Status: RO
Message-Id: <199508182302.QAA15392@netcom20.netcom.com>
Precedence: list
Reply-To: quanta@netcom.com
From: quanta@netcom.com (Daniel K. Appelquist)
Sender: owner-quanta-ascii@netcom.com
To: quanta-ascii@netcom.com
Subject: Part 1 of Ascii Issue of July
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 16:02:21 -0700
It appears that some or all Quanta ASCII subscribers didn't get the
first part of the July 95 issue in the mail, and since it's a fairly
small piece of text I felt the best solution to this was to send it
out again, so here it is:


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           ____________________________________________________

           July 1995      ISSN 1053-8496     Volume VII Issue 2
           ____________________________________________________

                             C O N T E N T S

           Looking Ahead...................Daniel K. Appelquist

           In The City.........................Jacqueline Carey

           Virtual Immortality...................R.E. Smergalia

           The Harrison Chapters (Chapter 17)....Jim Vassilakos

           RoboTroubles..............................Ken Kousen

           The Plains of Meer......................Simon Joseph

           A Sense of Humor.........................Kevin Walsh


           ____________________________________________________

            Editor/Technical Director....Daniel K. Appelquist
            Artwork............................Boris Starosta
            Editorial Assistance................Allison Lambe
           ____________________________________________________

         Subscription and back issue information, as well as legal
         goo and a list of related resources are at the end of 
         this issue.


___________________________________________________________________________

LOOKING AHEAD

Daniel K. Appelquist
___________________________________________________________________________


Well, the big news is that I've moved again. My new postal address is:

                          1509 R. St NW #3 
                         Washington DC 20009

Please address all future postal
correspondence/donations/solicitations/etc. to this address. There's
also been a change in Quanta's email address, although the old one
will probably continue to work for some time. The new address is
quanta@quanta.org. A mirror WWW site at
"http://www.quanta.org/quanta/" has also been set up, although the
main Quanta WWW site will continue to be
http://www.etext.org/Zines/Quanta/.

We've recently been getting a lot of publicity - both a "point of
interest" listing on the MacUser Internet Road Map (I guess we're "on
the map" now...Ugh) and a listing in The Net's latest issue, with
special mention of our "groovy graphics." Well we've got plenty more
groovy stuff where that came from...

I learned last month that due to a mix-up with some mailers, some
Quanta subscribers were not notified when the last issue came out
(January 1995). So if you haven't checked out the January 1995 issue,
I recommend that you do - you won't be disappointed.

Something I've been working on recently which folks might be
interested in is the WWW Virtual Library Electronic Journals
list. After taking over ownership of the list, we've significantly
revamped it (we actually developed an application called WILMA to
administer it). The URL is:

http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/

and we'd be happy to get in any new additions to the list people might
have.

Another big project I've been lucky enough to be involved with is the
Science Magazine Science Conduct Online special feature at
http://sci.aaas.org/aaas/. As well as hosting a reprinted article from
Science Magazine on Conduct in Science, the feature is intended as a
discussion area and general resource for science conduct.


Quanta Needs Help
------ ----- ----


If you're interested in taking on some responsibilities for Quanta, or
if you have suggestions about Quanta's format, read on...

My work load just doesn't allow me to produce this magazine
single-handedly anymore. Last year, I was only able to produce one
issue! This year is slightly better, but I can't give Quanta the
attention it deserves - not and work at the same time,
anyway... That's why I need your help.

First of all, I want to turn Quanta into more of a WWW based resource
than it is now. Right now, I work on Quanta in FrameMaker and then
export to Text and PostScript after the whole thing is done. Then I
take the text version and make the HTML version for the Web
Site. Since more and more people are coming on to the World Wide Web,
I've decided to do it the other way around. The WWW version will be
developed first, and then the text and PostScript versions will come
after.

Secondly, I'd like to turn Quanta into a more dynamic resource. On the
Web, there's really no need for issues and volumes. I'd like to make
Quanta more story-based. When I get a good new piece of fiction in,
why should it have to wait until I get five more pieces in before it
sees the light of day? Quanta will become a science fiction database,
with new stories (and artwork) appearing constantly.

Then, after enough stories accumulate, a quarterly PostScript
"issue" could be produced which would contain the best picks
from that quarter.

This new service will be called "Quanta Interactive," and
ideally it will become not only a great repository of science fiction,
but a resource to be used by authors. It will include online
discussion groups, dynamic hot lists, possibly even audio and
video.

