Wikiworld by Paul Di Filippo

Author:Paul Di Filippo [Filippo, Paul Di]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9788865865194
Publisher: 40k
Published: 2010-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

Wormholes and Loopholes

Looking back at this narrative so far, I see that maybe right here is where my story actually begins, or should’ve begun. After all, it was Cherry’s accident that precipitated my run for jimmywhale of the UWA, and the subsequent trade war, and that’s when I entered the history books, even as a footnote. And that’s what most people are interested in, right?

Except that how could I possibly have jumped into the tale right here? None of it would’ve made any sense, without knowing about my backstory and FooDog’s and Cherry’s. I would’ve had to be constantly interrupting myself to backfill.

And besides, aren’t most people nowadays habituated to ruckerian metanovels, with their infinite resortability and indrajal links? Even though I chose to compose this account in a linear fashion, you’re probably bopping through it in a quirky personalized path anyhow, while simultaneously offering planting advice to a golden-rice grower in Bantul, contributing a few bars to an electrosoul composer in Los Angeles, and tweaking the specs of some creature’s synthetic metabolism with an a-lifer in Loshan.

So:

I rushed to Cherry’s side and grabbed her hand.

“Ouch! Watch my IV!”

“Oh, babe, what happened? Are you gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It was just a stupid accident. But it wasn’t really my fault...”

Cherry had been sunning herself on the deck yesterday, half asleep. As the sun moved, she got up to shift her chair closer to the deck’s edge. The next thing she knew, she was lying in the shallow waters surrounding Sandybump, buried under the timbers and pilings of the deck. Her head projected from the waters, allowing her to breathe painfully around her busted ribs. But lacking personal ubik access to summon help, she surely would’ve died in a short time from the shock of her injuries.

Luckily, the house itself knew to call one of the 911 wikis. Within minutes, an ambulance service run by the Organ Printers had her safely stabilized and on her way to MGH.

“The deck just collapsed, Russ! Honest. I didn’t do anything to it!”

My concern for Cherry’s health and safety began to segue to anger. Which wiki had built the deck? I started to rummage through the house’s construction records, at the same time pulling up realtime images of my dwelling. The tearing-off of the deck had pulled away a portion of the exterior wall, opening our beloved house to the elements.

The Fatburgers. They were the wiki who had built my deck. Bastards! I was in the middle of composing a formal challenge suit against them, prior to filing it with a judicial wiki, when FooDog contacted me.

“You’re back stateside, nephew! Great! But there’s information you need to know before you rush into anything. Drop on by my offices.”

“Can’t you just tell me over the ubik?”

“Nah-huh. C’mon over.”

I gingerly kissed Cherry goodbye, and left.

I pooled my public transit request with those of a few dozen other riders heading in my direction, and I was over the Charles River in no time.

Foolty Fontal maintained an

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.