The Complete Atopia Chronicles

2



CAREFULLY TAKING ONE bright paper napkin from the black conference room table, I wiped off a residue of sweat from the nape of my neck. I was nervous. Patricia Killiam, the famous godmother of synthetic reality, had decided to personally attend the meeting today, or at least her bio-simulation proxxi had.

This was much the same thing to Atopians.

I’d had to rush to get here, sprinting the last yards from the elevators, but I’d made it just in time. They’d immediately jumped me into my presentation to the Cognix people. That incident with the robot had really thrown me, and my pitch timing had been off. I was still shaking, even now. It made me look like an amateur.

The Cognix account was easily the biggest to ever come through our office, and I’d been named as the lead for closing the deal. Other people were always taking credit for my work, and winning this contract would enable me to finally take center stage. The pressure was intense.

With my part done, I sat back and watched my colleague Bertram finish the presentation. I was thinking of my fight with Alex. He’d wanted to move in together, but I really needed my space.

With him, it was always about spending time with his family and brothers and sisters, but they were always judging me. It was a constant source of friction between us, made worse when he kept insisting that it was just my own insecurities. The nerve. He also wanted kids, telling me how I was too focused on my career, but I had no idea how anyone could want to bring a child into this world. It was falling apart.

I couldn’t believe my boss had almost given this jerk Bertram the lead on closing the account. Look at him, pantomiming away in that ridiculous multi–phasic suit, flattering the boss, laughing at his own jokes. Whatever he was doing seemed to be working, however, from the way everyone was reacting to his pitch.

I needed a smoke.

Maybe I was getting too old for this. Kids nowadays had AIs running around doing most of their jobs for them. I had a hard time keeping up with it all. Thinking about kids brought me back thinking about Alex again. Perhaps I had made a terrible mistake. My stomach lurched.

“Cognix, making tomorrow your today!” gushed Bertram the jerk as he finished up, sweeping his hand into the distance with a flourish. There was a smattering of applause.

Wait a minute. That was my tagline. What the hell was he doing presenting that today? I was supposed to be using that tomorrow. We’d agreed on this.

“Something wrong Olympia?” asked my boss, Roger.

Was my boss in on this too?

“Olympia, do you have anything to add?” asked Roger again.

Everyone turned to look at me.

God it was stuffy in here. With a short intake of breath I thought of what I could say to make Bertram look like the fool he was. I tried to shake off sudden vertigo.

“I, uh, I...” I stammered, but I couldn’t get anything out.

All the air in the room evacuated itself and I felt a crushing pain in my chest. Panic flowed hotly into my veins. Gripping my chest, I wrenched myself up from the table and fled out the door in my search for air.

“Someone call a doctor!” I heard Bertram the jerk yelling out behind me as my vision faded and blackness descended.