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All life-forms which participate in procreative activities in this work of fiction are of legal age to do so.
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Marmon had been on earth for more than three years at this point.
His people were peace-loving explorers.
Being able to shift their biological forms to replicate that of nearly every species they had encountered in their travels, they could blend in and study almost any civilization without detection.
Marmon had graduated from his studies on his home planet - the equivalent of college or university for Earthlings - at the top of his class.
During his training, he learned everything he needed to know in order to fulfill his life-long dream - to follow in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather - to return from exploring an unknown world and have his research added to the Archives.
He wasn't after the titles or the accolades - he just wanted to experience some of the amazing things that his grandfather talked about in his stories!
Marmon was sure that half of the family thought Grandpa was crazy - or embellishing - but he could see the cold certainty in those eyes - the magic - the adrenaline.
After the official graduation ceremony - and the celebration with relatives and friends - Marmon's family had handed him the keys to his very own wormhole ship.
His grades had earned him a sizeable discount on the vessel. As a result, his family was able to procure a more advanced model and still save credits - compared to purchasing a standard one at the regular price.
Regardless, their significant investment in his future was a testament to their faith in his abilities.
It was only big enough for one person - but it was perfectly outfitted to enable him to cross the galaxies and succeed in his quest.
This was his opportunity to make his place in the world - by finding a people-group to study, imbedding himself in their daily lives, collecting his data, recording his findings & assessments, and (someday) returning to contribute to the Archives - the massive data-store of knowledge that their people had built over the centuries.
During his studies, Marmon had identified a handful of suitable worlds that had not already been explored.
From this set of potential destinations, he had the computer select one at random. The ship mapped his course and he initiated the launch-sequence.
Once he was far enough off-planet to create the wormhole, he gave the command - and leapt across time & space.
He gave the computer instructions to wake him on arrival and then placed himself in suspended animation.
Arriving in the Terra system, the ship cloaked itself, started waking the pilot, and ran a series of scans.
Marmon came out of deep-sleep to find that his scanners only showed life on one of the system's planets - the third closest to the local star.
That scan had also shown that the inhabitants were actively scanning for incoming threats or visitors.
He would need to sneak in.
The computer identified a comet that was headed in-system whose path could be used to mask his approach.
He caught up to it and shadowed it on its orbital path.
At the opportune moment, he spun out from behind the massive traveler and made his approach to the planet.
He masked his electronic, radiation, and heat-signatures, and allowed the ship's momentum to drive him through the Earth's atmosphere - appearing on all of the planetary systems as if he were a small meteorite of no significant interest.
Choosing to avoid inhabited areas until he knew more, he splashed through the surface of the ocean and settled to the bottom.
He took some time to study the fauna and flora beneath the surface waves, collecting data & pictures as he traveled - eventually stopping some distance off the coast of what these people called California.
His systems intercepted the ambient communication signals and, over time, built a picture of everything they learned.
Soon Marmon had picked a location where he wanted to imbed himself.
The inhabitants spent their evenings in a variety of dwelling spaces and traveled to work or studies during the day - much like people did back home.
An inebriated homeless guy on the beach provided the DNA sample Marmon needed for his body to replicate the appearance of the local inhabitants.
Through his sensors, Marmon "followed" the homeless man for almost a week - to get a sense of his daily routine.
The 30 year old homeless guy's human interactions didn't quite match up with Marmon's plan to live & learn among others.
From there, he selected other people and tracked their travels and interactions.
Based on those observations, Marmon chose to be a college student - around 20 years old - at the fulcrum between youth and adult - by North American Earthling definitions.
Since his native form was not too dissimilar, it only took a handful of minutes for his body to finish the transformation.
If Marmon happened to come face to face with the DNA donor, the man would simply think he was looking at a younger version of himself - if he recognized his face at all - given the slight modifications Marmon had made when "growing" his new body from the sample he'd collected.
Over the last several months, sitting below the ocean's surface, studying all of the data, Marmon had learned to understand the native language in its audible and written forms.
With his new vocal cords, he began to practice his vocalizations.
Although these people used computers more than they wrote by hand, he also practiced his writing - which helped him adapt to how his new body moved and functioned.
When he spoke, the computer noted that he had just a bit of a European "accent". Marmon decided that this would help serve to explain some of his awkwardness when reacting to situations he might find himself in.
Marmon calculated that he needed documentation to establish his identity as well as some form of currency to buy or rent accommodations - since that would become part of his back-story.
His ship created a communication device that would not only use local protocols - but would allow him to remotely communicate with his ship & onboard computers.
This device looked enough like a smartphone that no one would notice.
In any verbal interactions with the device, all conversations with "Siri" would, in fact, be coming from his ship.
His computers worked their way through the various databases to craft the identity he would need, and produced a valid photo ID.
