by G M Steenrod
Security moved out into the crowd periodically to separate over-enthusiastic sexual displays. The offending people were responsive with some mild grumbling. No one wanted the next step to occur, which would be an arrest, fine, and time in a Cuban jail. Cuba had decades of concentrated effort to reform its international image. The jails were humane enough, but harsh, and they were devoid of screen time.
The end of the show came, unexpectedly fast for Fillmore. His vigilance made the time fly by.
The crowd, almost frenzied, showered Leera and her 4 band mates with applause and praise. The band’s outfits were translucent with sweat and revealing. They stood on the outer edge of the circular stage, absorbing the approbation of the crowd. They were as Greek marble statues on the long gone platform of the Parthenon.
Following a silent instinct, the crowd turned toward the exits almost as one, and those attending via screen clicked off from the venue screens one-by-one, blinking out from the hall screens. The attendees at the venue were at peak arousal, and eager to leave for more secluded and legally permitted environs.
The band descended from the stage through the stage elevators. They had a strong post show high going, even with the fatigue of the non-stop, 2 hour athletic show creeping into them.
Security had gone off without a hitch. The venue had been a great success. Fillmore nodded to himself in satisfaction. The next venue wasn't set yet, but that would be tomorrow's challenge. Fillmore was hungry, really very hungry.
He knew the band would be famished as well and should have a bountiful craft table waiting for them. With the last of the audience clearing out, the security detail could handle the close without him. He jogged down the lane, hopped up onto stage and took an elevator to the sub-levels.
The elevator opened to a hallway painted a dark green with yellow trim. A small cleaning bot, a half meter long, half cylinder, cleaned the hallway. It was likely triggered by the band passing through. Over night, the bots would clean the building to a pristine state.
What Fillmore noticed when the elevator doors opened onto the long stretch of hall was that something was wrong. It smelled wrong. It felt wrong. It was empty, but it was wrong.
He moved out of the elevator cautiously. There was no opportunity for concealment in the smooth hall, but time had taught him that bad things happened at unexpected times. He slipped out of his sandals, and moved silently along the side of the corridor.
He reached the end of the corridor, where it intersected perpendicularly with another hallway. The band's dressing room was about 20 meters on the left side of the intersection. Fillmore approached the corner cautiously.
He could hear a hushed voice, barely audible.
Fillmore kneeled, and popped head around the corner.
Leera stood facing in Fillmore's direction. Between them, a mid-sized man, dressed in bright, loose clothing, stood with his back to Fillmore. Leera had a look of anger and fear mixed on her face. The man reached out his left hand to grab Leera's right arm and pulled her slightly toward him.
There was a blur, silent, menacing as Fillmore sprinted to cover the 20 meters. He leaped at the end of the charge, tackling the man at mid-back. The smaller man bent backward and Fillmore directed his charge toward the far wall. He pulled his arms free as their hurtling bodies neared the wall and rammed the man into it, using him as a cushion.
There was a skittling noise as a ceramic knife bounced across the floor, end over end. The assailant lay crumpled on the floor. Fillmore inspected him. He was alive. He was in his mid-twenties, and obviously a heavy Supps user. He had the dark blue rings under his eyes that indicated continuous and recent dosing.
Fillmore swiped his wristband. A more trusted member of his security team would drop the addict in a dumpster in a business nearby until he was able to get medical attention for himself. Fillmore didn't want any trouble. The broken bones and concussion the addict had was enough punishment at this point.
He turned to Leera. She was somewhat stunned.
“You alright, Leera?” It was obvious to Fillmore what had happened. An Earther had slipped down an elevator following the show. The risk of an event like this was low, but next time he'd have security at any choke point like the elevators.
“Come here,” she said. Fillmore walked over to her cautiously.
“What I need from you is a hard fuck. Do you have that in you?” she asked grabbing him by the arms. The continuous arousal of the last two hours and the rush of the addict's assault formed a powerful sexual chemistry between the two of them.
“I think I can do that,” he said, his voice gruff and powerful. Leera's eyes smoldered with sexual desire. She turned his powerful frame and pushed him up against the wall. Her silvered hair tips crackled with an electrical pattern. She ran her left hand along a magnetic seam concealed on the right side of her torso. The uniform popped open.
Fillmore looked down the hall. It was empty. They'd have about 15 minutes before someone came down for the addict on the floor. That would be enough time. Then it would be time to eat. More pork. More greasy pork.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
To the Priestess
Merrick signaled his arrival as he approached the door. He adjusted his black jumpsuit while waiting to be acknowledged, and ran his fingers through his close-cropped, blue hair to make sure it was presentable. The heat and humidity was enough to disorganize any coif into an unseemly mess. Behind him, a simple load bot was behind him carrying a mix of boxes and a tool kit.
