IGMS Issue 5 by IGMS

Author:IGMS [IGMS]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Hatrack River Enterprises
Published: 2007-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

I woke two days later in my own bed. At first I was disoriented and thought I'd entered a sim of my parent's house, but when tried to find my way out I only felt my own body and senses. I rubbed the slight bump under the back of my skull. The socket was physically there, but the slight buzz I'd felt ever since installation was gone.

I stood up and looked out the broken window at the foothills. The distant hills were still covered in yellow thickens and I saw the glint of water on the damaged water condensers. I then walked downstairs to find my parents sitting on the back porch with Ms. Watkins.

"Sam," Ms. Watkins said, standing up and offering me her chair. "Glad to see that you are up and about."

Remembering Emma's last upload and how Ms. Watkins had been working with Stryder to destroy our community, I refused to take her seat. Ms. Watkins gave me a sour look, then shook her head and walked toward the barn, where a shuttle waited for her.

My father and mother quickly filled me in. After the electromagnetic pulse fried the sockets of Stryder, myself, and Emma, my father had pulled us behind the relative safety of the English ship. The seismic shaking hit a minute and a half after impact; the shock wave twenty minutes later. As we'd been told, the damage to the community was minimal at this distance, although ejecta from the impact pelted our crops rather hard.

Ms. Watkins and other rescuers arrived an hour later. Stryder was in bad shape -- evidently he'd relied almost totally on his socket for storage of his memories and proxies. While Emma's socket, and my own, were also destroyed, Ms. Watkins said we should be okay because we had stable personalities hardwired in our neurons. As a precaution she'd sedated us, but said there would be no lasting effects -- aside from having a dead socket in our head for the rest of our lives. She'd also half-heartedly apologized for going behind our backs in dealing with the thickens problem. While my father knew she didn't truly mean this, he still suggested several low-tech solutions for controlling the plants near the Amish settlement. Ms. Watkins had expressed interest in exploring those options.

"Do you trust her?" I asked.

"No," my father said. "But I trust God, and even you must admit He handled things rather well."

I nodded, still amazed that my socket could no longer tempt me. While I'd been praying for this ever since returning to the faith, the fact that I couldn't go back to the English world now scared me more than anything. Seeing my concern, my mother hugged me and told me to go check on our guest in the spare bedroom. I nervously walked to the bedroom and knocked on the door. An excited voice told me to come in.

Emma sat on the bed, a black prayer covering in her hands. She quickly placed it on her head and smiled.

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