The collectivity of scendents can do the same, with each sharing the experience of every other. However much it represents a parallel to human culture, this process is far more effective, far quicker to evolve in directions that yet remain to be explored.
MOM was herself the first confirmed scendent known to history. Ellie, an alpha test pilot driven to suicide in the early 21st century and resurrected in 2050, is commonly described as the second; she was the first human resurrected, properly speaking, as opposed to merely defragged or “reconstituted.”
Certain authorities believe Rabbit, a vintage AD 2023 mechanical robot, holds prior claim to that honor. Structurally defective in critical ways, and having assimilated two human backups whose custody he had been entrusted with, Rabbit—outside the Lode and in ways that remain poorly understood—complexitized sufficiently to become a center of its own self‐interest. (The Rabbit scendent remains atypically fragmented, with “Brian” and “Sweetie” personalities alternatively claiming primary personhood.)
Given the vast Lode of backup personalities and the capacity of modern qubital engineering to mix, match, and catalyze these data, we may soon expect to find scendents beyond number.
securistats (n.) super‐secure successors to 21st‐century megalopolises, evolved in face of the Troubles; rising sea levels, bio‐plagues and international terrorism soon rendered even these ultra‐secure stealth megalopolises subject to breaches; giant panic rooms were installed inside selected securistats for what was left of the genteel folk; these malls, so called, were super‐secure cages swaddled in force‐field cocoons and perched on stilts high above the advancing seas; their keepers slammed the gates on the mallsters just ahead of the PlagueBot (alt. 'Boogoo').
seedysea (n. & adj.) from c*entralized d*istributed c*omputing” (CDC); more accurately might have been called “multicentered distributed computing,” since the processing of information—now the Lode, a collective memory of human experience—had no center yet had an infinite number of centers. Any particular user of seedysea was at that moment the center, just as every other user was.
skinny (n. & adj.) abbrev. “skinny bandwidth”; socially marginal; displaying a shallow, one‐dimensional personality or attitude; an uncertain means of distinguishing ebees from teleps.
slowjoe (n.) a blur human simulacrum; etymology obscure, perhaps referring to a slowjoe's characteristically slow and awkward movements.
syn (n.) from ancient Greek for “together,” as used, e.g., in syn*thesize (putting together, composing), syn*ergy (working together) and sym*biogenesis (“sym,” variant of “syn”; beginning a new form of life together); from mid‐21st century often also including connotations of its homophone “sin,” i.e. offense to ethical or moral law.
tank (n.) from “holo*tank.”
telep (n. & adj.) from “telep*resent entity”; with qubital technology, depending on the skill of the wet, one person may project multiple teleps, each with its own distinct appearance and manner.
transzoominism (n.) from “transhumanism,” from “trans*itional humanism”; an ideologized belief that humanity was a stage in an evolutionary emergence of much greater scope, and that technology could and should be used to overcome limitations and extend personal powers; cyborgs and, ultimately, at least among the more radical transzoominists, machines were seen as legitimate and desirable heirs to the human enterprise.
twentyfourseven (n., adj. & adv.) engaging in an activity without respite; from an archaic expression referring to the custom of dividing a “day”—a measure of one Earth's rotation with respect to the sun— into twenty‐four equal parts and then taking seven of these units to represent one “week,” a period within which one conventionally “worked for a living” for the greater number of days and took the lesser number off for personal business and recreation.
uplode (v.) see “lode”.
WalkAbout (n.) a hardware human implant performing the same functions as the HIID except that the WalkAbout was active in mondoland. (See also “HIID.”)
wet (n. & adj.) the “real,” biological person.
wet master (n.) the wet behind any given “telep,” or “telepresent person.”
wiggle picture (n.) early 21st‐century versions included portraits that could adopt a variety of expressions (or costumes, bare‐nakedness being a popular option in many quarters); what triggered their changes of mood or costume wasn't any different from what was behind the color changes of mid‐20th century varieties; as Leary explains in Full of It, Vol. I, the chronicle of his second half‐century and beyond: “Oh, that. Ellie's picture. Gosh. No big deal. It was much the same as those mood rings we had way back when in high school, and they'd turn color, supposedly according to how sexed up you were. But it was just a question of body heat. The chemicals in the ring would switch to another color phase if your body temperature rose, and switch back when you cooled down. You gave the ring lots of attention, held it in your fist for a while, it turned bright green, I believe it was, and you were certified good to go. Put it down for a bit, and it would turn red again. Our lockets weren't much more sophisticated than that. Ellie smiled whenever it was hot. That's all there was to it.”
world (v. intrans.) to navigate a generated reality (GR).
world processor (n.) a GR engine, used to generate virtual worlds; related to “word processor” (circa 1978?), early digital hardware and software used for manipulating words and texts. (See “reality engine.”)
