long legs. Practical fear of the consequences of an attack is of course another matter entirely. The insect is easily identified and people stay well away from it when it is discovered.
Local Seigniory departments have set up eradication squads, and most public buildings are routinely sanitized. Property sold on the open market is obliged by law to possess anti-thryme certification. Effective antidotes to the poison now exist, if applied quickly enough.
The Aubrac Chain is the insect’s natural habitat. While the islands remained unused by human settlers the thryme was presumably dominant, as it had been before and during Aubrac’s few months of scientific work. But the population of the Dream Archipelago was increasing rapidly and the need for living and working space was mounting. The availability of a huge expanse of undeveloped island territory, lushly vegetated and quite likely rich in mineral deposits, was too great a temptation.
Corporations from the new technologies identified Aubrac as the ideal location for a gateway hub, made the necessary arrangements with Seigniory departments, and started construction and re-zoning work.
From the outset, the environment of the Aubrac chain was planned on a non-enviropollutant basis, which is to say that every existing aspect of the natural habitat would be systematized and supplanted. All danger from the thrymes would be removed along with everything else. Natural rainforest would be converted to woodland parks, deserts would be irrigated and made arable, rocky shores and open plains would be turned into leisure and sports complexes. Wildlife would be introduced to game parks, if no natural wildlife was already present. New cities would be built. New industries would leap into existence. Prosperity would be guaranteed.
In the modern age, the developed Aubrac has become the dynamic heart of the Archipelago’s booming silicon economy. The various huge IT corporations which now administer the islands are the engine-house of this prosperity, dominated by the creators and inventors of operating and networking systems. From the forest of gleaming towers, campuses and development facilities, all wrapped in landscaped parkland, the hidden infrastructure of today’s world is reliably routed through a system of hi-def optical cables and digital links.
From Aubrac arise all IT service and support facilities, unified communications setups, telepresence opportunities, content delivery facilitators, troubleshooting guerrilla squads, web exchange activists, borderless optical networking, application management, corporate partnership consultancies, vid-conferencing suites, prestige data centre availabilities, immersive operability and anti-operability, gaming interfaces, collaboration experiences and implementative facedowns.
Many of the thirty-five Aubracian islands have been ecologically systematized and industrially managed as planned by the IT companies, but a few of the smaller islands were parcelled up into smaller tracts to be developed by private enterprise as dwellings. The corporate standards of infrastructure remain on these residence islands, with total commute accessibility to the hubs, digital holism and full leisure gateways.
One of the largest Aubracian islands, Trellin, has been redesigned as a tourist and visitor attraction, based on its large sweeps of natural rainforest (fully managed, but reconfigured as a wilderness activity interface area), and the spectacular cliffs overlooking the Midway Sea. There are no zoning controls or plans on Trellin, because of the input of many entrepreneurs from the distant island of Prachous. These powerful Prachoit families are the principal interests behind the booming economy of the Aubrac Chain. Their luxurious homes are of course not accessible to visitors, but some of them may be glimpsed from afar.
For the intending visitor, certain preparations are necessary.
Firstly, a minimum amount of convertible currency must be
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