All the advertising was gone, as if it had never been there. I could actually see the buildings around me. The comparative calmness was mesmerizing, and I stepped out and into the quiet flow of pedestrian hubbub, looking up above and around me in wonderment. The flow carried me up 5 and into Central Park, and in a dreamy state I continued to walk around the edge of the park, staring at my City with new eyes.

I'd been using my pssi for a while already, but New York without advertising still had a creepy feel to it. But, it was definitely relaxing, and as my headache subsided, I decided to get a little exercise and finish the walk all the way home myself.

The gathering darkness was something else I wasn't accustomed to. Normally the advertis.e.m.e.nts lit up the streets and sidewalks. As I neared home, staring up and around, I was nearly tripped up by a b.u.m who was splayed out on the street. The stench of his body odor should have been forewarning enough, but the darkness and my wandering eyes betrayed me.

"Lady! Lady! Watch it!"

Looking down just in time, I danced awkwardly over the grubby human at my feet, knocking over his collection bowl. n.o.body else around me even bothered to glance at the commotion as they swept past.

He cowered for an instant, with me jittering over him, and then shot outwards on all fours to collect the bills I'd scattered, darting this way and that underfoot the human traffic.

What a pathetic creature.

I should report this to Pa.s.sport Control. I bet he's not even supposed to be here, and even if he is, he should be deported. What possible good could be coming from him being here, dirtying up my neighborhood? He was worse than trash. At least trash you could package up and bury or burn somewhere.

"Get out of the way!" I spat at him as he sat back on his haunches.

He just looked up at me. I had expected to see a scowl and his anger reflected to fuel my own, but he simply stared at me.

"You think you're important lady?"

People streamed past us. We seemed lost in the moment, staring at each other. Still the blank stare. Was he about to cry? Ah s.h.i.t. I fumbled around in my pockets, but I had no change. Anyway, why should I help him? n.o.body had ever helped me in my life. I'd always had to fend for myself, for everything.

I felt suddenly angry. In a flash my senses returned and I dismissed this human straggler. Turning away I merged back into the pedestrian flow.

"You should be more careful, life can throw you funny curveb.a.l.l.s lady," I heard him say while I was swept away.

"We'll be seeing you here with us soon!" he shouted, in the distance, fading away.

I shivered. There was no way I'd let myself fall so far. He was probably lying anyway. That's what they did. At that moment an incoming ping arrived from Kenny.

"What?" I asked, happy to move onto some new topic.

Kenny materialized walking in step beside me.

"That was close," he commented.

"What was close?" Was he spying on me?

"That b.u.m that almost knee capped you just now."

"Kenny, how do you know what just happened?" My anger began br.i.m.m.i.n.g from its ambient low boil.

"Your pssi has an automated threat a.s.sessment, and since I'm the root user, a security alert popped up on my display," he said defensively. "You know, there's an automated collision avoidance system you could activate."

"Don't be ridiculous!" I shot back. "You're not watching me with that thing are you?"

"No, no, it's just an alarm," protested Kenny, his projection ducking and weaving around the foot traffic as he kept pace with me. "Like I said, as the root user, I get security alerts fed to me automatically. I just thought you may have needed some help."

I looked at him. "So you managed to get root access to my system? I thought you said the system didn't allow it?"

It was all the same to me. I hated dealing with that stuff. Having Kenny manage it made my life that much simpler.

"Yeah, someone from the company authorized it as part of the testing procedure. They gave us a backdoor workaround."

"Good."

At least something was going my way. Kenny was staring at me as I squinted into the darkness.

"What?" I urged. I could see he had something more to say.

"Well, I could set the pssi to adjust your perceptual brightness, even optimize contrast. That would make it easier for you to see things."

I wasn't too keen on the thing controlling my body, but this seemed reasonable.

"Sure, show me," I replied, my anger fizzling.

Immediately, the scene around me brightened and the edges grew sharper. I knew it was dark out, but I could see everything clearly, in even sharper detail than full daylight.

