The FIA's new safety rules where going a little too far . . . .
Children . . calm down. I don't want to come between you!! lol.
Yea, thinking that. Nobodies really interested anyway . . . .
After going through some of the diagnostic printouts from the chairs, most of which Carl just nodded too in complete incomprehension, Carl had sent Dave back to his offices on a promise to make everything that Carl asked for available. Besides he wasn’t official in any way shape and form. Even Carl would have a bit of difficulty getting in some of the places he was likely to go let alone a guy like Dave. A guy like Dave don’t go down the deeps. And definitely wouldn’t go into the kinda place that the plug in kids frequented.
And anyway the Chair that the kid had died on had been taken back to Spenneys Labs for a complete rip apart.
Spenney Gaming World Interactive. GWI. Controversial, rarely out of the headlines, high stock value for a tech firm. Extremely popular.
It’s main concept. Completely interactive gaming environments with realspace representation of the Net. It was an immense project. An astonishing feat of Software Engineering.
Originally built around complete immersion suits. Suits that allowed the wearers every sense to be optimised in the gaming world. Sight, sound, touch, taste, even smell to a certain extent although this was by far the most difficult sense to fool. But these suits where prohibitively expensive. Giving way to only a fairly clique clientele. The Rich Kids with Richer parents. Successful Gups who had made a quick buck on the back of the mining corps and software moguls and space financiers who cast their easily won fortunes wherever they could.
But then came the revolution. Direct nodal implants. These had taken decades to perfect. Mainly in use by the military and medical professions, but once out into the Real world soon became di rigour for the new generation. The Plug In generation.
For them it was nothing to have a node implant. In fact you where abnormal if you didn’t have one at school nowadays.
The prices dropped for the implants. Still expensive but getting more and more popular.
But it wasn’t without it’s problems. Kids where dying. A thing called the Brain Body Paradox. If the Brain thought it had died on the Net, or in a gaming world, in some cases the body would think so too. Complete body shutdown. Didn’t happen all the time. Most kids where mentally strong enough to cope with it. But complete immersion means just that. It was getting less and less easy to tell the difference between the game world and the real. Thus the body was sure that the mind had, in effect, made up it’s own mind about being dead and agreed to make sure that it was. Terminal shutdown. No reboot.
To combat this GWI came up with the Chair. A system that allowed the user to plug in without fear of Terminal shut down. The Chair acted as a gate to the Net. It channelled all input through its lifeguards. Everything passed through them, if you sat in a Chair, you couldn’t die. Your body could not be terminated whilst in the chair, not from a Net source at least. So that seemed to cheer people up slightly. Every now and then a few people would decide to plug in without the aid of Fail-safes or lifeguards. It was the ultimate game. The ultimate Russian roulette. The fight of the fittest. If you claimed to be the best fighter in the coliseum then you proved it, and you proved it with your life at stake. You took a gamble that you could win, or if you lost that your body and subconscious had more sense than you did and kept you alive. It didn’t always happen. But those incidents where few and far between, kept from the public pretty much and, due to the time constraints and cost of setting up a stand alone, where fairly restrained to the rich and bored. The ones with far too much time on their hands.
The only issues left connected with the Chairs, or the Net where the parents. The mothers and fathers who where loosing their children to the Net. To the Gaming worlds. Plug in Kids spent all their spare time on the Net. And time that wasn’t spare as well. It had swept the colony like a rash. No more did kids play at home on the consoles or under the watchful eye of mom and dad. Instead they headed in their droves to the Halls.
Halls where set up by an eagle eyed entrepreneur who knew a business opportunity when he saw one. Andrew Davies was an extremely rich man off the back of the halls. With just one hall with fifty Chairs he opened another with 200. Within six months another with 500. He just kept on adding Chairs to Halls and opening Halls to accommodate Chairs.
You paid for your hall time. And it wasn’t cheap. But this was where Andrew was very clever and very astute. Kids don’t have that much money. Especially when mom and dad don’t want them to be sitting on the Net all day and night. So he got them working for him. Plug in kids are amazingly quick when it comes to anything net orientated. With direct access into their brains they could scan, run, burn, chase, copy, write, design, program, any number of things. And if they couldn’t do it, they knew somebody who could. They worked together. A tight nit community. They talked, communicated. They could effectively read each others thoughts.
So Andrew got them working. They where happy, he was happy. Nearly everyone was happy. Andrew was especially happy. People paid him to employ Plug-ins. Kids paid to get into the halls. He paid a few kids who worked for him. With minimal outlay, he was racking it in.
Carl was heading to one of Andrews many Halls now. There was one in New Plaza North, pretty close to the Precinct. Is also happens to be the first Hall that Andrew built and where he kept his offices.
Carl walked, his long stride covering the few miles quickly. He liked to walk, Europa Centro wasn’t that big an area but it made up for it by cramming as much into the available three dimensions as it could. Ostensible it was designed around a park. A large, open atrium downlit from huge sun panels that simulated day and night. But soon demand caused swooping walkways tbe built. Wide throughfares that crisscrossing the open air above the park connecting points in the atrium wall, each with their own bustling market communities. The higher up you went the more luxurious the services. Carl remembered seeing an Italian bridge from his geography lessons at school which looked like that it being a bridge was second to the community making a living on it. The walkways and air-crossings reminded him of that bridge. The air above Centro Park was now so crowded that new Sun Panels had to be installed to allow light to filter down to the perpetual dusk of the arboretum on the Atrium floor. Carl crossed that floor now. He liked walking amongst the trees and the tended flower beds. Centro was busy. It always was. People thronged the walkways and streets every hour of the day, shopping, working, playing.
Europa-1 was a strange place. Built into the very ice sheet of Europa it had developed from a Jovian observatory to a research laboratory. Then the nutrient rich seas where opened for use and Europa grew exponentially from there.
Capitalism ruled on Europa. There was little or no religion except at the altar of the fiscal. The only worship that happened was in the pursuit of money. Everyone came here for a quick buck. From the fishing the deep ocean depths to mining the relatively close asteroid belt and exploiting the other Jovian moons. And then, of course, came the support services. All those Off World miners and spacers needed somewhere for shore leave. All those software magnets and tech. Industrialists needed a base of operations. And Europa opened its doors to them all.
Carl was an Europan born and bred. His parents had come here from Earth on a transfer order for his father. He was an engineer on the gigantic mining ships that coasted around the asteroid belt and when his employers moved their headquarters he came too, young wife in tow. Carl didn’t remember his father that much. He died when Carl was 7 in an accident on board a vessel. And before that he would be away for months at a time doing a circuit. Then back home a month then back out on another circuit. Mother always said he was good at his job and was in demand and the money was good.
Carl was an only child and was a natural birth. His parents had been given the choice of engineered kids, as paid for by the corporate insurance but they had chosen not to. For which Carl was glad. Everything about him was meant to be. From his size 11 feet to his slightly dodgy left eye. It was all natural. You could spot a Geenee, genetically engineered, from miles away. It was like Hitler had succeeded and the Airen race was alive and kicking. Blond hair, blue eyes, 6’ some things. And they had all the good jobs. The richer got richer whilst the poorer couldn’t afford to make themselves competitive in the high flying jobs market. You had to continuously reengineer your offspring to make them more capable for the new jobs. You, in effect, in having reengineered children where mothballing yourself. Occasionally mistakes where made, almost like they would naturally but with unnatural results, like a 6’ 8” albino with no eyebrows and a missing nose.
There were thousands of horror stories about the Gen. Labs and the discarded mutated foetus’s of experiments gone wrong.
But people will be people and even with the best engineering and an IQ well into the 200’s with the best will in the world you can’t tell a rebellious teenager that they really should go into the military or into the sciences, or big business because that was what they had been designed to do. These kids want to go out and play with their mates and have a laugh. They want to spend their days Zero-g’ing or rail jumping. They want to take some risks and live a little recklessly. They wanted to spend most of their day’s in the halls with their brains wired up to the Net.
And that was what Carl was faced with when he walked into the Centro Hall. Hundreds of chairs arranged in seemingly endless rows. He flashed his badge at the bored receptionist. She barely gave him a second glance. He started to walk past the chairs each one with a plug in kid laying inert in it. Totally absorbed into whichever world they habituated at the moment. Carl passed by a few chairs. The pale, sallow features of habitual Pluggers before him. Here a fresh faced girl, no more than 13, still with colour in her cheeks, the scarring of her freshly grafted node that would not be given the chance to heal properly her body turning it’s valuable resources to the pressing task of keeping itself alive. Over there the corpse like features of a boy. Cheeks sunken, limbs shrivelled and atrophying. He would never leave this place. Probable no more than 20 years old and yet looks like an old man.