The trick is developing it. If anyone out there has the time and is
interested in this project, please contact me at
quanta@quanta.org. Ideal candidates will be SF aficionados who also
know quite a bit about the Internet and the World Wide Web, including
HTML and CGI script development. Of course, I can't pay you right now,
but in the future, who knows?

Well anyway, this issue we've got some great stuff lined up for
you. It's an eclectic mix - it challenges as well as entertains - it's
a bit of this, a bit of that. I'd like to thank our contributors this
month, as well as Boris Starosta for this issue's dazzling
artwork. You can look at more of Boris's work at the following URL:

http://poe.acc.virginia.edu/~jrs/teesbryce.html

Bye for now - See you all next issue! 
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

In The City                        "Why haven't we turned to dust?
                                   Why are we still here?"        
Jacqueline Carey
___________________________________________________________________________

The Queen of the City is dead. The City is an island, surrounded by a
River. The City's name is Order. The River's name is Chaos. Of course,
these are not their real names. But then again, maybe they are.

(Unbind Me) "No." He turned his head as he passed Animal
God, whose looming figure cast terrible black shadows in the
shapeshifting blue light of the gasflames. "Karina!" His
voice echoed in the empty, vaulted ceilings. The echoes thinned and
chased each other like bats, tinkling the crystal, hiding in the
shadows of the buttresses. The black and white marble checkerboard of
the floor was cold, and the coldness was rising. Degree by degree; it
was up to his ankles now. He shivered, skin prickling into
gooseflesh. Forbidden words rose to his mind; wool, sheepskin,
firewood. (Warmblood. Flesh. Unbind Me) "No!" He broke into
a run, feeling Animal God's blind stone eyes boring into his
back. Through the dining room, past the long, gleaming onyx table,
empty place-settings of china and handblown glass sparkling before
each empty seat in the gloaming lowlight of the dying City. Cold
carpet. He ran. "Karina!"

Once upon a time there was a Word; no, wait. Once upon a time there
was a Pattern, and its symmetry was impeccable. This is the Key to the
City. The Queen who is dead carried the Pattern that was a Word that
was a Key inside her head. Now the Pattern is broken. Death, however,
can be very orderly.

He found her in the old nursery. It was hard to tell, at first, in the
low, bloody light that seeped through the tall windows; the dying
light of an artificial sun. All the automata, their childhood
playmates, lay crumpled on the nursery floor-- Pierrot, Pierrette,
Harlequin, their animating magic gone. And there she was, a fetal
creature curled between two lifeless heaps of limbs, torsos and
heads. He breathed out her name in a desperate mix of relief and
terror. "Karina." Her eyes, owl-ringed with dark exhaustion,
lifted to meet his. "Evan. We're dying, Evan." "No! Not
yet," he said fiercely, hunkering down before her. "We
will." He ignored her words determinedly, taking her cold hands
between his and chafing them. "Is there anyone left? Anyone
alive?" Her low voice was empty of hope. He shook his
head. "Only us." "And Him," she spat unexpectedly,
eyes glittering to life in their bruised hollows. His hands, still
chafing hers, fell motionless. "What happened? Evan, do you
understand what happened?" He shook his head again.

Symmetry is not the natural order of mankind. Look in the mirror. The
two halves of your face, they are not exactly alike, are they?
Sometimes it is best not to look too closely. It has been said that
Man has ascended half the distance between animals and angels. This is
not a wise thing to forget.

The far wall of the nursery was painted with a fanciful cityscape, all
tall spires and towers, stained now with incarnadine light. Evan
stared at it, not seeing, encircled from behind by his sister's
arms. "I'm losing my mind, Evan," she whispered in his
ear. "Why haven't we turned to dust? Why are we still here?"
"I don't know. I don't know." He pressed the heels of his
hands into his eyes and shuddered. She held him, stroking his hair and
murmuring wordlessly. The unwinking gazes of the automata surrounded
them. He shrugged off her arms and rose, pacing the room, stopping at
the window and staring out, gripping the frame with both hands. The
window silhouetted him in dull crimson. "Did He speak to
you?" Karina's voice came from the darkness behind him. He leaned
his forehead against the windowpane and nodded. She made her way to
his side. He turned his head and looked at her. "No. Oh,
no." "We're going to die, Evan." "No." He
roused himself with a shake. "Further up. We'll go to the
tower. It will be warmer further up." "Only for a little
while," she said.

