Geekomancy Read Online Free PDF Page B

program south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Now, that had been a wild six weeks. Ree’s romantic history had several advantages, namely all the strange nonweapon proficiencies she’d picked up over the years from her partners. Do it right and you can get a general studies degree from dating widely, or an honorary doctorate if you stick with one person long enough. Ree hadn’t made it past the B.A. stage, though she’d learned more than a few handyman tricks from Jay.
    Her stomach dropped at the thought of Jay, and she took a deep breath with her eyes closed, trying to push the feeling away.
    When she opened her eyes, she looked up to Eastwood, who was waiting. He rolled a chair out in front of her. “Have a seat, this might take a while.”
    “You have any popcorn?”
    “That’s some impressive Snark Armor you have. I’d say +3 at least. Urban Outfitters?”
    “ThinkGeek.” Ree considered and raised her hands. “Sorry. I’m here to listen, so talk.”
    Eastwood picked up a mug from his desk, took a long sip, and started. “You’re a geek.”
    “Yes . . .”
    “You grew up watching sci-fi movies, reading fantasy novels, hiding under the covers after watching Alien . You probably played with lightsabers, maybe you had your cowboys fighting Picard and the spandex crew on the holodeck.”
    “Close enough. But what does that have to do with the big pile of ugly back at Trollope’s?”
    Eastwood waved to his stacks. “We tell these stories for a reason. They let us simultaneously remind ourselves of what’s out there while reassuring us that they’re not real. Humanity can’t quite manage to stop telling the tales of the monsters and beasts, gadgets and robots. We keep the warnings alive, even in ridiculous contexts: monsters that eat co-eds and aliens that kidnap nubile maidens to Mars.”
    Ree sat forward. “Wait, are you saying these things are real because of the stories or despite them?”
    “Good question,” Eastwood said.
    “You don’t know?”
    Eastwood started to pace back and forth, talking with his hands but never making eye contact with Ree. “There are a range of opinions, most of them crappy and none conclusive. Some say we told stories to explain the shadows at the edge of the cave, and in the telling, they became real. Some say that the shadows at the edge of the cave were already alive and our stories made them whole, bound them to individual forms that could be known, and when they were known, they could be killed.”
    “And what about this Doubt thing? Sandra and Darren don’t even remember stepping out into the alley.”
    “The doing of some jackass a while back, during a massive throwdown in Europe during the Enlightenment. It was a virulent meme, spreading with humanism and rationality and all that rhetoric. The Technomancers wanted to be the alpha and omega of magic, so they tried a massive retcon, wanted to write the creatures out of existence.”
    Eastwood swiped one hand through the air. “Sadly, like any good meme gone viral, it took on a life of its own. Instead of eliminating the beasts entirely, the Doubt just settled into our minds and let us MIB ourselves out of believing such things exist when we do run into them. When they realized what had gone wrong, the Technomancers got into the secret-police gig. As they spread around the world with the various empires, the Doubt went with them. It’s not fully settled in everywhere, and some people are immune, like with chickenpox or common sense.”
    Ree took another deep breath, processing the backstory while delaying judgment on whether she believed it. “So maybe you’re telling the truth. Maybe you’re some whacko predator with a damn fine hologram generator. And maybe you had someone slip something in our beer. How do I know you’re for real?”
    Eastwood nodded, walking around the corner into one of the stacks. Ree heard the sound of rummaging, and a minute later, he returned with a gray-white sphere. It looked for