(eng) Niall Teasdale - Fox Meridian 07 by Eden Burning

Author:Eden Burning [Burning, Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part Four: Everything Ends

New York Metro, 25th August 2061.

Kit diverted her attention from the reports she was going through as a call indicator was passed across from Belle. The source was a little surprising: communications with the Moon were, at best, slow with the primary relay station gone…

‘Terri, hello. I was not expecting to hear from you.’

The pause was longer than usual, the signal routing through a lunar satellite, then the BioTek station, then a geosynchronous satellite, and then down. ‘Kit… Uh, how is she?’

‘She has not left our viron since she heard. She has not run a sleep cycle. She sits, reading reports, running over what evidence we have, and staring into space a lot. She has accessed a number of external memory files of times she has spent with Jason. I am worried, but I do not know what to do.’

‘It probably doesn’t help that the UNTPP are in chaos. They’re talking about sending ships out to L-five, but… Well, talk is all they’re doing. Look, Kit, I need to talk to her. It’s urgent. Really urgent.’

Kit did not sigh, because she was an infomorph and had no lungs, but she thought a sigh. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Please hold.’

~~~

Fox sat on a virtual sofa in her virtual lounge, staring at the wall, which was not real. Her virtual body was clad in virtual copies of an old T-shirt and a pair of athletics shorts she had in the real world, but she had no desire to go out into the real world. The real world sucked, though the virtual one was not exactly great. The virtual one came without people expressing their sympathy.

Kit went entirely unnoticed as she walked into the room and paused to check on Fox’s mood. ‘Fox, I have a call for you.’

Slowly, Fox turned her head. ‘I’m not interested in hearing calls from people offering–’

‘It’s Terri. She says it is urgent. I do not believe her intentions are to sympathise.’

Fox was an infomorph, but she was in a simulated environment and used to being human. She sighed. ‘Put her through.’ Terri’s ident image appeared in the air beside Fox almost instantly. ‘Terri… Whatever it is, can’t it wait for Monday?’

The pause was long and irritating, and Fox was seriously considering dropping the connection when Terri’s voice came through. ‘No. No it can’t. Poppa’s coming to Jenner. I’ve argued as best I can, but he’s coming and he’s bringing Mariel with him.’

‘He what?!’ It was probably the most animated Kit had seen her putative owner in days. It was rhetorical anyway and Fox went on long before the words could reach the Moon. ‘Is he entirely off his little red wagon? Doesn’t he know what– Doesn’t he realise– Shit! I’ll go talk to him, Terri. What time is it?’

‘Twenty-two twenty-eight,’ Kit supplied.

‘Right. I’ll go talk to him now, Terri.’

‘Thanks, Fox,’ Terri said, though Fox was already starting the load process for her cyberframe by then.

There was no reply.

~~~

‘Jackson Peter Martins, have you

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