Carl passed a Body Tender. These where generally unemployable Genee rejects. The Mistakes that found a way out of the big GenLabs and managed to live past puberty. Parentless, homeless and unwanted they found work here in the halls and other such places. They worked in the hall servicing the bodies of anybody who was willing to pay. Carl had heard some stories that some BT’s didn’t even take money for their services, these kids where so divorced from their bodies that they just didn’t care what happened to them so long as they kept the brain alive. This one was big and hulking, muscles bunched and rolled as he went about his ministrations on his charge. Carl got within metres before the BT noticed him, shrieked in a high pitch falsetto and disappeared into the gloom of the dimly lit hall. A cowardly war machine, Carl thought, what are we doing to ourselves.
Carl got to the back of the Hall with the sense that a hundred eyes where watching him from the shadows and walked into the offices.
Nobody seemed to be in occupation of the outer one so he walked through the open door into the inner office.
And anyway the Chair that the kid had died on had been taken back to Spenneys Labs for a complete rip apart.
Spenney Gaming World Interactive. GWI. Controversial, rarely out of the headlines, high stock value for a tech firm. Extremely popular.
It’s main concept. Completely interactive gaming environments with realspace representation of the Net. It was an immense project. An astonishing feat of Software Engineering.
Originally built around complete immersion suits. Suits that allowed the wearers every sense to be optimised in the gaming world. Sight, sound, touch, taste, even smell to a certain extent although this was by far the most difficult sense to fool. But these suits where prohibitively expensive. Giving way to only a fairly clique clientele. The Rich Kids with Richer parents. Successful Gups who had made a quick buck on the back of the mining corps and software moguls and space financiers who cast their easily won fortunes wherever they could.
But then came the revolution. Direct nodal implants. These had taken decades to perfect. Mainly in use by the military and medical professions, but once out into the Real world soon became di rigour for the new generation. The Plug In generation.
For them it was nothing to have a node implant. In fact you where abnormal if you didn’t have one at school nowadays.
The prices dropped for the implants. Still expensive but getting more and more popular.
But it wasn’t without it’s problems. Kids where dying. A thing called the Brain Body Paradox. If the Brain thought it had died on the Net, or in a gaming world, in some cases the body would think so too. Complete body shutdown. Didn’t happen all the time. Most kids where mentally strong enough to cope with it. But complete immersion means just that. It was getting less and less easy to tell the difference between the game world and the real. Thus the body was sure that the mind had, in effect, made up it’s own mind about being dead and agreed to make sure that it was. Terminal shutdown. No reboot.
To combat this GWI came up with the Chair. A system that allowed the user to plug in without fear of Terminal shut down. The Chair acted as a gate to the Net. It channelled all input through its lifeguards. Everything passed through them, if you sat in a Chair, you couldn’t die. Your body could not be terminated whilst in the chair, not from a Net source at least. So that seemed to cheer people up slightly. Every now and then a few people would decide to plug in without the aid of Fail-safes or lifeguards. It was the ultimate game. The ultimate Russian roulette. The fight of the fittest. If you claimed to be the best fighter in the coliseum then you proved it, and you proved it with your life at stake. You took a gamble that you could win, or if you lost that your body and subconscious had more sense than you did and kept you alive. It didn’t always happen. But those incidents where few and far between, kept from the public pretty much and, due to the time constraints and cost of setting up a stand alone, where fairly restrained to the rich and bored. The ones with far too much time on their hands.
The only issues left connected with the Chairs, or the Net where the parents. The mothers and fathers who where loosing their children to the Net. To the Gaming worlds. Plug in Kids spent all their spare time on the Net. And time that wasn’t spare as well. It had swept the colony like a rash. No more did kids play at home on the consoles or under the watchful eye of mom and dad. Instead they headed in their droves to the Halls.
Halls where set up by an eagle eyed entrepreneur who knew a business opportunity when he saw one. Andrew Davies was an extremely rich man off the back of the halls. With just one hall with fifty Chairs he opened another with 200. Within six months another with 500. He just kept on adding Chairs to Halls and opening Halls to accommodate Chairs.
You paid for your hall time. And it wasn’t cheap. But this was where Andrew was very clever and very astute. Kids don’t have that much money. Especially when mom and dad don’t want them to be sitting on the Net all day and night. So he got them working for him. Plug in kids are amazingly quick when it comes to anything net orientated. With direct access into their brains they could scan, run, burn, chase, copy, write, design, program, any number of things. And if they couldn’t do it, they knew somebody who could. They worked together. A tight nit community. They talked, communicated. They could effectively read each others thoughts.
So Andrew got them working. They where happy, he was happy. Nearly everyone was happy. Andrew was especially happy. People paid him to employ Plug-ins. Kids paid to get into the halls. He paid a few kids who worked for him. With minimal outlay, he was racking it in.
Carl was heading to one of Andrews many Halls now. There was one in New Plaza North, pretty close to the Precinct. Is also happens to be the first Hall that Andrew built and where he kept his offices.
Carl walked, his long stride covering the few miles quickly. He liked to walk, Europa Centro wasn’t that big an area but it made up for it by cramming as much into the available three dimensions as it could. Ostensible it was designed around a park. A large, open atrium downlit from huge sun panels that simulated day and night. But soon demand caused swooping walkways tbe built. Wide throughfares that crisscrossing the open air above the park connecting points in the atrium wall, each with their own bustling market communities. The higher up you went the more luxurious the services. Carl remembered seeing an Italian bridge from his geography lessons at school which looked like that it being a bridge was second to the community making a living on it. The walkways and air-crossings reminded him of that bridge. The air above Centro Park was now so crowded that new Sun Panels had to be installed to allow light to filter down to the perpetual dusk of the arboretum on the Atrium floor. Carl crossed that floor now. He liked walking amongst the trees and the tended flower beds. Centro was busy. It always was. People thronged the walkways and streets every hour of the day, shopping, working, playing.
Europa-1 was a strange place. Built into the very ice sheet of Europa it had developed from a Jovian observatory to a research laboratory. Then the nutrient rich seas where opened for use and Europa grew exponentially from there.
Capitalism ruled on Europa. There was little or no religion except at the altar of the fiscal. The only worship that happened was in the pursuit of money. Everyone came here for a quick buck. From the fishing the deep ocean depths to mining the relatively close asteroid belt and exploiting the other Jovian moons. And then, of course, came the support services. All those Off World miners and spacers needed somewhere for shore leave. All those software magnets and tech. Industrialists needed a base of operations. And Europa opened its doors to them all.
Carl was an Europan born and bred. His parents had come here from Earth on a transfer order for his father. He was an engineer on the gigantic mining ships that coasted around the asteroid belt and when his employers moved their headquarters he came too, young wife in tow. Carl didn’t remember his father that much. He died when Carl was 7 in an accident on board a vessel. And before that he would be away for months at a time doing a circuit. Then back home a month then back out on another circuit. Mother always said he was good at his job and was in demand and the money was good.
Carl was an only child and was a natural birth. His parents had been given the choice of engineered kids, as paid for by the corporate insurance but they had chosen not to. For which Carl was glad. Everything about him was meant to be. From his size 11 feet to his slightly dodgy left eye. It was all natural. You could spot a Geenee, genetically engineered, from miles away. It was like Hitler had succeeded and the Airen race was alive and kicking. Blond hair, blue eyes, 6’ some things. And they had all the good jobs. The richer got richer whilst the poorer couldn’t afford to make themselves competitive in the high flying jobs market. You had to continuously reengineer your offspring to make them more capable for the new jobs. You, in effect, in having reengineered children where mothballing yourself. Occasionally mistakes where made, almost like they would naturally but with unnatural results, like a 6’ 8” albino with no eyebrows and a missing nose.
There were thousands of horror stories about the Gen. Labs and the discarded mutated foetus’s of experiments gone wrong.
But people will be people and even with the best engineering and an IQ well into the 200’s with the best will in the world you can’t tell a rebellious teenager that they really should go into the military or into the sciences, or big business because that was what they had been designed to do. These kids want to go out and play with their mates and have a laugh. They want to spend their days Zero-g’ing or rail jumping. They want to take some risks and live a little recklessly. They wanted to spend most of their day’s in the halls with their brains wired up to the Net.
