I’m somewhere new. The place isn’t moving, so it’s not a boat. Where am I? And why do I think I should be on a boat? I start reading. This will all make sense soon, I’m sure.
While I’m getting my brain back together, I try to figure out the fancy shower in my bathroom. The controls have a lot of buttons and they’re all labelled in Chinese. I press a few at random and get three streams of water flowing from three different nozzles. Now, if I can just get the temperature right...
From Evan: So, I noticed you didn’t get back to your room until late.
To Evan: That sounds really good. I hope that happened and you’re not just messing with me. Give me a few, I still need to finish reading in my memory from yesterday.
From Evan: Haha, don’t make me wait too long. And no, I’m not messing with you.
I give up on the shower for a minute and shave instead as I speed through the rest of my morning read.
To Evan: All right, I’m current. Lin is even more awesome in person than she was long-distance.
From Evan: So things went well?
To Evan: Extremely well.
From Evan: Do we need to make plans for a quick getaway or a shotgun wedding or anything?
To Evan: Only if the General finds out.
From Evan: You are crazy, my brother.
To Evan: Crazy about Lin, yeah.
I fiddle with a few more buttons, but still only get cold water.
To Evan: Hey, did we ever try to put a translator into the interface? I could really use some help reading Chinese right now.
From Evan: We talked about it, but the appliances don’t have enough processing power to do a good job. If you just want to do a bad job at reading, you could probably hook up character recognition and a dictionary.
To Evan: Nevermind, I figured out how to turn the hot water on.
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I step into the streams and enjoy the sensation of being completely enveloped in water. I wonder if I can get a shower like this back home.
From Evan: Anyway, good for you. I’ve got to finish getting ready for the conference. Can I stop by in a few and run through my presentation with you?
To Evan: Sounds good. Give me ten to get showered and dressed.
I’m less worried about my talk, everything is already prepared in the electronic part of my brain. It’s really not all bad, as far as disabilities go. I dry off and get dressed. Nothing too formal today, if the people I’m starting to feel coming into the estate from the helicopter pad outside are any indication. I pick a dark green button-up shirt and a nice pair of slacks.
I continue reaching out with my cloud, getting a feel for who all is here. A few dozen people that weren’t here yesterday have arrived some time this morning and are milling around in the cavernous hollow of the entry. Index entries pop up for almost everyone in the room. Good job, Alan. I can’t feel anyone else around the estate, so unless they’re in that shielded area upstairs, I think the people we saw last night and the folks in the lobby are it for the conference. That shielded zone bothers me, I’ll see if I can have Lin or the General get me a tour later so I can see what’s jamming my cloud there.
I focus back on the entry area where the attendees are and scan the area thoroughly. No one else seems to have any kind of working nanotech at play right now. There’s no unusual signal activity that I can tell, and nothing tiny moving around in a way that makes me think it’s a bot of any kind. Looks like the Butlers are still the only ones with the capability to casually run bots wherever we go. I form a few dozen mics and eyes around the room so I can snoop a little and get an idea of what’s going on before I head down there. Most of the talk is in languages I don’t know, but the stuff I catch in English sounds like old colleagues reacquainting themselves with each other and getting updated.
My bots feel the General in there, off in one corner with Mr. Wu. I slide a mic near them to listen in. Our host is saying something quietly in Chinese to General Liu, but the General’s expressions and vitals are confusing. I don’t know what they’re saying, but from the tone and response it seems like the General is getting a dressing down of some kind. The General’s vitals show me that he’s getting furious, but he’s carefully keeping it off of his face. At the end, Mr. Wu says something briefly, dismissively, and the General hurries off to the breakfast spread and returns with a steaming cup of hot water and serves it to him with a bow. That’s not a casual thing here, he’s showing a lot of deference. I’m not sure what’s going on, but if I had to guess, it seems like the General is in trouble for something.
I should have indexed more about the power structures at play here. I thought I had everyone at the top levels of government and business in my electronic brain, but I clearly missed a big player. I don’t know who ranks high enough to boss a general around like this. It’s all just weird.
I don’t feel Lin anywhere yet, which probably means she’s still in a bedroom or bathroom. I’m tempted for a moment to break my normal restraints and find her. Then I figure at some point soon, as she gets a better understanding of what I can do with the bots, we’ll be having a conversation about how much I’ve invaded her privacy already. I want to have good answers when that happens. I wish I’d had time last night to get Alan working on Mr. Wu’s identity, but my time last night with Lin had me so twisted up I completely spaced it until now, and now I barely have time to help Evan before the conference starts.
And there’s my brother coming down the hall now. I pull the door open just before he can knock on it. “Let’s get to work then,” I tell him.