"Kenny, that is actually...great," I said after a moment. "Good work."

He brightened up at my praise like a puppy. Before I could say anything else, Kenny started to speak again, his geekcitement bubbling out.

"Believe it or not, but we could filter out street people too," he added. "I could also set it so that garbage and dirt is cleaned off the street, or remove graffiti. There are all kinds of reality skins you can set in this thing. We would need to initiate some of the kinesthetic features, though."

I had turned onto 75 by then, my street, and could see a few street people hanging around on the corner up ahead, begging for money. They were more or less invisible to me anyway, the great unseen as it were, but seeing them there irked me.

"Sure, Kenny, let's try it," I replied with mildly venomous enthusiasm at the thought of wiping out these street vermin. The instant I said it, the panhandlers up ahead melted away, and the walls of the buildings suddenly washed free of graffiti. The sidewalk beneath me began to glisten as if it was newly laid.

"How's that?" asked Kenny.

"That is amazing," I replied.

It actually was amazing. It was my neighborhood, just a better version. Scrubbed clean.

In the distance, I saw a robot walk by.

"Could you also set it to remove all robotics, I mean, unless they directly address me?" They still made me nervous. This gave me another idea. "And remove all couples holding hands as well."

Perhaps this was a little too much information to share with Kenny, but he just shrugged and nodded.

"All done. So this is the new pssi system that Cognix is going to release, huh?" asked Kenny.

I was busy enjoying myself, looking around and admiring my new neighborhood, but felt some irritation creep back in. Kenny was always looking to pick under the edges.

"I don't know, Kenny, but they're going to be giving it away soon so you'll be able to play with it to your heart's content, okay?"

"Cool," he replied.

In an overlaid display s.p.a.ce I could see him tuning into a media broadcast from Patricia Killiam. Our marketing program really did seem to be working.

8.

NEW YORK CAN make you crazy, but if I'd ever had a bad day at work, this was the worst. I'd spent the past week almost sleeping at the office, preparing reams of new material for the Cognix launch. It was a simultaneous worldwide release, the biggest media campaign of all time, and we were in a fever pitch trying to get everything ready.

Storms were sweeping up the Eastern Pacific towards Atopia. Hurricanes by themselves were nothing unusual, and these weren't close to threatening the island city, but Atopia had begun inexplicably moving itself much closer towards America. Without any explanation from them we had to somehow cover and spin this positively in addition to everything else going on.

Kenny had managed to install filters in my own pssi system so that Bertram the jerk, and the floosies in the a.s.sistant pool, were filtered out of my visual input unless they directly addressed me in some way. That had been great to begin with, but as the days went by, I'd started getting more and more frustrated with almost everyone.

The show stopper had come at the end of the week.

"Olympia," came the call from my boss, "could you come in here please?"

This was the final decision on the final stage of the Cognix account, and I was nervous. The old school and the new school were facing down, and I felt the future of my career suddenly hanging in the balance.

Flicking off some Phuture News gossip girls, I collected my Cognix materials and sent them over to the conference room, closing down my workstation as I got up to leave. I ran a hand through my hair to straighten it out and absently brushed some lint off my shoulder as I looked out at the wall of the building facing my window, hardly ten feet away.

My reflected image hung thinly over the cold, chipped brick beyond. My heart thumped loudly in my chest, each contraction pushing blood tensely through my arteries, forcing it down into my veins, straining it into the smallest of vessels as the pressure built up. I tried taking a deep breath, but there was nowhere for the air to go.

Sweat beaded upon my forehead.

Shake it off, take the fight to them, I thought to myself. A vision of that b.u.m on the street suddenly crowded my mind, and I looked down and away. "We'll be seeing you soon," was what he'd said. What did he mean by that? That will never be me.

My heart began racing.

Why are you thinking like this? You're a high powered executive, a queen of New York. You have savings, you have important friends, you own your home, and you've even got Mr. Tweedles. I smiled at that. The doctor must have been right-the stress was getting to me. I just didn't feel like myself.

