memories,’ he said as I stood there trying to figure out how to get out of the situation. I angled myself to go past him but he stepped in my path again.
‘They can change them into any colour or flavour they like,’ he persisted, putting his face close enough to mine that I could feel his breath.
I thought: humour him , and nodded, enthusiastically. ‘My memories are blue,’ I said. ‘And butterscotch.’
The man’s face went from ‘insane’ to ‘enraged’. It only took a widening of the eyes and a tightening of the jaw. ‘HOLES!’ he screamed. ‘They dig them in your brain and things fall into them. Things crawl out of them. The answer’s under your feet and it always has been, you’re just too brainwashed to look. Haven’t you seen the symbols? The new . . .’
I was backing away, getting ready to run, when the man’s eyes suddenly went blank and his face seemed to sag. He stood there, almost immobile.
In fact the only sign that he was still capable of movement was his hands, clenching into fists then unclenching, at his sides.
I took my chance and stepped around him, afraid that those hands would suddenly reach out for me, that they would grab me, clenching and unclenching around my throat. I made it ten metres from him before I realised that I was actually running. Slowing to a walk I looked back over my shoulder. The man was still there; still motionless; still doing that thing with his hands.
I looked away from him and hurried along the bands of the slideway.
-8-
File: 113/44/00fgj/Continued
Source: LinkData\LinkDiary\Peter_Vincent\Personal
At the end of the long walk: home.
The mad words of the strange man had finally stopped ringing around in my head and I was thinking about Alpha again, trying to work her out.
I’d genuinely never met anyone like her before. She was clever in a way that I wasn’t. Not a learned-by-rote-in-aclassroom clever. She saw through the surface of things. I liked that.
I stood in front of the house’s security fence – a solid wall of energy that surrounds our home – and wondered what it was that we thought we were keeping out. Sure, crime is on the increase for the first time in generations, but you don’t actually have to increase ‘zero’ that much for a bar chart to look like things are getting out of hand.
Perhaps it was part of my father’s distrust of Strakerites that made him so cautious; sometimes he referred to them as ‘barbarians’ and maybe he truly pictured them storming the gates of his castle, wanting to bring the world down into chaos and superstition.
And he had been publicly against the idea of teaching Strakerist ideas in schools and colleges.
If the Strakerites were as crazy as my father made out, maybe he was right to be cautious.
My hand disgorged half-a-dozen filaments, and I watched as the thin, whip-like structures merged with the circuitry in the guard post. The fence unlocked to my physical signature.
Filament biometrics. Got to love them.
The door section of the wall dimmed – but didn’t shut off entirely – and I moved into it, feeling the cold, tingling sensation as it performed its final verification checks. If, by some almost impossible chance, an intruder used filament identification to fool the guard post, the full body scan would betray them and hold them inside its containment field until help arrived.
I have no idea who would answer such a call. The idea of a police force is so outdated. I guess it would be the employees of a private security company, but I’d never asked.
A paranoid part of my brain wondered if the scan could be configured to read my LinkDiary – or even my thoughts
– but I pushed such fears away and just waited until the scan confirmed what I already knew: I was Peter Vincent, and I was allowed through the security fence.
My home is an old-fashioned manor house recreated in liquid granite, and finished in real wood. Not much of it,
‘They can change them into any colour or flavour they like,’ he persisted, putting his face close enough to mine that I could feel his breath.
I thought: humour him , and nodded, enthusiastically. ‘My memories are blue,’ I said. ‘And butterscotch.’
The man’s face went from ‘insane’ to ‘enraged’. It only took a widening of the eyes and a tightening of the jaw. ‘HOLES!’ he screamed. ‘They dig them in your brain and things fall into them. Things crawl out of them. The answer’s under your feet and it always has been, you’re just too brainwashed to look. Haven’t you seen the symbols? The new . . .’
I was backing away, getting ready to run, when the man’s eyes suddenly went blank and his face seemed to sag. He stood there, almost immobile.
In fact the only sign that he was still capable of movement was his hands, clenching into fists then unclenching, at his sides.
I took my chance and stepped around him, afraid that those hands would suddenly reach out for me, that they would grab me, clenching and unclenching around my throat. I made it ten metres from him before I realised that I was actually running. Slowing to a walk I looked back over my shoulder. The man was still there; still motionless; still doing that thing with his hands.
I looked away from him and hurried along the bands of the slideway.
-8-
File: 113/44/00fgj/Continued
Source: LinkData\LinkDiary\Peter_Vincent\Personal
At the end of the long walk: home.
The mad words of the strange man had finally stopped ringing around in my head and I was thinking about Alpha again, trying to work her out.
I’d genuinely never met anyone like her before. She was clever in a way that I wasn’t. Not a learned-by-rote-in-aclassroom clever. She saw through the surface of things. I liked that.
I stood in front of the house’s security fence – a solid wall of energy that surrounds our home – and wondered what it was that we thought we were keeping out. Sure, crime is on the increase for the first time in generations, but you don’t actually have to increase ‘zero’ that much for a bar chart to look like things are getting out of hand.
Perhaps it was part of my father’s distrust of Strakerites that made him so cautious; sometimes he referred to them as ‘barbarians’ and maybe he truly pictured them storming the gates of his castle, wanting to bring the world down into chaos and superstition.
And he had been publicly against the idea of teaching Strakerist ideas in schools and colleges.
If the Strakerites were as crazy as my father made out, maybe he was right to be cautious.
My hand disgorged half-a-dozen filaments, and I watched as the thin, whip-like structures merged with the circuitry in the guard post. The fence unlocked to my physical signature.
Filament biometrics. Got to love them.
The door section of the wall dimmed – but didn’t shut off entirely – and I moved into it, feeling the cold, tingling sensation as it performed its final verification checks. If, by some almost impossible chance, an intruder used filament identification to fool the guard post, the full body scan would betray them and hold them inside its containment field until help arrived.
I have no idea who would answer such a call. The idea of a police force is so outdated. I guess it would be the employees of a private security company, but I’d never asked.
A paranoid part of my brain wondered if the scan could be configured to read my LinkDiary – or even my thoughts
– but I pushed such fears away and just waited until the scan confirmed what I already knew: I was Peter Vincent, and I was allowed through the security fence.
My home is an old-fashioned manor house recreated in liquid granite, and finished in real wood. Not much of it,
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