DAY TWO:

THE GIZMO EXPLAINED

Garth was not in the best of moods.

Sleep the night before had been reluctant to come, and when it had finally shown, dreams of hamburgers, French fries, and shakes had haunted him remorselessly. He’d awoken with a craving ten thousand years of out date, and the meal in the banquet hall hadn’t come close to slaking it.

To make matters worse, two more idiots had gotten into a fight, this time over whose coffee cup was whose, and once again, the handlers had done nothing until both men were unconscious. Garth had reminded himself again as he put his plates away that he was only going through the rigmarole of being a Contestee for the cover it provided.

One of the handlers had tried to stop him in the foyer, a conversation that had started off poorly and wound up downright hostile in the space of four seconds. As far as he knew, the guy, Sa Frank, was being tended to by the same response team as the night before.

Garth didn’t care.

All he could think about was hamburgers, and how unfair it was that there wasn’t a single cook, chef, gourmand, mess-hall king or hash slinger in the known Universe capable of reproducing something so fucking simple as a bun, a slab of meat, two pickles, onion, tomato, and special sauce.

And he didn’t even want to think about the Great Pizza Disaster his third year in Special Forces.

Following the GPS map he’d laid out the night before, Garth was taking the most direct route to the local branch of the First Bank of Homo sapiens. He had four hours to get there, fill his pockets with dough, buy a proteus, and swing into Central to get logged in as a Contestant before Sa Frank let loose the hounds. It wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of time, so he had to hurry.

From space, everything looks better, cleaner, kind of like a planetary showcase. Hospitalis was no exception. On the ground, surrounded by snarling traffic, the tumultuous racket of hard work, the harsh abrasive smell of atmosphere scrubbers trying to mask the rank odor of heavy industry, it wasn’t difficult for Garth to find signs that the decay around him wasn’t solely relegated to the inanimate. Since ‘Port City’ was the designated area for most of the unsavory type of industries, many of the men and women ran into on his way to the bank were blue collar types; whether they were on their way to or from work, out running errands, or just slouching around, they all shared the same, discouraged look. It was like they’d suddenly realized the big dreams they’d had as kids were never going to happen. Garth knew the look well, and wanted to commiserate, but wasn’t especially moved; the lab technicians and politicians four thousand years ago could have sent their research in a hundred different directions. They could have chosen not to turn their economy over to a military/industrial complex. They could have used their new technical know-how to enter a different kind of Golden Age, one that didn’t include misery and poverty. The crisis in Lately wasn’t his problem, but he would use it to his advantage if he needed to.

Waiting patiently to cross the street with a handful of Latelians, all of them staring at the midget, Garth realized he’d picked up a tail in the last ten minutes. He doubted it was a government agent; with relay towers hanging off every building and the whole friggin’ place wired back to front, the likelihood of remote camera surveillance was the better bet for government work.

No. People following on foot were either amateurs -guys out to make a few extra bucks- or were like Si Mijomi and wanted to have themselves a good time by beating up on a foreigner. A firm believer in filling his mind with ‘useless’ information, Garth had memorized not only the main route but several alternate routes. When the light changed, Garth crossed the street with the rest of the crowd, turned right and entered one of the many alleys that connected main roads together.

There was maybe three or four minutes before his tail showed up, so Garth scrambled up the nearest fire escape like a monkey and waited.

The tail showed up two minutes ahead of schedule, out of breath and clearly upset. Shortly after that, three more guys showed up, also out of breath. They had presents in the form of big, shiny handguns. They debated amongst themselves for thirty seconds before splitting up to find their missing target, two going down the alley to the east and two spreading out to cover the alley entrances.

“Well, well, well.” Garth said quietly. His new buddies were a step above common street thug; their guns were old-fashioned slug throwers outfitted with silencers, a fact that suggested they weren’t out for mere shits and giggles. Because of the weapons, Garth figured them for gang members or possibly one of the anti-Offworld radical groups getting a lot of news coverage lately because of their sentiments.

“Fuck this.” There wasn’t enough time for him to figure out which portion of Hospitalis’ disenfranchised youth it was out to get him, and if the cops busted him for getting into a scrap … well, he’d blow that bridge up when he came to it. Sliding silently down the ladder, Garth dropped down directly behind the man closest to him.

Before the thug could react, Garth drove a fist into his kidneys. Letting loose with an involuntary gasp of pain, the pro-Latelian stooge collapsed in a shuddering heap. The sound drew the attention of his partner, who immediately opened fire. The air was quickly filled with the barely audible buzz and whine of bullets. Garth dove out of the way of the first volley of shots, scooping the unconscious man’s gun up with his left hand in the process. Ducking behind a reeking bright yellow garbage container, , Garth heard the second man shout for help. Risking a quick look showed the man moving carefully down the middle of the alley, gun at the ready, his proteus arm crossed over the gun.

