Episode 11 – June 1st 2212

Looking forward to an extra day off after the weekend for Queen Jessica’s 100th birthday. I had decided to stay local, the skylanes already hummed with jammed up families’ cars on perpetual hover, all desperately trying to make the coast to see the water change. Some bright spark had found a way to polarise sea water so it looked like a patchwork of union flags, and it was being turned on by Queen Jess at 9.00 tonight, right round UK island. The Scottish Republic and the New Gallic Consortium had complained, but they would always find something to moan about.

Thought I might use the break to check out the HoverBike showroom. Virtual testdrives were fine, but I wanted to know how they really cornered, and I'd heard the braking was a little fierce.  

Nepty’s cheery hologram interrupted my thoughts, her face glowed in the air to my right, “Good news Art, Pluto wants a vMeet in 10 minutes.”

I sighed. It was 16.50 on Friday before a public holiday, but he was one of our biggest customers, so when Pluto Harkinnon wanted an audience…

“Thanks Nepty - No really, thanks...” She stuck out her tongue and her 3D image fizzed out.

Pluto ran BlastM2Bits Security. Its rather draconian methods had attracted bad PR lately, and the corporates were being frightened off from using his products. I quickly reviewed our latest BlastM2Bits Adholo campaigns - Pluto could be rather uncompromising and he would expect quick answers. 

To be honest the last two campaigns did look a little, well, violent. But I was still quite proud of "LectroGrid™ charges trespassers more." and I quite liked "ThiefTat™- the security solution that leaves the competition green."

Pluto’s vSelf shimmered onto my visitors chair bang on 17.00. His florid face looked about to burst, and without an introduction he got straight into it…

“How are you supposed to run a security business when lilywhite, over sensitive, politically correct morons are taking over the world?!”

“well…”

“They’re now saying our products aren’t humanitarian, that I care more about effectiveness than ethics!”

“I have to say that there have been….”

“Worse, they say that I’m a sadist! That I look for profit in people’s misery, that I’ll do anything to turn a fast buck!”

“That seems harsh…”
 

“I’m really a very caring guy. Yes, OK, LectroGrid can be a bit fatal, but if people ignore the warnings they can expect to get fried! And it’s not like ThiefTat ever hurt anybody…”

(ThiefTat basically gave its victims an all over luminous green tattoo that took a month to fade.)

“And now they’re even complaining about FrightNite™! For Hades’ sake, people are only blind for a couple of hours!”

He started to simmer down, looked at the floor and took a deep breath…

“Anyway Art, we’ve got a completely new product set for you to market, and no one can complain about this one...”

I grabbed a notepad, “Thanks Pluto, shoot…”

“OK, so my R&D people are using NOA, it's totally benign - so that should please those damn...”

“NOA?”

He looked up at me with a smile, as if revealing a secret,

“Neural Orientation Adjustment.” He leaned forward in his chair, I could see he was starting to get excited. He spread his hands.

“It’s a belter. If someone strays into an excluded area without permission we fire a Neural Interruption Beam that makes them forget what they are there for. We can then imprint all sorts of false perceptions.”

“Like what?”

His smile broadened, “Ha! We’ve had tremendous success with subjects who are convinced they are on fire or drenched in acid, they just run around in circles, screaming, until the cops arrive…. and you should have seen the way this guy flipped around when he thought he was a fish!”

“Hmm… I look forward to writing copy for this….”

“…and we tried this one where we convinced a trespasser he had glass feet, - wouldn’t dare move from the spot! Just whimpered for two hours,”

He was just getting warmed up..

“When there are two intruders the solution is even better, we can get them to start fighting, it’s hilarious!”

I held up a finger.. “Sorry to interrupt Pluto, but doesn’t this leave the victims permanently scarred?”

“I’m not with you,”

“Well, whilst I accept there needs to be a deterrent element, instead of frightening these people into deep psychosis, why can’t you just convince them they are in the middle of a slow dance - if there are two of them - or that they just need to get home because they’re late for their tea?”

He considered my suggestion…

“But if we do that, I won’t make nearly so much from the recordings on vTube. The one with the fish guy went viral in 20 minutes!”

(To be continued)

Hartley-Stone