Read The Fucking Manual

Still, Frank would tell many of his friends. The information should be disseminated, just through the proper channels and not as a scientific finding. As long as it remained anecdotal and not medically or scientifically validated, life would remain good. Hmmm... perhaps only his veryclose friends.

The software would have to go, too, he realized. If he released it, as he'd planned, someone would eventually mate it with the tablet photos and publish the results. He'd have to claim that the program had not worked, and that the bizarre writing was still a mystery. He briefly considered inventing seventeen tablets worth of harmless text, or perhaps just changing some words here or there so the techniques for controlling Woma-- er, women...would not work, but in either case the publication was likely to spawn hundreds of researchers who would scrutinize the tablets in detail and ultimately succeed in discovering his deception. No, if the world found out these secrets-- if they became secrets no longer-- all hell would break loose. If it was in any way feasible, he'd hide or otherwise eliminate the photos, and even the originals. Well, perhaps not the latter. Frank wasn't entirely pious, but the fact that the techniques worked as advertised left him with some religious... questions. It was highly unlikely the tablets were actually written by God Himself... but why take chances when the potential stakes were so high?

In the meantime, there was much pussy to be had, and many earlobes to rub in a circular fashion. He'd start with the receptionist in the Dean's office-- she'd been driving him crazy for years with her short skirts and tendency to forego wearing a bra. Then he'd move on to Morgan's sister, and probably that hot little bitch who always sat at the back of the room in freshman Archaeology and popped her Bubblicious while he was lecturing. He'd give her something to satiate that oral fixation, and it onlyrhymed with "gum".

I can't wait until Sepi gets back from vacation, he thought.I've always wanted to get into that, and now I'm pretty much unstoppable. He cuddled Morgan's head to his chest and giggled himself to sleep.

* * *

Never forget the lesson of Lilith. Pass this knowledge on to your sons and to the sons of your sons, lest you find that Woman becomes lax, disobedient, or distant and thus all of my work to grant you a new chance comes to naught.

-- Woman: The Owner's Manual, 20:97-99

Sepi had a class to teach at nine but wanted to get an early start on those inscriptions now that Winter Break was over, so she rushed into the lab at about ten of eight. The workstation was still running, but Frank had logged out and the screen saver was blinking regularly. She logged in and searched through the chaos of his home directories until she finally found the files from last week.

The folder in which he'd stored the scans not only had read permissions set to permit only Frank to access them, but (she found when she'd logged in using his poorly-guarded login password) the files themselves were encrypted and protected by a further password which Sepi was not privy to. Annoyed by this, she made a mental resolution to bitch Frank out when she called him later. If they were going to be research colleagues, he'd have to stop holding all of this information so tight to his chest.

In desperate boredom, she checked her email.

They'd found the ruins of another temple at the site over the weekend-- almost a mirror image of the first-- and once again the space under the altar was filled with clay tablets bearing the mysteriously regular and well-preserved writing. Sepi had asked Ashraf and his team to scan the photos into their laptops and send them to her, and they had finally done so last night.

Well, I can at least get started on this new stuff while Frank is out. Sepi executed the latest copy of the program against the images of the new inscriptions, and stared fascinated as English text began to scroll up the screen.

Man: A User's Guide

by Astarte

This ought to be interesting, she thought.