Most pssikids hardly spent any time at all in their own bodies as they spread their splintered minds across the multiverse. This led to a loss of neural cohesion between their minds and bodies, but they didn't care. I did. It was almost touching to see this girl had come in her own body, even if she was probably just making a show of it.

But what was her name? It was the first time I'd worn the ADF Whites, and I had to admit, they fit just perfectly. I guess there really was nothing like champagne and a man in uniform to get a girl all weak kneed. I smiled as the light dawned.

"Cynthia!" I exclaimed. "It's been a long time."

"Yeah, I know. I haven't seen you since, well, since Nancy's 13 birthday party..." she trailed off, looking embarra.s.sed.

I let the uncomfortable silence settle for a moment. I liked the way it made her look vulnerable.

"Hey, we were kids," I said finally, letting her off the hook. "I was a bit of an awkward kid. You, you were..."

"I was awful."

"I was going to say beautiful. Come on, you weren't awful. It was a weird situation."

"I was. Jimmy, I didn't get a chance to ever apologize for that. I'm really sorry."

"Hey, it helped focus me at the time, and look where that got me," I said, sweeping my arm towards all the important looking dignitaries. "I should be thanking you."

"No, I don't think you should be thanking me."

She shook her head, looking down, but then looking back up at me.

"Just look at you now, Mr. Jimmy Jones," she laughed, looking back up and admiring me in full. "You sure have changed."

"Oh," I said, "you have no idea." She really did have no idea.

We stared at each other, tingling in the electricity of what may come next.

"So, you call that an apology?" I asked, drawing her in. "That just now?"

"Yes," she laughed, "yes, it was, Jimmy."

"I think maybe I need a longer apology-over dinner."

She smiled. "That sounds like a great idea. When?"

"No time like the present," I replied with a wink. Things were done here.

She leaned into me to give me a kiss.

"Sounds perfect."

Something inside me growled, and I took her hand, leading her towards the exit.

Ident.i.ty: Patricia Killiam "ARE YOU SURE?"

Atopia wasn't just about perfecting synthetic reality. Technologies we'd developed here also enabled us to lead the cutting edge in many other fields. As senior researcher, my own pet project was the deep neutrino array.

We'd seeded the Pacific Ocean basin with a carpet of modified smarticles to act as a vast sensor mote network of photoreceptors, searching out the blackness of the depths for flashes of Cherenkov radiation that signaled the pa.s.sing of neutrinos-the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Detector. The POND was our part of the quest to verify predictions of neutrinos from parallel universes pa.s.sing through our own.

"Well, the signal is there."

"Don't release any results yet. Run all the tests again and see if the result stays," I said slowly. "Not a word to anyone, you understand?"

Neutrinos were maddeningly difficult to work with. Even with a planetary-scale telescope like the POND, it wouldn't have been the first time an experiment with them had gone wrong.

My researcher nodded earnestly, keeping her eyes on me. In all cases, I'd better keep an agent watching her. The slightest leak to the press, of something of this magnitude, would be sure to destabilize the timelines we were trying to follow.

"Are you sure this isn't coming from a terrestrial source?"

"We're sure Dr. Killiam."

"Just don't tell anyone," I repeated. "Keep this absolutely secret to us three."

"Not even Kesselring?"

"Especially not Kesselring."

How could it be possible that this was happening now?

I sighed and nodded, about to let my primary subjective leave this s.p.a.ce, when the researcher grabbed my arm.

"One more thing," she said nervously.

"Yes?"

I waited, watching fear creep into her eyes.

"We applied the full battery of translation and communication memes to the signal to see if we could decipher anything..."

"And?"

"Well, we can't extract anything really clear."

"Out with it," I encouraged gently.

"Well, it seems to be some kind of a warning..."

I was sitting in on another of the interminable Board meetings, but at least I had something I wanted to accomplish at this one.

We were in the Solomon House conference room for a working session on marketing materials for the pssi launch, this one focusing on stress. One of the items I'd managed to get on the agenda was pushing Infinixx forward on the release schedule, so Nancy was there with me to help make the case.

Jimmy was there as well, now a part of the Security Council, sitting beside Nancy.

We were about to start watching the advertising video, but so far all we'd been doing was listening to a monologue by Dr. Hal Granger about his happiness index and how it was the core measurement around which the whole pssi program was based.

The Chinese representatives were dialed in today, as they had some special concerns about how we would be positioning ourselves. They were politely nodding as they listened to Hal, but he was getting on my nerves, again.

Synthetic reality wasn't the only thing pssi was useful for. Flooding neural systems with smarticles had made it possible to actively regulate ion flow along axons, helping us stop and even rehabilitate neurological diseases such as Parkinson's. Alzheimer's had been a big win for us nearly twenty years ago, and was now a disease of the past, at least for those with money.

Much of the construction of Atopia had been funded by revenues Cognix had derived from these medical breakthroughs, but stress was something different.

After conquering, or at least taming, most of the major diseases, stress was now the biggest killer out there. It had many sources. Sometimes it was just the grind of our environment-noise, pollution, light, advertising, change-but mostly it was the sense of losing control, of not being where we thought we should be or who we should be with. Finding ways to deal with memories under-laid almost all of the solutions.

The human mind had an endless capacity for suspending disbelief, and we'd found this was an effective vector in the fight against stress and anxiety. Some said we were just teaching people to fool themselves, but then again, when were people ever not fooling themselves?

I sighed. Of course, all we could do was supply the tool. How people decided to use it was entirely up to them, despite all the recommendations I could make.

Finally, Hal finished his rambling presentation, and the advertis.e.m.e.nt started.

"Have you ever wished you were free from the constant bombardment of advertising? Pssionics now makes it possible!" said the extremely attractive young thing featured in our commercial. "Saving the world from the ecocrunch is going to be the best thing you've ever done for yourself!"

