Rod Rees - [The Demi-Monde 02]

by Spring (v5. 0) (epub)

  Valknut:

  The emblem of the ForthRight, comprising three interlocking triangles.

  Visual Virgins:

  A Venetian order of Sisters established by Doge Oldoini as the Sacred and All-Seeing Convent of Visual Virgins. This Convent is dedicated to the selection and training of girls adept in Auralism (only virgin females have the power of Auralism) in order that they might be used to screen men living in the Quartier Chaud, and hence identify Dark Charismatics masquerading as CitiZens.

  WhoDoo:

  The cult religion of NoirVille, based on a distorted remembrance of Seidr magick.

  Whorealist:

  Derogatory slang term for an Auralist or Visual Virgin.

  woeMen:

  The NoirVillian term for women.

  Ying:

  The Confusionist concept that teaches that when the Messiah has brought Rapture to the peoples of the Demi-Monde, Yin will fuse with Yang to create Ying, the ultimate transcendental Peace.

  zadnik:

  Demi-Mondian slang for a male homosexual and, more generally, for a NoirVillian male. The word is derived from the Russian zad, meaning arse.

  Glossary 2

  The Real World

  ABBA:

  ABBA (Archival, Behavioural, Biological Acquisition) is a Quanputer-based system developed and operated by ParaDigm CyberResearch Limited. By utilising an Invent-TenN® Gravitational Condenser incorporating an Etirovac Field Suppressor®, ABBA is the only computer to achieve a full SupaUnPositioned/DisEntangled CyberAmbiance. As a consequence, ABBA is capable of prodigiously rapid analysis (a fully tethered 30 yottaQuFlops) to give the bioNeural-kinetic engineers at ParaDigm access to almost unlimited processing power.

  BaQTraQ:

  Ever since its inception, ABBA has been a treasure trove for genealogists, containing, as it does, digitised records of all government, parish, court and tax information back to the year 1700. But since the introduction of the PollyScan in 2018, whereby documents can be scanned into ABBA simply by laying a Polly on top of a pile of documents, the ABBA-plat-formed BaQTraQ program has been gathering pace and has now reached a level where the role of the historian in our society is being reassessed. BaQTraQ encourages everybody in the country to scan everything into ABBA: holiday snaps and postcards; letters from husbands, wives, uncles and aunts; bills and invoices; old cine films; school-report cards … anything and everything.

  bioSignatures:

  The means by which a digital identity can be verified. BioSignatures include, inter alia: fingerprints, retinal scans, DNA and pheromonic analysis.

  biPsych:

  Those who have a simultaneous existence in both the Real World (as a NowLived) and in the Demi-Monde (as a Dupe).

  eyeMail:

  An ABBA-platformed means of transmitting person-to-person messages, the privacy and integrity of the message being assured by ParaDigm’s RetinQek Verification Program.

  eyeSpy:

  Hover-capable and independently programmable SurveillanceBot.

  eyeVid:

  An ABBA-platformed means of transmitting person-to-person digital moving-image messages.

  Flexi-Plexi:

  Digital wallpaper. When connected to a Polly a wall covered with Flexi-Plexi is able to display any digital image to a size and shape determined by the viewer.

  Fun/Funs:

  Street/marketing name for the Fun-Loving Fundamentalists, the Christian youth movement established and headed by Norma Williams.

  Get-Me-Straighter

  Aka GMS Meter. A device used by Norma Williams

  Meter:

  to eradicate addictive behaviour.

  INDOCTRANS:

  Indoctrination and Training Command: the department of the US military responsible for the operation of the Demi-Monde.

  moteBots:

  Nano-sized, independently viable and dynamically flexible surveillance cameras. The use of moteBots was declared illegal by the League of Nations’ Universal Charter of Human Rights and Privacy of 2015.

  PINC:

  A Personal Implanted nanoComputer; developed by ParaDigm Technologies as a means of radically reducing training times and to find a more efficient method of inculcating students and trainees with specific knowledge sets. PINC is a nano-sized Memory Supplement which is biologically compatible with the human brain. Once in contact with the brain, PINC fuses with its organic tissue and is able to graft information – painlessly and seamlessly – into a person’s memory bank.

  PanOptika:

  The ABBA-platformed program which links all surveillance apparatus (whether private or state) and all databases (whether private or state) to develop a full 360-degree cyber-portrait of individual citizens.

  Polly:

  Street name for a polyFunctional Digital Device which encompasses, in one dockable device, an individual’s complete computational, communication, security, biomonitoring and entertainment requirements.

  PollyMorph:

  An ABBA-based program which enables digital modifications applied to one part of a moving-image digital stream to be automatically replicated through the digital stream. Analogous to PaintShop for videos.

  Shielders:

  Anti-SurveillanceBots.

  Socialistic Surveillance:

  The belief that to be both successful and acceptable, surveillance must be indiscriminate and totally arbitrary, and that it is utterly fair and equal in its scope. It is the rather naïve understanding that ‘everyone is equal before a surveillance camera’.

  TIS:

  The Total Immersion Shroud used to encase the bodies of Real World visitors to the Demi-Monde in order to preserve muscular viability.

  Young Believers:

  The name of the Christian youth movement established and run by the American evangelists Jim and Marsha Kenton, and subsequently subsumed into the Fun/Funs.