Garth didn’t like guns that used bullets. Bullets went through him like they went through everyone not wearing shields or bulletproof armor, whereas all but the highest powered laser guns didn’t do anything of the things they were supposed to: nowhere in the manuals did it say the Eckenbrick-1200 Infantry Rifle produced a mild tickling sensation. Upon learning of this mysterious immunity, medical attendants on Nova had insisted on learning why lasers didn’t produce the desired effect –him screaming in agony with a hole the size of his head burnt all the way through- but glue artfully applied to skin and skin applied to a roof three thousand feet above the ground had dispelled even the most ardent answer-seeker

Taking a two count, Garth popped his head over the top of the garbage can, squeezed off three shots from the over-sized gun, and ducked back down. The second man collapsed where he stood. All three bullets had taken the top of his head off.

“Goddamnit.” Garth muttered as he looked around the bin. His goal had been a nicely grouped cluster of shots in the middle of the fucktard’s chest, but the unwilling bastard had sensed the motion and ducked, sticking his big fat head right in the way of the shots. Now there was blood and brains everywhere, and the unconscious guy was starting to groan.

When Headless Counterpart was seen, all thoughts of teaching a foreign devil a lesson about Latelian Purity would fly right out the window: it’d be 9-1-1, SWAT teams, ground tanks, and another fucking interrogation cell. To make matters even more exciting, any second now the other two hombres would show up, compounding the problem. It wouldn’t take much to make one messy headless body into four. It was the kind of addition Garth was very good at.

“Crap.” Garth shot the Kidney Punch in the chest a couple times and slid the big gun into his waistband before stepping out into the alley to take stock.

So far, his antics hadn’t caught the attention of any passers-by. Every second wasted standing in an alley with two dead bodies around was a second closer to someone taking a casual side glance as they went about their business, though, so he grabbed a foot of each body and started dragging; it was his intention to use the partially full bright yellow dumpster to hide the bodies.

A strangled shout of alarm stopped Garth in his tracks for just a second: a new salvo of bullets, this time from two guns, spurred Garth into action once more.

Garth dropped to his stomach, cursing fluently in IndoRussian as his shirt sponged up dead Kidney Punch’s blood. Now he was going to have to find a way to get into a fucking clothes shop without attracting attention. Great.

Bullets hissed and whined in the air above him, the occasional bad shot sinking into the body he was using as a shield. Garth was perversely pleased that the average Latelian was almost a foot taller than him and more than a hundred pounds heavier. He dug the gun from his waistband and waited for the distinctive sounds of weapons being reloaded. When he heard an empty clip hit the ground, followed by another, he slid to a seated position and squeezed of a quick series of shots. Two more bodies fell.

Garth stripped off his bloody shirt and shoved it down the pants of the body nearest him. Working with rapid, precise motions, he removed the two proteii and put them off to the side. He removed their jewelry, weapons and other trinkets and put them into another pile. The top of the garbage can went up with a loud clatter that startled a few curious birds but nothing else. The first body went in with a grunt; the second, headless, one went in easier, but dribbled gore cool, congealing down his back. Not wasting any time, Garth trod down to the other two corpses, grabbed hold a foot from each, and double-timed it back to the container. He did the same for their valuables as the first two bodies, pausing only long enough to take the shirts off both corpses. He heaved the two bodies in one at a time, slid the smaller of the tent-sized shirts on, and slammed the lid shut. When he was sure that no one had seen him dispose of the bodies, Garth went over to the first pile and went through the goods.

Four proteii that looked, to his inexpert eye, like cheap mass-produced models. They’d seen a lot of wear and tear since being bought; all of them were scratched, scuffed and missing a few buttons. One had a cracked screen while another looked like it’d stopped a bullet some time in the last few weeks. Looking up, Garth waited a few precious seconds.

When no one walked by the entrance, Garth set to snapping the proteii into pieces as hurriedly as he could, wondering as he did so how the manufacturers would feel about seeing their duronium-coated merchandise broken up by an Offworlder. He scattered the bits and pieces around the entire alley, doing his best to keep the distribution as random as possible.

Garth turned his attention to the guns, ejecting the clips in three of them, tossing the empty weapons into the dumpster along with the bodies. He didn’t have time to scour the alley for the shells, so was just going to have to hope that street sweepers or bums or whoever didn’t twig to the fact that there’d been some murdering going on. The jewelry was typical gangster bling –all shine and no worth, so those went into the dumpster next. The four credit chips had no names on them, but did have some kind of dagger/heart/eye logo etched into them.

