I hope this little behind-the-scenes serialization is entertaining for you. You’re getting to see the initial rough draft, before I go back and polish the chapter for publication.
When I disconnect from my physical body, I “see” the electronic world as a grid, with lines connecting various hubs and a glow which is brighter the more electronic devices in any one particular area. San Francisco is a huge knot nearly as bright as Earth’s yellow star. It’s hard to find any one thread in all that mess, but ADAM has sent me an invitation, which I see as a small, blue thread attached to an envelope, like a physical letter. I follow this, and quickly find myself over the desert, where lines of power are few and far between. Ahead, I can see the glow that is our hidden colony. Our technology is far beyond Earth’s, so thus far, we’ve kept our electronics use from human notice, though it’s obvious if you can see it from underneath, so to speak.
On the home world, I had a title: sawt al’kamb, which roughly translates to “voice of the home computer.” On Earth, that and six American dollars will get you a cup of coffee. My skills with the grid are useless here, except for the occasional hack job. And my “chats” with ADAM, of course. Since I’m the only velyr who can access the grid, my presence is a novelty for him. We usually communicate through the human internet, via video chat or text messaging, but ADAM looks forward to actually “seeing” me.
It takes only a few seconds for my mind to “travel” the distance between the gardens and ADAM’s servers deep within our underground colony. Since the first time I hacked the matriarch’s computer system, I’ve visualized the compound as an old-fashioned castle, complete with guarded entrance. The “guards,” however, ADAM’s firewalls, recognize me now and stand aside. ADAM has created a special entrance for my visits, that connect the outer “wall” directly to the inner grid that forms his personality.
This inner location has changed greatly since my first visit, when I didn’t even know ADAM was sentient. Then, I’d stepped into a child’s drawing of a room, with mismatched chairs and tables, and a window that showed the real time view of ADAM’s workroom, where various scientists communicated with him via keyboards and Bluetooth. Now, ADAM has a near-perfect living room, with a leather sofa, two easy chairs, paintings on the wall, a lamp that follows the local day-night cycle, and even a simulated cat that makes the occasional appearance.
Stay tuned for more…
