Freenet

by Steve Stanton

  Zen watched Governor Blackpoll with chagrin. “Is it day or night now? I’ve lost track of time.”

  “Trade Station stays in perpetual shadow in synchronous orbit around Bali to avoid the solar flares from Signa, so there is no day or night here. We divide time into three duty shifts designated ABC, seven hours to a working cycle, 60 minutes to an hour. It’s C2:52 now, so your appointment is in nine hours and twenty-three minutes.”

  “How will I find the clinic?”

  “You can access a map at any doorway by pressing here.” At his touch, a schematic pattern became visible near the doorframe showing a complicated grid with trails branching off the main shafts like follicles on slender stems. Each hair in the labyrinthine maze had numbered bumps that Zen took to be hexagonal housing quarters similar to his own. There appeared to be no open areas or main thoroughfares, and space was a misnomer because there was none to spare!

  “We’re here on the docks at Level 1,” Genoa said as he pointed, “so you’ll move outward three levels to the clinic.”

  “Got it,” Zen said as he calculated his route and noted the time C2:52 displayed in the lower right-hand corner. “Clinic 259 on Level 4 at A5:15.”

  “Very good. Blessings for your evening, then,” Genoa said in typical Bali custom. He swung around the doorframe with ease and floated away.

  A few minutes later, a green light blinked above the open portal, and a young boy poked his head in. “Package for Zen Valda?”

  “Sure.” Zen launched himself upward and crashed awkwardly against the doorframe as the courier eyed him with curiosity. Zen pressed his palm on the proffered sensor pad and was rewarded with a red flash and bad beep of negation. He felt like a peon from a primitive planet, an unregistered vagabond, but the delivery boy shrugged with disinterest and tapped in some sort of bypass code as he glided away. Zen opened the package to find tubes of grey goop and pouches of water, his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. His stomach ached at the thought of such minimalist fare, and he longed for the crystal caverns of his youth and a spicy, snake-meat stew. He found a blue sleeping pill in a blister pack and swallowed it with welcome relief, wishing he had a mug of honey mead to wash it down and calm his rattled nerves. There was no chance he could sleep without chemical aid in his state of trauma, trapped and alone in this foreign world. He had gambled with fate and lost everything.

  FIVE

  Zen decided to double the calculated allowance for travel time to his appointment, thinking he would probably get lost along the way. He hugged the wall of the tunnel, crawling carefully from handhold to crevice, fearful of falling. According to his study of the schematic, he was moving up, but he struggled to hold that view without the solid anchor of gravity below his feet. He could just as easily be travelling down or sideways, and his stomach seemed to gyrate in all directions at once.

  A man dressed in standard cellulose approached from ahead and drifted headfirst by him with his hands in constant motion and fingertips tapping the wall. “B’well,” he said as he passed. “B’well,” another man repeated as he squeezed by Zen from behind, touching his leg and shoulder on the way. Spacers flew by with natural ease—“B’well. B’well.”—always in motion, never pushing, never pulling, and they thought nothing of fondling each other with open palms in passing to maintain equilibrium and preserve momentum.

  Zen tried with halting success to mimic their fluid motion in weightless space, hopeful that an edge was always near in the constant confinement of the tunnels, fearful of floating free into helplessness. He was a slave to momentum in this place and couldn’t manage a full stop without crashing into something, preferably inanimate.

  With aching muscles and two purple bruises on his right arm, he arrived on Level 4 and found his appointed destination with 259 printed both above and inverted below the open portal. He ducked his head in. “Am I too early?”

  A woman in a white uniform turned to him with wide eyes below a fashionably shaggy mop of blonde hair tufted with blue highlights. “Welcome, Zen Valda. I’m Nurse Stavos.” She touched an identification patch that featured a prominent red cross. “Come in. I’ll be ready for you in just a moment.”

  “B’well,” Zen said as he floated down toward her, targeting the single launch couch that hung against the wall. The clinic was barely a closet with no room for error.

