folly of the previous night, and then prepare to go about their business as usual.
I still didn’t want to activate my commlink so I used the room viewer to access the public float feed. A note from the management apologized for the smart wall being down for maintenance and offered a hand-held viewer as a substitute. I noticed it was attached to the desk with an antitheft cable, the sure mark of a high-class joint.
The first image I hit on the news feed stunned me: Praha-Riz arcology was burning. The structure itself wasn’t flammable, but someone had torched all that beautiful greenery which covered it. It made me want to cry. Praha-Riz was more than a cool-looking arcology; it was home, and not just because we had one of our residences there. Human and Varoki aesthetics were different, and Praha-Riz was designed by a Human architectural firm thirty years ago. There was just something Human about its look and feel. Maybe that’s why they were burning it.
I scanned feed lines, the avalanche of images looking less like news than some nightmare scenario from a bad disaster holovid: Munies in riot gear storming Praha-Riz, shops in the lower levels of the arcologies looted, buildings burning in the slums, and bodies—bodies everywhere. Thugs from one political faction vandalizing political offices of its rivals,Varoki mobs killing Humans, Munies firing on other Varokis— other Varokis! I never thought I’d live to see the day Sakkatto City Munies would defend Human slums against a Varoki mob, and do it with live ammo. The entire city had gone mad overnight.
I tried to make sense of the flood of information, all of it distorted through the lens of the panic or rage or political agenda of the freelance feed heads interpreting it all. Everyone called them feed heads because usually all you saw was their head down in a corner of the vid feed, telling you what you were looking at and what it meant. Most of them were Varoki but there were a few other races and even a fair number of Humans.
One thing I knew for sure: until all this bullshit settled down, it would be pretty hard to just slip unobtrusively out of the city. When Varoki mobs filled the streets, a Human like me couldn’t exactly blend in.
There was a strain of news feed blaming yours truly for the riot, and that made my chances of slipping away in all the confusion even harder, what with my picture spread all over the feed. They actually had an interesting sliver of evidence: the vid of me yelling at the staffer who drew the neuro-wand, saying, “Put that away, you moron!”
How could Sasha Naradnyo be the only person in the meeting to notice someone drawing a concealed weapon unless he knew of the weapon already?
Would anyone give orders in such a commanding and confident manner to a stranger—or was it to someone in his secret employ?
I’ll tell you something, I always know when someone’s bullshitting me: they don’t tell me what they think, they just ask these leading questions and hope my imagination fills in the blanks the way they want. I figure my imagination’s not there to do other folks’ work for them, but not everyone sees it that way.
To be fair, there were some skeptics out there, most of them Human but a few Varoki as well. One of the Human feed heads got my attention, maybe because of her intensity, maybe because of her dark good looks, assuming you like your women hard-eyed and tight-lipped. I’m generally open to the idea, but in this case she reminded me too much of me.
There is no real evidence that Sasha Naradnyo was the architect of this riot, and strong reason to believe it was simply a falling out between the mercantile interests of the e-Varokiim, and the Varokist anti-Humanist followers of Elaamu Gaant. But nothing is certain, and if it should turn out that Naradnyo had a hand in this, he bears the crushing burden of guilt for all the Human lives already lost in these riots, and many more to come.
While I wasn’t sure
I still didn’t want to activate my commlink so I used the room viewer to access the public float feed. A note from the management apologized for the smart wall being down for maintenance and offered a hand-held viewer as a substitute. I noticed it was attached to the desk with an antitheft cable, the sure mark of a high-class joint.
The first image I hit on the news feed stunned me: Praha-Riz arcology was burning. The structure itself wasn’t flammable, but someone had torched all that beautiful greenery which covered it. It made me want to cry. Praha-Riz was more than a cool-looking arcology; it was home, and not just because we had one of our residences there. Human and Varoki aesthetics were different, and Praha-Riz was designed by a Human architectural firm thirty years ago. There was just something Human about its look and feel. Maybe that’s why they were burning it.
I scanned feed lines, the avalanche of images looking less like news than some nightmare scenario from a bad disaster holovid: Munies in riot gear storming Praha-Riz, shops in the lower levels of the arcologies looted, buildings burning in the slums, and bodies—bodies everywhere. Thugs from one political faction vandalizing political offices of its rivals,Varoki mobs killing Humans, Munies firing on other Varokis— other Varokis! I never thought I’d live to see the day Sakkatto City Munies would defend Human slums against a Varoki mob, and do it with live ammo. The entire city had gone mad overnight.
I tried to make sense of the flood of information, all of it distorted through the lens of the panic or rage or political agenda of the freelance feed heads interpreting it all. Everyone called them feed heads because usually all you saw was their head down in a corner of the vid feed, telling you what you were looking at and what it meant. Most of them were Varoki but there were a few other races and even a fair number of Humans.
One thing I knew for sure: until all this bullshit settled down, it would be pretty hard to just slip unobtrusively out of the city. When Varoki mobs filled the streets, a Human like me couldn’t exactly blend in.
There was a strain of news feed blaming yours truly for the riot, and that made my chances of slipping away in all the confusion even harder, what with my picture spread all over the feed. They actually had an interesting sliver of evidence: the vid of me yelling at the staffer who drew the neuro-wand, saying, “Put that away, you moron!”
How could Sasha Naradnyo be the only person in the meeting to notice someone drawing a concealed weapon unless he knew of the weapon already?
Would anyone give orders in such a commanding and confident manner to a stranger—or was it to someone in his secret employ?
I’ll tell you something, I always know when someone’s bullshitting me: they don’t tell me what they think, they just ask these leading questions and hope my imagination fills in the blanks the way they want. I figure my imagination’s not there to do other folks’ work for them, but not everyone sees it that way.
To be fair, there were some skeptics out there, most of them Human but a few Varoki as well. One of the Human feed heads got my attention, maybe because of her intensity, maybe because of her dark good looks, assuming you like your women hard-eyed and tight-lipped. I’m generally open to the idea, but in this case she reminded me too much of me.
There is no real evidence that Sasha Naradnyo was the architect of this riot, and strong reason to believe it was simply a falling out between the mercantile interests of the e-Varokiim, and the Varokist anti-Humanist followers of Elaamu Gaant. But nothing is certain, and if it should turn out that Naradnyo had a hand in this, he bears the crushing burden of guilt for all the Human lives already lost in these riots, and many more to come.
While I wasn’t sure
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