writes science fiction, thrillers, scripts and more…

Who Does What in Semester 2

Jool Diamant returns to Transit, eager to resume her studies and happy to be back in a place she’s really getting to know. Life in Transit’s going to be great, isn’t it?
    No, not right away.
    The Vita Prolonga Insurance building is hit by a major Transit event, a quantum fluctuation that destroys it in a single explosion. Miraculously, it’s closed for refurbishment at the time and despite the traffic chaos it causes at a major city intersection, there are only three significant casualties – two of them inside a taxi and the third being the unfortunate bot that is blown through the air and lands on top of the vehicle. The taxi passenger is Jool.
    She isn’t hurt, just rather concussed. She’s also, briefly, in the news – which impresses landlady Mrs McGurgle immensely. And there’s one unexpected advantage. It was a transient manifestation of sorts, so it involves another brush with the VIP police. And she’s met one of the officers before: Jellicoe Stalwart.
    As soon as she’s fit, she’s back to work. The semester is starting without her. Professor O’Brane’s course, on Pre-modern History, is already getting into gear. This time there will be a research assignment in parallel to the lecture course. Jool’s assignment is to write on Aspects Of The Social Character Of  (insert area). Professor O’Brane suggests choosing an area she already knows well, such as Greendale Village. For further help and advice, ask the mentor he’s appointed for the course – Utsuku Shii.
    Iconically beautiful, dripping rich, butler-owning Utsuku Shii? Oh, dear.
    It isn’t really a good start to the semester for anybody. Mrs McGurgle has to get rid of non-paying tenant Miss Ing and advertise for a replacement. Jool has her usual pile of study work, plus the disconcertingly open-ended assignment. Vicky, Aino and Manny have run into a real challenge in Engineering and Re-engineering: Dr Catenary requires them to design and build this semester the exact opposite of the device they created last semester. What’s the exact opposite of a non-lethal fly trap, or a giant wall-climbing robot, or a teleporter? At Polybiology, Matt isn’t happy, either. He can’t put it off any longer – he has to fulfill the inexplicable course requirement and attend a class in the Paranormality Department. At least it’s the summer semester, so pretty soon the new season will start for his beloved sport, crickby.
    Crickby is going to need  a lot of explaining…
    Matt Bonce was born in Krakenport, but is descended from an old Bonce family from the Rambles, which probably explains his crickby enthusiasm. His particular branch of the Bonce family was once the Bollin-Bonces, which also explains – insofar as anything in Transit is explained – the little matter of Thing. Every once in a while, something similar happened to one of the Bollin-Bonces. It’s a rare but recurrent part of the family history, just a fact of Transit life.
    Matt approves of facts. He distrusts humanities students. He really distrusts anything to do with Paranormality. But Paranormality it has to be, so he selects a class from the list of elects outside the door of Professor Vaygue. The professor suggests Demonic Possession. Matt chooses Typology Of Altered States. So does an almost embarrassingly over the top student he meets there – Davincia Codex, from Theatrical And Performing Arts. Her current Tapas project is a one-woman creation called The Return Of Caligula, so she feels a paranormal insight might help.
    Insights might help Jool with her assignment. Yes, it makes sense to pick something to do with Greendale Village – except there’s an awful lot of Greendale Village, and being socially diverse and therefore scientifically interesting, all of it seems to have already been done. And running parallel to the assignment is the lecture course on pre-modern history. Getting into the classical and medieval periods it’s bound to become more absorbing, but right back at the dim beginnings? No one even seems certain there ever was a paleolithic. There’s certainly no conclusive archaeological evidence.
    Fortunately there are other events bang up to date – like another parcel from Mum. Routinely wrecked by its ExoSet air-drop arrival, it contains the usual Useful Things, plus an Amusing Gift. Mum has sent a pack of Snap Your Friends! cards ordered from a novelty supplier in Dale, an outlying town in Transit. Unimpressed, Jool tucks the cards in with teddy bears Pong and Pikelet.
    Wurrpurr, meanwhile, goes Wurrpurr’s way. Disturbed by the parcel arrival and not wanted in Jool’s room – memories of the dress, the teddy bears and the total wreckage are still fresh – he wanders in search of victims to assuage his bad temper. He finds them in an alley, trapped on the wrong side of a tasped out bot. Rats. Busy rats, raiding the debris lying around at the back of a tattoo parlour. Cornered, helpless rats.
