FutureBlog chapter 10 by Pete Nicholls

Conclusions after the 1619 bombing...

Oct 5, 2022

Welcome to chapter 10 of FutureBlog! Still reeling from his experience as an eye witness to a terrible terrorist attack, Sato finally describes the event itself and the mysterious woman’s all too coincidental appearance there, that night…

If you haven’t but want to, you can read all previous chapters on a brand new Table of Contents! Or just start reading below!

22221004 posted by Sato Nakamoto

After my last entry I thought for quite a while about everything that I now knew about the 1619 disaster and this mysterious woman that I have been trying to track: they seem to be connected. She was there at the Body event and seemed to lure me away just before the bombs went off.

Oh yes, of course—the bombs. In all the confusion, I forgot to blog about the bombs. Put simply, they were hidden in various areas around the outer walls of the top floor—or should I say windows. That's right—just where I had been standing minutes, even moments earlier, was nearly the exact spot where a bomb had been placed. I can't be exactly certain but I was standing against the Plecksi of the top floor windows.

It's been just four days since these 18 bombs went off (18, one to represent the 18 cities?), but corporate and government authorities feel convinced that they were set by the wait staff. It was their own sense of luxury that allowed the bombing to occur. Why did they need humans waiting tables? Because it makes them feel good to have other people waiting on them.

If they'd only have stuck to standard employment regulations for all Body functions, they'd have hired waiter droids from a Body subsidiary. Then, at least the robots would have been traceable if their programming had been hacked.

As it stands, laws governing humans protect the employee in certain government jobs. In this case an employee can elect to have his identity kept private if he or she doesn't care to admit to supporting a particular elected official of either the Body Corporate or the Body Government. It's one of those old privacy laws that never seems important until someone wants to ban it to get at you.

At least, that's my take on it. I've gone undercover on government functions, before. If my employer hadn't been bound by the law, I'd have been caught. This was before my days working for the SNA, incidentally.

So, my three points:

Point 1 - This mystery woman seems to recognize me.

Point 2 - I've seen her in the M levels where no human is supposed to live or even visit.

Point 3 - She saved my life once on the M's, again in my flat (probably) and finally, at the Body event. Clearly, she is my guardian angel. But there's just one conclusion I can make from these points.

Conclusion - This woman, who clearly spends time on the M's, is quite good at getting around quickly, was at the Body event just before the 18 Bombs exploded, and was the only person I saw out of place at the event. I can’t yet conclude that she is a Nogoodnik, or that she set those bombs. However, I don’t know what else she wants us to think. I was going to have to find her and find out for myself.

If only this hadn’t been the plan all along.

-|-

The plan was simple, head back down to the M's and find her. This time I didn't want to go by myself and since the bombing, the authorities had released Ryca from her duties as my keeper. The night of the bombing, my custody had been entrusted to the good Madame Chancellor. I paid her a visit today, by the way. She's doing well.

The trouble is, only Ryca knows exactly where we were. After I fell unconscious, I woke up in some robot's flat. I can't understand why robots would even need a "home" in a proper sense. No robot would be programmed to have a home. Legacy programming could be one explanation for a modern mechanical doing something like “keeping a flat.” However, this would only be the case if the code verification failed. Sorry, “legacy programs” are programs written by AAIAs but based on older code, written by humans. Sometimes old, human code can sneak through code verification but since something like “keeping a flat” serves no purpose beyond what a human user needs a robot to do, the code should have been purged. Must remember to take Arif to that dinner I promised him—was that a month ago? I wasn’t planning on getting him involved again until after this story but I realize how much I’ve learned from him. I really want to say thanks for putting up with me.

I'm going to need Ryca to bring me back to that robo-flat. Also, in case I manage to injure myself and my guardian angel doesn't swoop in to save my life again (and Ryca isn't able to protect me) I'll need a health official to come with. I'll try to talk my current one into accompanying me. Her name is Min Hu, Doctor Min Hu. She's from Xin Gang City, a half-a-world away from here. Of course, I come from a half-a-world away, in New Edin. So, I’m not trying to judge.

Dr. Hu is a very good woman. I'm always coming to her with scrapes and bruises and she knows just how to fix me up. One time I had a bit of a problem with one of the medications. I couldn't get off of it for a bit and she helped me. First by getting me more and then by getting me help. I think I can convince her to help me again, here.

Then, I'll need an electronics expert.

Hm, guess I am not taking Arif to dinner just to say thanks. Embarrassing.

Have I asked you if there are assholes in your time period? There are in mine. Depressing to see one in the mirror. Life sometimes makes us do things we don’t like, I suppose. Seems like the only time I ever talk to some friends is when I need something from them.

Unfortunately, I've got to write a few short pieces about the investigation before I'll have time to assemble my team. I don't want anyone to know about this because if word gets to the Nogoodnicks, then we're quite finished before we even get started.

This is going to have to do for a post. I keep forgetting that this blog isn’t required by law. I don’t have to post anything at all if I don’t want to. But I want to. You being there in the past for me, I appreciate it, and I am sorry for this post’s shortness.

As always, more soon…

Thanks for reading! The next chapter will be out in 7 days! I am moving a little faster with projects currently so I am back to weekly FutureBlog posts. I will be taking my first real vacation in 3 years from the 13th until the 24th (sadly the whole thing isn’t vacation but it’s the other stuff that is allowing my wife and I to take the trip at all!). However, I will try to have all the chapters ready to post every Tuesday whether I am here or not.

I hope that you are enjoying FutureBlog so far! Please, if you have thoughts on FutureBlog, please let me know what you think via my contact page or just:

Pete is Writing

FutureBlog chapter 10 by Pete Nicholls

Conclusions after the 1619 bombing...

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