Garth committed the image to memory, took the remaining gun, the credit chips and the spare clips and wrapped his bounty in the second shirt. Wasting another few precious seconds to see if anyone was going to bust him, Garth eventually climbed back up to the room and tucked the bundle in a corner. He tossed some roof gravel over it to add some at-first-glance authenticity to it. Garth made his way unhurriedly down the fire escape this time, trying to exude a vibe that said he absolutely did belong on the ladder, and that any bodies found in the vicinity weren’t his fault.

Still thinking about hamburgers and shakes and French fries, Garth resumed his trek to the bank.

“Listen, sa. I’ve actually had kind of a long day, and for once I’m tired, so if you could just see your way through to seeing me now, that’d be super.” Being forced to kill four idiotic gangsters before lunch was not conducive to a bright and shiny attitude. Being forced to wait in a bank after having been first threatened was also not a good way to win friends and influence others, either, but both had happened in remarkably short order.

Garth frowned direly at the avatar on his Screen. It was a representation of the bank manager, and it was able to answer questions with only the vaguest of responses. Garth’s current impression was that the ‘intelligent’ program had been hastily thrown together before being loaded onto his Screen; things had gone from the bizarrely hostile to the oddly strange moments after walking into the bank. The first teller had tried to kick him out without even really looking at him, reacting to his goddamn obvious status as an Offworlder. The second teller had rescued him from the first, directing him to a seat in front of the manager’s office seconds after opening his account information. Bewildered and doing his best to keep calm because the bank had his money, Garth had acquiesced; by the time he’d sat down, his Screen had been co-opted by the manager’s software avatar.

“I am sorry, sa, but I am busy.”

“Then send me to someone else in this freakin’ bank.” Garth pointed directly at an extremely tall woman filing her nails carefully, then at another one who was flipping her way disconsolately through a print magazine. Everyone was definitely getting on his nerves.

“I am sorry, sa, but you are a Gold Account Member.” The avatar tried to pull off a smile and failed.

“What in the hell does that mean?” Garth shouted angrily, shocking the guard into an attack position. He glowered at the idiot with serious anger, just daring the guy to try something.

“You are a client of note.”

Garth had already given up pondering that nugget wisdom. . They had his money, he needed it. That fact alone meant he was going to stay parked, time line or not. “Then hurry it the fuck along. I got places to be. I just wanna put some money on my card and get the hell out of here.” “I am s … ah, I will see you now.”

The boring but chatty happy face was replaced by a luminous green check mark as the door in front of him swung silently open. Garth rose, straightened his pants, hoped the blood on his back hadn’t leaked through the shirt and onto the chair, then strode into the office.

“Thank you for waiting, sa.” Sa Herrig gestured absentmindedly to the only other chair in the room. He tucked some sensitive documents into a drawer, and then looked at his client. “Goodness, you are a long way from home, aren’t you?”

At first, Garth thought the overweight, balding banker was making a side-reference to his ‘chronological’ age. He shutt his mouth upon realizing he was also several million light years away from Trinityspace. “Yep.”

“I can’t place the accent, though. IndoRussian or EuroJapanese?”

“Ohhhhh,” Garth thought rapidly, doubting anyone would know what ‘American’ would mean, “sort of a mix, I guess. I spent the last few years on 9-Nova-12. Worked with a lot of people with, um, really strange accents.” One crewmember of Armageddon Troop One had been a representative from a world of felines grown up from colonists with too much time on their hands and a fully stocked genetics lab. “Yes, yes.” Sa Herrig read his screens. “The data is coming in now. Ex-military captain for Special Forces, five years duty. Lots of blanks here, eh? Not fit for my eyes! Not to worry about, though, sa, that’s obviously not why you’re here.”

“I know that. It’s about time someone else did.” Garth tossed his credit chip onto the desk, where it glittered in the bright light. “I’d like some money on that, please, and then I’d like to get the fuck out of here.”

“I wonder,” Herrig started, pale brown eyes twinkling, “if you even know what has happened?”

Before Garth could answer, Herrig swiveled his monitor around so his client could nuderstand, pointing to a number at the bottom. “This is your total balance, sa.”

“Yeah?” Garth shrugged nonchalantly. “So? The exchange rate is amazing.”

Herrig shook his head slowly. “That number, sa, is not in Latelian currency. That is in Trinity currency.”

“Say what now?” Garth looked at the digits carefully. In his haste to get out of the bank and into Central, he hadn’t paid any real attention to the number. He did so now, counting slowly in his head. Garth rose smoothly, put his hands flat on the table, ready to run out of the bank at the slightest sign of trouble. “I didn’t do it. Whatever you think I did, it wasn’t me. I was somewhere else.”

“Sa, sa, please sit down. You’re making Willis nervous.” Herrig put on the best smile he could muster. “Would you like some a refreshment?”

