Complete Atopia Chronicles

We were announcing the slogan and unveiling our marketing program.  The media people were very proud of it and were hanging in the wings of the presentation space, egging me on to nail their positioning.

“E3 represents the infinite possibilities of the future that we’re bringing to life,” I rolled out breathlessly. “E3 is the idea that anyone can be everywhere and anywhere at any time they like—while still never needing to be anywhere they don’t want.”

I paused before my finale, catching my breath.

“For the first time, people will be free to be nowhere and everywhere at the same time—E3 represents total freedom!”

Applause rang out as I raised my hands to the crowd. I managed to say all of this without the slightest of smiles, even though I wasn’t sure I understood what it meant. All that mattered was that the marketing department was in love with it.

§

While distributing consciousness was a nice trick, what had the business world so excited were the implications for productivity. Synthetic intelligences and phuturing had been able to push the needle a long way, but lately they’d been stalled in their revenue enhancing capabilities, and distributed consciousness was the new buzzword in investor circles. Many groups were pursuing something like it, but with our intimate link to Cognix and our unique abilities as pssi–kids, we had an edge nobody else could match. The investments had just poured in.

The explosive growth was an adrenaline rush.

We’d begun synthesizing intermediate management as splinter constructs, their personalities and experiences amalgamated from the team members they would be managing. Our managers thus became a little bit of everyone they managed, but despite this, people still hated them for some reason.

Even with these innovations, it was a grind, especially the constant need to bring in new talent. Picking new staff became a Herculean task with each new staff member counting as ten—the productivity multiplier goal we were trying to demonstrate—so a mistake picking out any new employee tended to magnify itself. We were constantly having endless rounds of human resources meetings in our main conference room, discussing the merits of new candidates.

“Did you hear about Cynthia, that new administrative girl we hired?” asked my VP of Human Resources, at the start of one of those meetings. My VP of Synthetic Resources rolled her eyes and looked towards me, as if I-told-you-so.

Cynthia has been a great hire, but had recently dropped off the radar without any warning. People disappearing off into cyber hedonistic fantasy worlds weren’t uncommon, but Cynthia had been my pick. She’d seemed a little more reliable than that.

“Yeah, I heard about that. So her neural functions are off the charts, but they can’t find her and she’s off in the multiverse somewhere?” asked Kelly, my co–founding business partner.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with us, does it?” I suddenly exclaimed, pulling the splinter for this meeting into the center of my consciousness.

“No, nothing to do with us,” confirmed Kelly, “but speaking of strange, how about Vince Indigo. Have you seen the flash death mobs he’s attracting?”

There were a few laughs around the table. I stayed quiet. I had a feeling Vince and Patricia were up to something, but didn’t want to say anything. Cunard pinged me right then for the start to yet another press event.

“The Security Council has taken over Cynthia’s file now,” said Brian, our Chief Technical Officer, bringing the discussion back. “Let’s keep moving. Speaking of the Security Council, what does everyone think of Jimmy getting nominated?”

“I think Jimmy is great,” I replied.

“Of course you would,” snorted Kelly. “More of the Killiam clan in charge, but then what’s good for the goose…”

“Hey!” I said defensively. “That’s not fair. Jimmy’s family is barely related to mine.” My cheeks blushed.

They all rolled their eyes.

Jimmy was related to me, but only distantly. Our great-grandfathers had been cousins, whatever that made us. All of that didn’t make any difference to me, and the awkwardness I felt now was because Patricia had asked Bob’s family to adopt Jimmy when he’d been left in her care.

I’d been dating Bob at the time, and in fact we’d been inseparable as children. From that point on, though, I’d been teased for dating what amounted to my cousin, if only cousin-in-law. Childhood taunts had a way of sticking with you in life.

“Gang, I have to get to the next press event,” I added, happy for a reason to exit-stage-left, and flitted off for the next press conference.

9

Identity: William McIntyre

“WILLY!”

Whole scaffolds of my conscious webwork collapsed as Bob forced his way in using one of Sid’s viral skins. Sid was going to get in trouble with his little sidelines one day, but then again, who was I to talk?

I hadn’t seen Bob in weeks, maybe longer. Work had totally absorbed me, and to focus I’d begun filtering all of my communications straight into my proxxi.