The next morning, we sat back around the embers of the fire that we’d resurrected from the night before, grimly sipping mugs of gritty coffee that Vince had made.
“Did you read the news Willy sent in this morning?” he asked as he handed me a cup.
“I did.”
Simultaneously with the commercial release of pssi into major metropolitan areas, Cognix had revealed the existence of seven new Atopian-class floating platforms at strategic physical locations around the globe. They must have been under construction for some time. There was was talk Phuture News about giving Atopia a seat on the United Nations Security Council—they wanted to appoint Jimmy.
Along with the coffee, Vince was handing out some sticky buns and granola bars for breakfast. We didn’t just need to eat, though. Without a steady supply of smarticles in the air around us, we needed to replenish our bodies’ supplies. Smarticles flushed out of the body if they weren’t topped up, and we didn’t know how secure the old ones were, so Patricia had created her own secret variant for us.
Pulling out the container filled with our new smarticle powder from my backpack, I dipped my finger into it, lifted it to my nose and inhaled—an easy way into the body was through the mucus membranes.
“Can’t we just tell people what we know?” mused Vince as he cupped his coffee, blowing the steam off it.
I offered him the bag of powder. “After what’s happened, it would look like more Terra Novan interference. Plus, coming from us, it wouldn’t exactly look reputable. We need to fly under the radar.”
“Aren’t we a motley bunch to trust for saving the world?” laughed Sid.
I wasn’t in the mood to joke.
“But I suppose it all depends on how you look at it,” Sid continued. “Maybe it’s not so bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“So, you and Nancy together being able to see everything, and you can pull those tricks with water.…”
“So?”
Sid grinned. “Don’t you get it? You’re like some kind of omniscient being who walks on water, trying to save mankind from suffering a monster.”
“I mean, it’s all been done before, mate,” chipped in Vicious, “and so far so good!”
“Tell me that doesn’t sound biblical.” Sid smirked and transformed himself into a talking burning bush, sporting two stone tablets with our names inscribed on them.
I snorted. “Very funny.”
“And the key to all this is in my body?” said Willy. “Wally must have left us some clues. We just need to look.”
The trail to Willy’s body began and ended with Sintil8, who had, like us, disappeared off the grid. The thought of tracking down a gangster like Sintil8 frightened me, but then, our choices had boiled down to the lesser of two rather nasty evils. The only clue we had was Sintil8’s real name, Sergei Mikhailov, which Patricia had dug up for us.
Clouds of Cognix smarticles released in San Francisco the day before began to float in on the breeze, even up here, and I could feel small channels and rivulets of information begin to flow, connecting me to the multiverse. As refreshing as it felt to my metasenses, it now took on an ominous feel as well.
“Let’s get a move on, people,” I said as my phantoms shivered. “I think we should stay away from major cities as much as possible.”
“That’s not where I think I am anyway,” added Willy for good measure.
The four of us with physical bodies shouldered our backpacks of gear. I checked around the campsite for anything left behind and kicked some dirt onto the smoldering remains of the fire. Then, sharing nervous grins, we started out on the path that led into the great redwood forest and beyond.
About the Author
Matthew Mather, 2013
After earning a degree in electrical engineering, Matthew Mather started his professional career at the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines. He went on to found one of the world’s first tactile feedback companies, which became the world leader in its field, as well as creating an award-winning brain training video game. In between, he’s worked on a variety of start-ups, everything from computational nanotechnology to electronic health records, weather prediction systems to genomics, and even social intelligence research. In 2009, he began a different journey, returning to the original inspiration for his technology career—all the long nights spent as a child and teenager reading the great masters of science fiction. He decided to write a sci-fi novel of his own, and the result was The Atopia Chronicles. He divides his time between Montreal, Canada, and Charlotte, NC.