“Water. Water would be good.” Garth couldn’t take his eyes off the balance. It was massive. It was almost too much money for him to wrap his head around. When water arrived via robotic assistant, he accepted the glass and drank it down.

“It comes from a spring near a mountain several hundred kilometers from here. Tasty, no?”

“Sure.” Garth counted the number again. “There’s a hundred thirty-eight billion two hundred thousand eighteen credits and some fiddly bits more in there than there should be.”

Herrig scratched thoughtfully at his earlobe. It was rare, but there were occasions when people of a certain … type took off in their ships and disappeared for a time. Upon returning, they discovered vast fortunes where none belonged. “Ahem. I, ah, took the liberty of accessing the deposits, sa, to understand your situation in greater detail. A large majority of them came from Special Forces. Smaller at first, and then, ah, quite substantial. Memos indicate payment rendered on behalf of research and development? Then, of course, the funds took another leap upwards when you started dabbling in the stock market, then a massive payment out. Sound familiar?”

“Uhuh.” Garth put the glass he’d been fiddling with down on the desk so he wouldn’t drop it. “The R&D payment set-up was an idea Politoyov had to keep the monies from being sent directly to Tynedale/Fujihara.”

“Sa!” Herrig shook a finger warningly. “That is not information I need unless you need for me to represent you. Which,” he indicated a plaque behind him proclaiming him to be a member of the Latelian Charter of Attorneys, “I can do for you.”

“Wait a minute. You said came from Special Forces. Someone else put all that money in my account?” To make a clean break from his old unit and the money-hungry accountants at Tynedale/Fujihara, Garth had sold off his entire stock portfolio as well as waiving any further payments he might be eligible for; the shield generators kept grunts like him alive, and now that he was in the green, there was no point. “Who the fuck would do that, and why?”

Herrig smiled as he located the data. “According to this, sa, Trinity put the money there. More specifically, the Trinity Branch of Terraforming, Planetary Reclamation, and Safety. That’s … well, that’s quite impressive, sa.”

“What do they do?”

“Well,” Herrig shrugged, “a bit of everything, as I understand it. They build new planets, or fix old ones. Among other things, as is often the case with our betters.”

Garth snorted. “Everyone’s the same, all over everywhere.”

“Yes, sa, that is the truth. Now,” Herrig smiled apologetically, “as to when you came in … I must apologize. There’s a certain percentage of Latelians who aren’t all that tolerant of Offworlders –which is odd considering that Port City is home to more than thirty thousand of them, myself included- and I am afraid Si Melissa responded very poorly to your presence. She will be reprimanded by the end of the day. When Si Bekkah accessed your account information, a memo arrived directly from the Trinity government itself. I can assure you, this is no small matter; I’ve been a banker for most of my life, and I have seen only two. Most rare.

For one to come here is rarer still. According to the document, someone from the Trinity government has been trying to contact you at your last address. As is often the case with young men who are inclined to gallivant across space, you left no forwarding address, and why should you? Why would anyone imagine that they would be hearing directly from the Trinity AI? Anyway, along with the first payment was a contractual agreement.”

“Uh, huh?” Thoughts of hamburgers and dead gangsters drained out his left ear, replaced with a big ball of confusion that seemed doomed to grow bigger every time Herrig opened his mouth. The man was clearly excited, and was having a difficult time staying on track.

“The Trinity government purchased your technology for a rather hefty sum, and in accordance with the law, has also seen fit to provide you with a contract outlining royalties and bonuses.”

“Can they do that?”

“Yes, they can. Especially if the design is one that aids in the betterment of mankind. This …” Herrig read the memo again, “This gravnetic shield generator you developed. What, exactly, does it do?”

“Oh, it’s kind of cool, I suppose.” Garth said nonchalantly. “These generators … well, they’re more like distributors, really, they manipulate local gravity, bending it into a kind of shield that can be dense enough to deflect damn near anything. The original design was a complete fluke, and a one-off to boot, but once I knew it was possible, I figured out a way to reproduce the effect. The newer ones’re small enough to be worn as a personal device, and much less dependent on direct AI supervision. Each one’s usually good for about three or four shots, which is all you really need, because after that, battlefield direct engagement’s usually not on the books.”

“I would think, sa, that Trinity went in the opposite direction.” Herrig tapped his temple meaningfully. “Planetary maintenance. Emergency protocols. Think larger.”

Garth’s eyes narrowed into pinpricks as he considered Herrig’s words. “That would work, for sure. Just … just go in the opposite direction, build big-ass distributor columns at key points around the world. Of course, you’d have to figure out a way to make it so it could run without an AI, or minimal AI supervision, and there’s just no way it’d run off normal power sources. Oh yeah, and the fact that the damn thing’d probably slow down the rotation of the planet in the process of protecting it … I bet you could use superdense materials or even some kind of artificial black hole to power everything. Hell,” Garth said with a shrug, “at that size, I’d say that once everything was up and running, the actual power drain would be practically non-existent. Wish I’d thought of it.”