The door opened after a brief pause. Because of the nature of the repair, he needed direct confirmation of the repair before proceeding. His wrist unit, a much larger affair than the average unit, routed him through the house. The screens in the house also indicated the direction he should follow.
Merrick made his way quickly through the house after directing the bot to the cpu room. It proceeded slowly to avoid possible “accidents” caused by inattentive clients. He arrived at the door to his destination. While he visited the house regularly, he had never been in this part of it.
He reached the end of a long hall. The door opened as he approached. Cassie sat on a wooden platform in the middle of the Solarium pool. The sunlight back lit her. She was in a seated meditation and seemed to radiate sunlight from around her. Merrick was momentarily stunned by her appearance. He reflexively lowered his head and averted his eyes.
Her pug, Samuel, sitting on one of the drifting islands, floated in the direction of Merrick. He had an imperious look to him. Merrick caught his movement and made eye contact with him. Samuel seemed to be consciously directing the island toward him, which was an unlikely possibility. It floated closer, and Samuel's look became soft and friendly. He enjoyed Merrick.
Samuel barked at him.
Alerted, Cassie broke from her meditation. She rose slowly from her seated pose. A light, vaporous dress formed a cloud about her body. Back lit by the sun, the shape of her figure was clearly visible.
The island Samuel floated on turned and moved steadily away from Merrick.
“Hello, Merrick. I like your hair. That's a lovely shade.”
“Thank you. I am happy to give you the name of my stylist, Madam. I'm sure you would wear it much better than I. May I say that's a stunning dress you have on.”
Cassie flared it slightly in response and danced lightly across the platforms to Merrick. With the dress flared, she seemed to float across the water to him. It was an impressive effect.
She came to a stop before him.
“Thank you. I'm sure you would wear it so much better than I, Merrick.”
“Of course I would, Madam.”
Cassie laughed delightfully. Merrick felt lifted by it. She held his wrist and touched her wrist unit to his to authorize the update.
“You have the new buffers with you as well?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I have some question for you while you work if you don't mind?”
“Not at all.”
T
he two proceeded to the cpu room. The sealed door slid open revealing the racks and the console that occupied the white interior. The load bot was already inside. Cassie sat in the console chair and with a gesture ceded control of the hardware to Merrick. Merrick gestured to his wrist unit, and the quantum closed its connections and went offline. With another gesture, a hatch opened on the floor and the buffer array started to rise slowly from the floor. It would take few minutes to move into position and disengage itself.
“Merrick, I have been thinking about adding an additional quantum. What would be involved in that and what risk is there of quantum interference?” Cassie asked.
Merrick was noticeably surprised. As far he knew, there were no private residences with more than one Quantum. He composed himself.
“Were you considering a dual Quantum or two standalone Quantums? Dual Quantums are still highly problematic.”
“It would be two standalones.” Cassie had been working on her glyph project, and found, quite to her surprise, that her trials of the new glyph prototypes were processor hungry. Processor starved would be a more accurate description. The Quantum was peaking at 90% use. That usage was with trials on a prototype of part of the theory she was testing. A full glyph would not be manageable with a single Quantum chip.
Dual Quantums, always temperamental, could introduce difficulties into the trials. She didn't need additional unknowns.
“You want to put another Quantum into your system and have it act in tandem then?”
“Yes. That's it exactly.”
“You could re-use part of your current infrastructure, but you would need to add to your power system. You'd also have to have another cpu room added.”
“Okay. How long would that all take? I imagine that it would take months given the time for the buffers,” Cassie added.
Merrick smiled. Fortune had favored him. He was able to deliver to Cassie an unexpected piece of news.
“Madame, normally that would be the case. We had an order for a Quantum canceled last week. The home it was scheduled for was destroyed by a hurricane. Everything that you would need to have it installed is at the ready. It would take about one week to have it fully operational once you complete the order.”
“Could you give me an exact quote, please?” Cassie asked. With a nod, Merrick paged through his wrist unit and revised the old client's invoice for Cassie. Swiping his finger, he passed it Cassie's wrist unit.
Cassie browsed through the invoice. She was generally familiar with the components, but not a technician.
“This is more than the first unit,” she said.
“Yes, Madam. You want the Quantums to function in tandem. That will require a multiplexer, since the two Quantums can't directly interact.”
“Yes, I do want that, Merrick.” Cassie pulled the funds from 4 separate accounts, and paid the invoice in full.
Merrick's unit flashed. In that short conversation, he had, by commission, made his annual income.
The culture of wealth worship embodied in the Barons had fallen into strong disfavor during the Time of Troubles. Wealth still existed. Cassie had available to her vast resources, given both the inheritance of part of Ada's estate and her own work. It could be shocking to see that type of credits move through the hands of a single individual, however.
