deep inside she has always known it. But to leave everything you have ever known, everything that is familiar and safe. To make the break . . .
It took a while for her to raise the nerve.
She coughs slightly, and the dull ache in her lungs sharpens momentarily. Her neck and back are aching and stiff, and the skin on her cheeks feels tender, like the after-effects of too much sun.
Probably some kind of virus . . . She shakes her head. No matter where you go, you canât escape the flu. Maybe tomorrow Iâll go check out the local quack.
Medical Research Facility
Edison (Southwest)
5/1/203 Standard
CHARLIEâS STORY
There are days when you lie in bed waiting to drift off and suddenly you realise that you canât remember a single thing that happened since the moment you woke up that morning. Those are the days when you just do the mechanical things, going through the motions, doing what you have to do, but all the while your entire brain is in neutral. Galen claimed it never happened to him, and Iâm willing to believe him. But Galen is special.
Myself, I used to have a lot of days like that. Still do on occasions.
But then there are the days you know youâll never forget, no matter how long you live, no matter how many things happen to you in the meantime.
The day we received that file from Sarah Dimarco was one of those days.
First it was the news about Hansen. The official version was a massive stroke. Death was almost instantaneous according to the attending physician, a man called Ryker. I did my homework on him later â he was a company quack working for MacMillan/Tseng/Hartog. Hansen did Research for one of their subsidiaries in Seoul, which was, of course, how heâd accidentally stumbled on the GHO data about CRIOS.
It was no wonder Sarah Dimarco was so spaced-out. She spoke for about five minutes, and you could almost taste the fear in her. After all, she was right-hand, and if his death was something other than a popped cerebral artery, she was in a whole lot of trouble herself.
Apparently Hansen had been following up on the Crystal Death info heâd uncovered and shuttled to us, and everything heâd learned was contained in the secret embedded file we were now accessing. But heâd screwed up.
He was accessing things way above his clearance level and heâd left a telltale entry-code signature behind when heâd had to pull out of the companyâs central data frame in a hurry.
Which was when heâd told Sarah everything.
Three days later he was dead, and his entire Research output had been frozen under the industrial secrecy powers retained by the company.
Which was nothing unusual in itself. After all, he was being paid by them at the time of his death, and until they could check through everything contained in the files they wouldnât know exactly how valuable his legacy to them might be. It was common practice in corporate Research.
What wasnât so common was the fact that theyâd also frozen the data-files of the whole section, including those of his chief Research assistant, one Sarah Dimarco.
The only reason we were viewing this particular file, she said, was that Hansen had been a step ahead of them. Instead of ether-linking with his private punchboard to download, which was simple to intercept and trace, heâd used an archaic hard-wired casserite zip-cube, saved directly, then given her the cube, with instructions for its distribution should he suddenly die âof old ageâ in the next few days.
Heâd also given her the name of someone who would know how to get the information onto the next shuttle to Deucalion â which was the only reason we were accessing it at all.
Finally she was finished, and the image dissolved into the data-mode screen as page after page of reports, detailed information and analysis scrolled slowly down in front of us.
Galen reached forward and increased the scroll-speed. He does that
It took a while for her to raise the nerve.
She coughs slightly, and the dull ache in her lungs sharpens momentarily. Her neck and back are aching and stiff, and the skin on her cheeks feels tender, like the after-effects of too much sun.
Probably some kind of virus . . . She shakes her head. No matter where you go, you canât escape the flu. Maybe tomorrow Iâll go check out the local quack.
Medical Research Facility
Edison (Southwest)
5/1/203 Standard
CHARLIEâS STORY
There are days when you lie in bed waiting to drift off and suddenly you realise that you canât remember a single thing that happened since the moment you woke up that morning. Those are the days when you just do the mechanical things, going through the motions, doing what you have to do, but all the while your entire brain is in neutral. Galen claimed it never happened to him, and Iâm willing to believe him. But Galen is special.
Myself, I used to have a lot of days like that. Still do on occasions.
But then there are the days you know youâll never forget, no matter how long you live, no matter how many things happen to you in the meantime.
The day we received that file from Sarah Dimarco was one of those days.
First it was the news about Hansen. The official version was a massive stroke. Death was almost instantaneous according to the attending physician, a man called Ryker. I did my homework on him later â he was a company quack working for MacMillan/Tseng/Hartog. Hansen did Research for one of their subsidiaries in Seoul, which was, of course, how heâd accidentally stumbled on the GHO data about CRIOS.
It was no wonder Sarah Dimarco was so spaced-out. She spoke for about five minutes, and you could almost taste the fear in her. After all, she was right-hand, and if his death was something other than a popped cerebral artery, she was in a whole lot of trouble herself.
Apparently Hansen had been following up on the Crystal Death info heâd uncovered and shuttled to us, and everything heâd learned was contained in the secret embedded file we were now accessing. But heâd screwed up.
He was accessing things way above his clearance level and heâd left a telltale entry-code signature behind when heâd had to pull out of the companyâs central data frame in a hurry.
Which was when heâd told Sarah everything.
Three days later he was dead, and his entire Research output had been frozen under the industrial secrecy powers retained by the company.
Which was nothing unusual in itself. After all, he was being paid by them at the time of his death, and until they could check through everything contained in the files they wouldnât know exactly how valuable his legacy to them might be. It was common practice in corporate Research.
What wasnât so common was the fact that theyâd also frozen the data-files of the whole section, including those of his chief Research assistant, one Sarah Dimarco.
The only reason we were viewing this particular file, she said, was that Hansen had been a step ahead of them. Instead of ether-linking with his private punchboard to download, which was simple to intercept and trace, heâd used an archaic hard-wired casserite zip-cube, saved directly, then given her the cube, with instructions for its distribution should he suddenly die âof old ageâ in the next few days.
Heâd also given her the name of someone who would know how to get the information onto the next shuttle to Deucalion â which was the only reason we were accessing it at all.
Finally she was finished, and the image dissolved into the data-mode screen as page after page of reports, detailed information and analysis scrolled slowly down in front of us.
Galen reached forward and increased the scroll-speed. He does that
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