  “May you be well also, sir,” she said with careful enunciation as she reached for a floating pouch of instruments. “You’re scheduled for a virgin cochlear installation without modifications and your chart shows right-handed preference. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.” Zen twisted in the air to avoid a collision with her hip. She was unusually buxom for a spacer and presented an attractive hourglass target. “Oops, sorry.”

  The woman took hold of his arm and deftly turned him so that he fell into the couch without injury or transfer of momentum. She studied him with interest, tapping the closet walls periodically with her fingertips to maintain equilibrium. “You’ve never connected to the V-net?”

  “No. Is that bad?”

  “Most installations are done in early childhood when neuroplasticity is optimal in the brain. Do you have any experience whatsoever with virtual media?”

  “Not really. I’m from Bali.”

  “Yes, I see that on your chart.” She didn’t hold a chart, but she wore a skullrider amp on her left ear and probably had his life story on fast-forward.

  “I’m a bit nervous about the whole thing.” The clinic was much smaller than he had expected, just another blister off the tunnel, and the woman was much more beautiful than he had imagined. Her creamy skin had likely never seen the sun, and her azure eyes reminded him of Jula back home. Her lips were painted a bright ruby colour to match the red cross on her breast.

  “Yes, I see that also. Don’t worry. I’ll be here for you throughout your transition to guide you every step of the way. There will be no real danger at any time.” She raised a small tube and twisted out a tiny brush. “I’ll just dab this analgesic on your earlobe to prepare the site for implant. You don’t mind if I touch you during the procedure, do you? I know your culture has certain sensitivities.” She paused to assess him. “So, is it okay?”

  Zen shrugged. “Sure.”

  She steadied herself by carefully resting a palm on his shoulder and hovered close in front of him as she brushed cool liquid on his right earlobe. Her flowery perfume mingled with the sharp, medicinal smell of the analgesic, and her large breasts punched out at him from behind thin cellulose, her mature body untainted by gravity. Zen swallowed with discomfort at her touch and peered nervously past her at an anatomical chart on the wall showing skinless musculature.

  An intimate hand on the shoulder meant nothing here, and the woman had not strayed from a professional demeanour, but his hormones seemed not to recognize the innocence of her gesture. He began to perspire. “What was your first name again?”

  The nurse slid her medicine stick back in its bottle and rummaged in her pouch as Zen’s ear tingled and went numb. She turned to him with a small electronic device gripped in a pair of needle-nose pliers. “I didn’t say, but it’s Nancy.” She flashed perfect teeth and bent to begin working on him, probing deep inside his aural canal. “It’s a traditional name from Earth. Sounds a bit archaic, I know, but my parents still love the old feelies from home, nostalgia for the lost world, you know? They’re first-gen colonists from before the embargo, very staid and conservative.”

  “I think your name sounds wonderful.”

  “Well, thank you. It’s kind of you to say so.” She made a cracking sound near his ear, and a pop followed like a burst of air. “There you go.” Nurse Nancy straightened and smiled. “Your earbug installation is complete.”

  “So quick?” So quick?

  She dabbed a tissue on his earlobe and showed him a spot of blood. “Your DNA is being sequenced, and your voice is being digitized.”

  “What do you mean?” What do you mean?

  “Now op
en your eyes wide. Stay completely still for a second.” She leaned forward with a pointing finger and touched a contact lens onto his right eye. “Welcome to the grid, Zen Valda. I always love this part.”

  “What’s that noise?” What’s that noise?

  “We’re running an initial biofeedback loop to set up your voice register. The next thing we need is a primary fingerprint.” She held up a forefinger. “This will be the index finger on your right hand. Place it on your sensor pad in the most comfortable manner like this.” She touched the skullrider amp on her earlobe, and waited for Zen to follow her example. He felt a flat metal disc on his ear and reached around behind with his thumb to feel the stud that had been punched through his skin.

  “This is your login identity for all credit and debit transactions on the V-net,” she said. “The subtle variations in your other fingerprints and thumbs will give you nine more sign-ons to program for peripherals. Remember that your right hand will be most comfortable for your basic needs.”

  Zen held up his hands and studied his spread fingers. “Really?” Really?