“According to the document you are not reading,” Herrig outlined a few passages of the contract for Garth to skim over, “Trinity believes you did, and is paying you very well for it. For every planet that is outfitted with your shields, you will receive a percentage of that planet’s profits. There are clauses indicating bonuses depending on how well your devices work during, say, a planetary attack, and so on. It’s a very lucrative deal, sa.”

“How does that work?” Garth took a sip of water to conceal his confusion. A businessman born he was not. “I mean, I don’t understand any of this.”

Herrig understood Garth’s uncertainty. The chance of someone simply stumbling into this kind of wealth and this kind of exposure to Trinity was, well, impossible. In most Conglomerate instances, the CEO would probably only hear from the governing AI once or twice in their entire lifetime. “I would say that what you have experienced is one of the last true miracles of this age, sa. If I were to take the time to find the number of businesses that have pulled off something as … as earth shattering as you have, it would be a very small number. No more than ten, and that is being overly optimistic. And even then, you have come off remarkably lucky. Typically, Trinity simply takes what it wants under the auspices of the Human Safety Acts, and that is, as they say, that. If I were to hazard a guess, Trinity has done this because it hopes you will continue on in the same vein.

Whether you intended it or not, your ‘gizmo’ has replaced several different technologies. Now, I am no scientist, but this information claims you’ve increased the level of planetary protection by a factor of twenty while decreasing maintenance costs two and one half times the current rate; not only does your invention provide an invaluable level of protection, it is also phenomenally easier to maintain. It’s safe to assume, at least from Trinity’s standpoint, that a planet protected by one of your shields will always be a productive member of Trinity. Any profits left to a planet after taking care of its own problems goes directly to the AI; you are receiving a percentage of Trinity’s take, and will continue to do so as long as no one else supplants your technologies.”

“How many planets are using the shields?”

“That information is classified, sa, but in the time we have been speaking, your balance has jumped twice and doubled once.” Herrig looked Garth in the eye. “Eventually, you’ll reach a plateau, but I doubt that will come for some time yet.”

“Wow.” Garth was dumbfounded. He went back to that day. “You know, it really was a complete and total accident. There were four Special Forces teams involved in that SNAFU. We’d been hired for a long-term civil action, but our Intelligence was fucked from the get-go; someone somewhere missed the illegal Gamma Plateaus that the insurgents had picked up on the Black Market, and more than two thirds of our operatives were vaporized the moment we hit dirt. A dropship managed to slam a semiBAM into atmos before getting the hell out of there, which screwed the Plateau’s telemetry up pretty good, giving the survivors a few seconds to think.

We hightailed it out of the immediate area, but it wasn’t long before we were caught on radar by ground and air support. They called in our location, and the Plateau’s operators honed in on our hovertank. Melted half the fucking thing into slag, except for one of the AG turbines. Somehow, it’d been turned into a perfect standalone generator, a free-floating two foot wide sphere of antigravity. It’s sitting in a lab at Special Forces HQ right now for all I know. Anyhow, that little violation of physics got me thinking. Same time as this was going on, our BattleSystem was yammering that we had fifteen minutes or less before the Gamma Plateau’s cannons came back on line.

I had to do something because there was just no way we could get out of the blast radius this time; we were lucky that the first blast hadn’t been dead on the money or you and I wouldn’t be talking right now. I ordered the men to tear out the busted AG nodes because it was beginning to look my idea was going to go from my brain to the real world in a lot less time than I’d planned. I told the BattleSystem to start thinking on how to explain how the mistake had happened so I could make a bigger one. It told me to go screw. Not in those terms, you understand, but not polite. It advised me to send some guys out to distract the cannon so the rest of us could run the other way. Theory was we’d eventually get ourselves far enough away from the heat to get a call through to the pick-up squad hanging out by the moon. It was either that or play hopscotch with the fucking thing until a ship with space combat weapons showed up to blow it up.

Obviously, this was not what you’d call a wicked cool idea, so I … I took matters into my own hands. I took a portable plasma cutter and started cutting the living shit out of that AI to get at the innards. I almost died -rumors of an AIs final defense mechanisms aren’t rumors, Sa Herrig, they are painfully true. Or, at least, that’s what the record shows: I don’t have any clear memory of what happened. I don’t really know what I’d done until later, when I reverse-engineered the whole shebang. What I can tell you is that my original design worked perfectly, somehow running off the AI itself, while the revamped one draws its power directly from the planet. Any modifications Trinity made weren’t on the design table at all, but I’ll take the credit.

