Chapter Seventeen – Dial-Up and Lag

Chapter Seventeen – Dial-Up and Lag

“Pop Culture IS Mesh Culture.

It’s chaotic, it’s a mess, and it’s fucking beautiful.”

–Anonymous Meshizen, 2031

***

The Barbie led us through a paper-thin portal in a wall that opened up onto a catwalk. Below were dozens of cubes, each one with plenty of space to walk around them. And each face of the cubes led into a different space occupying the entire cube.

“What?”

“Oh, neat,” Daniel said as he spun his upper body around to see better. “They’ve got full non-euclidian here.”

“Please walk in the centre of the catwalk. It’s the shortest path to the far end of the room,” the barbie said.

I looked at the back of her head, then stepped to the side so that I was on the edge of the catwalk. Suddenly, the other two were shooting out ahead of me. Returning to the middle made the space between us shorter in a way that had my head twinging in pain. “What?”

“Space doesn’t need to obey normal rules in the Mesh. Gravity and inertia are the rules that we usually break. You know, like how I’m floating right now,” Daniel said. “But things like linear space can be messed with too.”

“Yeah, but why?” I asked.

Daniel wiggled in a sort of shrug. “Because it means having more space in less space if two things can be in the same space at the same time?”

I shook my head, whiskers wiggling, and looked down again towards the cubes. There were people in them, some in very strange avatars. They were lounging around, others were typing on floating keyboards, and no two cubes were the same. “Are those cubicles?”

“Not quite,” the Barbie said. “If you can prove that you’re worthy of being here, you get some cube space. What you do with it is up to you. Most just carve out a little space for themselves. Some turn it into an exhibit, others into an access port to some other place in the Mesh. We attract some very creative people here.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “Gotta be creative to be a proper criminal, right?”

The Barbie slowed to a stop, turned, and looked down at me without her expression so much as twitching. “Is there a problem?”

“Uh, no? I’m cool with criminals. I crime all the time,” I said. “But seriously, I’m just here to find some clues to save some girl. That’s it.”

“The people here, the real hackers and crackers, do more good for society than you could imagine. We act as a counter to some of the most corrupt assholes in the IRL. We make medical bills disappear, send the wrong information to the right people, make R&D projects for some nasty shit fall through.”

“And yet the world’s still a shit hole,” I said. “Doing your part’s nice, but that’s not what I’m here for.”

“You’re here for a single person. How narrow.”

I shrugged. “I’m here because I’m being… I don’t know if it’s blackmail, a bribe, or some sort of really fucked up favour, actually. Doesn’t matter. I’m here for my own reasons. Now are you going to bring me to Dial Up and Lag or not?”

The Barbie looked at me with her pretty, vacant, baby blues for a moment before turning around and moving on.

“You’re a real people person,” Daniel said.

“I was raised in a barn.”

He slowed down a little more. “Did someone piss in your cereal?”

I huffed. I was in a bit of a poor mood. “I’d rather be home, with Lucy, than out here. Also, I’m a cat. Also-also, this place just feels so wrong. I don’t like it.”

“It’s not a reason to be… okay, so it is a reason to be prissy, but it’s not a real good one. Maybe don’t piss off the nice hackers when they’re being nice,” Daniel said.

I tried to hum, but it came out as a meow. “When did you get so diplomatic?”

“Yesterday I was a shit-talking cripple whose entire family was made up of idiots like you. I learned how to be real diplomatic. Keeps my head on straight.” He wiggled a bit. “Plus, I kinda respect these guys. Some of their stunts are famous.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

We reached the end of the catwalk, the Barbie stepping aside to open a large door that looked like something out of a bank vault.