The meeting was being conducted in Mandarin, but our pssi seamlessly reconstructed everything in whatever language we preferred, even visually translating culturally distinct body language and facial expressions.

Fifty years ago, they'd been predicting we'd all be speaking Chinese by now, but, in the end, the ultimate lingua franca was the machine metadata that intermediated it all-everyone spoke whatever they wanted, and the machines translated for us. Language was just more road kill left behind on our headlong race ahead.

As the advertis.e.m.e.nt droned on, I couldn't help feeling some mounting disgust with the way it focused on happiness. Sure it was important, but what exactly was happiness? What we were pushing wasn't exactly what we were pitching. Soon enough, the ad finished and faded away into the familiar rotating Trident of Atopia.

"So what do you think?" asked our marketing coordinator, Deanna. Still staring at the rotating Trident, my mind was now wandering off into thoughts about the POND results and some odd features of the storm systems coming up the coast at us.

"I liked it," responded Dr. Hal Granger, nodding ingratiatingly towards our Chinese guests. "I think I'm going to make some slight changes to the empathic feedback."

"Sounds good," said Kesselring, here in his first subjective for once. "As I was saying before, all the psychological, neurological and, well, all test results have been compiled and everything is looking good."

He smiled an unbecoming grin at me. There was a smattering of applause around the table. I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing.

"Patricia?" asked Kesselring, "Anything to add?"

"I liked it, looked wonderful to me," I said sarcastically. "Who could possibly resist a pitch like that?"

Kesselring's lips pressed tightly together. "I a.s.sume you have something more to say?" he asked.

I paused, struggling, but I couldn't help myself.

"Look, I've got some issues with how this 'happiness index' has become such a central barometer of what we're doing." I probably shouldn't have baited Hal, and I was treading on thin ice with the Chinese delegation dialed in today, but the urge was too strong.

"Isn't happiness the central, single most important thing in a person's life?" rejoined Hal, a.s.suming a defensive posture.

As he turned to face me, his skin began sporting that revolting smile he loved to use on his EmoShow. To me he looked like a weasel on Prozac. His program was becoming ever more popular as it traded off the Cognix brand, but I had no idea what people saw in him. His ego had long since outstripped his talents.

"I wouldn't argue with you Hal," I replied, holding up my hands in mock defense, "but this is supposed to be a serious medical evaluation, not a popularity contest. And knowing about happiness is different than actually creating it."

"Patricia," Hal responded in a measured tone, as if I were a guest on his show, "I think you have some issues going on here, some issues beyond this discussion."

"Don't try to deflect this," I snapped.

"Okay fine," he laughed. Now he was the one with his hands up in mock defense. "I'm just saying maybe you should have a look at your own happiness indices before you go knocking the program."

He looked at me with raised eyebrows and tried to convey his simple, dishonest frankness to everyone in the room.

"I am happy!" I shot back before I realized what I was doing, my voice louder than intended. I closed my eyes and shook it off, taking a deep breath. Little b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

The room fell quiet.

Kesselring rolled his eyes slightly and smiled towards our Chinese guests.

"Let's move onto the next topic, shall we?" he asked around the table, and everyone nodded. "So, you all have the information about pushing the Infinixx launch ahead of the pssi launch. Who would like to open the discussion?"

"Give me one good reason we should let this happen," immediately fumed Dr. David Baxter.

"David, you've seen all the phutures Nancy has presented. Almost every scenario comes out pushing the Cognix stock higher as we establish this with early adopters," I countered. "You're just annoyed because it's not under your thumb."

"That has nothing to do with it," replied Dr. Baxter, and a tumult of angry voices and arguments began while Kesselring sat quietly and watched the whole thing, sighing. After a few minutes of this, it seemed we were at a stalemate when Jimmy spoke up.

"Okay everyone, I will give you one very good reason," he shouted out. He stood up, raising his hands to quiet everyone. I could see him wink at Nancy.

"I've managed to secure an agreement with both India and China to launch simultaneously with us." Even as he said it, the Chinese representatives began nodding their understanding and agreement.

Gasps issued forth around the table. Details of the negotiations sprang into everyone's works.p.a.ces the moment Jimmy spoke and we all dropped off a splinter to have a look. Having India and China agree to a simultaneous launch wouldn't just be a commercial coup, but a major political one for Atopia as well.

"How in the world?" said Dr. Baxter, his voice trailing off while his mind a.s.similated the back-story.

"You're giving up a lot here," said Kesselring. "A lot, but I can see the balancing act and the payoff. I like it. Are there any objections?"

Kesselring looked automatically towards Dr. Granger, who looked like he was about to say something, but then just shrugged and shook his head, looking towards Jimmy. Kesselring looked towards Jimmy as well and smiled, nodding his congratulations.

"I a.s.sume you're good with this Nancy?" asked Kesselring, looking back towards her.

Kesselring looked directly at me. "I'm ready to make this happen, but I need one thing from you."

"Yes?" I had a feeling I knew what was coming next.

"I need you to put this Synthetic Beings Charter of Rights on the shelf until after the commercial launch of pssi."

I sighed and looked at the ceiling. He knew exactly how to exact his price for this.

"Yes, I can do that. But it will be at the top of my agenda as soon as we launch."

Kesselring smiled. "Then we're all agreed."

Approving murmurs began to circulate. I reached out and held Nancy's hand in mine, and smiled at both her and Jimmy. I was so proud.

"So, are we a 'go' for a worldwide press release?" sighed a resigned Dr. Baxter. He was Bob's father. Talk about an apple falling far from the tree.

"Yes," replied Kesselring, "a.s.suming this is acceptable with our Chinese delegates?"