The Elias Anomaly

Fifteen

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"You know it's a pile of horse dung, right?" Dulcie said, studying his face for any indication that he didn't.

"I guess," Joseph said.

"Look, Joseph," Dulcie sighed. "As much as many people, myself among them, would love to believe that there is something. Especially, you know, spontaneously generated non-corporeal sentiences floating around in the Cluster. You have to know that there just aren't."

"I know that," Joseph said. "In my mind I know that. It still seems odd. Why would someone break into that folly, abduct me, erect a space station in this... Disc, all to play some bizarre and nonsensical practical joke? One that I'm not even supposed to believe. It doesn't make much sense."

"If I had liquid currency of whatever denomination for all the things I've seen today... Exclusively the ones that don't make any sense even, then, well," Dulcie paused. She grasped for an eloquent continuation. She failed. "I'd have a small but significant amount of liquid currency."

"Okay," Joseph said. "Well, call me superstitious and all but you wouldn't mind holding onto this bracelet thingie when we do this thing, then? Would you?"

He held up the wrist earing the tab that the Agent had given him.

"You don't believe that will do anything do you?" Dulcie asked.

"In my mind I don't," Joseph said. "Like I said, call me superstitious."

"Well, you can't take it with you anyway," Dulcie said. "Fine, leave it on the table."

"Okay," Joseph said. "I doubt anything significant is going to occur in the next five minutes, other than me finding out if I can leave the Cluster."

They both took a moment to wait for something significant to happen. Nothing did. Joseph took off the bracelet and put it on the table. He dropped on the spot Dulcie had indicated, as if that made any difference.

"So, what now?" Joseph asked.

"I've got an open console with access to your asset right here. All I will be doing at a basic level is changing the value of a number of predertermined flags. Most importantly I will change the core type of your skin from bot to player. After that you will be allowed to press the emergency release button using the little finger on your left hand. Just press it against the contact you'll find in the heel of your palm, hard."

"Okay," Joseph said. "So how will we know if it worked?"

"We'll both experience your disappearance. I'll see you swirl upwards as a swarm of yellow lights. You'll experience a transition into the lobby space. After that you'll follow a path to an exit pod. Once there you'll ll asleep and wake up back in meatspace."

"And if I don't?" Joseph said. "How do I let you know whether to activate the back up bracelet or not?"

"Oh," Dulcie had focused too hard on the mechanics of allowing Joseph to escape. She hadn't thought about what might happen if he didn't. Of course the Agent's story about Joseph being a digital intelligence were bunk, but that wasn't the point. Other things could go wrong. "There will be a terminal near to where you wake up," Dulcie explained. "It will have some sort of internet browser on it, you want to use it to navigate to endoverseconnect.net.

"That site is a front end for an application that allows you to contact people in the Cluster from outside. It mimics all the popular messaging programs and whatnot. Just look me up and give me a call on my vidphone. If you haven't called me within two hours I'll activate the bracelet and we'll think again."