Read Online 1.4 by Mike A. Lancaster - Free Book Online
Authors: Mike A. Lancaster
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, People & Places, Action & Adventure, Family, Juvenile Fiction, Computers, Europe, Technological innovations, Computer Programs
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We arranged to meet up in town in half an hour. It was almost eight-thirty already, and the curfew for my age-range was eleven-thirty. I needed to get into town, help Alpha with her problem and get back home in a little over three hours.
Tricky enough; and I still had to get out of the house. I thought about doing something crazy like climbing out my bedroom window, but in the end I decided I’d do it in a more conventional fashion.
I made my way to the front door.
Of course it’s not the first time I have gone out at night– Perry and I sometimes meet up, just to hang out – but this felt very different to those occasions.
With every step I expected to hear my father’s voice asking me where I thought I was going at this time of night, but I didn’t see or hear him even as I was opening the front door.
The night was sticky and warm as I closed the door behind me. I felt a crazy thrill of excitement as I made my way to the security fence.
Amalfi was in trouble.
She asked for my help.
No one has ever asked me for help before.
The fence let me through without any biometric testing. It’s really not necessary to screen people coming out . If they got in, they are authorised to leave too.
I started towards the slider station, my mind a chaotic blur.
At night the city changes. The buildings, after storing solar energy all day, release light from every surface and glow in a multitude of different colours, although just which colours they are is determined by the person looking at them.
Colour is, after all, an illusion: more to do with how light is decoded after it is received into the eye than an actual, existing property. By switching the way we decode light, we are able – these days – to alter the colour scheme of the world around us. It takes just a thought, and suddenly the city is coordinated to our mood, or personal taste. I went for ‘NeonGlow’ and the world lit up in the strong, vibrant colours that are used in Last Quest . A custom filter that I bought, just so that I could feel like I was a warrior in an urban fantasy game.
Tragic, isn’t it?
But maybe, just maybe, I wanted to be the hero in my own life story for once.
It took me five minutes to get to the slider station and, according to the station’s display, it was going to be another fifteen before a slider showed up.
A couple of small groups of people were waiting too. I’m not paranoid like Perry, but I was sure they were staring at me. Which was ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. I took myself away a little from them on the platform, listening to music and trying not to meet their eyes.
Something interrupted the music, something nagging me on the Link. I checked it, just to distract myself, I guess. It was Perry’s ghosts-of-the-Link thing from earlier, reannouncing itself. I thought what the hex and opened up the Link. I expected to be underwhelmed.
I was wrong.
-14-
File: 113/45/11/qct
Source: LinkData\gallery\shared\Molly_Grabowitz\Images
Image_4e7f9backup.jpg
A woman is standing in front of the Trevi fountain in Rome. The sponsors’ logos have been carefully integrated into the fountain’s design.
Tall and blonde-haired, the woman seems tiny in front of the complex sculpture of rock, marble and cement that has stood since the 18th Century.
Other tourists throng around her, with some of them throwing credit chips into the waters as per tradition. The photo is a fraction overexposed.
Image_4e7f9.jpg
The photo is the same as the original with one striking addition.
A young woman is washing her hair in the waters of the fountain behind the friend. She is only half-visible, and zooming in on the image only serves to make her less visible. She is partly transparent and you can see the background through her body.
Transparency aside, there is something odd about her, but it’s
We arranged to meet up in town in half an hour. It was almost eight-thirty already, and the curfew for my age-range was eleven-thirty. I needed to get into town, help Alpha with her problem and get back home in a little over three hours.
Tricky enough; and I still had to get out of the house. I thought about doing something crazy like climbing out my bedroom window, but in the end I decided I’d do it in a more conventional fashion.
I made my way to the front door.
Of course it’s not the first time I have gone out at night– Perry and I sometimes meet up, just to hang out – but this felt very different to those occasions.
With every step I expected to hear my father’s voice asking me where I thought I was going at this time of night, but I didn’t see or hear him even as I was opening the front door.
The night was sticky and warm as I closed the door behind me. I felt a crazy thrill of excitement as I made my way to the security fence.
Amalfi was in trouble.
She asked for my help.
No one has ever asked me for help before.
The fence let me through without any biometric testing. It’s really not necessary to screen people coming out . If they got in, they are authorised to leave too.
I started towards the slider station, my mind a chaotic blur.
At night the city changes. The buildings, after storing solar energy all day, release light from every surface and glow in a multitude of different colours, although just which colours they are is determined by the person looking at them.
Colour is, after all, an illusion: more to do with how light is decoded after it is received into the eye than an actual, existing property. By switching the way we decode light, we are able – these days – to alter the colour scheme of the world around us. It takes just a thought, and suddenly the city is coordinated to our mood, or personal taste. I went for ‘NeonGlow’ and the world lit up in the strong, vibrant colours that are used in Last Quest . A custom filter that I bought, just so that I could feel like I was a warrior in an urban fantasy game.
Tragic, isn’t it?
But maybe, just maybe, I wanted to be the hero in my own life story for once.
It took me five minutes to get to the slider station and, according to the station’s display, it was going to be another fifteen before a slider showed up.
A couple of small groups of people were waiting too. I’m not paranoid like Perry, but I was sure they were staring at me. Which was ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. I took myself away a little from them on the platform, listening to music and trying not to meet their eyes.
Something interrupted the music, something nagging me on the Link. I checked it, just to distract myself, I guess. It was Perry’s ghosts-of-the-Link thing from earlier, reannouncing itself. I thought what the hex and opened up the Link. I expected to be underwhelmed.
I was wrong.
-14-
File: 113/45/11/qct
Source: LinkData\gallery\shared\Molly_Grabowitz\Images
Image_4e7f9backup.jpg
A woman is standing in front of the Trevi fountain in Rome. The sponsors’ logos have been carefully integrated into the fountain’s design.
Tall and blonde-haired, the woman seems tiny in front of the complex sculpture of rock, marble and cement that has stood since the 18th Century.
Other tourists throng around her, with some of them throwing credit chips into the waters as per tradition. The photo is a fraction overexposed.
Image_4e7f9.jpg
The photo is the same as the original with one striking addition.
A young woman is washing her hair in the waters of the fountain behind the friend. She is only half-visible, and zooming in on the image only serves to make her less visible. She is partly transparent and you can see the background through her body.
Transparency aside, there is something odd about her, but it’s
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