by E. M. Foner
“Do you mean me and Sixth?”
“I mean Bianca D’Arc and Isla Stuart,” the head librarian said. “She has a cover job working as the receptionist at the print on demand publisher just up the corridor, but she spends most of her time writing the most delicious Highland time travel books.”
“I had no idea she lived on board,” Bianca said. “I haven’t seen Isla in at least five years so I’ll have to stop in and surprise her.”
A man who looked like an immersive action hero carried a stack of books behind the circulation desk and began rapidly placing them on shelves.
“Who’s the hunk?” Bianca asked Julie.
“Maybe my replacement for while I worked at the con?” she ventured, and then did a double-take when he turned and she recognized him from her experimental LARPing experience. “Dewey?”
“Do you like it?” the newly minted artificial person asked, patting both hands on his chest. “I had enough saved up to manage the body without a mortgage, though I have to admit I miss my old shelving attachment.”
“Whatever you paid, it was worth every cred,” Bianca told him. She pulled Julie close and whispered. “And I think I just had an idea for another series.”
“But you look exactly like you did when I saw you—” Julie caught herself just before spilling the beans about her encounter with the future on Union Station and substituted “—in a dream, Dewey. And you said that you were working as the head of intelligence for the Human Empire.”
“I met several of the artificial people working for EarthCent Intelligence while I was picking up my new body on Union Station. They tried to recruit me, but I’m sticking with Flower,” Dewey said. Then to Julie’s surprise, he laughed, and it looked and sounded completely natural. “Human Empire. I guess somebody has an ambitious subconscious after all.”
My special thanks to Bianca D’Arc (the first) for allowing me to use her name.
You can help keep Flower open for business even if you were born too early to grab the space elevator up for her next stop at Earth and shop in the bazaar. Tell a friend about Independent Living and the Union Station series.
If you like science fiction without wars, you should also enjoy my AI Diaries trilogy, which starts on present-day Earth with Turing Test. You can sign up for e-mail notification of my new releases on the IfItBreaks.com website or ping me at [email protected] and I’ll add you manually.
About the Author
E. M. Foner lives in Northampton, MA with an imaginary German Shepherd who’s been trained to bite central bankers. The author welcomes reader comments at [email protected]. He’s also online at: facebook/E.M.Foner/