A long time ago--as long ago as once upon a time, yes, but not always
so long ago as that--those who ruled the City remembered why they kept
the River at bay and built a Wall around the City; brick by brick,
Word by Word and Pattern by Pattern. These things were not meant to
be. One small forgetting, generation by generation, grows
larger. There is a chink in the Wall. The River is trickling into the
City.

He stared at the dying sun. "It's not real, you know," she
said. "Not any more." "You want me to unbind Him."
Karina drew a fingertip through the faint smear of oil his forehead
had left on the glass of the windowpane. "Look. We're still real,
Evan. Mother is gone. The City is dead. We aren't." "He
doesn't belong here," he said, wearily. "He ruined
everything. It's all gone now, except us. He can't destroy us. So let
Him die too, cold and stone. He doesn't belong here."
"Neither do we." She shivered. "Not any more. I'm
afraid, Evan. I'm afraid of the cold and the dark."
"Karina." He bowed his head. "Karina." Through
closed lids, he could see the darkness encroaching on the City. The
cold was already here, knee-high and climbing. It would be simple, so
simple, to do nothing, to let it come; but no, his heart beat still,
warm and willful, his nerves quivering in tune with Karina's fear. He
did not want to die. "Now!" she said. "Let's do it
now." Evan released his grip on the window-frame and looked at
his sister. Her face, half-shadowed, was a pallid mask hanging in the
darkness. "He killed our mother." "No."
"What, then?" "Not Him, but what He is..." Karina
shivered again and wrapped her arms about herself. "That's what
did it. Mother, the City. I understand that much. There's a word for
it. Anathema." "All right," he said, unaware that he
was crying. "All right. Let's do it."

Life is worth dying for. Chaos is necessary for belief in a god. The
absence of belief--belief in a higher power, belief in a force, any
force, beyond comprehension--is inimical to human nature. No island
stands forever. This is something children do not need to be told. Do
you?

Animal God loomed larger. His head was lost in shadow halfway to the
high, vaulted ceiling. Blue gasflames still burned on the fluted
floor-torches, throwing twisted shadows on the checkerboard floor,
giving the hall the look of an abandoned temple. (Unbind Me)
"What happens then?" Evan asked, staring upward, hands
fisted at his sides. "What then?" (Unbind Me) "What are
you? Where did you come from? Who summoned you here?" (Unbind Me)
"I don't think He can tell you," Karina said. "I don't
think He knows. Nobody remembers." "You know." He
looked at his sister. "He comes from the River." "What
river?" "The River." She coughed in the
cold. "Where we swam before we were born." He stared up
again into darkness. Eagle's head, the fierce, hooked beak
terrifyingly noble, terrifyingly animal. No animals in the
City. Collared ruff of feathers giving way to stone waves of lion's
mane on an arching horse's neck. The forelegs were equine, giving way
to leonine sides against which massive wings lay folded; enormous
granite pinions, delicate and imperishable. Mighty lion haunches,
caught mid-ripple, bulged with muscle, ready to launch this impossible
beast. The tail, something serpentine, stone- scaled and lost in
shadow. All things from picture-books, every picture-book ever written
in the City. Cold was rising. Above his knees now and reaching higher,
icy tendrils creeping up his thighs; Karina was shivering beside
him. "How?" (Warmblood) They looked at each other. "The
kitchen." Karina coughed again, then stopped with an
effort. "Get a knife." He ran, the heels of his boots
striking staccato reverberations from the marble, leaving an echoing
trail behind him until he reached carpet. The lights were down now and
he had to grope his way toward the kitchen, where a line of ghost-blue
flame danced above the pit. It took a moment to find a knife; then he
had it, and returned, slowly now, fear and reluctance dragging at
every step. "I'm scared." "I know." Her arms came
around him and she turned her face to his shoulder, asking muffled;
"Do you want me to?" "No." He stepped carefully
away from her and raised the knife in his right hand, holding his left
out level, palm open. His skin looked suddenly immaculate to him;
smooth, pale, flawless. Whole. The point of the knife glittered
wickedly, barbaric, hungry for blood. Warmblood. Warm, red blood. He
placed the point, drew it across a few centimeters of skin, pushing
down. A pallid seam opened in the center of his palm. It held for an
instant, then it filled, welling, ruby-red and rich, a crimson drop of
life cupped in his hand. Trembling, he lifted the hand; it seemed to
rise of its own volition, floating in the darkling air. The rising
cold wreathed his loins, caressed his ribs. Fingers splayed, he laid
his hand flat on Animal God's cold stone shoulder.

