The Complete Atopia Chronicles

12





Identity: Nancy Killiam



I COULDN’T BELIEVE the big day had actually arrived, the release of Infinixx to the world.

Although our product worked in the cloud, so to speak, it still needed physical infrastructure on the ground in the form of three dedicated consciousness processing centers. These massive computing installations, all tied together on dedicated communication links, were designed to handle local processing to reduce sensory latencies.

Each hub, for lack of a better description, was like a huge blank mind, and had to be booted up in sequence to maintain a coherent lock between them. Each required a large local power source to drive it, and we’d decided to make an event out of throwing the switches to power them up.

At the same time as launching the Infinixx product, we were simultaneously floating the newly minted Infinixx stock onto the world markets as the Indian, Chinese and Atopian processing centers came online.

The Solomon House Ballroom was packed to the rafters. I’d asked each of our Board and senior executives to be there in person for the launch, and I walked up and down in front of the head table, set up above the floor, shaking each person’s hand in turn and thanking them for their hard work and support.

“Excited, Brian?” I asked my CTO.

I wrung my hands together nervously. In the ceremonial opening, I was going to throw the switch to get everything started. Its power system was routed up here, the junction box set against a wall behind the elevated stage we were sitting at, just above and behind my chair. I’d decided I would bestow the honor of throwing the switch onto either Jimmy or Aunt Patricia. They were sitting up on the stage with me, and I would spring this last minute decision to inject a little surprise and emotion into the event.

“Okay everyone!” announced Kesselring, gracing us with his primary, shouting out at the packed crowd from the podium. Kesselring had gotten on board with the launch in a big way once we’d made the decision. He had a way of stealing the show, but I didn’t mind.

“Okay everyone, quiet down!” he thundered out with a smile.

The huge ballroom was filled to capacity, with people milling about, glasses and table wear clinking amid a beehive of buzzing background conversation. Everyone began settling down and looked towards us.

“Very good!” continued Kesselring as the noise subsided. “We are now bringing in the Indian and Chinese contingents. I would like a hearty Atopian round of applause to welcome them!”

The crowded room erupted in applause as the Chinese and Indian delegations materialized to the left and right of us. It was an incredible photo opportunity with the Chinese and Indian banners appearing on each side of the Atopian flag.

Protocol for the event dictated that the Chinese and Indian head officials would come to the center table to shake my hand at exactly the same time, and this came off perfectly without a hitch, despite my nervousness. In a splinter I was watching the pre–market analysis of the Infinixx stock as the broadcast of the event caught the world, and I could see the anticipated stock price climbing fast on Phuture News.

My heart was in my throat. I was in the dead center of attention and I could feel the gravity and historical importance of the moment pressing down upon me as we got up from our chairs at the banquet table to approach the switch. I had Jimmy to one side of me and Patricia to the other, with the rest of the Board and executive surrounding us. As we stepped to the back wall, I stared at the big green switch.

“It looks like something borrowed from a Russian hydroelectric dam,” I joked with Patricia under my breath. She smiled, and I beamed out at to the assembled crowd.

Reaching out, I held both of their hands in mine, and then let go to reach out and touch the switch. It felt cool and hard and hummed as it coursed with unseen power. The lights dimmed and the countdown began. The whole auditorium joined in as if it were New Year in Times Square.

“Ten!” they all shouted out. “...nine...eight...”

“Aunt Pattie,” I said, turning to look at her with tears in my eyes, “I’ve decided that I’d like it to be you who throws the switch. All this, everything here is all because of you!”

The crowd continued to roar the countdown, “...six...”

“I’d love to sweetheart,” Patricia replied quickly, “but I had a last minute thing come up and I’m not here kinetically. You go ahead dear!”

“…five…”

Ah well, I thought, slightly crestfallen.

“Okay Jimmy, how about you then? Go ahead. I really wanted it to be one of you two,” I said to him. I released the switch and encouraged Jimmy to take it.

“...three...two...”

“I’m really sorry Nance, I had something too. I’m only dialed in as well. You go ahead...quick now!”

“...ONE!”

The blood drained from my face. I could hear an audible ‘snap’ as the Chinese and Indians flipped their own switches at their remote locations. My metasenses felt the cavernous thrum of the Infinixx installations bootstrapping deep in the multiverse.

Okay, keep calm.

Perplexed faces around the room watched us on the stage, waiting for my main connecting switch to be thrown. I quickly queried each of the executives at the table with me, and my worry mounted. Karen had stayed with her kids; Louise, Brian, Cindy—nobody was physically present. They were all dialed in, despite my specific instructions requesting everyone to be here in person.

Then again, I thought as all my blood drained into my shoes and I gazed dreadfully into the audience: I wasn’t there either.

I could feel the switch in my hand, as cool and as hard as if I were standing there and holding it myself. The wikiworld simulated it perfectly, but I couldn’t budge it even a millimeter without having someone or something here physically.

After the disasters of destroyed power grids in the cyber wars, security protocols had been rewritten so that critical nodes in power systems had to be completely disconnected from any communication networks to prevent the ability to hack into them. Despite Atopia being at the center of the cyber world, we had to conform to international security standards, especially for a project like this.

While I hadn’t overlooked this, I had expected at least one of my executive team or Board members to be here in person after specifically requesting all of their physical attendance, even verifying this just minutes before the event.

But of course, even I hadn’t listened to myself.

Staring out at the crowd, I took one last desperate step. I flipped my pssi into identity mode, removing all virtual and augmented objects from my senses. The buzzing, crowded room faded from view, and all I was left with was my own low groan of fear. Not a single person was in sight. The entire voluminous ballroom was as empty and quiet as a morgue.

I stared back at the green switch, now mocking me in humiliation.

Already the assembled crowd and world press had figured out what had happened, and I was being pinged with a Times article trumpeting “Infinixx—Everywhere but Nowhere!”

Lawyers from the Indian and Chinese sides had already filed a lawsuit against us claiming monumental damages, and conspiracy theories were blossoming about connections to the Weather Wars. My executive team unlocked the exterior security perimeters, and I could see a psombie guard racing towards the stage.

“Forget it,” I told him as he got close to the stage.

I closed my eyes. It was already too late. Almost twenty seconds had passed, and the two other systems had already progressed too far into the bootstrap cycle for us to phase lock into them.

Millions of users had already logged into the systems and begun using them. We’d have to negotiate a downtime to reboot and lock all the systems together again at a later date, but for now we’d have to run them as separate domains, which meant users would only be able to distribute their consciousnesses locally. Technically, it wasn’t a total disaster, but it made me look incredibly foolish. Correction, it made us look foolish. Kesselring was furious at the damage done to the Atopian brand.

I painfully withdrew my conscious webwork back into a tight shell around myself like a cyber tortoise retreating from danger.

Already the world media had minted a new term for a Zen-like business failure of being everywhere but nowhere at the same time, a fail on a massive scale using your own sword to kill yourself.

They called it an Infinixx.