“You want to what?” blurted Mr. Edgley. “You propose to send a team of Pheely-geeks
up there to run a space station?”
“Worse than that, sir,” said Portia.
“They’re uneducated Pheely-geeks.
But think of it sir, they’re easy to train on simple tasks and easy to
reward. They’re a kind of subhuman /
super-chimpanzee cross breed. The only
possible draw-back is that they’re normally more expensive to feed than the
monkeys.”
“But I could find 3 idiots like the ones you describe by driving into
downtown Houston with a dirty windshield and stopping at any intersection. Squeegee-nauts are everywhere.”
“Yes, but I know these 3 squeegee-nauts, sir. One of them is my brother. I can attest to their mental health and to
their likely endurance levels. I can
control their behavior and I think I can get them ready for immediate launch
within a few days.”
“All right,” said Mr. Edgley, sounding suddenly very interested. “I’ll fly them into Orlando. But this better be worth the airfare,
Ms. Summers or they’ll just end up on a breadline in Florida.”
“Actually, I think they’d like that,” said Portia, after Edgley
disconnected.
Portia contemplated the three sleeping pheely-geeks. Her gaze fell to the white pheely-box in the
open cupboard that contained her brother’s personal effects.
As she considered the white box, it dawned on Portia that she could
manipulate the pheely-box technology experimentally. Being a member of the space program has
always had its privileges. For instance,
every possible technology, patented or not, was at her disposal with no
questions asked, as long as it was appropriated under the official umbrella of
national security. Although her company
was a privatized, arms-length, third party that only outsourced work to NASA,
all the same laws applied.
That was how Portia had come to acquire a next generation SPECTACL – a
quantum computer that calculated in infini-FLOPS – a SPECTACL normally
restricted to use by properly-screened members of the intelligence community,
employees of Microvoid (its manufacturer), and inhabitants of an ever-expanding
multiplicity of forking parallel universes.
A SPECTACL, (which the MicroVoid advertisements said was short for Sensory
Parallel Ectocephalic Corrugated Tuned Active Cortical Link), looked like a
pair of horn-rimmed glasses with a wide stretchable strap. Within the frame of the glasses, Microvoid
compacted layer upon layer of nanoprocessors folded tightly within a highly
flexible carbon fibre shell. Using a process called Ion Modulation, the
electrochemical coating on the inside of the strap interfaced directly with
receptors implanted into the back of the user’s head. Beyond it’s own powerful processors, the
SPECTACL worked in parallel with the user’s brain.
No one under the age of 40 would dare try to operate in the world
without wearing a SPECTACL. To younger people, anyone not wearing thickly
framed glasses looked old and stupid.
What’s worse, older people tended to refer to the device as “spectacles”,
in plural, which drove teenagers crazy, (which is mostly why the older folks
said it).
However, Portia’s SPECTACL did not have tightly folded sheets of
nanotechnology crushed together within the thick frames – her SPECTACL was
packed with incredibly expensive quantum dots made from bio-active oxides that
allowed the dots to self-replicate when old dots broke down or additional dots
were needed. Manufactured in a top secret
Microvoid facility, each device was worth tens of millions of dollars. If it were known that Portia had such a
device, she would have been arrested within hours – but Portia had no idea her
SPECTACL was in any way special. A FedEx
driver just dropped it off for her one day.
She didn’t even have to sign for it.
As she sat in the hospital staring at her unconscious brother, Portia
had a flash of inspiration. What if she
could get the crew to do routine tasks on the Waste-REL while believing they
were doing something else, like playing hockey or making love? It was an idea that had merit.
But then again, maybe it was a very bad idea. In order to be sure, she’d have to know what
copping a pheel felt like. She’d have to
understand the pheely-box. She pulled it
out of the closet and plugged in the power.
While she was figuring out how the retractable cable connected to her
SPECTACL port, the green light booted on.
Portia felt a pang of conspiratorial guilt, scanned the hallway in
both directions for medical personnel, checked Donny, Mickey and Lyle for any
signs of waking and then timidly plugged the FullSenz cable into the side of
her SPECTACL. She donned the glasses and
snapped the strap behind her head.
Beach. Water. Waves. Well-endowed female companion. This must be Hawaii or an island in the South
Seas. It’s so warm. I’m really here. I can smell the ozone of the surf. My whole body is relaxed. I feel sand between my toes. My hairy toes. I’m a guy?
I’m a guy! Look at my arms!
“You want some lotion, honey?” asked the blonde, rubbing wet cream on
Portia’s shoulder.
“No, I want out!” said Portia, sitting up and nearly falling out of
her beach chair. But she didn’t know how
to get out. However, a panel of
3-dimensional, translucent controls leapt up in front of her face. A heavy bass voice echoed out of the ether
like a demigod asking, “Would you like to quit?”
A spinning, crystal globule read “Okay” and Portia grabbed it.
Hospital room; antiseptic smell; cool draft from poorly sealed window;
sitting in hard-backed chair. Portia
threw off her SPECTACL, breathing heavily.
Then and there, she vowed she’d never touch a pheely-box again.
Next: Portia's Idea
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