Letting out a big sigh, I collected myself and made for the door. Everything would be fine.

Down the hallway I entered the conference room, and was surprised that projections of our Cognix customers weren't filling the holographic wall. My boss and Bertram were sitting down on the other side of the long table, looking at me like they were waiting for my arrival.

I pulled up a chair opposite them, taking an aggressive stance as I sat down. I leaned into the table, feeling my old friend anger begin to make an appearance.

"What's up guys?" I half asked, half challenged. I'd had enough of them already this week.

"Olympia, we're glad you're here," began my boss stupidly, opening clasped hands that had been supporting his weak chin as if about to accept an award for incompetence.

I let go an audible groan.

"Roger, what's up? Cut the bulls.h.i.t. Did we lose the final phase of the account?"

"No," he announced with p.r.o.nounced lack of enthusiasm, "actually, we won."

"So what's the problem?"

"No problem at all. In fact, we want to use all of the materials you created. Great work!"

"Well, good then," I replied carefully, softening up my seated posture.

"But..."

"But what?" I growled, leaning back into the table.

"We've made, ah, our client wants, ah, well, we want Bertram here to head the account. You'll be working underneath him on this. I'd like you to show him the ropes, you know, you're the expert."

He smiled at me weakly while Bertram beamed enthusiastically. Worm. I smiled as I mentally uncapped the pot simmering inside me, feeling it boil over to explode through my temples.

"Are you out of your mind?" I yelled back at them both. "There is no way that I'm going to train this little s.h.i.t eating monkey to do my job!"

Bertram shifted back in his chair, enjoying the spectacle, his grin floating disconnectedly in my red-shifted vision. My chest tightened as I attempted to let go another salvo. I gripped the table with white knuckles. My vision was swimming.

"Does this have anything to do with me not wanting to use that kid instead of Patricia?" I asked.

"No, nothing like that," said Bertram, smiling. I didn't believe him.

"Olympia, look, I understand how you feel," pleaded my boss, "but you could learn a lot from Bertram too. Look how calm and collected he is." He looked back at Bertram. "There is no rush on this, why don't you take next week off, paid leave, and think about everything, okay?"

I stared down at the table, trying to get a grip on myself. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea. I could use the time to plan out a strategy of how to undermine these idiots. Maybe it was best to just nurse my wounds.

"Fine," I grumbled under my breath. I let the prospect of vengeance cool my soul. "Fine. Glad we won the contract, sir. I could actually use a little time off."

"See," said Roger, brightening up, "now that's the spirit. Take as much time as you need, Olympia, we need you here in top shape. This will be a big job."

Yes, I thought, this will be a big job.

Taking off early, I managed to get home quickly and was well through a second bottle of wine and curled up with Mr. Tweedles on my couch when night began to fall. An unusual early snow had started outside, and I watched squalls of snowflakes begin sweeping by in the streets outside through my large bay window.

The stress of the day had hardly abated. Even after polishing off the first bottle, I was having a hard time concentrating on a new romance novel I'd started. My mind was shifting back to plotting the downfall of Bertram and my boss.

Mr. Tweedles started purring and rubbing up against me. I'd been enjoying cuddling with him, but he'd rolled over onto his back, inviting me to scratch his tummy. I kicked him off the couch.

Sighing, I picked up two sleeping pills from the drawer in my coffee table, and taking a deep breath I washed them down with a mouthful of wine. Lighting up my last cigarette for the night, I called up Kenny.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied instantly, appearing with a careful smile in my primary display s.p.a.ce. I bet he'd heard about my little incident today. I bet I was the talk of the office.

I'd show them.

"Kenny, look, could you set my pssi to filter out anything that I find annoying, until you hear different from me?" If I have some time off, I reasoned, I may as well try to depressurize and make the most of the tools at my disposal.

"Sure," he replied, "I guess I could do that."