    The rats have recourse to the only measure left to them. They push one of their number forward as a sacrifice, and then run…

Vicky is having serious problems with her Enree project. What, oh what, is the exact opposite of a non-lethal fly trap? If only she’d built something simpler the last time round. She takes time off from the worry by visiting Matt at his home in the tiny Post Vos district of Parva Roma. Like anyone who values Matt’s friendship, she does her best to make sense of his obsession with crickby and its partner sport, rugget. Also like anyone else, she doesn’t get very far. She heads home in the evening. The project problem is presenting her with a brick wall. At least there’s Andy, her private project android companion. Andy doesn’t make demands, Andy isn’t troubled by dissatisfaction with Vicky’s body image. Andy is always there. Maybe things aren’t so bad.
    Matt, as usual these days, has dinner at Savy’s in Sans Souris. His chosen crickby team is facing potential trouble, so she tries to cheer him up – the only problem with that being that Savy, too, is one of everyone else and can’t really make head or tail of crickby. There’s also a riot outside. Sans Souris tends to specialise in riots, particularly as summer draws nearer. This one is occasioned by a recent spot of trouble at the nearby Le Diner Étranger. Savy tells him to take no notice – after all, it’s only a little riot. Savy has very different plans for the evening…
    For a while, Matt seems a little shaken by what happens. Talking to him, Jool realizes how important the relationship with Savy must be. Bart Barbot sympathises, too. Whatever the problem is, take time over it. Get used to each other, let the relationship grow. Bart, Jool’s employer, is in true bartender mode. He knows Jool is getting frustrated about her assignment, too, so he gives her advice: do what her professor says and ask Utsuku Shii. Jool has no intention at all of asking Utsuku for anything. But she has no choice. Bart sets up the phone call for her.
    Utsuku sends Jool to the Greendale Village District Council in Alderman Square. There, Jool is referred to the EASLE office, which is a final resting place for unused local information on education, arts, sport, leisure and events. At the EASLE office Jool gets her first surprise of the day – Pippa Strel. Ms Strel, however, is extremely helpful and suggests a visit to All Circuits Church in Bleakest Street.
    Rundown and deprived, Bleakest Street is bleak. All Circuits Church is housed in a former office building. Jool gets her second surprise: the door – just the door – invites her inside. There’s no sign of human life, but she manages to find a room occupied by Rev. McApple. Surprise number three: Reverend McApple is a laptop entity.
    Even though Jool is getting used to life in Transit, it’s been a rather shocking morning. But she’s found a church that no one seems to have heard of, a church aimed solely at bots and other electronic entities. Her assignment has just found its subject.
    Manny and Aino have been struggling with their respective Enree projects. They take time out in Passing Park, watching as a transient manifestation is escorted down the river by the VIP police. Manny is uneasy in a crowd. He checks for Transfixers. The Transfixers are a human minority who don’t like transient manifestations and definitely don’t like bots. There are no Transfixers, fortunately, but there is an incident – an ExoSet Cruisemailer that ruins a child’s day because the parcel it delivers bursts, damaging the child’s present. It’s a very minor thing. But the combination of transient manifestation, Transfixers, children and presents sets both Manny and Aino thinking…
    Spring is in full blossom. Vicky, Jool, Aino and Matt stroll to the sports facilities in Passing Park. Matt settles down to listen to the running crickby commentary. They’re joined by Utsuku, who’s come to watch one of the local basketball stars. The atmosphere is immediately frosty but Utsuku is unperturbed, keeping her attention on Slim Dunk as he plays a friendly game with amateur enthusiasts. Briefly, she checks with Jool – did she get anywhere with her assignment? Jool thanks Utsuku, and for a moment they share an experience: they’ve both met Pippa Strel. Then, in an effort to lighten the mood, Jool is persuaded to bring out her Snap Your Friends! cards. They play. One by one they check each upturned card…until pictures of Jool in her underwear, and worse, appear. Jool is horrified. She had no idea just how tricky a thing can be that comes from a novelty supplier in Dale.

Jool has an extended interview with Reverend McApple at All Circuits Church. She gets along well with the laptop minister, and begins to discover something of the philosophy of a church aimed exclusively at electronic entities – anything from a bot to a self-deciding elevator. It’s very exclusive, of course, because only rarely do electronic entities actually show an interest in metaphysical matters. Most, the reverend explains, would probably accuse All Circuits of being tainted by prescifignosis. Whatever, exactly, that is… She also learns about the organisation of the church under its controlling Operating System. And there’s something called BIOS.