And that was what Carl was faced with when he walked into the Centro Hall. Hundreds of chairs arranged in seemingly endless rows. He flashed his badge at the bored receptionist. She barely gave him a second glance. He started to walk past the chairs each one with a plug in kid laying inert in it. Totally absorbed into whichever world they habituated at the moment. Carl passed by a few chairs. The pale, sallow features of habitual Pluggers before him. Here a fresh faced girl, no more than 13, still with colour in her cheeks, the scarring of her freshly grafted node that would not be given the chance to heal properly her body turning it’s valuable resources to the pressing task of keeping itself alive. Over there the corpse like features of a boy. Cheeks sunken, limbs shrivelled and atrophying. He would never leave this place. Probable no more than 20 years old and yet looks like an old man.
Carl passed a Body Tender. These where generally unemployable Genee rejects. The Mistakes that found a way out of the big GenLabs and managed to live past puberty. Parentless, homeless and unwanted they found work here in the halls and other such places. They worked in the hall servicing the bodies of anybody who was willing to pay. Carl had heard some stories that some BT’s didn’t even take money for their services, these kids where so divorced from their bodies that they just didn’t care what happened to them so long as they kept the brain alive. This one was big and hulking, muscles bunched and rolled as he went about his ministrations on his charge. Carl got within metres before the BT noticed him, shrieked in a high pitch falsetto and disappeared into the gloom of the dimly lit hall. A cowardly war machine, Carl thought, what are we doing to ourselves.
Carl got to the back of the Hall with the sense that a hundred eyes where watching him from the shadows and walked into the offices.
Nobody seemed to be in occupation of the outer one so he walked through the open door into the inner office.
Synchronised racing had a limited appeal.
The new 'Smart' F1 car can park in the tiniest of spaces.
Carl flicked his wrist again. 7.20.
Oh shitty ****.
He had got caught up in the morning rush. A fully integrated 24 hour society and there was still a rush hour.
Bollocks.
Carl stepped into Dillans’ outer office. Tracy was looking harassed.
The door to Dillans’ own office was ajar.
‘Carl’. Boomed The voice. ‘Get your lazy behind in here’.
Carl gave a wry smile and blew a kiss to Tracy who only raised her eyebrows in return.
He walked in to see Dillan, red faced, leaning against his desk.
Carl was surprised to see another man sitting very meekly in one of the extra chairs in front of Dillans desk.
‘Carl. ‘Bout bloody time. This is Dave Spenny’.
Carl acknowledged the stranger. ‘Of Spenny GWI?’.
Dillan answered. ‘You know this guy?’
‘Know of him rather than actually know him. He’s a director of Spenny’s, makes the chairs that they all sit in, I presume he’s been a bit caught up with these Plug in kids carping off.’ Carl smiled a predatory smile at the Mr Spenny.
The stranger returned the smile thinly. Dillan did the introductions. ‘Dave, this is Inspector Payne’.
The man rose from his chair and weakly shook John’s hand. It was a limp clammy shake of a man who was not used to dealing with the Dillans’ of this world. He was going to have trouble with me then, Carl thought.
Dillan walked to his side of the desk and sat heavily in his large chair. ‘Sit down Carl, we got some talking to do.’ Dillan shouted through the open door of his office ‘Three coffees, Tracy. . .Please.’ He turned back to the other two ‘There’s been another one Carl.’
‘ I know, read it about it on the bright eye bulletin this morning’.
‘What do you know about it’.
‘Not much. Third one in two weeks. Look like Identical deaths. All died in the Chair. All Plug In kids, two boys one girl. I thought the local boys had a handle on it’.
‘So did they, but I’m putting you in charge of the case’.
‘Case?’.
‘Yea, We think they are all connected. If they are this is bigger than the locals. They all have the same trademarks. No signs of outside interference, nothing on the autopsies. Just gone’.
‘How do we know it’s not just suicide’.
‘Three in two weeks? And in a Chair. Come on Carl you better than that’.
Carl grunted. It was impossible to die in the Chairs. What with their fail-safe’s and lifeguards. They would not let a body die. They could not let a body die even if the body wanted to.
‘So what we got to go on?’
‘Not much. In fact we’re stumped. At least until young Mr Spenney here decided to pay us a visit. You know there was nothing on the bodies. No sign of beating or any indication of intent to kill. Even the Autopsy’s brought up very little other than these kids where barely alive anyway. It couldn’t be any non payment beating gone out of control. There is nothing to indicate anything going on in the Real and I was loath to think that it was coming from the net.’
‘Which is impossible to do, right?’
‘Yea, so we thought. Until our new friend here came to us. He also read the news this morning and decided from the goodness of his heart and his community spirit to share some information with us. Haven’t you Dave’. The disdain fairly dripped from Dillans booming voice. Dave was visible shaken. Carl was almost feeling sorry for him having to face such a man as Dillan. But by the sounds of it he was deserving of the wrath of Dillan.
‘Er, yea. Um. Here.’ Dave handed Carl a folder that he had been holding closely. ‘This is a complete diagnoses of our Chairs and the systems involved.’
‘Your chairs?’
‘Yea, we manufacture all the chairs used in the Halls. It’s an old agreement that nobody seems to want in on. Umm . . .every, umm.’ Dave’s eyes darted from one policeman to the other.
‘Death’. Prompted Carl.
‘Er, yea. Has happened in our Chairs, well I mean there are no other chairs, only ours.’ Dave glanced again at the two hard faced cops. ‘Right. Umm. We only use our software and carefully vetted hardware in them. They use fully integrated hardwired failsafe. Nothing can get around them. When the first One happened we just assumed it was a No pay beating. Didn’t think anything else of it. It’s happened before. But then the second happened and your Local lot started asking us questions.
I mean we don’t want this back on us, the Chairs get enough bad publicity as it is. You know taking away kids from their parents, getting them into money troubles. The last thing we need is our Chairs to be ****ing up. And it’s not as if we design all the software or anything. We build the chairs. People sit in them. We protect them from themselves. But everyone wants anyone to blame so long as it’s not their children or their themselves. And the anyone in this case will be us. We have been testing and debugging like nobodies business. We can’t afford for this to be our fault.
So we ran our full diog. It turned up nothing. Completely clean.’
Dave gulped down on something. His Adams Apple bobbed like a fishing float.
He continued ‘And then the third this morning.’ He was visibly sweating. ‘We ran it through again, changed a few parameters, tweaked the remit slightly and . .’ He paused and swallowed hard. He looked like a man pleading for his life. Maybe he was. ‘We found something.’
‘God damn corporate.’ Dillan shoved his chair back. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this earlier.’
‘ I, er. I didn’t think. We’re very busy at the moment we have nearly six worlds ready to launch and what with the debugs and rip outs.’ He paused looking at the unimpressed faces and then to his clammy hands that lay in his lap. He felt like a chastised school boy before the Head and his tutor. He was having nasty flashbacks. They said that this might be a side effect. He realised he had left his Nebuliser in his desk at work. God, how he wanted a hit right now. He tried hard to compose himself again. He fessed up ‘I didn’t get a chance. I’m sorry I didn’t think.’
Dillan exploded. And it wasn’t for Carls’ benefit. Dillan was truly angry. Good old Dillan thought Carl, one of the old school. No bullshit. What’s black is black and what’s wrong is wrong. No political correctness about it.
‘Too ****ing right you didn’t think. If you want us to help you with this you gotta keep clean with us. Because believe me if we find you are withholding anything else we will clean you out and strip you down. That goes for both you and your company.’
Dillan came around the desk and stood in front of the quivering Dave. His jabbing finger inches away from the mans nose. ‘So do have you anything else important you feel obliged to tell us’.
‘We, er . . ****.’ Dave started gushing. ‘ We thought it was nothing. It couldn’t possible be connected. It was a subroutine so deeply buried in the system that even we don’t really know it’s there.’
Carl spoke, his voice softer than Dillans. Dave looked at him almost relieved, anything to take the heat from Dillans stare from him. ‘What does this subroutine do’. Carls voice was calm and smooth, feeling sorry for the beleaguered man.
‘It . .If it’s broken and modified in a certain way it gives access to a few more routines. And then a few more. Then a few more.’ He loosened his tie. ‘Well, without going into the technicalities of it all . . ‘
‘Please don’t.’ Interrupted Dillan who was leaning against his desk, his arms folded severely across his broad chest.
Dave carried on ‘ . .It eventually leads to a breakdown in the lifeguards. Once that happens the Occupant can over ride the pullouts and the Resus equipment. Once he or she does that they can allow themselves to die. From the inside out. They kill their mind. Without the mind the body is allowed to die by the Chair.’
Dillan returned to his side of the desk. ‘Shit’ he said under his breath. That was the quietest Carl had ever heard Dillan. ‘So these kids are committing virtual suicide on the Net. And in response their body believes it and dies along with it.’
