genie scene - Pete

"You have a ping."

I was aware of her, but I didn't look up. I was conscious of everything: the wheat field I was standing in, the sound of the wind pushing along the strands, the orange and purple sky of the sunset, and the gray marble statues here and there around me standing in the field. I was conscious of these things, but more focused on what I was doing, though I'd seen her approaching.

My hands were out in front of me, turning just slightly. As they moved, so did the half-completed statue, floating a few feet from me, my latest work-in-progress. I looked up at Jira briefly and noted her measured steps in the indigo kimono, the breeze playing in her dark hair, and the Selea heels. I felt the ripple as she moved into my space.

"You have a ping," she repeated, close now. I was back to not looking, but I'm sure her almond eyes were a bit wider. I wasn't attending to her; she didn't care for that.

"I thought I set instructions not to be disturbed." I said, making a delicate motion with two fingertips. The eyes of my statue grew just a little larger. I adjusted a bit. Perfect.

"Would I be here, then?"

"Yes."

"I can't violate a directive."

My eyes rolled. It's a reactive habit I have, and I'm powerless to control it. God knows I've tried. I turned away from my work, looking at her. "Jira, you do all the time."

"Not the important ones."

I looked down, knowing what I'd see. "Nice heels," I said, with sarcasm. "Very appropriate." She ignored this.

"You have a ping."

"I told you, when you're outside, wear the travel outfit. The whole outfit."

Her nose wrinkled dismissively. "That's not an important directive."

"I'm busy. Go away." I moved my finger in a circular gesture, and the statue floating in front of me spun slowly around in mid-air, gray marble cut into a passably human, feminine form.

"You have a ping," she repeated. "It's important."

Still manipulating, gesturing subtly with my hands and fingers, the statue turned, and bits that didn't look like the woman I saw in my mind's eye melted away as I refined her. "When I made you," I started, "I could have sworn I put something in there about being obedient."

"No," she quipped. "You were smarter than that. And besides," her tone now shocked, almost hurt, her palm against the kimono where her heart would have been, were she not a very skillfully-rendered synthetic intelligence. "I'm obedient. "

"Puh-leeze." Eyes rolled. "Who's the ping from?" I asked as I rotated the figure end-over so I could check the symmetry.

"Melbourne Raines."

My palm opened, a stopping gesture, and the roll abruptly halted, my head slightly aside. "Is it authentic?"

Her hands went to her hips, and she did what I assume was a passable impression of my eye roll. "Puh-leeze."

I looked at the sculpture for a few more moments, then at her. "Well?"

She waved her hands in the air, the gesture almost dismissive, as if she was put out by having to make it at all. "Audio only," she added. A familiar voice came, disembodied around us.

"Parker, man, I, uh, I need you to, er, can you look at something for me?" A pause. "Call me back."

Hmmmmmm. It was Mel's voice, and something was wrong.

"Ring him back," I said, inverting the sculpture again as it hung in the air, making a few more fine adjustments.

"The message came without a bounce code," She said with a sigh. No callback. And very slick; tough to strip the bounce code out of a message like that.

I looked at her again, my hands full, so to speak. I gestured with my chin. "Show me the waveform."

Again she made her annoyed gesture, and a colored diagram of the sound, its informatic density and enveloping network protocols, were graphically displayed in the empty space off to the side, at my eye level. My brows knit. After a moment I spoke.

"Dial him; his string's in my private directory, authorized 'Kahoolawe.'"

"You have Melbourne Raines's private string?"

"I set up Melbourne Raines's private string."

"How do you know Melbourne Raines?"

"Jira. Open the damn connection."

"Okay, okay," she snapped. "See? Obedient. It's audio only, by the way. There's a bandwidth problem, his end."

A chime sounded, pure and clear, signaling the establishment of a secure channel between us. I spoke to the air.

"Mel, it's me. What's up? Why sound only?"

"Hey. Park. Things are kinda jacked up here." Again, that odd tone was in his voice. "Hey, can you come out here?"

"Where's 'here,' Mel?"

"The States. LA…"

Taking his meaning, I finished his thought. "Like, come-come, like be there?

"Yea."

