Read Online The Unincorporated Future by Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin - Free Book Online
Authors: Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin
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shoulder, “what’s going on?” There was no answer. Sandra turned around only to find Lucinda of the Avatar Council staring directly at her. The Councilwoman’s face had the same sense of urgency as Sebastian.
“We have thousands of Al’s monsters in our Neuro,” cried Lucinda. “We need your help and we need it now !”
Dante looked up from the table momentarily and stared at Sandra through the din with a convivial but weary grin. Then he turned his head back into the maps and the shouting of orders as if he were a ship being swallowed up by an angry sea.
“I … don’t understand,” said Sandra, taking in another view of the armory. “Don’t you know how to fight these things?”
“Of course we do, but we weren’t planning on fighting them here. ”
“Pardon?” Sandra’s look of disbelief was all the accusation Lucinda required.
“We were prepared for sabotage, not all-out attack. Up until a few minutes ago, all this stuff was locked down!”
“Well, you should have—”
“Not massed your orbats in one location so that Trang could blow them all to smithereens?”
“Good point,” Sandra admitted. “What do you need?”
Lucinda handed her a book that Sandra recognized as the very first backdoor device she’d ever used. “Can that BDD move those four droids”—Lucinda indicated a set of four-story behemoths parked in the far corner of the building—“to Tuscan Park?”
Sandra took in the machines and had her doubts. “Why don’t they just … you know … transport there?”
“Because Al may be evil, human, but he’s not a fucking idiot! They’re disrupting our ability to use the Neuro. We can barely communicate and can travel only to and through about forty percent of our own space.”
“That’s gotta be playing hell on the rea—physical world.” Visions of orbats suddenly shutting down or shooting at each other suddenly filled Sandra’s head.
“No,” answered Lucinda, clearly doing her level best not to throttle the President, “I don’t imagine the meatbags are dancing with glee at this moment. So you think maybe we can end our nice little chat and make with the magic fucking carpet routine?”
Sandra nodded. “I must warn you, I’ve never moved such large objects before, but in theory at least, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.”
“Good enough for me, Madam Prez.”
Sandra got the coordinates to Tuscan Park and watched as the four monstrous battle droids levitated up from the floor. They then stretched their weapon-bristling arms toward one another until all of them were holding hands in as macabre a kumbaya as Sandra had ever witnessed. A platform was extended out from the loft and Sandra walked from it directly onto the waiting palm of the droid that had floated over and closest to her. She then flipped over the book and looked up the location that corresponded to the park and suddenly was there.
* * *
The vision of war in the realm of the avatar was beyond anything Sandra had ever experienced, much less imagined. How to describe a worm the size of a skyscraper oozing acidic pus and eating whole chunks of the Neuro while simultaneously being attacked by battle droids the size of buildings? How to convey the terror she felt when for the first time she heard the haunting scream of a data wraith and conversely the pride she felt when two avatars, initially struck with fear by the distant visage, grabbed net guns and went after it.
After a while, the images began to blur. Sandra knew that it had been only hours in the physical world, but that translated into days of tiring, soul-destroying labor in the virtual one. There, she would appear in the armory, grab avatars in groups or singly, and take them to all parts of the Neuro. Sandra eventually switched her BDD, preferring to hold a staff as opposed to a book. Now her ability to travel anywhere via the back doors made her, luminescent staff in hand, a veritable wizard battling
“We have thousands of Al’s monsters in our Neuro,” cried Lucinda. “We need your help and we need it now !”
Dante looked up from the table momentarily and stared at Sandra through the din with a convivial but weary grin. Then he turned his head back into the maps and the shouting of orders as if he were a ship being swallowed up by an angry sea.
“I … don’t understand,” said Sandra, taking in another view of the armory. “Don’t you know how to fight these things?”
“Of course we do, but we weren’t planning on fighting them here. ”
“Pardon?” Sandra’s look of disbelief was all the accusation Lucinda required.
“We were prepared for sabotage, not all-out attack. Up until a few minutes ago, all this stuff was locked down!”
“Well, you should have—”
“Not massed your orbats in one location so that Trang could blow them all to smithereens?”
“Good point,” Sandra admitted. “What do you need?”
Lucinda handed her a book that Sandra recognized as the very first backdoor device she’d ever used. “Can that BDD move those four droids”—Lucinda indicated a set of four-story behemoths parked in the far corner of the building—“to Tuscan Park?”
Sandra took in the machines and had her doubts. “Why don’t they just … you know … transport there?”
“Because Al may be evil, human, but he’s not a fucking idiot! They’re disrupting our ability to use the Neuro. We can barely communicate and can travel only to and through about forty percent of our own space.”
“That’s gotta be playing hell on the rea—physical world.” Visions of orbats suddenly shutting down or shooting at each other suddenly filled Sandra’s head.
“No,” answered Lucinda, clearly doing her level best not to throttle the President, “I don’t imagine the meatbags are dancing with glee at this moment. So you think maybe we can end our nice little chat and make with the magic fucking carpet routine?”
Sandra nodded. “I must warn you, I’ve never moved such large objects before, but in theory at least, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.”
“Good enough for me, Madam Prez.”
Sandra got the coordinates to Tuscan Park and watched as the four monstrous battle droids levitated up from the floor. They then stretched their weapon-bristling arms toward one another until all of them were holding hands in as macabre a kumbaya as Sandra had ever witnessed. A platform was extended out from the loft and Sandra walked from it directly onto the waiting palm of the droid that had floated over and closest to her. She then flipped over the book and looked up the location that corresponded to the park and suddenly was there.
* * *
The vision of war in the realm of the avatar was beyond anything Sandra had ever experienced, much less imagined. How to describe a worm the size of a skyscraper oozing acidic pus and eating whole chunks of the Neuro while simultaneously being attacked by battle droids the size of buildings? How to convey the terror she felt when for the first time she heard the haunting scream of a data wraith and conversely the pride she felt when two avatars, initially struck with fear by the distant visage, grabbed net guns and went after it.
After a while, the images began to blur. Sandra knew that it had been only hours in the physical world, but that translated into days of tiring, soul-destroying labor in the virtual one. There, she would appear in the armory, grab avatars in groups or singly, and take them to all parts of the Neuro. Sandra eventually switched her BDD, preferring to hold a staff as opposed to a book. Now her ability to travel anywhere via the back doors made her, luminescent staff in hand, a veritable wizard battling
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