‘That’s pretty much the jist of it, yes. But it is a lot more complicated than that. You see . .
‘Spare me the details, they are for Carl here to go through. Carl, I want you to use my other office. Tracy is at your disposal. My door is always open. Go and sit down with Dave here and go through some of this shit. Keep me updated ok.’
‘Sir, but I don’t know the first thing about this sort of thing. You know I don’t, there hundreds of script kids, Porn Chasers and Hacks in this building that can handle this a thousand times better than I can’.
‘I know that Carl, but I want you on the case and you ain’t going to argue.’
Carl knew better than to argue. He indicated to Dave that they should go. He led Dave through past Tracy to the other office. It was more of a meeting room. A large pseudo wood table dominated the room surrounded by high backed chairs. In the centre of the table with it’s matching box on the ceiling was the projector. Carl knew that the entire opposite wall was a view screen. He sat Dave down telling him he would be back in a minute.
He went back into Dillans office.
‘Cracked it already’. Said Dillan sarcastically without looking up something he was reading.
‘What else is there?’.
Dillan Looked up. ‘What do you mean?’.
‘You wouldn’t have put me on this case if you thought it was cut and dried. You know full well I cannot stand this head ****ing techno shit.’
‘Language! Only I’m allowed to swear in this office as well you know.’
Carl shrugged his shoulders. ‘Look, I’m a Real. Always have been and always will be. I mean, ****, I can only just use my Mobile’.
‘You rarely do that’.
‘Exactly. You know I’m not a Tech head. So why give me this job?’
‘Look Carl. Don’t you think it’s about time you joined the 22nd century. Look around you. Have you seen the sort of shit we use everyday that neither of us had thirty, forty years ago.’
‘I try not too’.
‘Well maybe it’s a time you started trying, some of it is actually quite useful.’
‘But why me Sir, Why this job. You know I got other cases on the go.’
‘I know but they are just street jobs.’
‘Just Sir? I’ve got two rapes, a suspected murder and a rash of burglaries down in the basement. You know what they get like down there. They’ll take it into their own hands if they don’t see us doing anything.’
‘I’ll get Harry onto those. He’s good and well known down there. Look Carl.’ Dillan settled back in his chair and rested his hands on the desk. ‘I need you on this case. You are the best I got. And you know it so don’t look like that. I dunno what you got going on in your head but you got a good mind for catching the bad guys.’ Dillan spun in his chair to look out of the window that was behind him. He was pensive for a few moments his hands folded under his chin gazing out unseeing at the colony beyond the glass. He sighed and turned back to Carl. ‘Look, this isn’t just a murder investigation. I reckon this goes a lot deeper than that. I can’t tell you how I know, you need to find this out for yourself.’ He fixed Carl in a hard stare. ‘Please. Take this case on. Look into it and find out what is going on. And look good and hard. Promise me ok?’
‘But . . .’
‘No but’s Carl. Please see this through and do what you have to do.’ He looked away suddenly back to his paperwork. ‘Dismissed’.
Carl knew he wasn’t going to get any more out of Dillan. He had his orders. He turned and left the room confused and a little bemused.
Oh shitty ****.
He had got caught up in the morning rush. A fully integrated 24 hour society and there was still a rush hour.
Bollocks.
Carl stepped into Dillans’ outer office. Tracy was looking harassed.
The door to Dillans’ own office was ajar.
‘Carl’. Boomed The voice. ‘Get your lazy behind in here’.
Carl gave a wry smile and blew a kiss to Tracy who only raised her eyebrows in return.
He walked in to see Dillan, red faced, leaning against his desk.
Carl was surprised to see another man sitting very meekly in one of the extra chairs in front of Dillans desk.
‘Carl. ‘Bout bloody time. This is Dave Spenny’.
Carl acknowledged the stranger. ‘Of Spenny GWI?’.
Dillan answered. ‘You know this guy?’
‘Know of him rather than actually know him. He’s a director of Spenny’s, makes the chairs that they all sit in, I presume he’s been a bit caught up with these Plug in kids carping off.’ Carl smiled a predatory smile at the Mr Spenny.
The stranger returned the smile thinly. Dillan did the introductions. ‘Dave, this is Inspector Payne’.
The man rose from his chair and weakly shook John’s hand. It was a limp clammy shake of a man who was not used to dealing with the Dillans’ of this world. He was going to have trouble with me then, Carl thought.
Dillan walked to his side of the desk and sat heavily in his large chair. ‘Sit down Carl, we got some talking to do.’ Dillan shouted through the open door of his office ‘Three coffees, Tracy. . .Please.’ He turned back to the other two ‘There’s been another one Carl.’
‘ I know, read it about it on the bright eye bulletin this morning’.
‘What do you know about it’.
‘Not much. Third one in two weeks. Look like Identical deaths. All died in the Chair. All Plug In kids, two boys one girl. I thought the local boys had a handle on it’.
‘So did they, but I’m putting you in charge of the case’.
‘Case?’.
‘Yea, We think they are all connected. If they are this is bigger than the locals. They all have the same trademarks. No signs of outside interference, nothing on the autopsies. Just gone’.
‘How do we know it’s not just suicide’.
‘Three in two weeks? And in a Chair. Come on Carl you better than that’.
Carl grunted. It was impossible to die in the Chairs. What with their fail-safe’s and lifeguards. They would not let a body die. They could not let a body die even if the body wanted to.
‘So what we got to go on?’
‘Not much. In fact we’re stumped. At least until young Mr Spenney here decided to pay us a visit. You know there was nothing on the bodies. No sign of beating or any indication of intent to kill. Even the Autopsy’s brought up very little other than these kids where barely alive anyway. It couldn’t be any non payment beating gone out of control. There is nothing to indicate anything going on in the Real and I was loath to think that it was coming from the net.’
‘Which is impossible to do, right?’
‘Yea, so we thought. Until our new friend here came to us. He also read the news this morning and decided from the goodness of his heart and his community spirit to share some information with us. Haven’t you Dave’. The disdain fairly dripped from Dillans booming voice. Dave was visible shaken. Carl was almost feeling sorry for him having to face such a man as Dillan. But by the sounds of it he was deserving of the wrath of Dillan.
‘Er, yea. Um. Here.’ Dave handed Carl a folder that he had been holding closely. ‘This is a complete diagnoses of our Chairs and the systems involved.’
‘Your chairs?’
‘Yea, we manufacture all the chairs used in the Halls. It’s an old agreement that nobody seems to want in on. Umm . . .every, umm.’ Dave’s eyes darted from one policeman to the other.
‘Death’. Prompted Carl.
‘Er, yea. Has happened in our Chairs, well I mean there are no other chairs, only ours.’ Dave glanced again at the two hard faced cops. ‘Right. Umm. We only use our software and carefully vetted hardware in them. They use fully integrated hardwired failsafe. Nothing can get around them. When the first One happened we just assumed it was a No pay beating. Didn’t think anything else of it. It’s happened before. But then the second happened and your Local lot started asking us questions.
I mean we don’t want this back on us, the Chairs get enough bad publicity as it is. You know taking away kids from their parents, getting them into money troubles. The last thing we need is our Chairs to be ****ing up. And it’s not as if we design all the software or anything. We build the chairs. People sit in them. We protect them from themselves. But everyone wants anyone to blame so long as it’s not their children or their themselves. And the anyone in this case will be us. We have been testing and debugging like nobodies business. We can’t afford for this to be our fault.
So we ran our full diog. It turned up nothing. Completely clean.’
Dave gulped down on something. His Adams Apple bobbed like a fishing float.
He continued ‘And then the third this morning.’ He was visibly sweating. ‘We ran it through again, changed a few parameters, tweaked the remit slightly and . .’ He paused and swallowed hard. He looked like a man pleading for his life. Maybe he was. ‘We found something.’
‘God damn corporate.’ Dillan shoved his chair back. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this earlier.’
‘ I, er. I didn’t think. We’re very busy at the moment we have nearly six worlds ready to launch and what with the debugs and rip outs.’ He paused looking at the unimpressed faces and then to his clammy hands that lay in his lap. He felt like a chastised school boy before the Head and his tutor. He was having nasty flashbacks. They said that this might be a side effect. He realised he had left his Nebuliser in his desk at work. God, how he wanted a hit right now. He tried hard to compose himself again. He fessed up ‘I didn’t get a chance. I’m sorry I didn’t think.’
Dillan exploded. And it wasn’t for Carls’ benefit. Dillan was truly angry. Good old Dillan thought Carl, one of the old school. No bullshit. What’s black is black and what’s wrong is wrong. No political correctness about it.