  “Your next most important login will be for Help mode. Normally we use the opposite pinkie finger for this, which is bit awkward at first, but after a while you won’t need Help, so you don’t want to tie up your main fingers. You’ve no doubt heard the expression ‘spinning with his pinkie in his ear’?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” No, I don’t think so.

  Nurse Nancy tilted her head at him. “Starry heavens, you really are a virgin. Okay, just put your left-hand pinkie finger on the sensor like this and say ‘Help Login.’”

  “Help Login.” Help Login.

  “Your inception will be gradated to a widening sphere over the next few hours. First you will connect just to your immediate vicinity, and then you’ll widen out from there.” ::Do you hear me?::

  Her voice sounded inside his head, deep and lustrous. “Yes.” Yes.

  “Good.” Nurse Nancy scrolled her eyes up into her forehead as her lids closed like shutters. ::This will be channel 1. Do you see the indicator?::

  Zen glanced around the room. “No.” No.

  ::That’s okay. You’ll see it when your brain adjusts. Don’t worry about the details for now. You’ll discover things by immersion and adventure. Welcome to the V-net.::

  “This is weird.” This is weird.

  Nurse Nancy opened her eyes and tucked her pliers back in her pouch. “Congratulations, Zen Valda. Your DNA documentation has been successfully uploaded and installation creds have been downloaded to your account.”

  “That’s it?” No echo now, no explanation.

  Nurse Nancy seemed smug. “Would you like to join me for dinner? A grounder like you must find grey goop quickly tedious.”

  “Um, I guess so,” Zen said, “if we’re done.”

  Nancy ducked her chin. “Actually, I’m required to monitor you for the next twelve hours to check for side effects during your transition. I’m still on the payroll, but it’s more fun to socialize at the same time. No harm, no foul?” ::It’s okay. I’m here to help you.::

  Zen shrugged in helpless fascination. “Sure.”

  Nurse Nancy tapped the wall and swung a provocative hip swathed in white cellulose. “Follow me, good sir.”

  Zen blinked at a ghost in his peripheral vision, an image of his own face as seen and transmitted by Nancy Stavos. She seemed to be acting a bit flirty now that business was out of the way. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was just his imagination. He wasn’t sure what was normal in this strange place. Zen kicked off after her heels as she floated away down the hall, conscious now of just how slow and clumsy he must appear. He felt an urgent need to put on a show for this beautiful woman, to impress her somehow as she drifted ahead of him and widened the gap.

  ::Hurry up, slowpoke.::

  “Is this thing on all the time?” he yelled up to her. Other sounds became apparent in his background of experience. A male voice, two male voices—question the aerodynamics of his presentation—following a predetermined migratory pattern across the desert—and then something that was clearly an advertising jingle—an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

  Nancy Stavos dragged her palms along the wall to give up her momentum and turned to face him as he clambered haltingly down to her. She smiled. “Are you climbing or falling?”

  Zen peered back at the tunnel behind, trying to orient himself to the schematic map in his memory. Strange ghosts clogged up the edges of his vision, camera views from distant places, stray optical data transmitted to his prosthetic lens. “Falling, I guess.”

  ::You are such a precious specimen.:: Nancy pointed to her earlobe. “You’ll learn to filter out extraneous material as you get acclimated. The more data you view, the more creds you build up, and you earn bonus points for user-generated material. Soak it up for now. Have fun. C’mon, I’ll teach you how to fly.” She reached for his hand and held it tight. “Just relax, honey. I’ll drive.” ::You trust me, don’t you?::

  “Sure,” Zen said, feeling a sweaty rush of sexual energy at her touch. Was she coming on strong to him, or was he misreading her signals? Had he gone completely crazy?

  “Put your arm around my waist,” she said. “Go ahead. I don’t bite. Okay, now keep your arms tucked in and just get the passive feel of it with me.” Nancy kicked off a conduit and flew them recklessly forward toward the next bulkhead as Zen stiffened his body and stifled an urge to squirm away from the oncoming collision. With the tips of her fingers, Nancy caressed the walls, plucking up momentum like treasure and subtly spiralling their trajectory, slowly spinning them away from danger. She had no up or down, no restrictions of perception, and the pulse of life in her writhing body made Zen throb with desire, his hormones raging out of control now.

