the city; what at first
felt like stalking had become a comforting presence.
The dominant feature of the cave
was cable snaking through the plastic halls and into shadowy rooms, either
office or bedroom there was really no distinction. At some point the
trogs installed an electrical panel on the inside of the cement retaining wall
that was the back of the basement and tapped into the street side power line
pulling enough energy to operate several blocks of houses.
When the household wanted secure
communications and access to worldwide television programming, they’d answered
the upstairs call by adding antennas to the roof capable of snagging signals
from everywhere. Snug in their cave undisturbed, the trogs interfaced
with the grid, dancing in and out of data, leaching funds as needed, punishing
miscreants and generally living lives less connected to society either Human or
Vampire than to the constructs they found in code.
Enamored of data, they developed
the predicted interface allowing them to jack wet brains into the net living
the future, surfing perpetual waves of data.
Stepping carefully across the
boards in her spiky heels, she noted that several of the Vampires sported
sockets from shaved skulls connected to the omnipresent boxes of equipment that
served as furniture. Spotting a monitor and keyboard, she sat at a
console and typed in ‘hello’ on a screen with what she thought was dos
interface. She hit ‘enter’ and waited. She still found it
unsettling talking to them through a monitor and keyboard when she could see
their bodies strewn about the cave, cables and tubes jacked to skulls.
Instant acknowledgment cascaded
down the monitor faster than she could read as the permanently connected
community signed back. She was one of the few the trogs talked to under
the rubric of call and response since they made the decision to live as a
collective mind. Information whirled across the screen in data spools
until order was enforced and ‘WELCOME’ appeared on the screen. The
letters appeared one after another in the fashion of Marat/Sade, a comment on
the stupidity of classic communication and the kind of scorn she expected from
the collective.
In response she slowly typed “FUCK
Y.” Before she got to “O” her screen filled with a torrent of abuse until
she burst out laughing and typed “BEHAVE or I WILL UNPLUG EVERY ONE OF YOU.”
Serene cherry blossoms drifted
across the screen.
“Just stopped by to say Hi.”
“No one stops by the Mansion.”
“True,” she replied, “She called.”
Complex mathematics ordered into
probability equations scrolled for longer than she liked, then “Danger Will
Robinson Danger” shrieked as B9 wriggled robot arms down the plastic hall
fleeing images of the Queen they’d grabbed somehow.
As they’d gone deeper into
individual sublimation their communication skills suffered, at least when they
were limited to language, she thought.
“What do you see?”
All around her walls and halls
burst into vivid color mostly reds and oranges with violet purple spikes and
undulating waves of symbols.
“When you can put it in English or
French let me know.”
“Sure.”
“Could you keep an eye on
things? I think Oliver is back.”
“Yes, he is.”
“And……..?”
“So NO TECH, he barely registers.”
‘How is the mind?’ she asked.
Arabella didn’t understand the extent that they’d managed to blend to one
consciousness but accepted the proposition as true. Their explanation was
a bit like when the physics people and philosophers discussed the singularity,
comprehension breaking down several light years short of home.
The cave went black, the movie vanished
as the wooden sword went in, the data streams collapsed into points that merged
into a single violet singularity that Hiroshima’d into infinitesimal images
splattering floor, walls, ceiling and, she noticed, her. Standing, she
walked to the nearest wall and,
felt like stalking had become a comforting presence.
The dominant feature of the cave
was cable snaking through the plastic halls and into shadowy rooms, either
office or bedroom there was really no distinction. At some point the
trogs installed an electrical panel on the inside of the cement retaining wall
that was the back of the basement and tapped into the street side power line
pulling enough energy to operate several blocks of houses.
When the household wanted secure
communications and access to worldwide television programming, they’d answered
the upstairs call by adding antennas to the roof capable of snagging signals
from everywhere. Snug in their cave undisturbed, the trogs interfaced
with the grid, dancing in and out of data, leaching funds as needed, punishing
miscreants and generally living lives less connected to society either Human or
Vampire than to the constructs they found in code.
Enamored of data, they developed
the predicted interface allowing them to jack wet brains into the net living
the future, surfing perpetual waves of data.
Stepping carefully across the
boards in her spiky heels, she noted that several of the Vampires sported
sockets from shaved skulls connected to the omnipresent boxes of equipment that
served as furniture. Spotting a monitor and keyboard, she sat at a
console and typed in ‘hello’ on a screen with what she thought was dos
interface. She hit ‘enter’ and waited. She still found it
unsettling talking to them through a monitor and keyboard when she could see
their bodies strewn about the cave, cables and tubes jacked to skulls.
Instant acknowledgment cascaded
down the monitor faster than she could read as the permanently connected
community signed back. She was one of the few the trogs talked to under
the rubric of call and response since they made the decision to live as a
collective mind. Information whirled across the screen in data spools
until order was enforced and ‘WELCOME’ appeared on the screen. The
letters appeared one after another in the fashion of Marat/Sade, a comment on
the stupidity of classic communication and the kind of scorn she expected from
the collective.
In response she slowly typed “FUCK
Y.” Before she got to “O” her screen filled with a torrent of abuse until
she burst out laughing and typed “BEHAVE or I WILL UNPLUG EVERY ONE OF YOU.”
Serene cherry blossoms drifted
across the screen.
“Just stopped by to say Hi.”
“No one stops by the Mansion.”
“True,” she replied, “She called.”
Complex mathematics ordered into
probability equations scrolled for longer than she liked, then “Danger Will
Robinson Danger” shrieked as B9 wriggled robot arms down the plastic hall
fleeing images of the Queen they’d grabbed somehow.
As they’d gone deeper into
individual sublimation their communication skills suffered, at least when they
were limited to language, she thought.
“What do you see?”
All around her walls and halls
burst into vivid color mostly reds and oranges with violet purple spikes and
undulating waves of symbols.
“When you can put it in English or
French let me know.”
“Sure.”
“Could you keep an eye on
things? I think Oliver is back.”
“Yes, he is.”
“And……..?”
“So NO TECH, he barely registers.”
‘How is the mind?’ she asked.
Arabella didn’t understand the extent that they’d managed to blend to one
consciousness but accepted the proposition as true. Their explanation was
a bit like when the physics people and philosophers discussed the singularity,
comprehension breaking down several light years short of home.
The cave went black, the movie vanished
as the wooden sword went in, the data streams collapsed into points that merged
into a single violet singularity that Hiroshima’d into infinitesimal images
splattering floor, walls, ceiling and, she noticed, her. Standing, she
walked to the nearest wall and,
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