    She researches more deeply.  She discovers that the Operating System which runs the church deploys Applications and Utilities, and that something called the BASIC Worm, whatever that is in the All Circuits context, is responsible for malwares, spywares and possibly viruses. Oh, dear, such a shame. For a while it had all sounded quite appealing…
    Mrs McGurgle’s new tenant moves in. She’s a low-earning translator by the name of Chloe Acca. She seems to be very low on self esteem, too, and is irredeemably untidy. Chloe also seems to have brought an unusually large amount of bedding. At least she’s totally human, unlike Mrs McGurgle, her cat, or the reclusive Dr Acula.
    Work goes on. Vicky’s project problem hasn’t been solved, and she’s frequently missing from Lab 404. Aino and Manny,on the other hand, are extremely busy and extremely secretive. They’re working together on something, and it seems successful enough to take it to the next stage. Pretty soon they’re going to need some proper advice. Matt, meanwhile, is pursued for practical assistance. Davincia Codex, the Tapas student and fellow sufferer on his Paranormality course, has secured a venue to perform her theatre project, the Return Of Caligula. She needs someone to video the performance and Matt would be just the person to do it, so please? Reluctantly, Matt agrees.
    The season is turning to summer. Warm, bright, kind weather. Easier days…and a touch of ennui. Gobspeed always feels a touch of ennui while he wanders. One of the places where he wanders is the muddy bank of the Perflux, where the sunstruck river is fed by trickles emerging from the drains beneath the Rambles. As ever in Gobspeed’s life, nothing interesting happens. He misses the eyes – the unblinking, multiple eyes – that watch him from one of the drains. His attention isn’t caught for long by the sight of a freaky Tapas student sawing a prop horse into shape and discarding the offcuts. And he entirely misses the tiny little alien that crash lands in the river, struggles to the shore…and is met by hungry alley cats. Ennui. That’s summer for you.
    More interesting things happen to other people. Jool gets a call from Jelly Stalwart, the VIP officer who’s rescued her several times. They decide to arrange a date. She also solves part of the mystery of those Snap Your Friends! playing cards: they work, somehow, like a camera, printing the image on the face of a card. Who took the pictures, though, remains a mystery, because the only person there at the time was Jool herself.
    Wurrpurr begins an adventure, too. Exploring further afield in Greendale Village, he comes across the Des Res Deli on Spooner Street, near Hadalot Square. Most cats would be very interested in the food on sale at the deli, given half a chance. Wurrpurr, however, is clockwork.  But that doesn’t stop him seeing something that sets his mechanical pulse ticking – the deli’s pretty little resident pet, Deli Cat.
    Life is a space full of incidents. Utsuku starts a relationship with Slim Dunk, the basketball player. Matt videos Davincia’s idiosyncratic one woman show. Savy solves mishaps and keeps things under control at Brandy’s Burger Store. Jool’s date with Jelly Stalwart turns out very well. Gobspeed snatches food when the opportunity arises. Old Muffin, the befuddled wino, enjoys the company of an equally befuddled friend. Summer can be kind.

Dr Athena Parthena, the Polybiology specialist with an interest in aberrant biology, meets Dr Vardos Catenary on the way to one of their regular interfaculty liaison meetings. They swap professional cares. Dr Catenary is very concerned about one of his bright and reliable students, Vicky Nwindi, who isn’t getting anywhere. Vicky, they discover, is connected socially to Matt Bonce – and Dr Parthena is interested in Matt Bonce. Very interested. No one at the University seems to be looking at his case, but if she puts together a proposal of her own, she risks losing the case to more senior academic figures. Well, one day, perhaps…
    Two of Catenary’s students are making excellent progress. Manny and Aino show the latest stage of their work to him. They’ve reached a crunch point. The idea is much bigger than a solution to a semester project. Can they have his permission to get some external advice, to see if it might be possible to take it further? They can. He refers them to the Business School, in order to set up a contact with an organisation by the name of Headshrinkers.
    Vicky is not making progress. Dr Catenary tries to reassure her. She’s displaying excellent work in parallel classes, for example Dr Zoid’s theory course, and she’s exactly the kind of person the engineering profession needs. Unfortunately, Dr Catenary’s class is mandatory because its design and then redesign element is at the centre of the Enree Faculty’s undergraduate program. One way or another, Vicky has to pass.
    Vicky needs to get away from the issue now and then. She walks and talks with Jool, strolling through the city’s tourist and shopping areas. They find themselves walking with Utsuku and her butler Facto, who, like them, are heading for Passing Park – Utsuku to meet Slim Dunk, they to meet Matt. Along the way, Utsuku sends Facto into a shop to buy a sex toy. It’s intended for Slim’s benefit.
