Coastal Science Fiction

The Split Perception

     "Oh, intelligence, intellectualism. It wins. It's beyond Suzi's test scores, her admission ranking. This is far too overwhelming for me, or any other so-called human out here.. Don't you get it? There is that split in perception, there is that industry, the manufacturers of Continent I, there are these machines, and those medical exchanges, and corporations with their universities, and stock options, and the inducer networks, COmtrAX. There's this war disease stuck inside my brain, and the newest quantum ultra eco encoder robiot(Q.U.E.E.R.) right here at theOutpost; do you notice how she keeps her photovoltaic cells active even in the dead of night? And, don't forget, there's her Xradio signal. And her event horizon. Yes, Suzi's very own event horizon."

     "Cooper. Wake up."

     "But I am awake, well, mostly awake. And I've got this now. No, I'm not going to radio this one in. We can cover this, can't we?"

     "How? Just sit in front and start banging on keyboards?"

     "The old ones took the time to scan sequences on their screen with the courtesy of purging  in the presence of a human. She never does that."

     "Yes. I know."

     "I've won her heart but not her mind?"

     "Cooper, you are dealing with a being who will never say 'good night' to you or to anyone, for that matter. Only COmtrAX can access her data base. It appears she's been letting something else in. She simply has inaccurate information because she's reading inaccuracies being fed to her by someone."

     "Or some thing."