‘Too ****ing right you didn’t think. If you want us to help you with this you gotta keep clean with us. Because believe me if we find you are withholding anything else we will clean you out and strip you down. That goes for both you and your company.’
Dillan came around the desk and stood in front of the quivering Dave. His jabbing finger inches away from the mans nose. ‘So do have you anything else important you feel obliged to tell us’.
‘We, er . . ****.’ Dave started gushing. ‘ We thought it was nothing. It couldn’t possible be connected. It was a subroutine so deeply buried in the system that even we don’t really know it’s there.’
Carl spoke, his voice softer than Dillans. Dave looked at him almost relieved, anything to take the heat from Dillans stare from him. ‘What does this subroutine do’. Carls voice was calm and smooth, feeling sorry for the beleaguered man.
‘It . .If it’s broken and modified in a certain way it gives access to a few more routines. And then a few more. Then a few more.’ He loosened his tie. ‘Well, without going into the technicalities of it all . . ‘
‘Please don’t.’ Interrupted Dillan who was leaning against his desk, his arms folded severely across his broad chest.
Dave carried on ‘ . .It eventually leads to a breakdown in the lifeguards. Once that happens the Occupant can over ride the pullouts and the Resus equipment. Once he or she does that they can allow themselves to die. From the inside out. They kill their mind. Without the mind the body is allowed to die by the Chair.’
Dillan returned to his side of the desk. ‘Shit’ he said under his breath. That was the quietest Carl had ever heard Dillan. ‘So these kids are committing virtual suicide on the Net. And in response their body believes it and dies along with it.’
‘That’s pretty much the jist of it, yes. But it is a lot more complicated than that. You see . .
‘Spare me the details, they are for Carl here to go through. Carl, I want you to use my other office. Tracy is at your disposal. My door is always open. Go and sit down with Dave here and go through some of this shit. Keep me updated ok.’
‘Sir, but I don’t know the first thing about this sort of thing. You know I don’t, there hundreds of script kids, Porn Chasers and Hacks in this building that can handle this a thousand times better than I can’.
‘I know that Carl, but I want you on the case and you ain’t going to argue.’
Carl knew better than to argue. He indicated to Dave that they should go. He led Dave through past Tracy to the other office. It was more of a meeting room. A large pseudo wood table dominated the room surrounded by high backed chairs. In the centre of the table with it’s matching box on the ceiling was the projector. Carl knew that the entire opposite wall was a view screen. He sat Dave down telling him he would be back in a minute.
He went back into Dillans office.
‘Cracked it already’. Said Dillan sarcastically without looking up something he was reading.
‘What else is there?’.
Dillan Looked up. ‘What do you mean?’.
‘You wouldn’t have put me on this case if you thought it was cut and dried. You know full well I cannot stand this head ****ing techno shit.’
‘Language! Only I’m allowed to swear in this office as well you know.’
Carl shrugged his shoulders. ‘Look, I’m a Real. Always have been and always will be. I mean, ****, I can only just use my Mobile’.
‘You rarely do that’.
‘Exactly. You know I’m not a Tech head. So why give me this job?’
‘Look Carl. Don’t you think it’s about time you joined the 22nd century. Look around you. Have you seen the sort of shit we use everyday that neither of us had thirty, forty years ago.’
‘I try not too’.
‘Well maybe it’s a time you started trying, some of it is actually quite useful.’
‘But why me Sir, Why this job. You know I got other cases on the go.’
‘I know but they are just street jobs.’
‘Just Sir? I’ve got two rapes, a suspected murder and a rash of burglaries down in the basement. You know what they get like down there. They’ll take it into their own hands if they don’t see us doing anything.’
‘I’ll get Harry onto those. He’s good and well known down there. Look Carl.’ Dillan settled back in his chair and rested his hands on the desk. ‘I need you on this case. You are the best I got. And you know it so don’t look like that. I dunno what you got going on in your head but you got a good mind for catching the bad guys.’ Dillan spun in his chair to look out of the window that was behind him. He was pensive for a few moments his hands folded under his chin gazing out unseeing at the colony beyond the glass. He sighed and turned back to Carl. ‘Look, this isn’t just a murder investigation. I reckon this goes a lot deeper than that. I can’t tell you how I know, you need to find this out for yourself.’ He fixed Carl in a hard stare. ‘Please. Take this case on. Look into it and find out what is going on. And look good and hard. Promise me ok?’
‘But . . .’
‘No but’s Carl. Please see this through and do what you have to do.’ He looked away suddenly back to his paperwork. ‘Dismissed’.
Carl knew he wasn’t going to get any more out of Dillan. He had his orders. He turned and left the room confused and a little bemused.
The exibit at Madam Tussauds was getting quite a reaction.
No, I was working on the power line. It's my job. I'm a Linesman. Certainly gave me a renewed respect for all things nature.
And, yes. Yes I am. But I try not to shout about it.
Falling out of a plane kinda was cool.
Car crashes are kinda loosing their edge a bit.
Space mountain at Euro Disney got the old heart pumping.
Getting your power line that your working on hit by lightening really, really, really makes you glad to be alive. Man I was buzzing for about a week after that.
Car crashes are kinda loosing their edge a bit.
Space mountain at Euro Disney got the old heart pumping.
Getting your power line that your working on hit by lightening really, really, really makes you glad to be alive. Man I was buzzing for about a week after that.
Been a while I know but hey, all good things come to those that wait. As we in the LFS community are all to familiar with.
* * * * * * *
In the delivery room the hush was deathly. After the raw emotion that had come before the contrast was startling. The mother lay panting softly, exhausted and confused. Her baby had gone. They had taken her baby away. She lay exhausted on her bed. There was no energy left in her body.
She looked to her husband who was stood next to her holding her hand.
He shook his head, bemused.
‘It’s ok’. Said the midwife. ‘They’ve just taken him for some tests. I’m sure everything is all right, but lets get you cleaned up. Don’t worry, they will tell you soon.’
Silence reigned once again, interrupted only by the gentle remonstrations of the nurses and the quiet sobbing of an exhausted woman.
The baby was back. The room was quiet but this time in a controlled way. The hubbub of a busy maternity ward dulled by thick doors. Mother and son reunited again.
‘It’s not right’. The husband stood silhouetted against the darkened window of the hospital room his arms crossed. The mother lay in bed holding her babe in arms. She cradled him gently in her arms cooing softly.
‘It’s my son. I will look after him.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because he is my child’.
‘Our child Marion. It’s our boy, was our boy. But you have made your feelings obvious.’.
‘Oh no Bill. Please don’t do this’.
‘You didn’t tell me Marion. You didn’t say a word. You kept it hidden from me.’
‘But you would have . . ‘
‘Would have what Marion? What exactly would I have done? The least you could have done was tell me.’
The exhausted mother broke. ‘But you where never there Bill. Never. Never at the scans, never at the CC meetings. I decorated the nursery, I’ve supplied everything this baby needs and what have you given me? Given us? Nothing. You where always too busy with your precious work. Your . . .’ She spat the next word. ‘Company. Never once have you given me reason to think you where at all interested in this baby. Can you blame me for not telling you? I knew exactly what you would have done. You would have made me loose him.’ She looked to the little bundle in her arms. ‘You would have taken away my baby boy.’
He sighed a deep and long sigh. He pushed himself away from the window and opened the heavy door. The harsh light of the corridor shone bright across mother and child. She squinted, the baby nary stirred. He stood for a moment looking out into the corridor.
‘There will be money.’ He said, his back to the room.
‘I don’t want your money’ He heard as he walked away. ‘I just wanted my baby . . .’ The closing heavy door drowned out anything else.
And with that he walked back to his life.
Having heard the raised voices a nurse popped her head into the room.
‘Everything alright love? Can I get you anything?’
‘I’m alright thank you. I have everything I need right here.’
The nurse smiled and left.
Mother sat up cradling her son.
‘Don’t listen to him Baby. I’ll look after you. You and me. Together. I don’t care what you are. Just you and me baby.’
She sang a gentle lullaby to her son and rocked her silent charge to sleep.
The nurse on her rounds came in soon after. She took the sleeping child from his drowsy mother and placed him in his cot. She glanced over their notes.
Marion Maria Gateley. Stable, no complications. Just a replenish drip to bring her levels back to normal. Normal Observation.
Peter Frederick Percival Gateley. Paraplegia. Inert from the neck down. Internal functions appear normal. Breathing laboured, but improving. Circulation good. regular Obs.
She checked the baby boy over carefully, nothing amiss. The cot would keep him warm and comfortable and warn her desk if anything changed.
