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.
13
THE POLICE STATION loomed before me at the base of the vertical farming complex, and I was gingerly making my way towards it.
The Boulevard was the only real street we had, a wide pedestrian thoroughfare that crossed from the eastern to western inlets, crossing between the four gleaming vertical farm towers that center–pinned the island of Atopia.
Glamorous palms lined both sides of the street, bordering the tourist shops, restaurants, and bars whose terraces spilled out into the kaleidoscopic melee between. Even with the storms threatening and the evacuations announced, the atmosphere was still carefree and festive—at least for now.
It had been ages since I’d been above, and I hadn’t been to these parts since I was a tween. I blinked in the sunshine and confusion around me and tried to think my way through what was happening.
I felt so alone and exposed. Here I was, stuck in the middle of something clearly illegal, but what else could I do? I looked up at the towers and imagined myself as one of the psombies inside. Out of options, I just shrugged and opened the police station doors.
Cool, administrative air swept over me and the clerk at the desk, an attractive young woman, smiled at me synthetically.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, as sweet as a police officer could be.
“Yes, I’d like to file a missing person report,” I replied, walking towards her as calmly as I could.
Her face registered just the proper amount of seriousness before she queried, “And who is the missing person, sir?”
I paused for a moment.
“Me,” I answered.
After reporting my body missing to the police, the first person I turned to was Bob. It was funny how quickly you could go from feeling powerful and invincible to suddenly needing the protective embrace of friends. At least, I hoped they were still my friends.
“Hey there stranger, you take a wrong turn somewhere?” joked Bob as I appeared in one of his regular beach bar haunts. Even with the storm warnings, he was still surfing every day. Taking a swig of his beer, he waggled it towards me, asking if I wanted one. I shook my head.
“So what can I help you with?”
I sighed, casting a thick security blanket around us. We were immediately surrounded by its glittering and softly undulating shell. Bob raised his eyebrows, but just shrugged and took another swig.
“Now you have my interest,” he ventured, and then screwed his eyebrows together as seriously as he could manage. “Are you okay, bud?”
I sighed heavily. “I’ll just lay it out.”
I paused for a moment and we stared at each other.
“I’ve lost my body.”
Another pause while Bob considered what I’d just said.
“What do you mean—you’ve lost your body? Does this have anything to do with what happened at Infinixx?”
“No, I don’t think so. I mean, not really, but sort of,” I replied, tripping over my own words. I took a deep breath. “I can’t find my body. Wally, or someone—I’m assuming it’s Wally—has stolen it.”
Bob began to smile, raising his eyebrows. “Come on, whatever game you’re playing, I’m in.”
His smile slowly disappeared while he studied the serious look on my face.
“Have you been to the police?” he asked, now concerned.
“Yeah I’ve just been there. Only now, not only can I not find my body, but I’ve been charged with a felony crime and I’m under arrest.”
I didn’t mention that I was also under investigation for my trades in Infinixx stock.
“So how come you’re here? Did you post bail?”
“No. It’s complicated.”
“I’d say so.”
I leaned my head back and rubbed my eyes, shaking my head.
“I think we’d better get Sid in here,” suggested Bob.
I sighed.
“Yeah I guess we better,” I reluctantly replied. Bob’s face slackened for an instant as he detached and then was quickly back. Sid and Vicious immediately materialized on barstools inside the security blanket perimeter.
Even before he’d fully appeared, Vicious looked down his nose at me and declared, “Oooh, so the high and mighty has stooped to mix with the lower downs, eh?”
“Knock it off!” snapped Bob. “This is serious. Sid, you had a chance just now to look at Willy’s situation?”
Sid stood the best chance of anyone at figuring out what was going on. We waited a moment while Sid reviewed the scenarios.
“Let me make sure I have this straight,” replied Sid, all business now.
“So, you reprogrammed rules in the Atopian perimeter to allow an outgoing connection to Terra Nova. Then you logged your consciousness network into a secure Terra Novan account, anonymized your signal and sent multiple connections back into Atopia to create the effect of multiple personalities accessing the network?”
“Right.”
