Read Online Cosmos Incorporated by Maurice G. Dantec - Free Book Online
Authors: Maurice G. Dantec
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now.
“My name is Clovis Drummond. I wish you a good stay at the Hotel Laika,” the fat man calls after him, adding a dry cackle of a laugh. “You’ve found yourself a good niche, Mr. Plotkin!”
Plotkin is already walking down the hallway with large strides, heading for the west elevator.
Two minutes later, the elevator doors open on the tenth floor, the highest in the hotel. Across from Plotkin, a mesh wall overlooks a square courtyard, which is surrounded by the hotel’s panopticon. Through the grid, he sees the translucent bubble of the central patio where the cafeteria is located; above him is a loft whose tubular walls support an antiradiation protective dome that is obviously not up to code. It is full of visible holes and breaches where ultraviolet rays can stream through without the slightest barrier, in a vast shower of points of deadly luminescence, spilling across the roof and several cracked cement refractory slabs, down his hallway, and right up to the access door leading to the service stairway.
He walks down the corridor; his room is the third to the left of the elevator. He swipes his keycard in the reader and the door opens with a soft humming noise.
The room looks to be up to code: no parasite rays, residual toxic chemicals, ill-timed viruses, or pathogenic bacteria.
Not too shabby for a capsule room; not bad at all, for what it is. There is a Chinese-manufactured NeuroNet console. Upon verification, the water seems to be correctly filtered. The single-occupant room is a rectangle with rounded angles and white walls, its few bits of decor the vivid yellow-orange color characteristic of the UManHome franchise. It measures exactly 4.8 meters in length, 2.8 meters in height, and 3.8 meters in width. It consumes around one hundred kilowatts of energy per hour, is authorized to distribute between fifteen and thirty liters of water a day to its occupant, and is linked to local artificial intelligence by an ensemble of sensors legally approved by the city of Grand Junction. The mouth of a square junk-trap model trash bin juts out of one of the walls; linked to the room’s network of sensors, it rapidly detects the various items of trash left by the occupant and can send out one or more specialized micromachines to retrieve the refuse and bring it to the retractable maw, which then sends it to the hotel’s hydrogen reactor. In a corner near the bed, he sees the cubical stand of a UHU-approved universal altar. It is connected via the network to the NeuroNet console, and is standing by to receive the personal God program of the new occupant of Capsule 108.
It is all perfectly normal.
“ WELCOME TO CAPSULE 108 . THE HOTEL LAIKA IS HAPPY TO HAVE YOU AS OUR GUEST. YOU HAVE PAID IN ADVANCE FOR THIRTY DAYS, THE MAXIMUM ALLOWED, ON AN ACCOUNT REGISTERED TO CITICORP SIBERIA, NOVOSIBIRSK.™
Standard-model hotelier artificial intelligence, Plotkin knows. Neutral, androgynous voice, neither male nor female in accordance with antidiscrimination laws, with very few emotive intonations. Rented software, probably on sale.
It isn’t as bad as a village of particleboard houses, but it isn’t the Ritz, either.
It takes him only a few minutes to undress and run a shower in the collapsible bathroom that unfolds slowly from the side wall. He is irresistibly attracted to the mirror, which reflects the ceiling light, a spray of fiery gold in the little rectangle.
He stands facing his own image.
And doesn’t recognize it.
Which is exactly what he expected.
>
CAPSULE 108
The image staring back at him from the mirror is that of a man with gray streaks in both his blue eyes and his black hair, thin lips, a scissor slash of a mouth, and a long face, somewhat triangular in shape. It tells him nothing at all.
At first glance, the man in the mirror looks to be around forty years old. That corresponds to his identity, and to his specific biomedical profile—two transgenic rejuvenation cures.
For long moments, he
“My name is Clovis Drummond. I wish you a good stay at the Hotel Laika,” the fat man calls after him, adding a dry cackle of a laugh. “You’ve found yourself a good niche, Mr. Plotkin!”
Plotkin is already walking down the hallway with large strides, heading for the west elevator.
Two minutes later, the elevator doors open on the tenth floor, the highest in the hotel. Across from Plotkin, a mesh wall overlooks a square courtyard, which is surrounded by the hotel’s panopticon. Through the grid, he sees the translucent bubble of the central patio where the cafeteria is located; above him is a loft whose tubular walls support an antiradiation protective dome that is obviously not up to code. It is full of visible holes and breaches where ultraviolet rays can stream through without the slightest barrier, in a vast shower of points of deadly luminescence, spilling across the roof and several cracked cement refractory slabs, down his hallway, and right up to the access door leading to the service stairway.
He walks down the corridor; his room is the third to the left of the elevator. He swipes his keycard in the reader and the door opens with a soft humming noise.
The room looks to be up to code: no parasite rays, residual toxic chemicals, ill-timed viruses, or pathogenic bacteria.
Not too shabby for a capsule room; not bad at all, for what it is. There is a Chinese-manufactured NeuroNet console. Upon verification, the water seems to be correctly filtered. The single-occupant room is a rectangle with rounded angles and white walls, its few bits of decor the vivid yellow-orange color characteristic of the UManHome franchise. It measures exactly 4.8 meters in length, 2.8 meters in height, and 3.8 meters in width. It consumes around one hundred kilowatts of energy per hour, is authorized to distribute between fifteen and thirty liters of water a day to its occupant, and is linked to local artificial intelligence by an ensemble of sensors legally approved by the city of Grand Junction. The mouth of a square junk-trap model trash bin juts out of one of the walls; linked to the room’s network of sensors, it rapidly detects the various items of trash left by the occupant and can send out one or more specialized micromachines to retrieve the refuse and bring it to the retractable maw, which then sends it to the hotel’s hydrogen reactor. In a corner near the bed, he sees the cubical stand of a UHU-approved universal altar. It is connected via the network to the NeuroNet console, and is standing by to receive the personal God program of the new occupant of Capsule 108.
It is all perfectly normal.
“ WELCOME TO CAPSULE 108 . THE HOTEL LAIKA IS HAPPY TO HAVE YOU AS OUR GUEST. YOU HAVE PAID IN ADVANCE FOR THIRTY DAYS, THE MAXIMUM ALLOWED, ON AN ACCOUNT REGISTERED TO CITICORP SIBERIA, NOVOSIBIRSK.™
Standard-model hotelier artificial intelligence, Plotkin knows. Neutral, androgynous voice, neither male nor female in accordance with antidiscrimination laws, with very few emotive intonations. Rented software, probably on sale.
It isn’t as bad as a village of particleboard houses, but it isn’t the Ritz, either.
It takes him only a few minutes to undress and run a shower in the collapsible bathroom that unfolds slowly from the side wall. He is irresistibly attracted to the mirror, which reflects the ceiling light, a spray of fiery gold in the little rectangle.
He stands facing his own image.
And doesn’t recognize it.
Which is exactly what he expected.
>
CAPSULE 108
The image staring back at him from the mirror is that of a man with gray streaks in both his blue eyes and his black hair, thin lips, a scissor slash of a mouth, and a long face, somewhat triangular in shape. It tells him nothing at all.
At first glance, the man in the mirror looks to be around forty years old. That corresponds to his identity, and to his specific biomedical profile—two transgenic rejuvenation cures.
For long moments, he
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