2025-09-23, 11:17 AM
“I have no appreciation of danger,” said the boy as he and Gry sat on the mountain once again, this time under the midnight sky. “You think that that’s what allows me to take these risks, but you’ve mixed it up. I take risks because I’m trying to learn that appreciation.”
Gry stayed silent.
“Look at yourself,” continued Wilson. “Your body is perfect. Its growth has been monitored and focused since before conception so that you’ve never had to bother with its maintenance. You eat to excess, anything that pleases your tongue or eye. Yet, you’re so fit that two hundred years ago when they still had athletes, you could have been in the Olympics. But have you ever had to exercise?”
“Most people would say that technology has freed us.” said Gry, slipping into teacher style.
“Freed us to do what? Drift? Vegetate?”
“That’s hardly fair. No one is idle. Art and science are both in a golden age the likes of which no civilization has ever seen before.”
“You’re wrong,” said Wilson, tossing pebbles over the cliff. “The art’s the worst of it. It’s beautiful, but it has no soul. No tension.”
“So what would you say is good art?”
Wilson contemplated the stones in his hand.
“Romeo and Juliet.”
#
Gry had begun to truly know Wilson one day when the boy’s status alert had gone off while Gry supervised his class Stream. As the indicator flashed on the computer-projected Environment Vision Interface overlaid on his sight, Gry mentally requested a recheck. Not that the computer ever made a mistake, but human nature demanded he make sure.
The boy had turned his Warden off and the binary stream that had been pouring into his brain had nowhere to go. This kid is becoming a real pain. Yet, Gry relished the all too rare chance of tackling a Streamline mess. He cut Wilson’s sub-flow then vented the knowledge stream back into the main highway through the backflow line.
No! Traffic was backing up too fast. Detour options appeared; were accepted or discarded. Gry noted the task timer when normal flow resumed: 14.3 milliseconds. His true satisfaction in this job came from knowing he was the best.
“Incoming message.” This from the seldom used class dialogue channel. It was Wilson.
Gry asked, “Do you realize how dangerous that was?”
“It was worth the risk,” said Wilson, from wherever in the city his home was.
“Streaming isn’t ‘cut and paste’. We’re talking about rewiring brain cells. That takes time. When you shut that off in the middle of writi—“
“I bet the computer failsafe had it covered the whole way.”
“The computer never had to enter into it,” said Gry. “This behavior is still unacceptable and will be considered in your evaluation.”
“That’s what I messaged you about,” said Wilson. “I need you to not put this in a report.”
“It’s procedure. I can’t omit it.”
“You’re such a slave! Do you do everything you’re told?”
Even though he saw the kid’s game quite clearly, the question still irritated Gry.
Wilson said, “Look, I’m offering you a deal.”
“What is it?”
“Cut me free for a couple of hours each day.”
“Are you mad?”
“Do that and I won’t switch off the Warden during class,” said Wilson.
“I can handle switch-offs.”
“Yeah, but if you get twenty a day, I bet the higher ups will ask questions. Bad for your teaching career.”
This behavior amazed Gry. Streaming was such a painless teaching method that rebellion against it was unheard of.
“I accept,” said Gry, “on condition that I supervise your down time.”
“No problem.”
When Wilson signed off, Gry called up the Stream records for the kid’s switch-off. He found that the computer had completed the vent protocols long before he had done the job himself. It had simply been waiting for his 20 millisecond time allowance to expire before it stepped in.
Fuck. The kid was right.
#
That night Gry created a nice girl. Elena de Souza he named her. Blonde. Perky tits. Twenty-four. As they coupled on a storm-lashed beach—Gry in fact lying in bed with his familiar Seattle apartment around him, Elena and the beach a construct in his mind—the Warden’s stimulators fired his synapses for him, creating all the sensations of sex—the smells and tastes, touches and heat. After his brisk and robust orgasm, they spooned together on the sand. While he slept alone in his bed, Elena kept him faithful company through the night.
#
According to the EVI the boy was 4529 meters away, the distance rapidly closing as Gry cruised through the air in his little force bubble. A small file readout appeared, linked to the image of the boy by a thin green line: “Dal Wilson, age 14 years 65 days, Male, Contact key 2123-OC-19-Toadboy…” Gry could access other information—hobbies, student history, parental information and more, if he wanted.