“I am working on special project, Merrick, that requires the extra power.”
“I would imagine so, Madam. It is not for me to question the reason for your purchase, however.”
“I appreciate that. I need a technician of your skill to make sure both Quantums are fully functional as quickly as possible. Can you personally do that for me?”
Much of the build and installation was done robotically. The human part of the task was done by a skilled technical team. Merrick worked on more technically complex diagnostics and with high value clients.
“I would be happy to, Madam.” His smile beamed at her. Being contracted for this work would provide Merrick with another major income bump. More importantly to him was the allure of the secret project he was aiding. What brilliance from Cassie's mind would require two Quantums? The moment had the feel of history to it. His name could be in the scholarship written about this work.
Merrick looked at his wrist unit. The robotic build crew was already being routed. Within 3 hours, the initial crew would be there and the supplies delivered. The next morning the actual build would start.
The CPU room was a modular unit. A hole would be excavated, and the room installed. Robots would connect the power and cooling systems to the existing grid. Merrick would be responsible for the actual Quantum CPU, multiplexer, and more sensitive gear. He would hand select and oversee the team for that part of the install. Cassie would have to hire the craftsmen needed to blend the new house add on with her current architecture sometime after the install.
Merrick turned his attention to the buffer array. Cassie, her dress settled delicately around the console chair, watched him with detached interest. The buffers were metal wedges mounted to a metal pole by a small bracket. The load bot moved next to him. Merrick touched a buffer wedge. The wedge, driven by a hydraulic mechanism, moved away from the pole. The load bot handed him a replacement with a manipulating claw. He handed the old buffer to the bot. With a push, he put the new wedge into the bracket.
Cassie smiled. Merrick was fully engrossed and it was a pleasure to watch his technical orchestra.
She always enjoyed watching the small slices of life unfold. With her keen eye she noticed the subtleties of Merrick facial expression that showed his passion, and small changes in movement across his shoulders that indicated moments of tension. It was an orchestra.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Spider's Web
Cassie's private home now had one of the larger concentrations of computing power on the Earth. She was following in Ada's footsteps with the additional quantum, since her Mother was the first private purchase of a Quantum cpu. Every bit of that power was necessary.
Cassie stood in the center of her lab. The walls were a neutral gray color. There was no breathtaking scene around her, or artful deception. The sole focus of the area was a bright, 6 centimeter disk of light that seemed to hover in front of her. It was densely packed with sensory information, much more than the typical stack and glyph combination. The glyph and stack combos bypassed conscious filtering and stimulated emotional responses. It was remarkable, but inherently simple. The simplicity had led to the wide spread adoption of the emotive glyph. The emotive could be used even with more primitive screen setups, and would function even when clumsily deployed. This glyph experiment was the opposite of simplicity.
Cassie had intuited the direction her mother was headed with the glyph, but could hardly verbalize what she thought the direction was. She was exploring, looking for something. She was feeling along the edge of something remarkable.
She reached out to the image of the silver disk and dabbed into it with her brush. She swirled the brush head in the disk, and pulled it slightly. The silver pulled up and burst out into fine threads of images and glyphs. The threads shifted and glimmered, periodically connecting and disconnecting with one another, the images changing as well.
As she watched, she could feel primal emotions being drawn up and periodic bits of memory unfold in her head. The screens read her responses through small changes in her face and eyes. The Quantum was mixing parts of the glyphs, images, and stacks according to an algorithm developed by Cassie. The Quantum steered the mixes in the direction of greater success based on the responses it read from her. Left to its own devices, the algorithm was very successful in creating strong bouts of annoyance. The annoyance was a good indicator that her algorithm was doing something powerful. With her guidance, she could steer the algorithm toward a more pleasant collection of thoughts and feelings. She stored those works in a separate file simply called “Better.”
Adding the second Quantum had allowed greater complexity to be put into the algorithm, and trial
s to be run at an exponentially faster rate. The first Quantum was busy drawing, discretely, from the vast Ether-wide library of images, and adjusting the images according to Cassie's responses. The second Quantum allowed Cassie to manipulate the threads with her brush. Each stroke was a graphical manipulation of the code that shifted enormous flows of data.
Cassie was tired. Her eyes were dark from the lack of sleep. Since the installation of the second cpu, she had been working obsessively on the project.
With a wave of her hand, the neutral gray changed to a scene of the park near her home. The silver disk was a large blot in the scene. That was the second major issue. How to integrate the disk into a scene. Because of the complexity of the data, the disk—in actuality the sensory interface—had to be larger.
Prototypes rarely had the efficiency of the finished project, but Cassie couldn't help but worry about the issue of size, and the jarring impact it had. It was the opposite of seamless integration.