I never promised you that the story would make sense. If the story
made sense, you would have no questions. If you had no questions,
there would be no mysteries. Only imagine how dull life would be
then. Even Plato had second thoughts about letting poets into the
Republic. Think about that for a while.

Warmth blossomed beneath his hand; living warmth, powerful animal
heat. Unyielding stone gave way to sleek, hide-sheathed muscle. He
cried out and leapt back, Karina's hands dragging at him. There was a
patch of chestnut-red on the grey granite, growing, licking at the
stone like flames. It crept up the arch of neck, flickering into
tawny-gold at the mane, chestnut graduating into paler gold along the
flanks. The wings burst into a symphony of variegated browns, speckled
umber and sienna, echoed in the ruff that melded into the mane. The
neck bowed, the arch forming a feathered crest as the head
lowered. Living color lapped up the last bit of stone. Speckled
feathers, the beak a dull yellow, powerful enough to snap an iron bar
in half. Terrible majesty; the hooked beak opened. Fierce eagle eyes
burned amber, outblazing the gaslights and Animal God lived. The hall
had gone dark, but for dying blue flames and living amber eyes. We are
going to die, Evan thought, watching the open beak descend. With his
last vestige of will he thrust Karina behind him. "I THANK
YOU." His voice filled the hall, leaving no room for
echoes. Beneath the gleaming hide, muscles flexed. "AND
NOW..." He raised his awesome head. Muscle rippled. Slowly His
wings opened, stretching, pinions spread to span the width of the
hall. His body reared up on leonine haunches, towering above them. His
hoofed forelegs raked the gloaming air and His serpentine tail
thrashed. His wings beat once, with a clap like thunder. Cracks ran up
the walls, and beyond, rending the fabric of the world, cracking it
like an egg. Light, bright beyond belief, poured through the cracks,
and a warm wind swept through, bearing moisture and strange, rich
odors. The cracks widened, blinding; the world shattered and the
shards broke away, falling into nothingness, disappearing like black
vapor. The light was revealed. Blueness, of infinite depth, unfurled
overhead. The checkerboard of marble on which they stood dwindled to
an island in a grass sea of eye-straining green.

Falling. The Wall is falling. The River has flooded the city. People
are dancing in the streets. People are mumbling in the alleys. An
ocean of blood laps at the piers. An army of cocks plows a field of
wombs. Did you really expect a happy ending? Did you really expect an
ending at all?


___________________________________________________________________________

Having received B.A. degrees in Psych and English Lit from Lake Forest
College in 1986, Jacqueline now studies anything from Godel's theorem to
Egyptian astrology. Her work has appeared in a handful of small press
publications, and she supports the habit by working as the coordinator of
the DePree Art Center & Gallery in Michigan.

carey@hope.edu
___________________________________________________________________________


___________________________________________________________________________

Virtual Immortality         "What have you got for me?" Anderson asked.     
                                                                           
R.E. Smeraglia              "Another module," Casey said. "Churchill        
                            Downs, 1948."                                   
___________________________________________________________________________

Casey stared into the abyss of the Grand Canyon. Far below, the black
caped figure swooped and dived like a giant hawk, a beautiful blonde
woman dangling loosely from his arms. Casey leaned over the edge of
the precipice and let the fall take him. He spread his arms wide in a
swan dive. A buffeting wind swept across his face as he reached
terminal velocity and he dipped his left arm while fully extending his
right over his head. The maneuver had the desired effect. He went
spinning upward and to the right, climbing now and approaching the
masked super-villain from behind. In a moment he would catch his foe
and the battle would be joined. Casey hoped he was in time to save the
President's kidnapped daughter.

He swore when he saw the red light ahead of him. It hung like a
crimson fireball hovering in the center of his line-of-sight. The air
around his head vibrated with amplified sound as a chime reverberated
and he heard his own voice say, "Three o'clock appointment,
Case. Time to come out."

Casey put his arms down and slipped his hands out of the gloves. With
a deft movement he stripped off the lightweight headset and set it
aside, gently coiling the dangling wires and putting the Grand Canyon
and the black-caped villain Destructo on hold. With a little more fine
tuning, Casey decided, the Superhero Adventure could be a big seller
in the virtual reality game market. But he still had to address the
problem of "flying" while sitting down. The sensory inputs
from the visor and his own nerve endings were in conflict on this one
and made it harder to suspend disbelief, a necessity for any VR
experience. 