Around Gry, the Dakota badlands flashed by, half-an-hour after starting his trip. Coming over a ridge, he felt blessed by the view of stark rocks, thrusting out of the green plain like sea monsters. He captured the moment through his eyes, saving the image in the Warden’s hard drive.
“I can see why you would want to meet out here,” he said to Wilson over the messenger.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gry, landing on the mountaintop Wilson had chosen.
“Am I under your supervision now?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Nothing visible changed around Wilson, but Gry knew the boy’s protective force-field was gone. Goosebumps broke out all over him thinking of how vulnerable the fragile flesh and blood before him was.
“You know, maybe we should stop for a minute—“
“Don’t be a coward,” said Wilson wandering to the cliff edge.
“Stop!” Gry pulled him back.
“Wow,” said Wilson. “I guess when you say ‘supervise’, you mean supervise.”
“I never promised you freedom. Just that I’d let you turn the Warden off. Now, sit there and don’t move.”
Wilson sat flat on the ground, smiling as if he had just won the argument. He located a large rock and held it close before him, examining it. Gry telescoped his EVI in, to see what interested Wilson so much. Sensing his focus, the Warden opened a file window before Gry’s eyes, linked to the rock by the ubiquitous thin green line.
Estimated mass, spectral analysis, three dimensional imaging… Options again offered themselves to him.
“Why are you holding it so close?” Gry asked.
“To get a good look.”
“But why don’t you just—“
Then Gry realized the boy’s EVI was off. The idea of Wilson facing the world without any assistance—without any insight—gave Gry shivers worse than when he had thought about the absent force-field.
“How can you learn anything using just your eyes?”
“It was just eyes that our ancestors used when they first took rocks and sparked fires. Took them and struck down their enemies.”
Gry smiled at the boy’s ready defense.
“But they were inefficient,” he told Wilson, feeling like an actual teacher for the first time in his life. “They could never be sure of success.”
“Exactly! Imagine how thrilling life must have been for them.”
“Imagine how terrifying,” said Gry.
“Yes. But at least they felt their emotions without any insulation.”
“Look, Wilson, if it’s adrenaline you’re looking for I can arrange a Freedisc game with some tough opp—“
“It’s not the same thing.”
“You have a better idea?”
That victor’s smile from Wilson again. “Actually, I do.” Wilson pressed a red button on his wristband.
From below the cliff, two machines floated up on autopilot to land near them. Each had a low seat and handlebars, with flared cowlings on the bottom.
“Hoverbikes!” said Gry.
“Yeah. These are from the last batch ever made. Thirty years old. They cost me practically nothing. I’ve disabled the mental interface”
“Manual control?” asked Gry, disbelieving.
“Yeah, it’s not hard. Here, let me Stream you the info packet.”
And just like that, Gry knew how to operate a hovercycle.
“Come on,” said Wilson, hopping onto a bike.
“No,” said Gry, as Wilson eased out over the cliff edge. In his mind he imagined the boy slipping, falling, breaking, at the foot of the cliff (69.6 meters below according to his EVI). “Get off that thing.”
Even though their convenience had eliminated most of the need for vehicles, Gry knew that his field bubble could never go as fast as Wilson’s machine. Wilson circled into the air, further out of reach.
“Get down here now, Wilson. You’re going to injure yourself.”
“Tell you what,” said Wilson. “I promise to do what you say, if you can tag me.”
“No. I’m not doing this.”
“You say ‘no’ way too much. When you make up your mind, I’ll be out in the canyons.”
The boy was going to kill himself. Wilson had obviously grown up with such faith in the shield’s constant protection that even now, with it turned off, he found it hard to appreciate danger.
Despite Gry’s expectations, the bike controls felt natural to him. The twisting of his muscles to command the levers and handles created a feeling of power. Gry was immediately master of the machine.
He found Wilson at the entrance to a jagged canyon, the boy obviously waiting on him. There was little difficulty in the chase at first. Gry was even certain a few times that he could have bumped against Wilson’s bike, but could think only of Wilson being thrown against the rocks below if he did.