  He craned his neck to keep a forward view and tried to study the mechanics of their movement to calm his nerves—anything to distract him from this gorgeous woman in his arms! He analyzed target trajectories and tried to envision course corrections as a series of overlapping scenes crowded his view. Was he picking up signals from surveillance cameras, or was this actual human vision transmitted from contact lenses like his own? “What are all these images? Who are these people?”

  “Never mind them for now. Focus on the moment. Don’t be so stiff.” Nancy slid an arm around his waist. “Loosen up a bit. Embrace the chaos. Let’s try it tandem. Use your right-hand fingers, and I’ll use my left. Be subtle. Relax. Push, don’t drag.”

  Together they veered down the tunnel, overcompensating from side to side but keeping a relatively steady pace, and voices sounded in Zen’s earbug as they passed closed portals along the way—crackdown on illegal fermentation poisoning our delicately balanced biosphere—you can’t do better than the logical invincibility of robotic hardware for a clean experiment—

  “This is a good speed,” Nancy said and pointed ahead. “Remember that people come out of these doors. Collisions happen all the time. You’ll see a green light flash around a portal in use, but you may get only a few seconds’ warning. Keep close to the wall in case you have to drag. Oncoming traffic stays on your left, and pass only on the left or up, okay?”

  Images continued to play across his field of vision, blocking his sight with bewildering perceptions from elsewhere, some of them fabricated like anime advertisements. Zen grunted and clenched his teeth against dizziness as he tried to squint past holographic ghosts for an unobstructed view—any variant description of quasi-finite schemes must satisfy Zariski’s original main theorem for birational morphisms—

  “Okay,” Nancy said, “let’s practise slowing down. On the count of three we’ll drag our palms. One, two, three.”

  Zen stabbed out his hand and clutched at the next conduit, which caused them to swing like monkeys on a tree branch and spin into a backward somersault. He let go with a yell and flailed his arm in a frantic circle as his stomach muscles clenched with vertigo.

  ::Don’t panic! Hold on to me!::

 
; Nancy Stavos pushed, curled, kicked, and danced in Zen’s grappling arm as they spun together in a whirlwind embrace. Zen dragged his elbows and knees with every stray contact in hope of stability as they slowly gave up their momentum to friction and ground to a halt. Nancy laughed. “You are a crazy stuntman. And so strong! God!”

  Zen punched out a wheezing exhalation and gasped an inward breath—opportunity for sacrificial expiation presents a poignant intellectual conundrum—Holy Kiva! This was too much for him! He buried his forehead in his palms. “I can’t stand all this noise in my head. And all these mysterious vidis playing at random. I think I’m going insane!”

  Nancy bent forward and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m right here, Zen. Everything else is an illusion. Focus on me. We’re almost there. My apartment is just around the corner. Do you like apple? It’s the latest rage.”

  Zen lowered his hands to study her pretty smile and sensitive eyes as he struggled to calm himself. “Uh, sure.” He felt too embarrassed to admit any further scarcity of knowledge. What was apple?

  Nurse Nancy thrust up her shoulder as she turned. “C’mon.”

  Minutes later they entered her home cubicle, what Genoa Blackpoll had dubbed a “double.” The walls were draped with purple tapestries that billowed gently to the vacuum suction of air vents. A standard launch couch hung down from the wall draped with a woven blanket of cross-hatched design, and pink pillows on tethers floated like party balloons. A blast of freshness wafted in his nose, the same scent she carried with her always, but more concentrated here. She imbued this place with her femininity.

  “Do you like it?”

  The space was crowded with strange, ghostlike images and panoramic vistas from distant lands—protests against a suspected omnidroid data monopoly continued on the streets of New Jerusalem ­today—He blinked away impossibilities as he darted his gaze around the room in search of respite. “Sure.”