Slabscape : Reset Read online

  ‘And they were allowed to get away with this?’

  ‘Well, the only way they could be stopped was by using the law – and that required lawyers.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘So you have to agree to the Life Disclaimer. Sorry, it’s rather long but you have to be recorded listening to it and saying I agree at the end.’

  ‘I can get out of this room after that?’

  ‘You can go anywhere you like.’

  ‘Bring it on.’

  Immediately a dark, flat rectangle appeared in front of him, just beyond his reach, extending from his eye level down to the ground.

  ‘What’s that for?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s for the text dear, symbols that join together to make words. But nobody uses text these days, it’s just for traditionalists and naturalists,’ she frowned slightly as she said the n word. ‘But you do come across it sometimes when something old happens and this Life Disclaimer is as old as Slab itself. Anyway, it’s only a silly formal thing, dear. Just listen to the voice and I’ll be your witness.’

  As she said this, a loud, deep and angry voice interrupted them with a cough.

  ‘READY?’

  Kiki jumped. ‘Oh yes, sorry. Please proceed.’ She looked at Dielle, bit her lip, raised her eyebrows and forced a smile. He thought how pretty and full of life she looked.

  ‘STATE YOUR NAME,’ boomed the voice.

  ‘Dielle,’ said Dielle, looking around and wondering where the voice was coming from.

  ‘D.L? WHAT KIND OF A NAME IS THAT? ARE YOU NOT RESET INCEPT DATE 1039:96:4:22:15? AM I IN THE RIGHT PLACE?’

  ‘I am the same person. Dielle is my doName main.’ He felt like standing up straighter but decided to slump a bit instead.

  ‘I donated that name to him, your internship,’ said Kiki. Her voice seemed higher and a little choked. ‘He’s adopted it as his main for the time being.’

  ‘WHY WASN’T I INFORMED? HOLD.’ There was the briefest of pauses, then: ‘ALRIGHT, LET’S GET ON WITH IT. RESET INCEPT DATE 1039:96:4:22:15.’

  ‘Dielle,’ said Dielle.

  ‘QUIET. YOU ARE REQUIRED TO LISTEN TO THIS LIFE DISCLAIMER WHICH IS CURRENT AS OF THIS MARK 1039:98:7:95:23 AND IS VERSION 9199.12.SUB2R AS AUTHORITATIVELY PUBLISHED IN SLABSCAPEDIA. AT THE END OF IT YOU WILL SAY I AGREE AND THAT IS ALL.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Dielle.

  ‘QUIET!’

  Interns have very little sense of humour. He cleared his throat with a wet, explosive sound that made Dielle want to duck, and started: ‘I HEREBY DECLARE THAT I KNOW LIFE IS INHERENTLY RISKY AND IT IS UP TO ME TO DEAL WITH THE RISKS WITHOUT TRYING TO BLAME OTHER PEOPLE. I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR MY OWN STUPIDITY AND OTHERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIRS. SOME THINGS DO NOT WORK, AND SOME THINGS WORK AT SOME TIMES BUT NOT AT OTHERS FOR NO APPARENT REASON. THAT IS JUST THE WAY IT IS. HOT COFFEE IS HOT. IT WILL SCALD ME IF I SPILL IT ON MYSELF. THE SAME GOES FOR HOT TEA, HOT SOUP, HOT CHOCOLATE AND IN FACT ANY HOT BEVERAGES THAT ARE USUALLY SERVED HOT. I DO NOT HAVE TO BE TOLD IT IS HOT TO KNOW THAT IT IS PROBABLY HOT AND I DO NOT NEED ANY SIGNS TELLING ME IT IS HOT. RUNNING INTO SOLID WALLS, UNAUTHORISED TRANSVEX DOORS AND WINDOWS WILL HARM ME AND IT IS MY FAULT IF I DO SO. LIKEWISE FALLING FROM HEIGHTS, HITTING MYSELF WITH HEAVY IMPLEMENTS, OR GETTING IN THE WAY OF FAST MOVING, DENSE OBJECTS IS ENTIRELY MY RESPONSIBILITY. IF I EAT TOO MANY HIGH-FAT FOODS OR INTAKE MORE ENERGY FROM FOOD THAN I EXPEND, I WILL PUT ON WEIGHT WHICH WILL AFFECT MY HEALTH AND THE PROVIDERS OF THE FOOD ARE NOT TO BLAME. ENTERTAINMENT IS USUALLY FICTIONAL AND I DO NOT HAVE TO BELIEVE IT OR CARRY OUT THE THINGS I SEE OR EXPERIENCE WHILE BEING ENTERTAINED. SPECIFICALLY, I PROBABLY DO NOT HAVE SUPERPOWERS AND WILL DAMAGE MYSELF IF I BEHAVE AS THOUGH I DO. I DO NOT HAVE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING I AM TOLD, OVERHEAR OR IMAGINE. BUT IF I DO, IT IS MY RESPONSIBILITY TO FIND OUT IF IT IS TRUE OR NOT.’