"Not possible, Mel. I'm inside. At the moment I'm actually hooked up in a private intensive care ward. Three more weeks, and I'll graduate to a powerchair. And consciousness."

"Dude. Sorry, man I shoulda-"

"No problem," I cut in. "You're busy, Mel. I read Rolling Stone. And Esquire." I thought for a moment. "Is this a Katie type of problem? I'm kinda busy in IC, being rebuilt."

"Katie's not here."

This brought a frown from me.

"Um, you're Melbourne Collin Raines, and Katie's your tech. 'Not here' shouldn't be in her keyspace."

"Yea, well… Okay," he said, like he was surrendering. "You're right. Park, it's... it's something she can't handle. She said to call you."

A pause.

"She said that?"

"Yea," a short chuckle. "No shit, eh?"

Another pause. I looked at Jira, who was politely studying the half-done sculpture as it rotated very slowly in the air, then checking her own flawless nails. And possibly making a comparison.

"I'm on my way. Here's my current public key." With a thought, my personal public encryption code was sent and received by the private systems of Melbourne Raines, rock star. Now I'd be able to port over to his systems.

"Thanks, Parker. See you soon."

With a gesture, I closed the connection. Then I turned to Jira.

"Negotiate and open a transfer point with enough fidelity to work through. "

"All the way?"

"All the way."

She made another hand-waving gesture, with no effect I could see or hear, but I knew she was communicating with Mel's systems, establishing a connection I could port myself through and work in his systems. That was a complicated bit of technical back-flipping, but in a moment Jira spoke.

"Initiated. And again, as usual, the Feds are attempting to resolve the connection. And," the faintest pause as her expression froze, analyzing. "You have about twelve hours before you'll have to drop. And that's with risk. Eleven would be safer."

"Is that what the doc said?"

"It's what I said, and it's based on your vitals, which I am looking at right now. You need REM; you're already in deficit." Before I could respond, she again regarded the statue I was working on. "You should make her features more Asian… you're good at that."

"Stay here," I said with a wipe of my hand, and the saved form of my work in progress dissolved into nothingness, stored by the infrastructure of my own private systems, just another prototype, like the sun that was setting over my shoulder, or the other statues, or Jira. "And don't let the Feds in," I added.

"Even if they have a warrant?"

I gave her a look. Her voice now came exaggerated and grandiose, her arms waving in the air in total mock supplication. "I hear and obey, Master." She bowed ridiculously low. "Bridge complete."

Again, I'm sure I rolled my eyes as I stepped through the bridge, an opening of consensus perception between my space and Mel's that I could pass through to his own. I had about twelve hours before I had to bail and go back to my body for sleep. And that wasn't a good prospect; my body and I weren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment. But missing the drop point could kill me. Or worse.

I stepped into the private virtual system of Melbourne Raines. His public space was a white sand beach, the ribbon traveling up the horizon. Cotton clouds were drifting lazily on a breeze I could feel coming off the surf, and I could smell the salt in the air. I saw Mel walking towards me, barefoot in linen pants and a yellow t-shirt that said "Herbivore" just above a graphic of a brontosaur. His brown hair was artfully messed in what I'm sure was a very hip fashion.

"I thought there'd be groupies," I said.

"How many do you want? I'm having a special this week." Mel's smile came easy, as always. "Dark hair, right? And Asian?"

We hugged, two old friends.

It had been a long time.

"I remember your eyes being more piercing, Mel." He smiled.

"Katie tells me the boards say you took a pretty bad tumble."

"I can only imagine what boards she heard that on. I'm not a spotlight kind of guy."

"Heh. I can imagine." Now somber, he said "I should have pinged sooner, Parker. When I heard you were hurt."

"You're going to make me blush soon, Mel. Weep openly." I gestured up the beach, where he had come from. "Really, no worries."

We started walking, an easy stride, out feet pushing against whit sand.

"I heard the law was on you, Park. Getting rusty, finally?"

"And how do you know so much?" I asked, smiling. "You're the one with the fan groups following your every move. If the cops had enough evidence, they'd have a warrant, which they don't And to serve it, they'd have to find me, which they won't."

"Heh. Fucking Parker Dupris," Mel said, as if reading a headline somewhere. "Markham feeling any of that heat?