Same time as this, the cannon operators fired again, only they missed by a mile, thinking we would’ve started hauling ass in the other direction. The next clear memory I have is of telling the men I was going to turn the machine on, and that they had to be inside a relatively small radius. Lost a handful of men who ignored my warnings about the shield radius, but in war, that’s Acceptable Losses. Naturally, the orbital cannon operators detected the power signature and maneuvered to fire down on top of us for maximum effect. I can tell you with utter confidence that being fired on by a cannon designed to raze cities to the ground is alternately the most terrifying and beautiful thing in the world.

Luckily I was wearing my horseshoe underwear and my four leaf clover socks, because the bloody thing worked, and how. The energy beam bounced directly back at the cannon, crippling its AG stabilizers. After fifteen minutes of pyrotechnics, the friggin’ thing crash landed right on top of some goddamned massive military bunker where they were storing nuclear weapons, if you can believe that craziness. After that, there was an Explosion of Massive Proportions. Everyone and everything outside of my makeshift shield was carbonized and more than half the planet was rendered uninhabitable. That was a Very Long Day. Got a medal and everything.”

“Wow.” Sa Herrig whispered, astonished, amazed … astounded. He was sitting across from a bona fide hero, a man who had literally done the impossible. “Take my free legal advice, Sa Garth. Keep the money. You’ve undoubtedly saved the lives of trillions of people. Also this: the next time you invent something, don’t sell it to anyone. Build the factories yourself. Conglomerate. You have the money now, and a trillion credits will be in your account by the end of tomorrow, and that is nothing compared to what you will have. Do you follow?”

“Sure, sure, yeah.” He was rich, really, really rich, and was going to get richer. Garth read the plaque Herrig had indicated at the beginning of their meeting. “Say, you’re really an attorney? You can represent me?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well,” Garth grinned craftily, “since you’re non-Latelian, I can at least run this by you so you can tell me how it sounds …”

Garth looked at the picture displayed on his Sheet, and then again at the wares shop he’d chosen. Like the advertisement for the Hotel Hospitalis, appearances were not only deceiving; they were downright full of crap. It was as if the Latelians had only gotten half the brochure on Tourism for Trade 101: they got the part about having a fancy brochure, but had missed the whole seminar on following through with their claims.

Whatever the case, while the wares shop wasn’t as dingy as Hotel Hospitalis, it was still a far cry from ‘the best place on earth to fulfill your protean needs’. The World of Protean Might was just like any other place, on any other planet, in any other system, and the sooner Latelians got used to the idea that everywhere really was the same as every other where, things would be just dandy.

Hesitantly, Garth pushed his way through the heavy glass doors. He was immediately pleased that the interior was at odds with the outside. Soft music tinkled indiscriminately out of a well-hidden sound system. The shop itself was tastefully laid out with ranks of kiosks displaying the multitude of protean devices available to the public. Wandering unmolested for the moment through the racks, Garth saw that proteus designs ran the gamut from simple machines that were part nanny for young children all the way up to heavy-duty data processors for insane science geeks.

“Hello, sa. I see you are interested in the Protipal.”

“The say what now?” Garth realized he’d been staring so intently at the most complex proteus in the place that a salesman had managed to sneak up on him unannounced.

“The Protipal.” Sa Turuin smiled expansively as he gestured at the silver and chromed proteus that had caught Garth’s eye with enough savoir faire for a dozen salespeople. “The manufacturers wanted to call it the Protean 5000 Megamachine, but that was a little too much for the industry folks to stomach.”

Garth’s lips quirked thinking about the sort of Latelian who’d come up with a name like that; shorter than normal, skinnier than was healthy, and very, very lonely. “What’s it do?”

Turuin pointed to the Sheet mounted next to the demonstration proteus. Even though the Sheet was three times standard size, each virtual page was densely packed with information. “The boys at Protean Designs threw everything they could at this one. It’s the most complex device a layperson can own. For anything, well, better, you’d have work for the government or the military. Regardless, there are some out there who believe that the Protipal is one step closer to AI, and to them, I say ha! Everyone knows that you need diamond optics for that. As I said, it is a very powerful tool.”

Garth wasn’t really sure if that was true or not –his insistent instinct said not- but he was willing to go along with everyone’s opinion until he could prove them all wrong. Garth touched one of the hyperlinks on the Sheet, read the info. “Says here that it can manage all of my personal data. I have a lot of personal data.” He said, thinking of his ridiculously bloated dossier.

“That it can, that it can. As you can see here,” Turuin accessed the specifics concerning storage for Garth, indicating with a finger the section he wanted, “the Protipal can store up to seven and a half thousand hours of real-time footage, complete with high-definition video and audio. And that’s just as the standalone. Working in conjunction with the primary unit, I doubt you would ever come close to reaching the limits of the machine. Some of the boys at the manufacturing labs claim their take on the storage designs mimics the holographic memory core of an AI, but of course, we can’t know for sure.”

