Earth, 35th Century. You can cheat death by downloading your consciousness into a Virtual Universe, with thousands of imaginary worlds to choose from, and countless 'lives' to be 'lived.' But someone of vital importance to the Virtuaverse has been m...
After going through a sonic shower and a bio-scan, our clothes were returned to us cleaned, repaired, redyed, and sanitized. Like new, you might say. Which truly sucks for me, because I've got to break them in all over again.
While Sunny, Holly and Teepee were briefed by Lisa on the current status of the various lunar cities and colonies, Wanda and Les spent time with Pixell going over what the Gates had discovered, if anything, about 'the Incident' – what ZM23's bodily death was being called. As for me, I had a call or two to make.
"I hope you are somewhere untraceable," said Helena, "because Uninada's Cyber Intelligence Cooperative was all over my office after that stunt you pulled yesterday."
"It wasn't my doing; it was the Dromedaries! And fuck you very much, I managed to survive it, no thanks from your end. This case has more kinks in it than the International Porn Museum, and before I go any further, you're going to tell me what's really going on here. Why are the Dromedaries involved?" I was pissed off, and unwilling to give her any quarter.
There was a long pause, which meant that she was definitely hiding something, and trying to figure out how to defuse my anger, derail my train of thought or defend her own interests. I got the same tingle on the back of my head that I'd felt the day I caught her 'entertaining' the Greco-Roman soccer team. I was somehow being hoodwinked or betrayed.
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"Danny, I want to tell you, I really do," she said cautiously, "but it's classified. I need you to focus on finding Murkerberg and his killer." I decided to let her sweat for a change and remained silent.
"Look, tell me where you are and I'll send..." she began, but I stopped her cold. "No. Just keep my line of credit open, and I'll contact you when I have them. Both of them. Then, provided I'm still alive – and I mean alive and breathing – we'll talk about the extra credits you'll be forking over to cover the costs of rebuilding that library."
"The world doesn't need libraries anymore, darling. They're old school and outdated. Kind of like you." Then she hung up. Before you start judging her, I don't hate her guts. She's just doing what we all do, to a greater or a lesser degree: looking out for number one. It's just that Helena is a black hole – no matter how much money or power or fame she gets, it's never enough.
When I meet up with Les and Wanda, I ask Pixell for a secure web connection. Les, after giving it his hacker's once-over, orders six three week passes for Milky Way travel – unlimited access to the Moon, Terra Veritas, Mars and Titan. It cost several million credits, but my Cyber Securities credit line still held. Then I got an idea. A crazy idea. A somewhat vengeful, super crazy idea.
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In one of those brilliant flashes of insight that I occasionally get, I had Les set up the "Chicago Library Reconstruction Foundation;" wired 4oo million credits to it; and had Pixell write an article regarding the tremendous generosity of Uninada's dual governments, with matching donations promised by the A.I. Citizens Consortium and the Euro Islands Nation. Les hacked the Interstellar Web News blog, inserted the article, and added that the Andromeda Cluster had also promised a detailed star map of their galaxy to be on display for the opening gala, date TBA.
Pixell was in tears, worrying about the legality of what I was doing, when I reminded her that Uninada also owed her a new, top-of-the-line hover-bus, and wasn't that it just now descending into the hangar? She screamed, Lisa screamed, my team screamed. It's amazing how loudly a librarian can holler.
We said our goodbyes and took an elevator down 30 floors. I used to know the reason why we have to go down to go up – in spite of how logical that phrase is. Something to do with 'less interference.' Most likely I forgot it because the reason scared the shit out of me.
Sunny bumps into me, smiling. "What you did up there was absolutely..."
"Supernovian!" supplies Teepee, bumping me on my other side.
"Won't you get in trouble?" And I'm quiet, because even though I know the odds are in my favor, things could still go against me. But Wanda, bless her crow heart, lands on her shoulder.
"Girlfriend, the people that hired him ain't bein' straight wit' us. They's bein' underhanded. That means that they don' wanna be caught either." She gave a corvid equivalent of a cackle. "Our Danny, he thinks luck is like shit. Good shit, like fertilizer, makes things grow, so you'd best spread it aroun' to do the most good. Bad shit makes things die – you either keep it to yourself, or you find someone else to dump it on. Ain't that right, Tonto?"
"That's right, you old bird. And my name's not Tonto!"
"Why'd you answer her then?" inquired Sunny. Don't say a word, my friends.
Then it was time to kiss the Earth's slightly radioactive butt and familiar gravity goodbye. We were sanitized again, stripped, and placed in the cellular digitization pods. The entire first-class trip involved our information being bounced from a single, dedicated satellite to Moonbase Gamma. Second class passengers used two randomly chosen satellites to Moonbase Beta, and economy class used up to 50 random satellites.
Economy class had a high mortality rate: one in every 1,000 passengers would either be lost entirely or improperly reassembled. Star Trek's transporter 'accidents' became daily occurrences after digital travel (DT) became a reality. (Majel Barrett had placed the whole series in a time capsule, discovered after the Big Ka-boom.) It was one of the first technological gifts from the Dromedaries. Little did we know, eh?
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We're given a sedative and muscle relaxant that's meant to knock us out for 10 minutes, ensuring that we're perfectly still. The real time elapsed in Earth to Moonbase DT is just under five seconds. But our human brain isn't meant to be disassembled at all, so the trip can seem to be hours long. There's a thorough scanning and examination upon arrival, just for liability and insurance purposes. Also, to make certain everything is properly aligned.