His systems also created a credit card that was linked to an account with enough of a credit-limit to allow him to handle most purchases.
His computer assistants had also initiated a few "entrepreneurial" ventures that would siphon funds into the account but remain invisible to any processes designed to find inconsistencies or theft.
One business layer functioned as a stock-trading program that took a transaction fee for performing its function. As this was a normal business process, it would not raise any "red flags" - unless the company whose business it had replaced - noticed they were missing a few small customers.
From this starting point, the computers - who didn't have brick & mortar buildings to rent - or employees to pay - other than Marmon - continued to reinvest the business proceeds until there was a steady enough income to manage everything he would need money for.
By the time Marmon walked up to the office of the apartment building he would live in, his rental agreement had already been on file for a couple weeks, all of the credit checks had been completed, all of the utilities transferred, and he simply needed to show his ID to pick up the keycard.
The clothes he wore were created with latent technology that would perform equivalently to tactical body armor.
Having noticed that humans - or at least Californians - tended to change clothes every day, his clothing could change its color and shape whenever he needed - thus looking like he had a full wardrobe when - in fact - he had one set of clothes that cleaned itself each night.
In his backpack, there was a suit of clothes with active protection that was far more advanced than his day-to-day outfit. This combat uniform would remain in his domicile unless he perceived things to be outside of the normal parameters of his expected experiences.
If anyone went through his apartment, they would probably never even find those items. They were contained in a camouflaged pack attached to the ceiling - above the door - where they weren't likely to be discovered.
~~~
Over the previous three years as a college student, Marmon had studied a variety of courses and interacted with lots of people - from classmates - to people on the street - to his neighbors.
He could now understand - and make himself understood - in every language in common use on the face of this planet.
He had graduated with two Bachelors of Science degrees. One degree was in Civil Engineering. The second was in Computer Science. He had just started classes to work towards his Master's degree.
Outside of class, Marmon was launching a business that was almost guaranteed to make him rich.
The ship had created a standalone fabricator that Marmon had set up in his apartment.
After spending some time - and quite a bit of money - gathering the raw resources to feed the reprocessing unit - Marmon had created the items needed to transform a standard coffee vending machine into something that had national coffee shop chains reexamining their monthly reports to determine why some of their locations had suddenly seen half of their customers stop queuing up for their morning brew.
Marmon's machines were faster - more consistent - and supplied products at a decent discount - but not too much of a discount.
Seriously, though, a machine that kicked out your favorite brew in a fraction of the time was why Marmon's customers kept coming back.
Walk up to the machine, scan the QR code for your standard order, swipe your card, and your perfect-every-time beverage was delivered in less than a minute - speeding you on your way to work or class.
The most challenging part of the business was making sure the supplies were ordered ahead of time and delivered to the service company that restocked the machines. Marmon's wormhole-ship dedicated one whole subsystem to managing those tasks.
Meanwhile, Marmon sat in one more computer class - slowly working his way towards his next academic achievement.
He looked around at the other students. His eyes settled on Silva.
Marmon had met her - the first time - in one of his undergraduate computer classes, last year.
She was intoxicating.
Based on appearance alone, Silva wasn't that different than the other people in his classes.
She was smart - grasping new concepts easily when their classmates were struggling - even though she was a year or two younger than their peers.
Her consistently superior academics had been what drew his attention to her - but it had been those captivating eyes that had stolen his heart.
Her eyes were a stormy-gray that almost looked as if tiny lightning bolts were trapped beneath the surface, waiting to burst out.
He caught himself looking at her instead of paying attention to the professor.
She caught him looking and smiled.
Her mouth wasn't oversized - but it was not small.
His study of Earth's juvenile youths had led him to a brief study of human porn.
The male sex-organ he had "inherited" from his homeless donor was fairly substantial by human standards - but - based on his research - she would have no problems accommodating his flesh-rod.
He calculated that her mouth would perform in a superior way for every sexual act his distracted mind could recall.
He found himself becoming aroused by those thoughts. He glanced at the forgotten instructor and used his hand to adjust his growing erection.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Silva observe his attempt to shuffle things - and felt the blood rush to his cheeks in embarrassment.
That only served to make her giggle.
Her giggle was intoxicating too.
Over the next several classes, he tried to be more discrete in his observations but - curse the sixth-sense of the females of the species - he got busted looking more times than not.
Soon, it became a game.
A few days later, he noticed that it seemed like her blouse was unbuttoned an extra button.
Whenever she saw him looking, she would lean forward slightly.
He heard an involuntary groan escape his lips and threw his hands up to cover his face.
It was a good thing he already fully understood the material the instructor was going over or he would have had to ask a classmate for a copy of their notes - because he didn't hear anything that was being said the rest of that day.