She moved silently out of the room and quietly shut the door.
Bill Gateley sat in his office. He was at work, the child at home with the mother. He looked around his office, this was his home. This was where he was comfortable, this was his familiar. He glanced at the Projection wall. His company logo filling the wall, spinning slowly. He had designed that logo. It was one of the first things he did, designing it at college, it hadn’t changed a bit from the original design. He always new he would have this company. It was always going to be this way. A successful software engineering firm, system wide, multi platform. He was a big boy now and all the right people knew that. He was a player and even governments listened when he spoke. Or rather when he offered to pick up the tab.
A gentle tone filled the room for a moment.
‘Yes?’ He said.
His secretary’s voice came through. ‘Mr Yang for you Bill.’
Mary, his secretary was one of the few subordinates who called him by his first name. But then as even she says, she probably knew more about the state of the company than he did and she had been with him from the start. She was ferociously loyal, and Bill trusted her explicitly. Marion had once challenged him to having an affair before she and Mary had met, to which he just laughed. ‘She’s 62, married with four children with a devoted husband and 4 grand children. She is my secretary, nothing more, nothing less’. And as calculating as he was the only affair he was capable of was with his work.
‘Thanks Mary, put him through.
The holo screen changed to show Charlie Yang his partner in the business, he had kept the ship running whilst Bill had been away with Marion.
‘Hey Bill. Congrats on your new arrival. How is the little blighter.’
‘Good Charles. Good. Coming on nicely.’ Bill didn’t stay on the subject. ‘So how we looking on the Biomech deal.’
Charlie knew better than to dwell on Bills private life. Bill didn’t have a private to have a life in. He had long given up trying to encourage him to go home. Because he never would. He could live for weeks out of his office. He had a bathroom, a wardrobe and a pull out bed there so he was never caught without a clean shirt or unshaven.
‘Looking good. Got the team running the final figures. You checked through the amendments?’
‘Sure. There is nothing that could cause us any problems.’ The sentence hung for a moment. ‘Anybody else interested?’
‘Yea, just a few. The way we got this thing sewn up everyone wants a piece of it. Europa Government is having a look and so is Intercorp. This could be a good one your sitting on here Bill. I can see this running Let’s not make any mistakes eh’.
‘Your saying that to me, Charles?’
‘Yea, sorry, just worried y’know. This is a big deal.’
‘Relax Charles, we’ve checked everything. We have everything covered, from the bio mesh to the interface. You know we have got this own sewn up.’
‘Yea, ok. I know. Ok, I’ll get back to work. Call me if you notice anything ok.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘This is ok isn’t it?’
‘Sure it is Charles, just relax ok. This thing is going to be very good for us.’
Charles hit a button and cut the call leaving Bill the fading impression of a man who had given somebody their last chance to say or do something.
If Bill had recognised it , which he had done, he didn’t show it. Bill was happy now. Back at work. His only true love. Moving figures. Software bundles and packages. Hardwires to the net. That was his playing field. This was where he belonged. This was where he thrived. Big money, big business. His world.
But he had noticed something within the software. Something quite important. Something that it took a lot of looking to find and an intimate knowledge of his own construction techniques and language but it was there never the less. And Charles also knew it was there. But it wasn’t his call, it was Bills. And he had called it. Everything would be just fine.
25 Years later. Europa-1.
Carl Payne flicked his wrist in aggitation. His implant reacted appropriately and produced a gently glowing display projected just above the skin on his wrist.
7.08am. It read.
‘Shit’ He said mainly to himself but some passers by turned to look at him.
He was late.
He hadn’t meant to be late. It had just happened. Like it always seems to do just when you don’t need it to.
He pulled out his mobile. It showed him that he had 4 messages. All from Dillan.
He knew also, without having to listen to them that they would be of Dillan shouting. It’s something Dillan did a lot off. He was a born shouter, it was something you got used to if never completely comfortable with. With Dillan you just learnt to tell the difference between the levels of shouting. Also you took notice of the colour of his face. If it was bright purple and he was spitting blood and the whole office floor was walking around as if on egg shells you turned around and took a week long holiday.
He knew the messages would be escalating in grades from just shouting to a furious shouting.
And to add insult to injury John had actually been up and around since five this morning. He couldn’t sleep last night and had got up early. He had showered and changed into his day wear. Open shirt, smart but loose slacks and soft shoes.
He had then sat at his terminal for a while going through the news.
Pirate raids in the Belt had risen to an all time high.
And talks between the Inner circle and Europa had broken down again. Bloody politicians, they where gunna end up giving us another war. Which might have been exactly what they wanted. The Inner Circle and Europa with it’s Union of Off World Colonies and Population ships had been at each other for years. Earth and Mars where running short on resources to remain competitive with Europa and it’s seemingly unlimited oceans and energy from Jupiter. It’s tapping and harnessing of Io’ seismic and electrical fluctuations. It’s deep space exploration of the Kuiper belt and scout missions into the Ort Cloud. The mining vessels that constantly circled with the Asteroid belt where in a constant state of fraction over mining rights. What would be known as pirate raids where often little disguised attacks from either side. There was a famous case that came before the courts of an Outer Raid on an Inner vessel and all the ‘Pirates’ had done was cover over the insignia designating it as Europan Meteor Class attack vessel. The name was still visible and the transponder codes tied brought it up immediately. It went to the Merchant Civil Code Courts and officially got put down to a Rogue Captain who got a little overzealous in his independent actions. Unofficially though he was one of Europa’s most respected and decorated militia and once he had served a low key and purfunctual term under house arrest in a back water Station orbiting Saturn he was quietly released and after a few years in reclusivity on, ironically, Earth he was back on Europa with new incites on Inner Circle politics and a renewed vigour for active service.
The rest of the news that Carl scanned through was trivia, local highlights, special events and just in –
Another Plug In kid had been found dead in a Chair. A boy, 18 years old.
John frowned, that was the third in two weeks. Small news, not that children dying is a small thing. But a lot of people die in any particular week. And these where just three more that the coroner would be filling out the paperwork for. Although Carl had been following the story as it was an ongoing tagline through the news broadcasts.
He had finished reading and watching the feeds when a call came through from the Precinct. It was Tracy. It was still early even for her but he answered.
‘Yep’.
‘Carl?’ Tracy was Dillan’ private secretary. Her pretty face looming large on the wall screen. Not an entirly unpleasant image with which to start the day.
‘Hello my lovely.’
She was not impressed. ‘Dillan wants you in now.’
‘What’s it he want?’
‘He wants you, as soon as you can’.
‘When exactly?’
She sighed an experienced sigh ‘Carl, He just wants you now’.
‘Ok, ok. Be there by seven’.
‘Be quick John, He’s well pissed’.
‘When isn’t he. Ok. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Thank you Carl. See you in a bit’. And she rang off.
Carl slung on his full-length jacket and hurried out the door. This was going to be fun he thought to himself.
*Authors note. That original piece up above this one don't kinda run chronologically with this new writing. This is the new start rather than the old one above. So I'm gunna keep updating this so long as I don't get into admin trouble or such like. Things might read as a tad familiar. Mainly because them old short story's and this slightly longer affair are based in the same literary universe. It's not the only universe I have but it's the one that is most fruitful for me atm. Like I said, I've come along way with this recently so expect regular updates untill I hit the wall again.
* * * * * * *
In the delivery room the hush was deathly. After the raw emotion that had come before the contrast was startling. The mother lay panting softly, exhausted and confused. Her baby had gone. They had taken her baby away. She lay exhausted on her bed. There was no energy left in her body.
She looked to her husband who was stood next to her holding her hand.
He shook his head, bemused.
‘It’s ok’. Said the midwife. ‘They’ve just taken him for some tests. I’m sure everything is all right, but lets get you cleaned up. Don’t worry, they will tell you soon.’
Silence reigned once again, interrupted only by the gentle remonstrations of the nurses and the quiet sobbing of an exhausted woman.
The baby was back. The room was quiet but this time in a controlled way. The hubbub of a busy maternity ward dulled by thick doors. Mother and son reunited again.
‘It’s not right’. The husband stood silhouetted against the darkened window of the hospital room his arms crossed. The mother lay in bed holding her babe in arms. She cradled him gently in her arms cooing softly.
‘It’s my son. I will look after him.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because he is my child’.
‘Our child Marion. It’s our boy, was our boy. But you have made your feelings obvious.’.
‘Oh no Bill. Please don’t do this’.
‘You didn’t tell me Marion. You didn’t say a word. You kept it hidden from me.’
‘But you would have . . ‘
‘Would have what Marion? What exactly would I have done? The least you could have done was tell me.’
