Complete Atopia Chronicles

“Again, this is just your own prejudice blinding you,” he continued, sensing my growing emotions and throwing them back in my face. “This is just the way they were made. The pedophiles can’t help it. It wasn’t that many generations ago that society reviled homosexuals the same way.”

“It’s not the same thing,” I objected.

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it better for them to come here and release themselves, to find a therapeutic path forward? Technology is leading a cultural advance and bringing this long maligned minority back into the fold.”

“It’s disgusting,” was all I could think to say. “It is absolutely disgusting.”

My mind was past the brink of exhaustion.

This was the path to happiness?

In yet another splinter, Marie and I were studying the fast evolving weather predictions.

Hurricane Ignacia was definitely crossing over from the Caribbean and into the Eastern Pacific to be renamed Olivia. Hurricane Newton, which had been spinning out into the Pacific as we backed away from it towards the coast, had now stopped and even slightly reversed its trajectory.

My projections soon had the Fujiawara effect taking hold to connect the two storm systems, with the center pivot at just the wrong point, preventing Atopia from escaping into the open Pacific between them.

As I discussed the merits of virtual economies with the reporters, defended myself from Kesselring, argued about the nature of happiness with Hal, and considered the hurricanes rushing towards us—I had a nauseating sensation of vertigo.

My visual fields distorted, ballooning outwards, and the hurricanes and reporters shredded into each other. Kesselring’s shocked face watched me blink suddenly out of his reality.

I abruptly collapsed into a deathly quiet, single subjective point of view. Exactly where or why, I had no idea.

Marie, my proxxi, was standing over me, staring into my eyes. Everything was perfectly still. An impossibly long, incredibly thin rope stretched from the infinite blue void above to wrap itself tightly around my waist. I was suspended above a yawning black pit, set in the middle of an endless green field, all under a flawless sky.

“The news isn’t good I’m afraid,” Marie informed me, shaking her head.

Tell me something I didn’t know.

The rope tightened around my waist, slowly choking out my lifeblood. I could feel the tigers charging across the sky towards me, their silent roars ringing in my deaf ears.

Fascinated, I watched as busy and purposeful nanobots ate away at the thin cord holding me suspended in space. Below me, in the blackness of the pit, an unseen monster grunted and slobbered. This can’t last forever, I thought to myself as I drifted in and out of consciousness.

I can’t last forever.

15

Identity: Jimmy Jones

“I HEARD THAT Kesselring put you in charge of Infinixx?”

“Just temporarily,” I sighed to Commander Rick Strong, shaking my head, “someone has to hold down the fort.”

Rick winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…I mean, how is Patricia doing?”

After the Infinixx mess, Patricia had suffered some kind of stroke. Not really a stroke. There hadn’t been any physical brain damage, but it had been more of an overload of her pssi system. She was recovering, but they were keeping under surveillance and isolated for the moment.

“She’ll be fine,” I said after a pause. “I spoke to her this morning. She said she’ll be back in the office by tomorrow.”

We both returned our attention to the presentation going on explaining ways someone could be directing the storms.

“There is something very unnatural going on here,” explained our mandroid guest to the assembled Command team. With that statement, she reached down with one slender metallic arm to adjust the jumpsuit hugging her thin, metallic legs. “These storms are definitely being driven by some artificial means.”

It was early Saturday morning, but we’d all been called into Command to review scenarios around the growing threat of the hurricanes that were beginning to pin Atopia against the coast of America.

“So you think the Terra Novans are involved?” asked Commander Strong. He’d been drinking again. Things were going badly with his wife.

“We’re not sure,” responded the mandroid.

“So then where is this coming from?” Rick demanded impatiently, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked like he had a headache.

“We can’t say for certain yet,” she repeated, “but there’s something too perfect about these storms.”

“Jimmy, do you think you could look into this more?” asked Rick, looking away from the mandroid and towards me. “I need to go and see Cindy.”

“No problem,” I replied. He was about to flit off when I remembered something. “Oh, yeah, I have that date tonight, if you remember.”

Rick looked up towards the ceiling. “Susie, right? That’s going well, huh?”

He smiled. I shrugged.

“I can cancel if you want.”

“No, no, keep the date. You can’t let stuff like this stop you from living life,” he sighed. “Anyway, I know you’ll keep a few splinters around if I need you. I’ll be back later.”