Complete Atopia Chronicles Read Online Free PDF

Central Park, and in a dreamy state I continued to walk around the edge of the park, staring at my City with new eyes.
    I’d been using my pssi for a while already, but New York without advertising still had a creepy feel to it. But, it was definitely relaxing, and as my headache subsided, I decided to get a little exercise and finish the walk all the way home myself.
    The gathering darkness was something else I wasn’t accustomed to. Normally the advertisements lit up the streets and sidewalks. As I neared home, staring up and around, I was nearly tripped up by a bum who was splayed out on the street. The stench of his body odor should have been forewarning enough, but the darkness and my wandering eyes betrayed me.
    “Lady! Lady! Watch it!”
    Looking down just in time, I danced awkwardly over the grubby human at my feet, knocking over his collection bowl. Nobody else around me even bothered to glance at the commotion as they swept past.
    He cowered for an instant, with me jittering over him, and then shot outwards on all fours to collect the bills I’d scattered, darting this way and that underfoot the human traffic.
    What a pathetic creature.
    I should report this to Passport Control. I bet he’s not even supposed to be here, and even if he is, he should be deported. What possible good could be coming from him being here, dirtying up my neighborhood? He was worse than trash. At least trash you could package up and bury or burn somewhere.
    “Get out of the way!” I spat at him as he sat back on his haunches.
    He just looked up at me. I had expected to see a scowl and his anger reflected to fuel my own, but he simply stared at me.
    “You think you’re important lady?”
    People streamed past us. We seemed lost in the moment, staring at each other. Still the blank stare. Was he about to cry? Ah shit. I fumbled around in my pockets, but I had no change. Anyway, why should I help him? Nobody had ever helped me in my life. I’d always had to fend for myself, for everything.
    I felt suddenly angry. In a flash my senses returned and I dismissed this human straggler. Turning away I merged back into the pedestrian flow.
    “You should be more careful, life can throw you funny curveballs lady,” I heard him say while I was swept away.
    “We’ll be seeing you here with us soon!” he shouted, in the distance, fading away.
    I shivered. There was no way I’d let myself fall so far. He was probably lying anyway. That’s what they did. At that moment an incoming ping arrived from Kenny.
    “What?” I asked, happy to move onto some new topic.
    Kenny materialized walking in step beside me.
    “That was close,” he commented.
    “What was close?” Was he spying on me?
    “That bum that almost knee capped you just now.”
    “Kenny, how do you know what just happened?” My anger began brimming from its ambient low boil.
    “Your pssi has an automated threat assessment, and since I’m the root user, a security alert popped up on my display,” he said defensively. “You know, there’s an automated collision avoidance system you could activate.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous!” I shot back. “You’re not watching me with that thing are you?”
    “No, no, it’s just an alarm,” protested Kenny, his projection ducking and weaving around the foot traffic as he kept pace with me. “Like I said, as the root user, I get security alerts fed to me automatically. I just thought you may have needed some help.”
    I looked at him. “So you managed to get root access to my system? I thought you said the system didn’t allow it?”
    It was all the same to me. I hated dealing with that stuff. Having Kenny manage it made my life that much simpler.
    “Yeah, someone from the company authorized it as part of the testing procedure. They gave us a backdoor workaround.”
    “Good.”
    At least something was going my way. Kenny was staring at me as I squinted into the darkness.
    “What?” I urged. I could see he had something more to