– And all of them carrying my friends – some of whom I had met face to face, some of whom I hadn’t – coming to help build my house.
I hopped out of my boat onto dry land. My island was covered with salt-tolerant scrub plants and the occasional beach rose. No trees to clear. Construction could begin immediately.
As I awaited my friends, I got several prompts displayed across my left eye, notifying me of four or five immediate ubik developments in areas of interest to me. I had the threshold of my attention-filter set fairly high, so I knew I should attend to whatever had made it over that hurdle. For speed’s sake, I kept the messages text-only, suppressing the full audiovideo presentations.
The first development concerned an adjustment to the local property-tax rates. “Glamorous Glynnis” had just amended the current rate structure to penalize any residence over 15,000 square feet that failed to feed power back to the grid. Sixty-five other people had endorsed the change. I added my own vote to theirs and tacked on a clause to exempt group homes.
Next came a modification to the rules of the non-virtual marketplace back on the mainland, where I sold many of my salvaged goods in person. “Jinglehorse” wanted to extend the hours of operation on holidays. Competitively speaking, I’d feel compelled to be there if the booths were open extra. And since I liked my downtime, I voted no.
Items three and four involved decriminalizing a newly designed recreational drug named “arp”, and increasing our region’s fresh water exports. I didn’t know enough about arp, so I got a search going for documents on the drug. I’d try to go through them tonight, and vote tomorrow. And even though I felt bad for the drought-sufferers down South, I didn’t want to encourage continued habitation in a zone plainly unsuited for its current population densities, so I voted no.
The last item concerned a Wikitusional Amendment. National stuff. This new clause had been in play for six months now without getting at least provisionally locked down, approaching a record length of revision time. The Amendment mandated regular wiki participation as a prerequisite for full enfranchisement in the UWA. “Uncle Sham” had just stuck in a clause exempting people older than sixty-five. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that, so I pushed the matter back in the queue.
By the time I had attended to these issues, the first of my visitors had arrived, a small vessel named The Smiling Dictator , and bearing a lone man. The craft crunched onto the beach, and the guy jumped out.
“Hey, Russ! Nice day for a house-raising.”
Jack Cortez – “Cortez the Queller” in the ubik – resembled a racing greyhound in slimness and coiled energy. He wore a fisherman’s vest over bare chest, a pair of denim cutoffs bleached white, and boat shoes. His SCURF showed as a dark green eagle across a swath of his chest.
“Ahimsa, Jack! I really appreciate you showing up.”
“No problem. The Church still owes you for retrieving that Madonna. But you gotta do some work nonetheless! Come on and give me a hand.”
I went over to the Dictator and helped Jack wrestle some foam-encased objects big as coffee-table-tops out of the boat. When we had the half-dozen objects stacked on land, he flaked off some of the protective foam and revealed the corner of a window frame.
“Six smart windows. Variable opacity, self-cleaning, rated to withstand Category Four storms. Fully spimed, natch. One of our co-religionists is a contractor, and these were left over from a recent job.”
“Pluricious!”
By then, the rest of the boats had arrived. A perfect storm of unloading and greeting swept over my little domain. Crates and girders and pre-formed pilings and lumber and shingles and equipment accumulated in heaps, while bottled drinks made the rounds, to fortify and replenish. The wiki known as the Shewookies had brought not materials nor power tools but food.
I hopped out of my boat onto dry land. My island was covered with salt-tolerant scrub plants and the occasional beach rose. No trees to clear. Construction could begin immediately.
As I awaited my friends, I got several prompts displayed across my left eye, notifying me of four or five immediate ubik developments in areas of interest to me. I had the threshold of my attention-filter set fairly high, so I knew I should attend to whatever had made it over that hurdle. For speed’s sake, I kept the messages text-only, suppressing the full audiovideo presentations.
The first development concerned an adjustment to the local property-tax rates. “Glamorous Glynnis” had just amended the current rate structure to penalize any residence over 15,000 square feet that failed to feed power back to the grid. Sixty-five other people had endorsed the change. I added my own vote to theirs and tacked on a clause to exempt group homes.
Next came a modification to the rules of the non-virtual marketplace back on the mainland, where I sold many of my salvaged goods in person. “Jinglehorse” wanted to extend the hours of operation on holidays. Competitively speaking, I’d feel compelled to be there if the booths were open extra. And since I liked my downtime, I voted no.
Items three and four involved decriminalizing a newly designed recreational drug named “arp”, and increasing our region’s fresh water exports. I didn’t know enough about arp, so I got a search going for documents on the drug. I’d try to go through them tonight, and vote tomorrow. And even though I felt bad for the drought-sufferers down South, I didn’t want to encourage continued habitation in a zone plainly unsuited for its current population densities, so I voted no.
The last item concerned a Wikitusional Amendment. National stuff. This new clause had been in play for six months now without getting at least provisionally locked down, approaching a record length of revision time. The Amendment mandated regular wiki participation as a prerequisite for full enfranchisement in the UWA. “Uncle Sham” had just stuck in a clause exempting people older than sixty-five. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that, so I pushed the matter back in the queue.
By the time I had attended to these issues, the first of my visitors had arrived, a small vessel named The Smiling Dictator , and bearing a lone man. The craft crunched onto the beach, and the guy jumped out.
“Hey, Russ! Nice day for a house-raising.”
Jack Cortez – “Cortez the Queller” in the ubik – resembled a racing greyhound in slimness and coiled energy. He wore a fisherman’s vest over bare chest, a pair of denim cutoffs bleached white, and boat shoes. His SCURF showed as a dark green eagle across a swath of his chest.
“Ahimsa, Jack! I really appreciate you showing up.”
“No problem. The Church still owes you for retrieving that Madonna. But you gotta do some work nonetheless! Come on and give me a hand.”
I went over to the Dictator and helped Jack wrestle some foam-encased objects big as coffee-table-tops out of the boat. When we had the half-dozen objects stacked on land, he flaked off some of the protective foam and revealed the corner of a window frame.
“Six smart windows. Variable opacity, self-cleaning, rated to withstand Category Four storms. Fully spimed, natch. One of our co-religionists is a contractor, and these were left over from a recent job.”
“Pluricious!”
By then, the rest of the boats had arrived. A perfect storm of unloading and greeting swept over my little domain. Crates and girders and pre-formed pilings and lumber and shingles and equipment accumulated in heaps, while bottled drinks made the rounds, to fortify and replenish. The wiki known as the Shewookies had brought not materials nor power tools but food.
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