As he had many times in the years since he'd first heard of virtual
reality at NASA Ames Research Center, Casey reflected that virtual
reality was very much like being inside a movie you're directing
yourself.

He checked his watch and pulled a small stack of program chips out of
his desk. He slipped them into his coat pocket.

Twenty minutes later he was in Tobias Anderson's hospital
room. Anderson looked weak, but alert, and he smiled when Casey came
in the door.

"How are you, Toby?" Casey asked. He still felt a little
strange calling the great Tobias Anderson by his first name, but over
the last two years they'd become close despite a sixty year gap in
their ages.

"Fool doctors can't figure out what's wrong with me this
time," Anderson said with a chuckle. "All they can think of
is to give me more tests. Hell, I know what's wrong with me. I'm
eighty-nine and my body has just plumb given up. Thank god for you and
this little jewel." 

Anderson reached out a frail hand and patted the virtual reality
interface by the bed. Casey and Anderson had finally convinced the
hospital staff to allow the VR machinery to remain in the room, after
Casey had redesigned the hookups so they wouldn't interfere with the
hospital equipment. 

They couldn't argue too much. Anderson's money had built the hospital
and the wing they were in was named for him.

"What have you got for me?" Anderson asked. 

"Another module," Casey said. "Churchill Downs,
1948."

Anderson's eyes went soft as he remembered. "The year Citation
won that Derby. That was grand. I'm glad you did that one. Helen and I
had a wonderful time that day."

The two men chatted about Eddie Arcaro's winning ride at the Derby
while Casey lifted the access cover on the VR interface. The tiny
program chips fit neatly into the specially designed state-of-the-art
setup. Casey was proud of the work he'd done and a bit saddened
thatmodules he'd worked so hard on had no commercial
application. Anderson's modules were different than the game and
travel experiences Casey's company usually developed. Virtual reality
entertainment often meant zooming through the asteroid belt in a
spaceship, or trekking through the African veldt on safari. But Tobias
Anderson had wanted something different. He wanted Casey to re-create
special places out of his own past. Places he could go back to in VR,
fully interactive experiences he could relive. 

Casey was dubious at first. The number of variables required to fool
memory was staggering, especially with real people and dialogue
figured in. Even with programs designed to fill-in variables from
algorithmic patterns the programming task was enormous, representing
thousands of man-hours. The first depiction was primitive, but
Anderson was delighted. With each completed tableau, Casey achieved a
closer and closer representation of what Anderson wanted. Every VR
scenario was a self-contained module representing a place Anderson
wanted to go back to. Lower Manhattan in 1928. Havana in 1955. School
days at Princeton 1924. 

Casey created more than scenery and background figures. Working from
Anderson's memory, old photographs, references and biographies, Casey
created the people Anderson had known too. The biggest challenge was
Helen, Anderson's long dead wife. In each module she had to be the
appropriate age, with the right level of maturity and
sophistication. Each VR module had millions of variables, despite the
relatively limited scope. Once fitted into the virtual reality visor,
audio inputs and gloves, Anderson could revisit his youth. From his
computer enhanced perspective he was no longer old. His virtual
reality body did not tire as he walked endless miles, his handshake
was firm and he could jitterbug with short-skirted flappers all night
long. Anderson was thrilled with the early modules and spent many
hours in an elaborately furnished entertainment room with treadmill
floors and climate control to enhance the VR experience.

When Anderson's health had deteriorated, Casey faced new
challenges. How to adapt the VR sensory input so it overwhelmed the
"real" world input. How to convince a bedridden man his legs
were moving, that he wasn't flat on his back and being fed through
intravenous tubes. How to design lighter, less obtrusive VR gear that
would not interfere with medical hook-ups.

But Anderson was footing the bill for all the research and all the
equipment, as well as subsidizing most of Casey's other
programs. Besides, he liked the man. They'd spent hundreds of hours
together and he felt toward Tobias Anderson as he did his own
grandfather. And with all the research he'd done on the man and his
family in order to recreate his experiences, Casey knew Tobias
Anderson and his history better than the elder's own children. 

Casey replaced the access cover and keyed the input data.

"Almost ready?" Anderson asked.

"Just need to add it to the map."

Each of Anderson's memory modules was linked by a hypercard
"doorway". Once in the VR universe, Anderson could walk
through a doorway in Manhattan and exit onto a rocky beach on the
Riviera. When Casey linked the new module in he also added it to the
"reference map" Anderson had access to while in VR.

