here we come.