    At the park things are frosty. Slim is late, while Matt and Vicky just don’t like Utsuku. Matt suggests he and his friends, including Savy, should take a trip to the mountains, though Aino can’t come with them so they don’t have car. Utsuku says she’ll take them, and will also provide her chalet. She’s planning to take Slim anyway. A little reluctantly, they agree. Facto, meanwhile, notices that Gobspeed is hanging around, and is obviously known to Matt. Facto, who will be organizing everything anyway, suggests they take Gobspeed as well.
    Manny and Aino have their meeting at Headshrinkers, a go-ahead consultancy in the ultra-modern business district of Riparia. The bot owner, Miss Pennysent, sets up a meeting with one of her employees, Ced Ricman. They find him catching lunch at the wildly expensive Trough restaurant in the Freudian tower. Already primed by Miss Pennysent, Ced is prepared to listen. He even cancels his appointments so that he can go back to the Enree lab and see what they’re talking about. They’re desperate to know whether or not he’s prepared to help with the idea. He says he’ll give it some thought. Allow a couple of weeks.
    Utsuku provides a people carrier and Facto does the driving. By the end of a long day, the party arrives at Utsuku’s chalet, high on the edge of the mountains above marvelously picturesque Ringsumdell. The chalet is spacious the meal – prepared by Facto – is simple but exactly right. Jool finds herself in conversation with Utsuku. Just for once, she doesn’t feel inadequate next to the other woman’s perfect beauty. It must be the intoxicating, relaxing effect of the mountain air. Utsuku helps Jool orient herself in the Ultima Mountains. She let’s slip that she’s studying Transit Studies as part of her postgraduate course: he first degree, also taken in Transit, was Law.
    Then in the middle of the night, Jool wakes and goes to see what the empty world looks like from up here in the chalet. On the balcony she finds Vicky, transfixed by something far away among the mountain peaks – a flickering light. Can Jool guess what it is? Well, no – unaided, she can’t . But next day, while she hikes with Vicky, Matt and Savy and gets her first close-up look at the real mountains near the wild extremity of the world, Vicky tells her. It was a dragon, out in the distant, untamed night. And for Vicky it was a wonderful realisation. Because a dragon is the opposite of a fly.
    Gobspeed has come on the trip to the mountains, too. A city dog enthralled by it all, he wanders alone in the direction of Hardy Trail, whoever Hardy Trail is. People obviously come here, because someone has made a path. He follows the path into some woods. And that’s where he meets the smell of wolf. He follows the scent trail for a while…and then thinks better of it. With a wolf, maybe, you never can tell. He explores further – and meets another smell. He has no idea what it is, but can tell the source of the smell is hiding nearby in the undergrowth. And he hears the soft sound of sharp metal, or very sharp claws. Being a cautious little dog, he turns round and, with panicky nonchalance, heads straight back towards the chalet, the butler and the ride home.

Ced Ricman has decided to advise on Aino and Manny’s idea. His job is to sort out all the myriad things they’ll need as they enter the world of business. Which he does at speed. He negotiates a major loan from the Trireges Ligans Company merchant bank, together with matched funding from other corporate backers. So now they have loads of money? No, they have loads of debt, and absolutely no product. Don’t panic, Ced assures them. It’s a precipitate learning curve, particularly for the nervous and totally non-adventurous Aino, but right now they have a lot of things to do.
    Like acquiring premises. The premises have to be easily adaptable to their needs. Ced has found a site, an abandoned factory down at the broken end of Sealant Street, where the Sharries meets the Perflux River. Empty and on the verge of dereliction, it doesn’t look like much. But it’s cheap.
    Jool, in her usual hurry, gets ready to leave for the University. She’s waylaid by new neighbour Chloe, who seems to have acquired a small child from somewhere. Chloe, awkwardly, suggests they should arrange a meal to celebrate her new home and Jool’s impending semester-end exam. Before they can get around to making a decision, Mrs McGurgle interrupts. Fellow tenant Dr Acula has passed away. He left his curtains open by mistake, and all that remains of him is a neatly swept-together box of ashes. Such a shame, after several hundred years.
    There are lesser tragedies, too. Life in Transit has its downs as well as its ups. Wurrpurr, as ever, is on the hunt for rats. But he has a purpose. He doesn’t kill his latest rat. He carries it all the way to Spooner Street, to the Des Res Deli. He presents the rat to Deli Cat. She looks at the rat. She’s surrounded by hams and sausages and all kinds of wonderful things, and the clockwork cat brings her a rat? Wurrpurr’s gift is not a success.