A few moments later Casey watched as Anderson "entered" the
new module. He felt a warm flush of pride as he saw the smile on the
elderly man's face. Casey wondered where he was in the module. He
flipped on the monitor that sat beside the VR interface. The monitor
was rarely used as it was not necessary for Anderson to experience
VR. The visor provided the visual input. But the two had added a
monitor in the early stages of the experiment so Anderson could point
out on the 3-D monitor areas he especially liked or areas that needed
more detail or improvement. Casey rarely used it when Anderson was
"inside" because it felt to him like eavesdropping on a
dream.

He could see what brought on the smile. Anderson was in the pre-race
paddock, shaking hands with young jockey Eddie Arcaro and admiring
Citation up close, something he'd not been able to do in real
life. But in virtual reality, anything was possible.

Casey pulled out the input keypad and typed a quick phrase. He knew
that in the VR Anderson's line of sight, a sky writing biplane had
just drawn the words, "How do you like it, Toby?" 

On the monitor screen, Casey watched Tobias Anderson extend his right
hand and give the thumbs up sign. Casey smiled, turned the monitor off
and gathered his tools.

"I want to talk to you," came a gruff voice behind
him. Casey's smile faded as he recognized Gavin Anderson, Tobias'
sixty year-old son. Gavin ran Anderson Industries, even though as
board chairman Tobias held ultimate decision making authority for the
corporation.

"Hello, Gavin."

"I see you've put him back into your fantasy world," Gavin
snorted.

"He's exploring the new module," Casey said. "And it's
not my fantasy. If anything, it's his."

"I can never get in to see him," Gavin complained. "He
spends every waking hour undergoing medical tests or playing with your
computer games. He's still head of a company, you know."

Casey nodded. "Have you tried the interrupt button?" He
indicated the red button on the VR console. Having a VR experience
abruptly terminated was a disconcerting experience many times more
traumatic than being woken out of a dream. People outside the VR world
were encouraged to use the interrupt button, which displayed the
intrusion in VR context, like Casey's own red light and chime.

"I've tried it," Gavin said. "He comes back, takes off
the visor and roars like a dragon when he sees it's me. This has got
to stop. This obsession with that fantasy world you've
created."

"It's an alternative, Gavin, not a fantasy. Your father wants
things recreated in detail so he can relive his youth, not battle
monsters or zap aliens. He doesn't want fantasy, just to relive
memories of people and places long gone."

"But why does he spend so much time in there?"

"In there," Casey said, "he's young and vigorous. Out
here, he's old and frail and in pain. Which would you prefer?"

Casey's next visit was brief. Anderson had suffered a mild stroke the
day before and while there was no major damage he looked weak.

"It was close," Anderson said. "I think pretty soon
we'll be glad we took precautions. Casey, what happens to them when
the machine is turned off?"

"Them?"

"Helen and the others. When I arrive they are going about their
business. When I leave they seem to be doing so. What do they do while
I'm gone?"

Casey stirred uneasily in his seat. Perhaps Gavin was right. Perhaps
Anderson was losing touch with the "real" world.

"They don't do anything, Toby. It's only your actions they react
to. Without you, nothing happens."

Anderson nodded, but his eyes looked dreamy. "Sometimes they
seem so real. I wouldn't want them to be hurt. How many more modules
do we have planned?"

"There are eight more specific modules, then the fill-ins. Then
we can discuss ideas for more."

Anderson smiled. "I don't have that much time, son. No, don't
kid a kidder. I just hope I get to see a few more."

"You'll see them all."

Anderson's eyes misted. "Casey, I want you to do something for
me. Finish the modules. Install them, even if I'm gone, no matter how
long it takes."

Casey barely hesitated. "Sure, Toby. I promise."

Tobias Anderson fell into a coma three days later. After some
discussion Casey was admitted to the ward by Anderson's personal
physician, Ray Charlton.

"The nurse noticed the fluctuation in vital signs. He was hooked
up to your computer gadgets. The nurse disconnected him and when she
couldn't wake him, she summoned the doctor on duty."

"Did she try to wake him using the interrupt button before she
broke the VR connection?" Casey asked. 

The doctor frowned. "She's aware of the procedure, of
course. Mr. Anderson insisted on it. Didn't want to be "yanked
out" as he called it. I'm sure she followed instructions, but if
it was a crisis situation ..."

"Can we talk to her about it?" Casey asked.

The nurse was on duty. She entered the room with a trace of
nervousness. Nurse Amy Shaw was middle-aged, with pleasant features