Then the route became confused. Gry was forced to hang back, giving himself time to respond to Wilson’s moves as they raced along random ravines. He damned his human nerves. The lapse between his thinking a motion and his arm actually responding was maddening. Yet, the cutting sense of how overextended he was in mind and body made him feel like a man newly awakened. His temperature regulators could do nothing to stop the sweat dripping down his body. Pride swelled his heart with every successful maneuver as he chased Wilson.
His dread and concern returned all at once when he saw Wilson make a turn moments too late. Sliding sideways, the underside of the boy’s bike snagged and he tumbled out (Gry’s EVI told him that Wilson’s velocity was 214 meters per second). There was no way for the boy to avoid a collision with the canyon wall.
There was zero impact, however.
Alive and whole, Wilson stood, looking around himself. Ditching the bike, Gry ran over to him.
“How--?” But there was only one explanation. The instant before contact, the Warden’s shield had sprung to life, the force-field holding skin, bones, organs and flesh together with such firm gentleness that Wilson had never felt a thing.
“I expected this,” said Wilson fingering the Warden’s housing belt around his waist. “It would never allow me to truly turn it off. It was only playing dead.”
“What’s dead is our deal,” said Gry. “This is a lot more than you had any right to ask me for. I don’t care if you pull a hundred switch-offs a day.”
#
Three weeks with no trouble. Then Wilson wanted to talk. Just talk; no messing with the Warden. So Gry agreed to meet him on the mountain a second time.
“‘Romeo and Juliet’ is misunderstood,” said Gry. “People always think it’s about the glory of love. If you examine what Shakespeare is really saying, though, he thinks that letting emotion rule the intellect is…tragic.”
“You piped me Shakespeare last year. Remember? I already know that.”
Gry’s EVI offered to display the text of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for him. He declined.
Wilson said, “Those two knew there would be repercussions. The entire play is a race against the events they set in motion. And the closer their doom, the more they could feel the sharpness of life. Death was like the gravity in their emotional world.”
Gravity strength at Gry’s location was currently at 9.814 N/kg, according to an EVI pop-up.
“There’s more to think about than life and death,” said Gry. “What about happiness?”
“Would you rather be dead or unhappy?”
“Unhappy, I suppose.”
“You see?” said Wilson. “There’s only one consequence that matters—death.”
“Nobody’s immortal,” said Gry. “People still die every day.”
“Does it ever irk you that your job doesn’t really matter?”
“It matters a lot—“
Gry stayed silent.
“Look at yourself,” continued Wilson. “Your body is perfect. Its growth has been monitored and focused since before conception so that you’ve never had to bother with its maintenance. You eat to excess, anything that pleases your tongue or eye. Yet, you’re so fit that two hundred years ago when they still had athletes, you could have been in the Olympics. But have you ever had to exercise?”
“Most people would say that technology has freed us.” said Gry, slipping into teacher style.
“Freed us to do what? Drift? Vegetate?”
“That’s hardly fair. No one is idle. Art and science are both in a golden age the likes of which no civilization has ever seen before.”
“You’re wrong,” said Wilson, tossing pebbles over the cliff. “The art’s the worst of it. It’s beautiful, but it has no soul. No tension.”
“So what would you say is good art?”
Wilson contemplated the stones in his hand.
“Romeo and Juliet.”
#
Gry had begun to truly know Wilson one day when the boy’s status alert had gone off while Gry supervised his class Stream. As the indicator flashed on the computer-projected Environment Vision Interface overlaid on his sight, Gry mentally requested a recheck. Not that the computer ever made a mistake, but human nature demanded he make sure.
The boy had turned his Warden off and the binary stream that had been pouring into his brain had nowhere to go. This kid is becoming a real pain. Yet, Gry relished the all too rare chance of tackling a Streamline mess. He cut Wilson’s sub-flow then vented the knowledge stream back into the main highway through the backflow line.
No! Traffic was backing up too fast. Detour options appeared; were accepted or discarded. Gry noted the task timer when normal flow resumed: 14.3 milliseconds. His true satisfaction in this job came from knowing he was the best.
“Incoming message.” This from the seldom used class dialogue channel. It was Wilson.
Gry asked, “Do you realize how dangerous that was?”
“It was worth the risk,” said Wilson, from wherever in the city his home was.
“Streaming isn’t ‘cut and paste’. We’re talking about rewiring brain cells. That takes time. When you shut that off in the middle of writi—“
“I bet the computer failsafe had it covered the whole way.”