  Dielle was getting bored. He had never heard so many inane and obvious things. I might not remember anything from my former life, he thought, but even I know about all this crap, and even if I didn’t, I could have figured it out in a micro-second. He discovered that if he concentrated on the text that floated across the display, words and meanings came to him. He could read. That might come in handy, he thought. Pity this disclaimer nonsense wasn’t worth the effort.

  His attention started to wander. He looked over at Kiki who was trying to encourage him with a broad smile. But then, thought Dielle, she was always happy. He supposed that this must be a pretty good place if someone like Kiki was so consistently happy here.

  ‘. . . THINGS WITH OR WITHOUT PROTECTIVE CLOTHING, SAFETY-NETS AND/OR QUALIFIED SUPERVISORS . . .’

  He does go on a bit, thought Dielle.

  {[Who is this guy?]}

  [[Intern 001.434.0955]]

  {[Is that a real person?]}

  [[He is a real person but as an intern his physical body is wired and held in storage while he carries out his internship. As such he is part of the SlabWide human contiguation known as SlabCouncil]]

  ‘. . . I DO NOT NEED HUGE WARNINGS ON THE PACKAGING TO REMIND ME ABOUT THIS . . .’

  {[Council huh? Sounds important]}

  [[Well, that’s a matter of debate really; do you want to know more about that debate? It’s been going on a long time.]]

  {[Later Sis, sounds like he’s winding down]}

  ‘. . . AND RESULT IN PERSONAL INJURY ESPECIALLY, BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY, IF THE ACCUSATIONS ARE TRUE. DO YOU AGREE?’

  'I agree, and may I say it's been a ple. . .' there was a loud click. Simultaneously, the black screen and white walls disappeared and Sis informed him that he'd had Contemporary Morality Update 1039:85Rev1.02 (SlabWide version) installed in shell but he didn't get a chance to query this because Kiki flung herself at him. He caught her lithe body easily as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  ‘You can kiss me now,’ she instructed. He was surprised to find her open lips against his. He experimented with a bit of sucking and blowing, then Kiki put the tip of her tongue into his mouth which felt very good so he tried to do the same to her. He was enjoying this a lot but had to stop for air.

  ‘You mean I had to agree to all that before we could do this?’ He looked around: more white walls and white corridors, only further away and far less claustrophobic.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, kissing his face enthusiastically. ‘You can catch all sorts of stuff from kissing, you know. It’s a legal thing.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’

  ‘Oh, I hope so!’ she laughed. ‘Come on, let’s go outside!’

  ‘Outside? On a spaceship? Are you crazy?’

  Dielle followed her down the white corridor. He’d been noticing some discrepancies with his comprehension. He had no memories of anything that had happened to him before his body came back to life two days ago. He had no conscious knowledge of anything he might have done or learned before, but somehow he knew you didn’t just go outside when you lived in a spaceship. It was as though he knew the meaning of the words but nothing more. There was something else, too. Something to do with words, or rather a word, that had a meaning he thought he understood, but the word and the meaning seemed to have gone away and left a gap, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, something missing. He was trying to search his memory when Kiki reached the end of the corridor and stopped.

  ‘See this light blue panel? It’s an unrestricted transvex to the outside. Anyone can use it without clearance from Sis. The darker blue ones usually require clearance of some sort. I’ll show you those later – they’re fun. Come on!’ Kiki walked through the light blue panel and disappeared. Dielle stopped short, he wasn’t so sure about this. Was this some sort of trick? A test? Was he being watched? He looked around and could see nothing that might indicate that he was, but then hadn’t Kiki told him he was being recorded in the re-fam area? There’d been no sign of any recording device in there either. He stuck his hand out cautiously. It went straight through with a faint tingle. Like an osmotic membrane, thought Dielle. What the hell, he wondere
d, was an osmotic membrane? He was just about to ask Sis when something grabbed his hand and tugged. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  ‘Come on silly,’ Kiki laughed at him. ‘You’re going to love this.’