"He's an adult; my brother can handle himself. Besides, his badge is pretty big."

He nodded. We came over a rise, and there, a few paces away, was why Melbourne Raines had a troubled tone in his legendary voice.

In the sand, or rather a few feet above it, floated what appeared to be an alabaster katana, the curved shape of the ancient Japanese sword looking odd cast in the white material. The visual detail even from where we were was impressive. As we stepped closer I could see texture in the pommel and along the spine.

After a few more steps, I was close enough to manipulate the sword, as I had done with the statue I was sculpting in my wheat field workspace. I opened my hands, palms towards the sword in the basic gesture of command. Nothing. No ripple to let me know with tactile feedback I now had control of the sword, no audio stating a lack of permission, or giving a dire warning.

Nothing.

I tried gesturing anyway. Not surprisingly, it didn't move.

Interesting.

I moved up to it, careful not to make contact, but taking in the exquisite detail of the prototype's form. I moved around it, getting different views, looking for some indication or clue as to origin. Objects in space were supposed to present basic information on request; even if they were locked, the fact that they were locked would still be open information, and accessible. From this katana, nothing. I reached out with my senses, but came away with nothing at all.

"It's a sword," I pronounced, after a minute of this.

"Thanks, Park," he chuckled. "You're a genius."

"Not yours?"

"Not mine."

"Gift from a fan?"

"Not in here."

"Maybe your security is lax…?"

"Katie is my security"

"Maybe Katie's lax."

"You trained her. And if she heard you say that-"

"You're not going to tell her, are you?"

Mel smiled. "No."

"Good." I exhaled.

I gave the katana another once-over.

"Hmmm,' I said, purposefully. "So… we have an enduring foreign artifact in your sculpted space," I began, thinking out loud. "Because you're left brained and never, ever paid attention when I talked about stuff like this, you can't expel it or delete it."

"No."

"Neither can Katie, I assume?" I looked at him to confirm; he nodded. "Which is… kind of troublesome."

Mel nodded in return, his hands in his pockets now, looking at the sword.

Can you ping it?" I asked. "This is your space, after all. I assume Katie gave you deity access in here?"

"She did, and I can't. Can you?"

I looked intently at it, as if the weight of my stare would somehow defeat the object's surreal resistance to at once being present in Mel's system but providing absolutely no metadata.

"Hmmmmm," I said again, as an answer. "Have you touched it?"

"It might not have seemed like I ever paid attention, Park, but I'm not an idiot."

I nodded slowly. "Perimeter still hermetic?" I asked, focusing on the sword.

Mel turned his head slightly, as if trying to recall something. I knew he was interrogating his system, getting the answer to my question. "Yea, still tight."

"Katie's protocols still enacted?"

"Yes."

"But I got in here?"

"You're a master criminal," Mel teased. "Probably wanted by the Feds."

"Oh yea." I paused for a moment. "Stand back. And wear this." Out of my pocket, I produced a ring. When he put it on, his avatar in this system had an extra barrier of sorts, against a multitude of things I knew could go wrong, but I'm sure Mel hadn't ever heard of. I raised my voice a little, calling out. "Jira, how's the bridge?"

Distant, and slightly metallic, her voice sounded through the bridge. "Pure and unadulterated, O Great One."

I didn't roll my eyes. Instead, I reached out and grabbed the katana. In both hands. This gesture in effect opened my sensorium to whatever feedback the sword was designed to provide. It was an act of will on my part, surrendering natural and coded defenses my mind had here, in this virtual space. I tensed.

There was a pulse of light. So bright I could almost feel it on my skin. No sound at all, but now in front of Melbourne and I, in contravention to most of the rules I knew about private sculpted systems and how they acted, there was an uninvited avatar in front of us. No ripple to announce its presence, not a thing. It was just surreal, and there.

It was feminine, of course. And beautiful, of course. Brown curls tumbled down the side of a striking face, large brown eyes looked at us, a smile on her face. She was dressed in some vaguely Persian-looking outfit that reminded me vaguely of harems, and sex.

"I'm the genie," she said simply, with a smile.

Silence, from the two of us. For several long moments. I found my speech first.

"Of… the sword?"

She nodded. "Your wish is my command."

Hmmmmmmmm.