“The computer never had to enter into it,” said Gry. “This behavior is still unacceptable and will be considered in your evaluation.”
“That’s what I messaged you about,” said Wilson. “I need you to not put this in a report.”
“It’s procedure. I can’t omit it.”
“You’re such a slave! Do you do everything you’re told?”
Even though he saw the kid’s game quite clearly, the question still irritated Gry.
Wilson said, “Look, I’m offering you a deal.”
“What is it?”
“Cut me free for a couple of hours each day.”
“Are you mad?”
“Do that and I won’t switch off the Warden during class,” said Wilson.
“I can handle switch-offs.”
“Yeah, but if you get twenty a day, I bet the higher ups will ask questions. Bad for your teaching career.”
This behavior amazed Gry. Streaming was such a painless teaching method that rebellion against it was unheard of.
“I accept,” said Gry, “on condition that I supervise your down time.”
“No problem.”
When Wilson signed off, Gry called up the Stream records for the kid’s switch-off. He found that the computer had completed the vent protocols long before he had done the job himself. It had simply been waiting for his 20 millisecond time allowance to expire before it stepped in.
Fuck. The kid was right.
#
That night Gry created a nice girl. Elena de Souza he named her. Blonde. Perky tits. Twenty-four. As they coupled on a storm-lashed beach—Gry in fact lying in bed with his familiar Seattle apartment around him, Elena and the beach a construct in his mind—the Warden’s stimulators fired his synapses for him, creating all the sensations of sex—the smells and tastes, touches and heat. After his brisk and robust orgasm, they spooned together on the sand. While he slept alone in his bed, Elena kept him faithful company through the night.
#
According to the EVI the boy was 4529 meters away, the distance rapidly closing as Gry cruised through the air in his little force bubble. A small file readout appeared, linked to the image of the boy by a thin green line: “Dal Wilson, age 14 years 65 days, Male, Contact key 2123-OC-19-Toadboy…” Gry could access other information—hobbies, student history, parental information and more, if he wanted.
Around Gry, the Dakota badlands flashed by, half-an-hour after starting his trip. Coming over a ridge, he felt blessed by the view of stark rocks, thrusting out of the green plain like sea monsters. He captured the moment through his eyes, saving the image in the Warden’s hard drive.
“I can see why you would want to meet out here,” he said to Wilson over the messenger.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gry, landing on the mountaintop Wilson had chosen.
“Am I under your supervision now?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Nothing visible changed around Wilson, but Gry knew the boy’s protective force-field was gone. Goosebumps broke out all over him thinking of how vulnerable the fragile flesh and blood before him was.
“You know, maybe we should stop for a minute—“
“Don’t be a coward,” said Wilson wandering to the cliff edge.
“Stop!” Gry pulled him back.
“Wow,” said Wilson. “I guess when you say ‘supervise’, you mean supervise.”
“I never promised you freedom. Just that I’d let you turn the Warden off. Now, sit there and don’t move.”
Wilson sat flat on the ground, smiling as if he had just won the argument. He located a large rock and held it close before him, examining it. Gry telescoped his EVI in, to see what interested Wilson so much. Sensing his focus, the Warden opened a file window before Gry’s eyes, linked to the rock by the ubiquitous thin green line.
Estimated mass, spectral analysis, three dimensional imaging… Options again offered themselves to him.
“Why are you holding it so close?” Gry asked.
“To get a good look.”
“But why don’t you just—“
Then Gry realized the boy’s EVI was off. The idea of Wilson facing the world without any assistance—without any insight—gave Gry shivers worse than when he had thought about the absent force-field.
“How can you learn anything using just your eyes?”
“It was just eyes that our ancestors used when they first took rocks and sparked fires. Took them and struck down their enemies.”
Gry smiled at the boy’s ready defense.
“But they were inefficient,” he told Wilson, feeling like an actual teacher for the first time in his life. “They could never be sure of success.”
“Exactly! Imagine how thrilling life must have been for them.”
“Imagine how terrifying,” said Gry.
“Yes. But at least they felt their emotions without any insulation.”
“Look, Wilson, if it’s adrenaline you’re looking for I can arrange a Freedisc game with some tough opp—“
“It’s not the same thing.”
“You have a better idea?”
