Complete Atopia Chronicles

I laughed and relaxed my stance. As one of the newest Command officers, I thought I would strut my stuff for Patricia a little. She’d asked me to come to her office, under a tight security blanket to discuss something.

“Jimmy, we’d like to nominate you to the Security Council,” she said quickly, getting to the point. “What do you think?”

I wasn’t that surprised, but I put on a show for her.

“I don’t know what to say,” I replied, shaking my head. “I’m flattered. I mean, of course I would accept, but I’m so young, so inexperienced.”

“Yes, perhaps,” she laughed, “but you are by far our leading expert on conscious security. I know you’re lacking in some areas, and that’s why I want you to stick close to Commander Strong. I think you could learn a lot from him.”

“I can do that.”

“Perfect. Then if we’re agreed, I’ll put the wheels in motion.”

§

Patricia was like the mother I’d always wished for, and in a twist of circumstance, that’s exactly what she’d become. Her love for me was something I wasn’t used to.

I think my own parents must have loved each other, at least at first. They should have just gotten a divorce rather than fight like they did, but Mother always claimed it just wasn’t Christian.

Arriving here from the Bible Belt, my family had a strong religious background and regular church service had figured deeply in my upbringing. In fact, a strong Christian community here on Atopia was one of the reasons my mother had said she’d agreed to come. God and sin had never been far from her wicked tongue.

A strange communion between Christianity and hacker culture had evolved on Atopia—‘hacker’ used here in its nobler and original sense of building or tinkering with code. The Elèutheros community on Atopia believed that hacking was a form of participation in God’s work of creating the universe. This wasn’t quite what my mother had in mind before coming, however, and this had just added to her dissatisfaction after we’d arrived.

Mother had been a very beautiful woman, a real southern belle, but if she saw you looking at her, a nasty comment was never far behind. All that was left of my parents’ relationship by the time I arrived was grinding, co–dependent bitterness that fueled the empty shells of their lives.

I would guess that my parents had always fought, but having me gave them an audience. After arriving on Atopia to birth me, they could have shielded me from their screaming matches by simply leaving a pssi–block on, and my dad often tried to do just that, but Mother wanted me to hear everything.

I remembered one evening in particular. I was sitting in one of my playworlds, stacking blocks with my proxxi Samson into impossibly fantastic structures in the augmented space around us. My dad had been trying to shield me from their arguing by setting up a pssi-block to filter it out of my sensory spaces, but Mother was having none of it.

“So now you want to protect him!” screamed Mother, turning off the pssi–block in the middle of their argument. “That’s a joke, you wanting to protect a child. You’re a sick little worm, Phil.”

Their favorite venue for screaming matches was the Spanish Courtyard world, well constructed and away from the prying eyes and ears of outsiders.

“Would you knock it off?” replied my dad. “I don’t know what you’re going on about. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Oh that’s right, you haven’t done anything!” screeched Mother. Once she got going there was no turning back. “You sure as hell haven’t ever done anything! Why I married you, I have no idea. What a waste of time.”

“I thought we got married because we loved each other,” replied my dad, dejectedly. Fearfully.

“Yeah, well love don’t pay the bills, now does it Phil? Does it Phil?” she demanded.

“No…I mean, so what, we manage.”

“We manage? We manage!?” yelled Mother. She’d been drinking again.

“Yes, we manage,” repeated my dad quietly, not sure what else to say. He wasn’t much good at arguing, or perhaps he’d been the subject of ridicule for so long that he’d just given up.

Mother tried her best to include me in the blame game even at this early point.

“I manage, Phil, it’s me that’s here taking care of that little shit of a son of yours all day while you’re out sunning yourself on the water.”

“Could you not talk like that, Gretchen? He’s listening, you know.”

“Oh, I want him to hear. I want him to hear this, want him to know that the only reason I agreed to have him was so that we could get on this stinking ship. I would never have let a child into this world so close to you otherwise. What would you think of me talking to my church group about what you’d like to do with children?”

“Gretchen, please, you’re drunk. It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, of course not!” she snorted. “And even then, we’re only here because I’m great-grand–niece to the famous Killiam. Not like you’d be man enough to accomplish anything on your own.”

“We’re doing some amazing stuff here Gretchen, please.”