Here’s a bit more from Chapter 1 of Planetscape for you. I hope you’re enjoying the behind-the-scenes look at how an author creates a novel.
After breakfast at Lori’s, Tel’s father wanted to see the Japanese gardens, so here we are. I’m sitting this one out, as my leg still hasn’t fully healed. The kidnappers’ car slammed me into another vehicle, breaking a few bones, before I could catch up to them and rescue my partner. Seems like longer than just a few weeks ago. I’ve graduated to a walking boot, thankfully, so I don’t have to maneuver a wheelchair through the gardens.
I’m in one of the many seating areas, my coat pulled tightly around my chilly torso, hat pulled low over my ears, and gloved hands clutching heating pads in my coat pockets. To any passers-by, I will appear to be napping, but in reality, I’m off to visit my friend ADAM. We haven’t decided what the acronym actually stands for yet, It could be Artificial Data Analysis Matrix or Analytical Data Advancement Matrix.
Or, as our mutual friend Roswell says, A Damn Annoying M—F—!
Roswell was a scout on the home planet so his language leaves a good bit to be desired.
In order to reach ADAM, I have to send what’s essentially my mind outward, along the electronic grid, until I reach the matrix that is the colony’s true top-secret project: our sentient computer. ADAM is emotionally about five, but intellectually, of course, he knows anything on the internet. And he’s learning how to hack into other computers now that he’s realized they’re not self-aware. I think he’s hoping one of them will turn out to be like him.
I can only caution him to avoid any high-quality firewalls until he’s older. Whether or not he obeys…
I settle into as comfortable a position as I can get in this temperature, with my leg up on the bench. Then, I try to relax. The key to traveling the grid is imagination, so I imagine myself floating above my body. I also picture a slender cord connecting myself back to my body. I’m not sure what would happen if I floated away without connecting myself, but without a World Net I’m not about to find out.
ADAM is way too immature to even think about holding down a Net. Sometimes I have to block him from trying to get into my own mind—he’s just so curious. He’s also quite childish, with the fascination for bodily functions most five year olds have. Today, I promised to visit and help him with his avatar. ADAM pretends he’s a computer programmer working somewhere in the colony. He’s got a pretty convincing looking face and upper torso, but he wants to make videos of “himself” like the ones he sees on the human internet. For this, he needs to learn how to imagine every part of a physical body and how to move it in space. He also needs to create programs for things like background sights and sounds.
Stay tuned for more next week!