The exhausted mother broke. ‘But you where never there Bill. Never. Never at the scans, never at the CC meetings. I decorated the nursery, I’ve supplied everything this baby needs and what have you given me? Given us? Nothing. You where always too busy with your precious work. Your . . .’ She spat the next word. ‘Company. Never once have you given me reason to think you where at all interested in this baby. Can you blame me for not telling you? I knew exactly what you would have done. You would have made me loose him.’ She looked to the little bundle in her arms. ‘You would have taken away my baby boy.’
He sighed a deep and long sigh. He pushed himself away from the window and opened the heavy door. The harsh light of the corridor shone bright across mother and child. She squinted, the baby nary stirred. He stood for a moment looking out into the corridor.
‘There will be money.’ He said, his back to the room.
‘I don’t want your money’ He heard as he walked away. ‘I just wanted my baby . . .’ The closing heavy door drowned out anything else.
And with that he walked back to his life.
Having heard the raised voices a nurse popped her head into the room.
‘Everything alright love? Can I get you anything?’
‘I’m alright thank you. I have everything I need right here.’
The nurse smiled and left.
Mother sat up cradling her son.
‘Don’t listen to him Baby. I’ll look after you. You and me. Together. I don’t care what you are. Just you and me baby.’
She sang a gentle lullaby to her son and rocked her silent charge to sleep.
The nurse on her rounds came in soon after. She took the sleeping child from his drowsy mother and placed him in his cot. She glanced over their notes.
Marion Maria Gateley. Stable, no complications. Just a replenish drip to bring her levels back to normal. Normal Observation.
Peter Frederick Percival Gateley. Paraplegia. Inert from the neck down. Internal functions appear normal. Breathing laboured, but improving. Circulation good. regular Obs.
She checked the baby boy over carefully, nothing amiss. The cot would keep him warm and comfortable and warn her desk if anything changed.
She moved silently out of the room and quietly shut the door.
Bill Gateley sat in his office. He was at work, the child at home with the mother. He looked around his office, this was his home. This was where he was comfortable, this was his familiar. He glanced at the Projection wall. His company logo filling the wall, spinning slowly. He had designed that logo. It was one of the first things he did, designing it at college, it hadn’t changed a bit from the original design. He always new he would have this company. It was always going to be this way. A successful software engineering firm, system wide, multi platform. He was a big boy now and all the right people knew that. He was a player and even governments listened when he spoke. Or rather when he offered to pick up the tab.
A gentle tone filled the room for a moment.
‘Yes?’ He said.
His secretary’s voice came through. ‘Mr Yang for you Bill.’
Mary, his secretary was one of the few subordinates who called him by his first name. But then as even she says, she probably knew more about the state of the company than he did and she had been with him from the start. She was ferociously loyal, and Bill trusted her explicitly. Marion had once challenged him to having an affair before she and Mary had met, to which he just laughed. ‘She’s 62, married with four children with a devoted husband and 4 grand children. She is my secretary, nothing more, nothing less’. And as calculating as he was the only affair he was capable of was with his work.
‘Thanks Mary, put him through.
The holo screen changed to show Charlie Yang his partner in the business, he had kept the ship running whilst Bill had been away with Marion.
‘Hey Bill. Congrats on your new arrival. How is the little blighter.’
‘Good Charles. Good. Coming on nicely.’ Bill didn’t stay on the subject. ‘So how we looking on the Biomech deal.’
Charlie knew better than to dwell on Bills private life. Bill didn’t have a private to have a life in. He had long given up trying to encourage him to go home. Because he never would. He could live for weeks out of his office. He had a bathroom, a wardrobe and a pull out bed there so he was never caught without a clean shirt or unshaven.
‘Looking good. Got the team running the final figures. You checked through the amendments?’
‘Sure. There is nothing that could cause us any problems.’ The sentence hung for a moment. ‘Anybody else interested?’
‘Yea, just a few. The way we got this thing sewn up everyone wants a piece of it. Europa Government is having a look and so is Intercorp. This could be a good one your sitting on here Bill. I can see this running Let’s not make any mistakes eh’.
‘Your saying that to me, Charles?’
‘Yea, sorry, just worried y’know. This is a big deal.’
‘Relax Charles, we’ve checked everything. We have everything covered, from the bio mesh to the interface. You know we have got this own sewn up.’
‘Yea, ok. I know. Ok, I’ll get back to work. Call me if you notice anything ok.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘This is ok isn’t it?’
‘Sure it is Charles, just relax ok. This thing is going to be very good for us.’
Charles hit a button and cut the call leaving Bill the fading impression of a man who had given somebody their last chance to say or do something.
If Bill had recognised it , which he had done, he didn’t show it. Bill was happy now. Back at work. His only true love. Moving figures. Software bundles and packages. Hardwires to the net. That was his playing field. This was where he belonged. This was where he thrived. Big money, big business. His world.
But he had noticed something within the software. Something quite important. Something that it took a lot of looking to find and an intimate knowledge of his own construction techniques and language but it was there never the less. And Charles also knew it was there. But it wasn’t his call, it was Bills. And he had called it. Everything would be just fine.
25 Years later. Europa-1.
Carl Payne flicked his wrist in aggitation. His implant reacted appropriately and produced a gently glowing display projected just above the skin on his wrist.
7.08am. It read.
‘Shit’ He said mainly to himself but some passers by turned to look at him.
He was late.
He hadn’t meant to be late. It had just happened. Like it always seems to do just when you don’t need it to.
He pulled out his mobile. It showed him that he had 4 messages. All from Dillan.
He knew also, without having to listen to them that they would be of Dillan shouting. It’s something Dillan did a lot off. He was a born shouter, it was something you got used to if never completely comfortable with. With Dillan you just learnt to tell the difference between the levels of shouting. Also you took notice of the colour of his face. If it was bright purple and he was spitting blood and the whole office floor was walking around as if on egg shells you turned around and took a week long holiday.
He knew the messages would be escalating in grades from just shouting to a furious shouting.
And to add insult to injury John had actually been up and around since five this morning. He couldn’t sleep last night and had got up early. He had showered and changed into his day wear. Open shirt, smart but loose slacks and soft shoes.
He had then sat at his terminal for a while going through the news.
Pirate raids in the Belt had risen to an all time high.
And talks between the Inner circle and Europa had broken down again. Bloody politicians, they where gunna end up giving us another war. Which might have been exactly what they wanted. The Inner Circle and Europa with it’s Union of Off World Colonies and Population ships had been at each other for years. Earth and Mars where running short on resources to remain competitive with Europa and it’s seemingly unlimited oceans and energy from Jupiter. It’s tapping and harnessing of Io’ seismic and electrical fluctuations. It’s deep space exploration of the Kuiper belt and scout missions into the Ort Cloud. The mining vessels that constantly circled with the Asteroid belt where in a constant state of fraction over mining rights. What would be known as pirate raids where often little disguised attacks from either side. There was a famous case that came before the courts of an Outer Raid on an Inner vessel and all the ‘Pirates’ had done was cover over the insignia designating it as Europan Meteor Class attack vessel. The name was still visible and the transponder codes tied brought it up immediately. It went to the Merchant Civil Code Courts and officially got put down to a Rogue Captain who got a little overzealous in his independent actions. Unofficially though he was one of Europa’s most respected and decorated militia and once he had served a low key and purfunctual term under house arrest in a back water Station orbiting Saturn he was quietly released and after a few years in reclusivity on, ironically, Earth he was back on Europa with new incites on Inner Circle politics and a renewed vigour for active service.
The rest of the news that Carl scanned through was trivia, local highlights, special events and just in –
Another Plug In kid had been found dead in a Chair. A boy, 18 years old.
John frowned, that was the third in two weeks. Small news, not that children dying is a small thing. But a lot of people die in any particular week. And these where just three more that the coroner would be filling out the paperwork for. Although Carl had been following the story as it was an ongoing tagline through the news broadcasts.
He had finished reading and watching the feeds when a call came through from the Precinct. It was Tracy. It was still early even for her but he answered.
‘Yep’.
‘Carl?’ Tracy was Dillan’ private secretary. Her pretty face looming large on the wall screen. Not an entirly unpleasant image with which to start the day.
‘Hello my lovely.’
She was not impressed. ‘Dillan wants you in now.’
‘What’s it he want?’
‘He wants you, as soon as you can’.
‘When exactly?’
She sighed an experienced sigh ‘Carl, He just wants you now’.
‘Ok, ok. Be there by seven’.
‘Be quick John, He’s well pissed’.