  Dielle opened his eyelids a fraction, kidding himself that if something horrible was about to happen, he could avoid it by snapping them shut again. His pupils contracted in the bright light and darted from side to side, taking in details that his brain found almost impossible to process. Gradually, he allowed his eyes to widen as Sis compensated for the adrenaline rush and stabilised his cortisol levels. They were standing in bright daylight on a recreation platform scattered with morph-frames, floatshades and variable tables. Everywhere he looked, he saw buildings and platforms; gigantic, slender towers of tessellated mirrors hundreds of stories high, smaller structures with surfaces that swallowed light or modified it in brain-tickling ways and slender tendrils which joined the towering spires or curved into the hazy distance. Their platform was edged with shimmerail, a chest-high barrier which transformed from its barely visible default state into an opaque, solid wall as he approached it. He looked down over the edge. Below them was a three-dimensional matrix of buildings, walkways and public spaces, all of them lit by the ubiquitous sunlight that seemed to cast no shadows. It was a vast, sprawling metropolis, filled with light and space and teaming with people. And as far as Dielle could tell, every building, bridge and platform was floating. Hanging in the air. Impossibly so. He started to laugh. Kiki, who had been studying his face, laughed along gaily.

  ‘It’s a joke. Very funny. You really had me going there.’

  ‘Which part, darling?’

  ‘The whole thing! The spaceship thing, the reset thing, the four-hundred-and-forty-years-old thing, even the information-in-my-head thing. Come on! You don’t expect me to believe,’ he cast his arm in a broad sweep across the incredible vista, ‘this?’

  ‘Believe what, dear?’ asked Kiki, puzzled.

  ‘A floating city in a landscape on a spaceship.’

  ‘It’s not a landscape, silly. This is Slab. It’s a Slabscape, and we’re not on it, we’re inside it.’

  ‘Right! OK, keep it up. How big is this so-called spaceship supposed to be then?’

  Kiki was offended. ‘I don’t remember,’ she semi-lied. ‘Why don’t you ask Sis?’

  {[Slab dimensions?]}

  [[Current overall Slab dimensions (external rounded) length: 1024 kilometres; width: 455 kilometres; height: 114 kilometres [more]]]

  ‘What?’

  {[More]}

  [[Slab is comprised of eight main sections: two permaday, two permanight, two variable day/night, a rear environmental/supply section and a frontal buffer/mass-conversion section. Total habitable volume: approximately 2.2 million cubic kilometres with another 2 million about to come online when AllWeather opens [more]]]

  A nearby morph-frame configured into a lounge chair as Dielle sat down, holding his head.

  {[OK, I know I’m going to regret this, but how many people live in it?]}

  [[Current live human population: 31,873,998. Breakdown: Male 42.24%, Female 42.95%, Non-gender 5.23%, Bi-gender 8.56%, Transitional 1.01%.]]

  Dielle’s head reeled as he tried to take in what he was being told. He looked up at Kiki, who was watching him with concern.

  ‘You alright, dear?’

  {[Verification required]}

  A torrent of minutely detailed temporary data flooded his head. Dielle closed his eyes and soaked it up until Sis was sure he was convinced, then she rested his brain as he moved into a new reality. After a few seconds, the data cascade faded away like half-chased memories, leaving him with a deeper understanding and an infinitely bigger world to play in.

  He took a couple of deep breaths and walked over to take her hand. They turned to gaze at the Slabscape. ‘So I’m on a thousand-kilometres-long spaceship together with nearly thirty-two million people who live in floating buildings?’

  Kiki nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Hell . . . why not?’ he said with a grin. ‘Any other surprises?’

  ‘Look up dear.’

  The buildings overhead channelled the light from the sky through to their bases, making them appear hollow. Far above them he could make out thousands of buildings linked by causeways.

  ‘A mirrored sky. That’s a nice idea. I guess it would be weird to see a ceiling.’

  ‘No dear, that’s not a mirror. That’s UpSideDown.’

  He looked closer. The city above wasn’t quite the same as the one that surrounded them. It was subtly darker, spikier and more industrial looking. There were fewer connecting tendrils and he thought he could see hills and rivers in the distance. His eyes opened wide as he began to get a proper understanding of the scale of the place. He swallowed hard and his right eye started to twitch. Sis emtied a couple of milligrams of a muscle relaxant into his bloodstream.

  [[You’re gorping]]

  {[Sorry]} Dielle turned to Kiki for help.

