chapter one - continued
That would, no doubt, be the next big move after Mindseyes: they'd be expecting you to box up and put in extra hours under chronocompression. Already it was being tried by hardcore workos, cutting-edgers shooting through a whole week of brain toil in one single twelve-hour box binge. But it tended to backfire on the employers, so Sesha had heard. Dreambox use was so addictive that even the most zealous careerists were dropping out like twentieth-century hippies, lost in their personal boxworlds. Sesha wasn't too clued up on Dreamboxes, the finer details of how they worked, although the onslaught of ads had left her vaguely aware that the box used the immense amount of inf available on the Net, plus the brain's own, no less considerable resources, to construct and store a facsim of the real world, a total artificial environment which, when subjected to the Berkeley Effect–whatever the fruck that might be–became a playground for the box user's psyche. Apparently, the human mind found this freedom quite frightening, and fought tooth and nail to keep control, sticking all kinds of barriers in the way of facile wish-fulfilment. Weird. Sesha wondered if she would turn out to be allergic to Dreamboxes also. Well if so, then so be it, fruck it. Too much, it was, even with all her FuShok training. A desert island, she thought desperately. A mud hut. A warm sun. A grass skirt.
"Soon be home," sang her car, its dodgy seat sensors for once reading Sesha's stress level with accuracy.
"Soon be home," echoed her mobe.
"Soon," Sesha agreed.
"Sesha?" Her mobe–a cool little sixth-gen Hitachi in the style of a 1950s shocking-pink powder compact–knew all about tone of voice, how best to go about troubling her for decisions. Its vocal pattern was that of rock god Janko Brauch, her all-time crush; although the mobe concerned itself with banalities any self-obsessed superstar like Janko would never have given a flying fruck about. "Sesha, your WARMGLOW debit expires this month . . . you wish to continue?"
"Yes please," she said.
Every month Sesha donated a fraction of her salary to WARMGLOW, that convenient, conscience-salving blanket answer to all your charitable impulses. WARMGLOW took the hassle out of doing good. No need to notice street beggars; you'd already done your bit by giving to WARMGLOW. You were told where your money went, although Sesha never got round to perusing the bi-monthly newsbursts. It was the same story with the weekly bulletins from her bookjuicer, tirelessly combing text libraries, extracting kernels of wisdom, key insights. When had she last found the mindtime for an update? But then, didn't that go for everyone?
"Oh, and Sesh . . . shall I renew your McCops contract?"
She had taken out the extra protection a year ago, after her mobe had alerted her to a local newsbite: her next-door neighbour had been attacked in the underground car park, and said she probably owed her life to their building's McCop. Sesha knew the 'neighbour' scam to be a common advertactic, but better a safe stupe than a sorry cynic. So she'd gone out and bought a Heartmonitor Alarm Bra (in Funky Fuchsia) and one of those Pepperspray bodyguard bracelets. But she'd decided against image-grabbing contact lenses, being more concerned with preventing rape than recording it.