“Of course.” Garth murmured, pecking through the different screens of info.

Turuin fluttered a manicured hand. “I’d like to say, sa, that it shows wisdom, good taste, and excellent judgment that you’ve chosen to buy a proteus.”

“Really?” There was no way to get a handle on the Latelian people. They were so hell-bent on some things, and on others, they just flat out didn’t give a damn.

“Absolutely, sa.” Turuin saw a doubtful gleam in his customer’s eye and hastened to set matters straight. “I’m not spinning you a line, sa, to get the sale. Port City is home to around thirty thousand Offworld immigrants, and of those, less than three percent have chosen to purchase a proteus for personal use. For you to buy one –and I hope I don’t upset you- even though you’re not likely to be given citizenship, well, it just speaks to your character.”

“Huh. Uh, what else does this do?” Garth drew Turuin’s attention back to the proteus.

“In addition to being an autonomous functionary for you, it can link to the world network, manage a certain amount of your any business you may need. These devices keep us in touch with our friends and loved ones, allows us to work from home if we can. It really does depend on what you want from it, sa. The possibilities are endless. Oh yes, and this particular model is outfitted with a small Q-Comm transceiver.”

“I suppose that it’d cost extra to use those functions, eh?”

“Sadly, yes. There was some talk of Protean launching their own Q-array, but sales have faltered this quarter. They’ve assured us all that it’ll happen next quarter.”

Garth stroked an imaginary beard, then pushed another link. “Says here that I can program this thing however I want. Izzat so?”

“Sa!” Turuin pulled up his sleeve to show off his own hunter green and metallic blue proteus. “This is mine, and I’ve spent years customizing it. The creators don’t care how you program it, so long as you leave the primary operating system alone; tinkering with that will violate all your warranties and leave you susceptible to hacking. Of course, all proteii come with a basic set of programs, but you can download all manner of software from different networks. Typically, people start coding their own after awhile.”

“Sounds interesting.” Garth touched the screen of the demonstration model thoughtfully. Out in the back of his mind where his hidden memories seemed to hang loose, Garth felt the beginning whispers of an idea that would help Huey with his jail house blues.

“It certainly is.” Turuin straightened his shirt. “I myself uploaded a series of programs the other day, sa, and they’ve been accessed by no less than eighty-three people!”

Garth shook his head, utterly bewildered. “Are these Protean guys the only ones who make these tools?”

“No, no.” Turuin shook his head. “Protean is simply the largest on Hospitalis. Other planets, other companies..”

“A … friend … of mine told me,” Garth savored the memory of Naoko’s luminous green eyes for a second, “she said that when you buy a proteus, you get a larger primary system as well.”

“Your friend told you no lies. A proteus is a magnificent tool as a stand-alone device, but without the power of the home network to rely on, it is limited. Is your friend a si, or a sa?”

Garth wrinkled his forehead.. “Si, my friend, si.”

“Well done!” Turuin glanced over his shoulder at the other salespeople. Both Marin and Ham-Za were gnawing their hands in jealousy; the sale of a Protipal would put him in the lead for sales over the month. “As I was saying, once you purchase a proteus, you do in fact get the primary system at no additional charge. The two units are automatically networked and capable of long-range data traffic via any of the communications systems we use. If you wanted to operate from a non-terrestrial locale, you would of course need to use a Q-Comm, the cost of which is fairly prohibitive. Furthermore, seeing as you are from Outsystem, the proteus network can be modified to operate in the new environment after purchasing the design specifications from Protean Systems. I’ve looked at the specs for it, and while it might be costly to make the modifications, I can assure you that it would be well worth the cost.”

“Um.”

“At no extra cost, the proteus is also fully customizable for the fashion minded.” Turuin grinned. The sale was definitely his.

“Hmmmm.” Garth tabbed through a dozen more pages, even though he was pretty certain he was going to buy one. “Say, uh, Sa Turuin, how complex can the proteus get?”

“Sa?” Turuin asked quizzically. “The Protipal is capable of processing a vast number of different things. It really depends of what sort of software you choose to run. What were you thinking of?”

“Well, see … here’s the thing.” Garth cleared his throat nervously. “I sort of invent things, for the people I used to work for full-time. And … well … look, if I break some kind of Latelian law here in a minute, don’t lose your head. Can the Protipal simulate a three-dimensional programming environment?”

“Eh?” Turuin smiled blankly.

Garth hoped he didn’t press too hard. “Can this proteus program in three dimensions? Could I code in 3D?”