  ‘We’re in DownSideUp. For us, down is this way,’ she pointed to the floor. ‘But for everyone in UpSide, it’s that way,’ she pointed to the sky. ‘See? Their up is our down and vice versa. There’s a boundary layer in the middle called the interface where we have all sorts of fun messing around with ups and downs and so on. I’ll take you there soon.’

  Dielle looked up at the city and wondered if there was someone up there looking down – or up – at him.

  ‘You know what, Kiki?’ he said, rubbing his neck as she looked at him with beautiful raised eyebrows. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Yes, you should be. You haven’t eaten anything for around three hundred and sixty years and now you’re out of re-fam, it’s up to you to sort out your own nutrient intake. I want to take you to my favourite bistro. It’s authentic French from France, Earth. Oh, do you speak French?’

  ‘I don’t know. Hang on.’

  {[Do I speak French?]}

  [[Not according to records, however pre-departure data veracity cannot be guaranteed]] ‘Naturellement! Bien sur! Let’s avant. J’ai famished!’

  ‘Well, never mind, dear, you’ll have plenty of time to learn. Come on. We’ll take the tube.’ She turned on her heels and disappeared through the transvex. Dielle followed.

  {[Tube?]}

  [[SlabWide transportation system. Ref: katabatic peristalsis [more]]]

  ‘Now this is really fun,’ she said, walking back down the re-fam corridor. ‘All you do is tell Sis where you want to go and she’ll let you through the tube’s vex and take you there. Most people use a privacy shield while they’re travelling, but it’s much more interesting if you freetube it. Wherever you see a dark blue vex, that’s a tube access. Just about every building in Seacombe has at least one on every level and Saint Vincent’s has loads of them.’ She rounded a corner and stopped. ‘Here’s one.’

  ‘And they go everywhere in this Slab? How do I find them?’

  ‘You just ask Sis and she’ll hilight the way to the nearest one. It’s handy for exploring and only you can see the hilights. Keeps everything nice and tidy. Now, this can be a bit scary at first but don’t be frightened, Sis is in control and nothing bad can happen. Tell Sis you want to go to Aux Renoir 92, walk through the vex and she’ll get you there toutes suite. I’ll be right behind you.’

  ‘But what happens if it goes wrong? What do I do?’

  ‘Don’t worry dear, it’ll only go wrong if it’s supposed to. You shouldn’t take that whole Life Disclaimer thing too seriously. Sis will take care of you.’ She nudged him toward the blue panel. ‘Go on. I thought you said you were hungry.’

  ‘Well, OK then. It’s not like anything unusual has happened today.’

  {[Oh Renwa 92]}

  [[••]]

  He walked through and started falling. Falling and screaming. Falling, screaming and trying to grab onto the smooth sides of a white tube with rapidly accelerating blue panels. ‘SHIIIIT!’

  ‘I told you we don’t use
that word anymore, dear,’ said Kiki. He looked up and there she was, falling with him, smiling calmly. ‘See? I told you it was fun, didn’t I?’

  They were moving so fast that the panels blurred, but there was no wind. He looked down and saw the end of the tube rushing up at him. He figured they only had a few seconds before impact.

  ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ called out Kiki. ‘We’ll be going UpSlab in a moment.’

  Dielle closed his eyes. He wanted to believe that Kiki hadn’t sent them both to a messy death. He tried to tell his screaming nerves to calm down. Be cool, he said to himself, pull yourself together. That made him feel worse so Sis helped out a little.

  When he opened his eyes, Kiki was by his side and they were speeding along a broad, roofless causeway that curved through the floating city. They flew through the windless air alongside scores of other travellers and a jumble of colourfully animated globes hurtling along the wide thoroughfare. A constant stream of bubbles and people joined or left the flow through overhead funnels, side feeders and plunging sinkholes. A shimmering buffer zone separated them from a similar variegated mass flashing past in the opposite direction.

  ‘What do you think, darling?’ said Kiki. ‘It’s called Sixth Avenue and it’s a main intersection surge. Saint Vincent’s is usually directly above it. Very convenient’.

  ‘Brilliant!’ said Dielle, ‘How does it work?’

  ‘It’s all to do with mass and gravity manipulation and inertia stuff. It’s the same technology that makes the buildings float and powers the space-drives. Ask Sis.’

  He made a mental note to find out later.

  [[••]]

  {[Huh?]}

  [[All mental notes are held in system memory and will be re-prompted during perceived idle time]]

  {[Erm . . . ••]}

  He was too interested in the scenery to delve into the technology. Slab was filled with people. Busy people. Dielle was fascinated. He had never seen so many people and they were of all shapes, sizes, colours and styles. That should keep things interesting, he thought.