    Examination time arrives. For Matt it’s a formality. He’s attended his Paranormality course, so he passes his Paranormality course. Everyone passes because, as Professor Vaygue says, paranormality is so hard to pin down. A pity, though, that Matt didn’t do Demonic Possession…
    Vicky has failed Dr Catenary’s class. She can retake it as many times as necessary until she solves the problem of devising the exact opposite of her non-lethal fly trap, of course. However, one thing Dr Catenary cannot allow is that she attempts the solution she has proposed. It would be far too big and expensive to fit within the Enree course, it may well prove totally impractical anyway – and he will not support such a dangerous notion. His job is to educate students, not kill them. So Vicky has a decision to make.
    Jool almost misses her exam. Chloe gets in the way again, together with, this time, two kids. She’s booked their meal. At least the interruption dispels a brief and inexplicable notion she had, a feeling about Pong and Pikelet and the Snap Your Friends! cards. Nonsense, of course, since this is Transit and Transit might be strange, but it certainly isn’t the world of childish imagination… She’s only just in time for the exam. Professor O’Brane isn’t amused. However, he says he is impressed by her assignment, which was very ambitious for an undergraduate. He even winks at her.
    Davincia Codex’s performance of the Return Of Caligula is observed by Dr Tempora Fresco from Tapas. Dr Fresco is damning in her faint praise and awards Davincia a bare pass. To rub in the humiliation, Davincia is totally upstaged by the next act, Chinese acrobat and marshal arts expert Jo-Jo Zing. Poor Davincia’s cake has turned out dough.
    Jool accompanies Chloe to their meal. It’s at Chez Lexeme, a bistro hidden away in Forèts des Mots in Sans Souris. The menu is rather strange but the food itself is lovely, and for the first time since meeting her, Jool sees Chloe in a confident light. This, obviously, is a piece of her personal translator’s world. There’s a surprise for Jool when Chloe introduces the proprietors. They’re reptos. She’s met a repto before, but they’re not exactly thick on the ground. And running a French restaurant?
    Bart Barbot says what’s the surprise? Things can be different in Transit, but that’s about it. By now, surely, Jool has got used to that. Well, yes, come to think of it, she has. When Bart asks her to return early during the long summer vacation so she can resume working at the bar, she realizes that the idea has its attractions. Her studies are here, her job is here, her new boyfriend… She’ll consider it.
    There have been other considerations. Matt’s preferred crickby team has finally been knocked out, though he still has the crickby-rugget final to look forward to. He also needs to organise a vacation with Savy – somewhere inside Transit, of course. Vicky, meanwhile, has made a big decision. Instead of returning to her studies, she’ll take next semester free. She doesn’t explain why, though the connection with the Enree project is obvious. Also related to the Enree project are the secretive machinations of Manny and Aino. Picking up on the general opinion that nobody – except, maybe, Jool – likes Utsuku, but that Utsuku is rich, they pay her a visit. They’re looking for someone to put some more money into their venture. Utsuku is intrigued…
    Late at night Jool leaves the bar. She takes a bus into town, intending to go to Jelly’s place in Weingarten. But before it’s even got as far as Parva Roma a transient manifestation takes over the bus. The bot driver hurries his two passengers out into the street – Jool, and a repto. Funny, that. You go for months without seeing any reptos, then suddenly they’re popping up all over the place. This, though, isn’t the time for social small talk. Something that calls itself the BASIC Worm has invaded the route computer and is making obscene remarks. All buses, and even the Metro, are cancelled as a precaution. Liaisons with Jelly will have to wait until another night.
    At least the nights in the summer city are hot enough, give or take the occasional thunderstorm. Matt, as usual, picks up Savy from Brandy’s and accompanies her home. Shortbus, the mainstay of the Brandy crew, cleans, tidies, locks up and leaves. He has a long walk, all the way to the Rambles. Vicky, kept awake by her plans, hears him trundle past in the deserted night. Gobspeed, who’s helpfully disposing of an uneaten pizza for Old Muffin in an alley, sees him go by. Deeper still into the Rambles, down in the Sharries, Shortbus has to get past a bunch of bristle-headed members of the disaffected nighttime subculture. They’re not all that unpleasant, not too abusive, not particularly violent. They find Shortbus funny, which is how Shortbus survives. It isn’t all roses, being a bot in Transit.

To see what Transit has is store for them next, don’t miss Semester 3…