Shirley Kennett
Chapter Five ~ First Slide
2209:213
Diary Entry
I guess everyone remembers his or her first slide, sweeter than sex. The first time I put the mask up to my face, it nestles against my cheeks and forehead, light as a bird’s wing brushing against me. After stealing and nulling the mask, I snatch a technical manual, the latest apps, and tuning instructions from the manufacturer. They are locked up tighter than government secrets. Afraid of competitors stealing the specs, I guess. I get slapped a few times. Stung, I leave them a nice surprise they won’t uncover for a couple of years, long enough for the data bomb to propagate into backups. Let’s just say I hope they have everything on paper. Or maybe I don’t.
I load the apps and start tuning. The first few times, I don’t even try to set up access paths to the mask. I just wear it, letting it get to know me. My silver friend. Then I start the Preferences & Parameters. Experienced tuners can do it in a week, at an hour a day. Takes me fifteen days, but I do it lovingly, learning what each of the thousands of settings do.
Then—finally—I slide, at 0432 on 2209:213. I melt into the mask, or the other way around, and the outside world disappears. I feel myself as a bubble, my moods and actions the iridescent swirls on its surface. I can see, but I know it’s not the same seeing I do without the mask. I float over to one of the highways, great glowing paths that stretch further than any horizon. Traffic’s sliding down the highway impossibly fast, a multi-colored streak. I merge clumsily, an ugly blip in the flow, and wham! Someone or something slaps me, hard. I’m being reprimanded for my unpracticed entrance. My colors darken, I feel dizzy. Later I learn that merging’s a real art, something other sliders master with years of experience. I’m not supposed to be here. This is an adults’ highway.
I stay out of the way, while trying to look like I slide here every day and it’s all so boring. I whip through a couple of nodes, giant roundabouts in more dimensions than I care to think about, and end up spinning into a gaudy fashion store. Images of clothing flash through my mind at mask-speed, and out of the corner of my bubble’s eye, I see an agent detach itself from a wall niche and head in my direction.
An agent is a bundle of code set up to serve a specific function for its owner. An agent can be simple-minded or wonderfully complex, able to make decisions on scraps of physical or emotional data. That’s the kind of agent used for dull tasks like selling things. Then there are personal agents. A personal agent is my representative, a loose collection of smart code scattered into a hundred or more systems. A little me that can travel where it’s physically impossible for me. You can’t exactly pin down where an agent is at any given moment, because if you look for one, the act of looking makes it move. Like the Uncertainty Principle, only for code.
Since the owner of the agent heading toward me is a store, the agent’s task is to make me welcome and then make me part with a large amount of credits. No doubt, it’s already checked my ID and credit and found me a worthy customer. I set up an identity for myself that is way up there but not famous, so I won’t attract attention. I wave off the agent, surprised that I know how, and float back out of the store. I’ve lost my orientation, though, and with highways everywhere crossing and looping, I worry that I’m lost.
Poor little Tommy, lost in the net, his body starving, his bubble shrinking away to nothing. I’ve heard the stories.
A couple more slaps and a wrong node or two, and I’m home. Clean, and out.
My heart is slamming hard against my ribs, and I’m breathing fast. Thank you, Trav Lorski. You may not have done the world a favor by getting your mask stolen, but I’m certainly in your debt. I fire off a million credits to Lorski’s account, siphoning them from a billion random accounts. It’s a great app, that siphon code.