‘When isn’t he. Ok. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Thank you Carl. See you in a bit’. And she rang off.
Carl slung on his full-length jacket and hurried out the door. This was going to be fun he thought to himself.
*Authors note. That original piece up above this one don't kinda run chronologically with this new writing. This is the new start rather than the old one above. So I'm gunna keep updating this so long as I don't get into admin trouble or such like. Things might read as a tad familiar. Mainly because them old short story's and this slightly longer affair are based in the same literary universe. It's not the only universe I have but it's the one that is most fruitful for me atm. Like I said, I've come along way with this recently so expect regular updates untill I hit the wall again.
Last edited by Funnybear, .
'The mechanics had taken the 'Pimp my rally car' suspension settings a little too far.
Cheers hun. Will give those things a go when I get set up again. It just seem odd that I have no problem at all with LFS for years and then allo of a sudden . . . . I shall try and work work it out next time I set up the wheel, which at the moment don't happen very often. But thnx anyway.
That kinda needs slightly more explanation.
can't resolve master server address
Is it me? Or what?
Turned off alll the firewalls I can find. It was working about a month ago and now it won't connect. T'internet working fine, ish. And the title is what the LFS connection screen is telling me. Have searched for answers and done what people have sudgested for other problems but this I can't sus out on my own. . . .
Turned off alll the firewalls I can find. It was working about a month ago and now it won't connect. T'internet working fine, ish. And the title is what the LFS connection screen is telling me. Have searched for answers and done what people have sudgested for other problems but this I can't sus out on my own. . . .
Look at some real world race cars. BTTC for instance and look at the camber they run at. Even F1 you will often see shots of the front wheels heavily cambered.
But whether or not it is truly representative in LFS is fairly arbitary. The Tyre modelling will punish for too much camber so as you don't get a increase in performance with the increase in camber (I.E. you have to find the sweet spot) then questioning it's accuracy is meerly quibling.
But whether or not it is truly representative in LFS is fairly arbitary. The Tyre modelling will punish for too much camber so as you don't get a increase in performance with the increase in camber (I.E. you have to find the sweet spot) then questioning it's accuracy is meerly quibling.
Anyone seen my green cheese? I Left it next to the unicorn and now it's gone. Although the unicorn now has a funny little smile.
Anyone? Anyone seen my green cheese?
Anyone? Anyone seen my green cheese?
Having only recenctly come to the Fox's in the CTRA I understand your pain. Everyone has made some very good and considered points. What I would add is don't be afraid to play with the setup.
As you get faster or your understanding of the car handling becomes clearer you will find that your tyres arn't doing what you think they ought to, or that you feel you could do with more downforce in certain sections. Change it! Add some camber to the tyres, take some off, add some front wing, rear wing, take it off. Can't make an apex on a corner when everyone else is and they are going faster than you, play with some suspension settings. (Note on suspension, read some setup guides first. They are really helpful in explaining how car handling dynamics work and what you are doing when you reduce front bounce or rear ARB's)
Adjust the braking strength to take some pressure off flatspotting. Adjust the car to you as much as you adjust your driving to the car. You will find that you will completly mess this up. But thats part of learning. Once you get a handle on it you can make your own sets for your own racing style for every track you race on.
My Blackwood story was the same as you, I was lucky if I was hitting 1.10's with any regularity and just couldn't work it out. I was assuming (the mother of all mistakes) that BW would be a fairly low downforce circuit with that back straight and swooping corners. But, after realising that the cars around me, whilst I was holging my own on the straight they where completly whipping me in the corners. Took me a long time to get to thinking about the downforce because I just didn't factor it in as being as important as it transpired to be. So once I exhausted all my suspension messing about and tyre camber adjusting etc. I eventually reluctanlty raised my downforce. And 'lo the angels sang and I popped in my first 1.09.
So, yes consistency is important, understanding car dynamics is important but it could also be as simple as not having enough downforce for your driving style. (On the fox at least) Learn how to setup. That alone will teach you how to make the cars handling come to you.
As you get faster or your understanding of the car handling becomes clearer you will find that your tyres arn't doing what you think they ought to, or that you feel you could do with more downforce in certain sections. Change it! Add some camber to the tyres, take some off, add some front wing, rear wing, take it off. Can't make an apex on a corner when everyone else is and they are going faster than you, play with some suspension settings. (Note on suspension, read some setup guides first. They are really helpful in explaining how car handling dynamics work and what you are doing when you reduce front bounce or rear ARB's)
Adjust the braking strength to take some pressure off flatspotting. Adjust the car to you as much as you adjust your driving to the car. You will find that you will completly mess this up. But thats part of learning. Once you get a handle on it you can make your own sets for your own racing style for every track you race on.
My Blackwood story was the same as you, I was lucky if I was hitting 1.10's with any regularity and just couldn't work it out. I was assuming (the mother of all mistakes) that BW would be a fairly low downforce circuit with that back straight and swooping corners. But, after realising that the cars around me, whilst I was holging my own on the straight they where completly whipping me in the corners. Took me a long time to get to thinking about the downforce because I just didn't factor it in as being as important as it transpired to be. So once I exhausted all my suspension messing about and tyre camber adjusting etc. I eventually reluctanlty raised my downforce. And 'lo the angels sang and I popped in my first 1.09.
So, yes consistency is important, understanding car dynamics is important but it could also be as simple as not having enough downforce for your driving style. (On the fox at least) Learn how to setup. That alone will teach you how to make the cars handling come to you.
If i remember correctly I searched google with something like 'physics' and 'racing' and here we are.
No social life, a small obsession with toe in and a bad back later and I'm still here, at least, 3 three years later.
No social life, a small obsession with toe in and a bad back later and I'm still here, at least, 3 three years later.
Dude. Now. I know your work is stupendous, AbFab, great, amazing and any other ingratiating phrases we can think of. But how about some original content. Let me quantify that statement. Surely with your camera and directorial skills, a good voice over artist (There must be a wannabe JC out there somewhere . . . Becky? (Joke. Honest, although . . . . no. Joke. Really)) And some clever wordsmithery there is a community based original project that could knock the white socked sandal wearing old fogyness that is Top Gear. Using ingame cars, using ingame attributes and . . . well, everything ingame really. Surely that is a much higher goal to strive for than just pastiching (Although in a very accomplished way) somebody elses work.
Please don't feel I am belittling your work Donny boy Nibbler son, I too, as I said before, was thouroughly entertained and technically amazing. But we as a community must be able to beat TG at it's own game. Come AWN!!!
Please don't feel I am belittling your work Donny boy Nibbler son, I too, as I said before, was thouroughly entertained and technically amazing. But we as a community must be able to beat TG at it's own game. Come AWN!!!
Try upping your salt intake for while.I used to get the same thing (Still do on occasion) and I reckon it was on account of bad diet. Fruit, veg, cut down on the crap (Fizzy pop, crisps, you know the score) and drink lots . . . water. Chuck a bit of salt on yer meals a couple of times and see if that cuts it down. Think about what your doing methodically. It really is amazing just how much what you eat effects who you are. So don't just go splashing the salt on, just up the intake a little bit. If the symptoms persist then it probs ain't that and move on to something else. But for me it's generally salt that caused the ticks and I found I could stop it within a few minutes by eating a bit of salt.
Curious ain't it.
Curious ain't it.
Very good mate. Hope you don't get globered by copyright. But superb presentation values. Exellent.
A very useful thread as and when the guide gets done.
I have a dual core 1.8? Ghtz with 1gig ram. Using Vista LFS runs worse than on my old machine. Looking to streamline and dump unwanted programs and services. A good guide I am looking forward too.
Although having recently used the latest 32bit Nvidea forceware drivers everything seems to have speeded up slightly. So a bit of advice to anyone running vista, get shot of the shipped drivers and install the latest from the manufactuer.
I have a dual core 1.8? Ghtz with 1gig ram. Using Vista LFS runs worse than on my old machine. Looking to streamline and dump unwanted programs and services. A good guide I am looking forward too.
Although having recently used the latest 32bit Nvidea forceware drivers everything seems to have speeded up slightly. So a bit of advice to anyone running vista, get shot of the shipped drivers and install the latest from the manufactuer.
Yes . and yes.
LFS ain't about drifting it's about racing, the drifters are out there and they are more than welcome to practice their strange obsession but ther're are more racers than ricers.
And there is a gamut of servers available under s2. Buy the licence and come join the fun.
LFS ain't about drifting it's about racing, the drifters are out there and they are more than welcome to practice their strange obsession but ther're are more racers than ricers.
And there is a gamut of servers available under s2. Buy the licence and come join the fun.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG