Complete Atopia Chronicles Part 33

The search had even brought some direction to Bob, shaking him out of the drugged slumber he'd been in for years now, bringing him together with Nancy for the first time in as many years. Vince had put his vast spy network to work on my problem, and Sid and Vicious had worked tirelessly, combing the back ways and alleyways of the Atopian subsystems, trying to figure out how someone had hidden their tracks so well. Even Martin had pitched in.

I poked the coals some more and watched little sparks escape and float back into the sky.

Brigitte and I were back together. She liked to joke that before when we lived together I was never around, so it was like living with a ghost, but now that I was a ghost, it was like I was there with her more than ever. Or something like that. She wasn't much of a comedian, but she sure was the most beautiful and loving person I'd ever known. I had no idea how I'd let her slip away from me, but I would never let it happen again.

"Alright there William?" asked Vicious, tossing a can into the fire, casting a look my way.

"Yes, Vicious, I am all right, as a matter of fact," I answered, nodding back. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt perfectly at peace.

I felt a stream of air tickling my behind, and I shivered. The wind was still blowing when a promising stock appeared on the radar, and sometimes it blew hard.

Without Wally or access to my body, I couldn't reset my sensory mapping, so I was fated to forever feel this tickling in my nether regions. Now though, I began to find it rea.s.suring, like rubbing an old scar from an accident you'd survived.

Only one thing felt really absent in my life, and it had the eerie feeling of a missing limb. I looked towards the empty chair we'd set up in honor of our fallen comrade, where Wally used to sit next to me on our trips. I'd set it up beside me this evening, now sitting conspicuously empty.

I went back often and replayed that last talk I'd had with Wally, and watched his face as he spoke. It was hard to say whether Wally had taken off to save me from the police-they did have a trace going on the security breach and would have found us eventually. Maybe he'd seen them coming and had decided to take off. They'd issued a general notice of clemency on my case now, so even if he was trying to save us from jail then, by now he would have known it was safe to return-but he didn't.

The more I thought about it, the more I became sure that Wally wasn't trying to save me from jail. Perhaps he was saving me from a much worse fate, perhaps from myself. At the time, I was so busy digging myself into a deep, isolated hole that I may have never returned from it.

In retrospect, I wasn't finding happiness, but suffocating myself in an impenetrable layer of avarice and pride, trading friendship and love for money and power. Maybe he knew that I'd be better off this way. I was sure that he'd like to return, in fact I knew there was no place that he'd rather be than right here with us now, but he must have felt it was safer this way, for some reason.

Somehow it felt right, but I could never have gotten to this place on my own. Wally and I had switched places. I'd become him, living as a virtual being, and he'd become me, living out there in the real world in a real body.

Smiling, I remembered that day when we were last camping here, and Wally had told me that he loved me on our return home. I'd thought it was so odd then, but no more. Raising my beer can, I looked towards the empty chair beside me, and toasted my now absent friend.

Sometimes I guess you really did have to lose yourself to find yourself.

Wally, wherever you are out there, I just wanted to tell you one thing: I love you too, Wally.

* Genesis & Ja.n.u.s *

Book 6:.

Patricia Killiam.

Jimmy Jones.

PROLOGUE.

"I WILL ALWAYS love you."

I blew at a dandelion and watched its fluff scatter into the clear blue sky. The wind caught the tiny seeds and carried them up and away. I laughed.

"No matter where the winds carry me, I will always find my way back to you."

"And I to you," said the boy, his face close now, his hot breath on my cheeks.

Sunlight streamed down upon us, filling the field where we lay with gentle warmth. I brushed a lock of hair from my eyes and looked down at an ant in the gra.s.s. It was trying to get back towards its nest, pulling on some bit of food, struggling with a prize far too large for it to carry.

"Never leave me."

"I will never leave you," he promised.

A silence descended, and then a low droning began. The boy looked up, craning his neck to see above the stone pile fence beside us. With a terrible growl a Luftwaffe squadron roared overhead, barely skimming the treetops. I screamed, and the boy jumped up.

He looked down at me. I nodded, and with a grim look he ran off, glancing just once over his shoulder to me before disappearing through the gate.

"I will never leave you," I whispered back.

Ident.i.ty: Jimmy Jones MY EYES TEARED up trying to look forward into the wind while the airboat tore across the top of the kelp forests. I begged my dad to take me out to work on the water almost every day, which frustrated Mother to no end. He just thought his sweet little boy wanted to be with his daddy, but really, I wanted to be away from her.

Still, it was beautiful on the water.

"Amazing out here, right Jimmy?" my dad yelled over the roar of the airboat engine. We were skimming over the top of the kelp, gently skipping across the ocean swells.

"Look!" exclaimed my dad, pointing towards something in the water. He swerved the airboat and I looked down.

Dozens of sea otters had tied themselves up in a raft amid the floating kelp, chattering at us angrily as we pa.s.sed. I saw a few heads pop up and down in the water around us and I let myself flitter out into their little bodies, watching myself watching them.

"They hang around near the floating reef systems!" he shouted over the noise. "They love it out here!"

We began to slow as we neared the edge of the forest and the kelp stalks became spa.r.s.er. I was sitting on my dad's knee, wearing little red shorts, a striped t-shirt and a Yankees baseball cap. My dad held me tightly against him with both arms, his warm hands on the flesh of my thighs, steering the boat with his phantom hands.

Unlike Mother, as soon as they'd arrived here my dad had worked hard at stretching his neural plasticity and early on had learned the trick of phantom limbs.

Today we were fishing with the dolphins and my dad knew it was my favorite. My smile would spread as we sped across the kelp, the wind and sun in my face, free like a bird. We didn't really fish, but mostly just directed them using pssi control. At that early stage in the project we still needed help from the dolphins to herd the fish, and for me this was the best part of fishing-speaking with the dolphins.

"There they are," said my dad as he cut our engine and our boat settled into the water, gliding to a stop. The open ocean was gentle today but my dad held me tight. Gulls wheeled high in the air behind us, waiting for signs of any fish we'd throw their way.

Off to the side of the boat, fast moving shapes sped towards us from the depths and with a splash about a dozen heads broke the surface. The air filled with the sounds of chattering dolphins.

The pssi system instantly translated for us. Wild dolphins had fairly weak skills at what we would call communication, and the system often had to guess what they meant. These, however, were uplifted Terra Novan dolphins and had a good vocabulary. Right now they were saying h.e.l.lo.

I smiled and waved.

"Hey Billy!" I cried. "Hi Samantha!"

They squeaked their h.e.l.los back. My dad let go of me and I rushed to the side to put my hand into the water to pet their snouts. The dolphins radiated affection. They were like the best dog you ever had, but huge and wet and much, much smarter.

The Terra Novan dolphins weren't really working for us. It was more like they worked with us. They liked the excitement of the place and enjoyed the privileged access to multiverse worlds only possible on Atopia.

Terra Nova was another off-sh.o.r.e colony competing with Atopia. They were rumored to be creating monstrosities, tinkering with life itself, and the bobble-headed Terra Novans who appeared on Atopia from time to time did nothing to help with this image. The dolphins, though, were wonderful.

"Okay, okay everyone," laughed my dad, "that's a lot of love. Come on, we've got a lot of work to do."

The dolphins shifted their attention away from me and to my dad.

"Today we're going to be harvesting sardines, so we need you guys to go and corral a few schools into the tanker over there," he explained, pointing to a ship floating a few hundred feet away. "Could someone go get me a sample?"

Samantha, my favorite, squawked and dove down into the depths.

"Okay people," my dad continued, "let's get this show on the road!"

The dolphins chattered their goodbyes and shot off, except for Samantha who popped back up with a sardine in her mouth.

"Thank you Samantha," said my dad. He nodded to her and bent over to take the sardine, then turned back to his workstation, knife in hand, to begin the examination. Samantha and I waited, staring at him. He stopped and smiled, shaking his head slightly.

"Okay you two!" he laughed. "Go on and have some fun!"

Clapping my hands with glee, I detached from my body and snapped into Samantha's, instantly rocketing off into the ocean. It was pure exhilaration as I felt her powerful sinews and muscles forcing us through the frigid waters, chasing her brothers and sisters into the depths.

Running with the dolphins had been the greatest joy of my life.

Ident.i.ty: Patricia Killiam SHOWING UP IN person for the press may have been a mistake. My G.o.d, how my body ached, even with its pain receptors tuned all the way down. I probably hadn't spent more than a few dozen hours in my own skin in the past year, but who would want to? Under siege by a frightening list of diseases barely held back by the magic of modern medicine, my body was as shrunken as an old pea left out overnight. Nearly a hundred and forty years old and I still wasn't ready to give up the ghost.

Sighing inwardly, I started up the promo-world.

"Imagine," said an extremely attractive young woman, or man depending on your preference, "have you ever thought of hiking the Himalayas in the morning and finishing off the day on a beach in the Bahamas?"

She was walking along one of our own beaches, a beautiful stretch of white sand near the Eastern Inlet.

"Pssionics now makes limitless travel possible with zero environmental impact!"

The girl paused to let us think about all the places we wished we could visit.

"You'll never forget anything again," she continued, forcing people to remember everything they thought they'd ever forgotten. "And you'll never again have to argue about who said what!"

I looked out at the reporters, seeing their eyes narrow as they remembered some argument they'd recently had with their spouses.

"Imagine performing more at work while being there less. Want to get in shape? Your new proxxi can take you for a run while you relax by the pool!" she exclaimed, stopping her walk to look directly into the viewer's eyes.

"Create the reality you need right now with Atopia pssionics. The promise of a better world and the life you've always wanted. Join up soon for zero cost!"

A short silence settled while I let it all sink in.

"So, how exactly is pssionics going to make the world a better place?" asked a stick-thin blond from the front row.

I carefully rolled my eyes. I'd never really liked 'pssionics'-the baggage it carried created a constant battle to separate fact from fiction when talking to reporters, but then again, when had that ever mattered? The blond reporter's name floated into view in one of my display s.p.a.ces: Ginny.

"Well Ginny, I prefer to use the term 'polysynthetic sensory interface' or just pssi," I replied, detaching and floating upwards out of my body to get their attention as my proxxi walked my body along beneath my projection. n.o.body batted an eye. They weren't easily impressed anymore.

"We've been able to demonstrate here on Atopia that people are as happy-even happier, in fact-with virtual goods as material ones. You just need to make the simulation good enough, real enough." Everyone nodded as they'd all heard this before.

"I'll give you an example." I floated down and snapped back into my body, and a bright red apple popped into existence in my hand. "So here we have an apple, right?"

There was a general murmur of agreement.

"Since pssi also controls my neuromotor system, not only can I see the apple," I explained as I tossed it into the air and caught it with a satisfying thwap, "but I actually feel like I'm holding it. It feels perfectly real to me."

"But perhaps even better," I continued, taking a loud bite, "I can eat it too."

As I munched away, I could feel its juices running down my chin. It was a good simulation of biting into an apple, but still had room for improvement, I thought as I chewed, contemplating the appleness of my experience.

"The ultimate no calorie snack," I joked, taking another bite. This got some laughs.

"Seriously, though," I continued, raising the apple and smiling, "with pssi installed, you can eat and drink whatever you like as much as you like with zero caloric intake-for this afternoon's activity we'll be lounging in Pompeii at a Roman feast while your proxxi takes your body to the gym." This earned some more hushed laughter.

"Describe a proxxi again?" asked Ginny, c.o.c.king her head and fishing for a sound bite. I obliged.

"Proxxi are biological-digital symbiotes that attach to your neural system, sharing all your memories and sensory data as well as control of your motor system."

The proxxi program was my life's work in creating the basis for synthetic intelligence. Where previous research had tried to create artificial intelligence in a kind of vacuum by itself, my contribution had been to understand that a body and mind didn't exist separately but could only exist together.

We'd started by creating synthetic learning systems attached to virtual bodies in virtual worlds that gradually became intelligent by feeling their way through their environments. The proxxi program had taken this one step further when we'd integrated them intimately into peoples' lives, to share in their day to day experiences.

They were still artificial intelligences, but ones that now shared our physical reality to seamlessly bridge the gap between the worlds of humans and machines.

Ginny screwed up her face and asked, "And why would we want to attach something to our neural systems?"

"And just why wouldn't you want to get attached to me?" asked Marie, my own proxxi, materializing to walk beside me. She smiled at everyone.

This earned a round of laughs. With the flick of a phantom I removed the apple from existence, my taste buds going blank as it flashed away. The hair on the back of my neck had begun to stand up which meant the slingshot test must be about to start. I'd better wrap this up.

"Everyone," I announced, reaching out to encircle the group of reporters with my phantoms, "if you'll allow me, I'd like to take whoever is coming up to watch the test firing of the slingshot."

We'd ensured almost everyone had signed up for a front row seat to the demonstration. We needed to show we weren't just serious about cyber, but also had a committed kinetic program.

"To finally answer your original question Ginny," I said as I grabbed them all and we shot through the ceiling of the conference room, accelerating up into s.p.a.ce and earning a few gasps, "pssi will change the world by beginning to move it from the destructive downward spiral of material consumption and into the clean world of synthetic consumption. It's about the only viable solution we have left with nearly ten billion people all struggling for their own piece of the material dream."

I slowed and stabilized our flight path, bringing us to a stop about ninety thousand feet up. Dispersing the reporters' subjective points of view across a wide radius surrounding the target zone, I motioned down at the oceans below and then towards the rising sun on the horizon.

"The fact that we have to face is that the eco-crunch is destroying the planet while the fight over dwindling resources is fueling the Weather Wars, and pssi is the solution that will bring us all back from the brink!"

On cue, the slingshot began to fill the s.p.a.ce around us with an ear-splitting roar and fiery inferno. I left the reporters' visual subjectives in the thick of it while retreating to view from a distance, backing away several miles, and then several more. What had seemed so awe inspiring moments ago now appeared as just a bright smudge in the sky, and miles below shimmered the green dot of Atopia.

My mind clouded with sudden doubt. Who were we to think we could change the world, to think that we could bend reality? Just a pinpoint of green floating in the oceans, on a planet that was just a tiny speck adrift in a vast cosmos of unending universes. Are we fooling ourselves?