Complete Atopia Chronicles

The splinter covering this latest round of peace talks between China and India didn’t need to send in very much new information, the tone and character of the meeting having been pretty much the same as every other one in the recent past; nothing positive, and very predictable. Then again, for business purposes, predictability was everything. I pulled the splinter back for more important work elsewhere.

I quickly assimilated that thin conscious stream and turned my mind to an exploration hike that another one of my splinters was on in the Brazilian rain forest.

The wikiworld displayed vast tracts of remote farmland belonging to Greengenics outside of Manos, all sown with a complex matrix of plants varietals that was supposed to mimic the diversity of the forest surrounding it. I wasn’t buying their story and suspected they were strip farming the area. I’d hired a local guide to walk in and snoop for me, and this splinter was ghosting in through the guide’s contact lens display.

Pulling back the last of the dense foliage before the edge of the farm area, we peered in, and my suspicions were confirmed. Long rows of bio-engineered farmaceuticals stretched out into the distance. Greengenics had been falsifying its wikiworld feeds. This splinter of information, at the edges of my attention, shattered into a dozen others and then went off and used the information, shorting the Greengenics stock, pushing and pulling information that streamed outwards.

The Shanghai market was about to close its morning session when disaster hit.

“What?”

“Pull out of the short positions right away,” warned Willy. “I’ve already done as much as I can.”

Visions of the peace talks closing splintered into my mind. Interest rates were supposed to be trending a full point lower, but a last second and unexpected announcement between the Chinese and Indians regarding a joint farmaceutical project had injected future uncertainty, pushing expected rates higher. Worse, the Greengenics facility was named as their secret collaboration, sending the stock of this small company soaring. This unusual twist around my strategy suddenly shot everything out of alignment.

“Put in sell orders!” I yelled into my dozen splinters.

The bell chimed signaling the close of Shanghai. Within seconds, the secondary and after markets had kicked in, but by the time we’d managed to unravel my positions, I’d chalked up a huge loss.

I was too highly leveraged, trying to be too clever.

Hovering over the small metaworld that was my financial control center, I closed my eyes and sighed. I needed more splinters to cover more things at the same time. All I’d been able to scrounge up was about fifteen, and half of them were prototypes that were getting called back for updates and re-initializations all the time. A growing headache began to pound behind my eyes, and I focused inwards and back outwards, getting myself ready for the rest of the night’s work.

§

The day had ended in total, personal financial disaster. Almost everything that could have gone wrong, had gone wrong. Even though I hadn’t said anything, Brigitte could sense my mood and had prepared a special night for us. She’d taken the time to personally reserve a little patch of sidewalk on the side of the Grand Canal in Venice.

The spot was undeniably romantic; a candle set in a green wine bottle atop a red checked tablecloth, the gentle slap of the Adriatic against the canal walls, and the twinkling lights of Venezia under a rising full moon.  The strains of an accordion played somewhere nearby, the notes floating together with the smells of fresh cut herbs and tomatoes and seafood.

“Brigitte, this is beautiful,” I managed to say as I arrived, dropping most of my webwork of splinters behind.

Stepping into this one reality I sat down opposite her. I tried to relax and let my foul mood evaporate into the warm night air. I could guess that she and Wally had been speaking, and from the look on her face there was more in store. I sighed.

I was still stewing over a heated argument I’d had with Nancy earlier regarding my splintering limit. I’d tried to explain what a difficult spot I was in, but it hadn’t mattered to her. Atopia was supposed to be this shining beacon of libertarian ideals, a place that wouldn’t stoop to the base realities of the rest of the world. In actuality, it was just another country club for rich snobs like the Killiams to lord over us commoners. She had no idea what it was like for a family like ours here.