That victor’s smile from Wilson again. “Actually, I do.” Wilson pressed a red button on his wristband.
From below the cliff, two machines floated up on autopilot to land near them. Each had a low seat and handlebars, with flared cowlings on the bottom.
“Hoverbikes!” said Gry.
“Yeah. These are from the last batch ever made. Thirty years old. They cost me practically nothing. I’ve disabled the mental interface”
“Manual control?” asked Gry, disbelieving.
“Yeah, it’s not hard. Here, let me Stream you the info packet.”
And just like that, Gry knew how to operate a hovercycle.
“Come on,” said Wilson, hopping onto a bike.
“No,” said Gry, as Wilson eased out over the cliff edge. In his mind he imagined the boy slipping, falling, breaking, at the foot of the cliff (69.6 meters below according to his EVI). “Get off that thing.”
Even though their convenience had eliminated most of the need for vehicles, Gry knew that his field bubble could never go as fast as Wilson’s machine. Wilson circled into the air, further out of reach.
“Get down here now, Wilson. You’re going to injure yourself.”
“Tell you what,” said Wilson. “I promise to do what you say, if you can tag me.”
“No. I’m not doing this.”
“You say ‘no’ way too much. When you make up your mind, I’ll be out in the canyons.”
The boy was going to kill himself. Wilson had obviously grown up with such faith in the shield’s constant protection that even now, with it turned off, he found it hard to appreciate danger.
Despite Gry’s expectations, the bike controls felt natural to him. The twisting of his muscles to command the levers and handles created a feeling of power. Gry was immediately master of the machine.
He found Wilson at the entrance to a jagged canyon, the boy obviously waiting on him. There was little difficulty in the chase at first. Gry was even certain a few times that he could have bumped against Wilson’s bike, but could think only of Wilson being thrown against the rocks below if he did.
Then the route became confused. Gry was forced to hang back, giving himself time to respond to Wilson’s moves as they raced along random ravines. He damned his human nerves. The lapse between his thinking a motion and his arm actually responding was maddening. Yet, the cutting sense of how overextended he was in mind and body made him feel like a man newly awakened. His temperature regulators could do nothing to stop the sweat dripping down his body. Pride swelled his heart with every successful maneuver as he chased Wilson.
His dread and concern returned all at once when he saw Wilson make a turn moments too late. Sliding sideways, the underside of the boy’s bike snagged and he tumbled out (Gry’s EVI told him that Wilson’s velocity was 214 meters per second). There was no way for the boy to avoid a collision with the canyon wall.
There was zero impact, however.
Alive and whole, Wilson stood, looking around himself. Ditching the bike, Gry ran over to him.
“How--?” But there was only one explanation. The instant before contact, the Warden’s shield had sprung to life, the force-field holding skin, bones, organs and flesh together with such firm gentleness that Wilson had never felt a thing.
“I expected this,” said Wilson fingering the Warden’s housing belt around his waist. “It would never allow me to truly turn it off. It was only playing dead.”
“What’s dead is our deal,” said Gry. “This is a lot more than you had any right to ask me for. I don’t care if you pull a hundred switch-offs a day.”
#
Three weeks with no trouble. Then Wilson wanted to talk. Just talk; no messing with the Warden. So Gry agreed to meet him on the mountain a second time.
“‘Romeo and Juliet’ is misunderstood,” said Gry. “People always think it’s about the glory of love. If you examine what Shakespeare is really saying, though, he thinks that letting emotion rule the intellect is…tragic.”
“You piped me Shakespeare last year. Remember? I already know that.”
Gry’s EVI offered to display the text of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for him. He declined.
Wilson said, “Those two knew there would be repercussions. The entire play is a race against the events they set in motion. And the closer their doom, the more they could feel the sharpness of life. Death was like the gravity in their emotional world.”
Gravity strength at Gry’s location was currently at 9.814 N/kg, according to an EVI pop-up.
“There’s more to think about than life and death,” said Gry. “What about happiness?”
“Would you rather be dead or unhappy?”
“Unhappy, I suppose.”
“You see?” said Wilson. “There’s only one consequence that matters—death.”
“Nobody’s immortal,” said Gry. “People still die every day.”
“Does it ever irk you that your job doesn’t really matter?”
“It matters a lot—“