By David C. Daoust
Life was weird sometimes, Colin guessed as the private security clumped him in with the small blond and tiny bot. Colin tried to convince the large group of men that had taken them all into custody, that he was just an innocent bystander, a passerby, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something that would have been much more convincing, if they hadn’t found the concealed shotgun still clutched under his arm, hidden within the folds of his coat from when Margo lugged it down from their last stop, nor did the small hand gun hidden up his sleeve help matters.
Colin found himself disarmed, sitting in a small waiting room, with a rather guilty looking Margo, shrugging at him, and a moody blond woman who seemed a little bit happier to be within the upper floors of the hotel than one might expect, especially once the men ran her credentials. At least they called off the local law once they found out who she was, though they were still being held in custody.
Now it seemed they were waiting, but for what? Colin had no idea. The security guards made it clear they had no care for what he had to say on the matter, so he sat idly by, waiting for the situation to clear itself up.
One of the men entered the small room with a holo-pad, which he placed on the desk, and activated. After a few seconds of light-beams scanning the room, a projection was suddenly thrown up. Colin found himself within a large fancy office, with a large expensive desk, with an extremely well dressed dark haired woman with mottled skin sitting in front of it. It was all, of course, a hologram; they still sat in the small waiting room on Grady, even if their eyes told them otherwise.
While holo-pads were mostly used as personal computers, they were a mainstay of current and past technology. In the past, this hologram tech was used to take the edge off the cramped conditions of the ark ships, because frankly, some days you need to spend at the park. These holographic parks, and other, then exotic, sceneries that were available, also led to early versions of the Hub. In fact, much of the virtual world was built for this use, though as the Hub grew, and became a world of its own, it actually led to the creation of bot intelligence. While holo-parks were still in use on city-stations, the holo-pads ability to create holograms made communication over great distances much more face to face than a telephone, which is what kept it such a common device throughout the rest of the Onion.
“Dakota!” the dark haired woman said looking up from her monitor, as Colin was sure they had all just appeared in her office much the same way she had suddenly appeared to them, though probably without the crumby waiting room. “What in the worlds are you doing on Twin Crown?”
Colin could see in the large picture window behind the woman, she had a beautiful view of a small hamlet built under a planetary dome. This was probably the closest Colin would ever get to seeing how the rich folk lived under their domes, though his attention was suddenly pulled away from the sight seeing as the small blond suddenly stood up and started yelling!
“What am I doing indeed?!” Dakota questioned, clearly upset. “Do you know how many have died here thanks to you, Suzanne?”
“Me?” the dark haired woman said startled at the accusation. “What have you gotten in to?”
“Oh, only clear data files of the Otomo Corp’s use of nanites to spread infection throughout the Onion and the profit reports of the meds sold thereafter!” Dakota practically yelled in one long breath.
“This is madness, Dakota,” Suzanne said red faced. “You clearly don’t have all the information.”
“Well, that’d be why I’m on Twin Crown,” Dakota said angrily. “And now I want to know! I want to know that this company has not been profiting off an illness we damn well could have knocked out of existence by now.”
“I don’t have to answer to you, Dakota,” the mottled woman shot off, the bold accusation clearly struck a nerve.
Colin could see the anger rise as the blond stood shocked.
“As always you’re living amongst the clouds, with no grasp on the real world,” Suzanne continued.
“I’m in the clouds?”Dakota asked uncharacteristically brief.
“That’s right, you think you have the whole universe all figured out, with all these different aspects, separated through all these players,” Suzanne was clearly upset, clearly had the right buttons pushed at the right time to launch into what she really thought about Dakota.
“This is what some people do, and here’s Dakota’s list of why its wrong” she gestured in one direction, mockingly, and then in another direction, “And this is what others do, with your other list of why its wrong… You just sit back and pass judgment.”
Dakota’s jaw dropped.
“Yet you don’t think you have to assign yourself a role, because you’re just a watcher, an observer,” the dark haired woman continued, much to Colin’s delight, “To smart to have to succumb to what the rest of the world has to deal with. Why do these things happen, Dakota? Why do these things exist? Not because other people aren’t smart and didn’t try to figure out the best possible solution, because they actually did, because they tried to work with what was, not just some generalized idea, the things you bad mouth and smear are a result of the grit and grime of reality!”
“Well I got news for you, sister,” Suzanne continued pointedly, “You can’t suddenly come down out of the clouds and expect me to answer for things you can’t possibly grasp.”
“I can’t grasp?” the angry blond said from a flushed red face.
“I blame myself, I let you sit in that lab,” Suzanne’s voice shook, “My father too, God rest his soul, gave you whatever you needed, whatever your brain concocted, we acted as though it was gold.
“You sit back and call us capitalist, and those others are fascists…’ royals are just a parade to watch from a distance’.” She was really letting her have it, Colin was suddenly glad to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, “You, Dakota, are the capitalist, YOU are the driving force here. I may have been the one to turn it into coin, but you are what made it possible.
“What am I even saying?” Suzanne said clearly upset, “I don’t have to answer to you.”
With that the hologram suddenly vanished, leaving them all in the tiny waiting room, sans Suzanne and her impressive office. Colin thought maybe he saw a demon in place of the small blond though, as the anger fumed off her small form in waves.