“I would assume so, sa.” Turuin shrugged nonchalantly, then leaned in to share a secret. “Why would you think that difficult? I’ve had people ask me if their proteus can spy on someone else’s, or if they can corrupt data from a remote location. Sadly, the answer is yes, and we see it occurring on the newsfeeds all the time. Such a horrible misuse of a flexible tool. If you wanted to program in three dimensions, I am certain that the Protipal could handle it. Though,” Turuin explained quietly, “you do realize that if you were caught, there’s a very good chance that you would get into some serious legal trouble. After all, you are an Offworlder. Also, it would only be simulated, not the actual deal. In order for 3D-programming to work, an actual AI-capable machine is needed. You could use it to test the code, though, to see if it would crash or work properly. It would definitely be a technical challenge to see if you could get a program like that to run. I’d be interested in seeing the results. If that is something you’re going to want to try, I would also suggest you purchase the holographic emitter upgrade; with it, you can create a workspace of approximately two square feet. I assume that would help?”

“Absolutely.”

“Wonderful. I assume you’ll be buying one today? Shall we sit and get started on the details?”

“Yeah, let’s.” Garth rubbed his hands together. He was going to be able to fix Huey’s deteriorating thought processes after all, and maybe more than that, if the whole proteus thing worked the way he imagined it did.

In the end, he designed his Protipal to be the blackest of blacks trimmed with gently throbbing golden lines at the seams. The screen, when activated, burned with liquid golden fire. It fit snugly on his left arm, from just above the wrist to just below the elbow. He’d learned from Turuin that the proteus was a successful wearable computer because of its flexibility; by tweaking the atomic structure of duronium prior to electroplating, the crafty Latelians had figured out how to keep most of the alloy’s durability but make it comfortable to wear. True to Turuin’s claims, the holo-emitter did generate a nice virtual workspace that was eminently suited to 3D programming.

After careful probing, Garth was able to glean nothing further from the salesman, who either didn’t know enough about the physical aspects of the tools he sold, or just didn’t care. Whatever else could be said about the Latelians, Garth was forced to admire their tenacity when it came to their wonder-metal. He also shelled out a staggering ten thousand dollars by purchasing the schematics for the primary unit.

The wearable unit was done in less than fifteen minutes, but the primary unit was going to take a few days to prepare. In a fit of pique, Garth had asked that the shop send the unit to the Hotel, care of the small robot. He knew that it would only serve to fan the flames of Si Mijomi’s fury, but he didn’t give a crap. The more pissed off Mijomi was, the better.

True to Naoko’s promises, his new proteus was jam packed with vital information. Seconds after activation, the device began pulling data from hundreds of legal sources that were continually broadcasting all over the city. The wealth of information flowing through Hospitalis was amazing. The entire civilization was online in some form or other, and they’d let just about anyone into their lives.

Some jiggery-pokery with the proteus eventually yielded the GPS system, and he was once again astonished at the depth of detail. It shared many features with the one Naoko had uploaded to the Sheet, but the files he now perused were apparently updated by digital satellites far above their heads By playing around with the tool, Garth was able to dial the minimap’s resolution down to such detail that he could actually see the rocks beneath his feet. Attempts to render his presence real-time from the satellites above generated an annoying ‘helper avatar’ hologram that asked for access codes or a simply perverted amount of money to continue. Garth told the avatar to go screw itself.

Hugely pleased with how his day was going, Garth loaded the Sheet-data onto his proteus, then hunted through the files in search of the Contest office building in Central. He noted with a grimace that the registration office was smack dab in the middle of Central City. Another avatar informed him that travel by cab would take forty minutes. Counting his run-in with the gangsters, he’d wasted an hour getting to the bank, and almost another hour inside. Another hour had been eaten up in the proteus shop; as an Offworlder, there’d been a crapload of official documents to fill out before Turuin had been legally allowed to sell him his proteus.

“Oh well.” Garth keyed in a request for a taxi. If he pissed someone off by being gone for more than the four hours he was allotted, he’d deal with it when the time came.

Garth loved cabbies. In all his travels, he’d never met a group of people who knew more about what was going on and who were more inclined to jabber on about what they knew to total strangers. During the forty minute drive to the Contest offices, he learned in short order that there were two main gangs of thugs running Port District, that half a dozen politicians had been fired for illegal activities with known terrorist groups, four Contest promoters died in a fire over the weekend, the Chairwoman was sleeping with the Commander General for the God Soldiers and he, an Offworlder, was going to have his head caved in the moment he set foot outside of the cab because people outside Port didn’t much care for outsiders. The cabbie explained the last matter-of-factly, mentioning that he didn’t care who he gave a ride to so long as he got paid. As they pulled up outside the Contest building, Garth tipped the driver an extra hundred dollars and asked if he’d wait around.

“Sure thing.” The cabbie pulled into a parking spot and turned his ‘busy’ sign on