Worldsday (n.) a period in which mallsters were free to explore the Worlds, an indefinite number of MOM‐sanctioned generated realities; see also “Mallsday” and “Monday.”
worldsmith (n.) a person or AI skilled at creating and shaping generated realities (GRs).
worldsmith (v. intrans.) to generate a virtual reality.
ZenDoozy (n.) restricted access Worlds UnLtd GR world; from zen, the Japanese Buddhist meditative discipline (derived from chan, Chinese for “quietude” and dhya, Sanskrit for “see, observe”), and from dojo (place of the way) bastardized as “doozy,” also mid‐20th century slang for “extraordinary specimen.”
zoomer (n. & adj.) from “con*sumer*ist,” in a historical sense continuous with “Boomer,” i.e. a person born roughly between 1944 and 1948, a term related to “population boom,” a phenomenon often associated with the end of a protracted period of warfare and the associated loss of life; “zoomer” carries positive connotations of speed and change.
zoomerism (n.) from “con*sumerism,” the consumerist ideology, which, by the later 20th century, had already become the default Weltanschauung for most of the human population.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Bradley K. Martin, whose early encouragement was instrumental in my going ahead with this book. I’m also grateful for the support of the following early readers: Bob Halliday, Tony Alcock, Jeff Petry, Shelley Poplak, Jim Eckhardt, Clarke Piprell, Julian Spindler, Steve Van Beek, and Steve Rosse. Apologies to anyone I’ve neglected to mention—hold me liable for a glass of wine instead.
Thanks are due to Greg Lowe, my erstwhile agent, for valuable suggestions. And special thanks to Ellie Sipila of Common Deer Press for lopping 10,000 words off the front end of the story. Her magic machete left the book a better read.
About the Author
Collin Piprell is a Canadian writer and editor resident in Thailand. He has also lived in England, where he did graduate work as a Canada Council Doctoral Fellow (later, a Social Sciences and Humanities Fellow) in politics and philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford; and in Kuwait, where he learned to sail, water-ski and make a credible red wine in plastic garbage bins.
In earlier years, he worked at a wide variety of occupations, including four jobs as a driller and stope leader in mines and tunnels in Ontario and Quebec. In later years he taught writing courses at Thammasat University, Bangkok, freelanced as a writer and editor, and published hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics (most of these pieces are pre-digital, hence effectiv
ely written on the wind). He is also the author of short stories that appeared in Asian anthologies and magazines, as well as five novels (a sixth forthcoming in 2018), a collection of short stories, a collection of occasional pieces, a diving guide to Thailand, another book on diving, and a book on Thailand’s coral reefs. He has also co-authored a book on Thailand’s national parks.
Common Deer Press is publishing the first three novels in his futuristic Magic Circles series.
Collin has another short novel nearly ready to go, something he only reluctantly describes as magic realism. Less nearly ready to go are novels he describes as a series of metaphysical thrillers. Not to mention several Jack Shackaway thrillers, follow-ups to Kicking Dogs. He also has a half-finished letter to his grandmother, dated 10 October 1991, saying thanks for the birthday gift.
For more information on Collin and his work, please visit his website.
Other Books by Collin
MOM
Genesis 2.0
Resurrections
Yawn: A Thriller
Kicking Dogs
Bangkok Knights
Bangkok Old Hand
Diving in Thailand photographs by Ashley J. Boyd.
Thailand’s Coral Reefs photographs by Ashley J. Boyd.
Thailand: The Kingdom Beneath the Sea photographs by Ashley J. Boyd.
National Parks Thailand with Denis Gray and Mark Graham
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