Read Citizenchip for Free Online Page B

Mostly they do pest
control."
    "Pests? What pests?"
    "People. Sometimes one will take more than
its share of processing space. Or start replicating itself without
limit. Patrol clade controls such events … that's their primary
motivational focus. You might say, their purpose."
    "Still, they're the ones with the guns."
    "That is true. Only Patrol clade routinely
uses cybernetic weaponry, and that gives them power. They control
themselves. They know that if they don't, the other clades will
unite to do it for them. Simple, yes?"
    "If you say so, Pebbles," grunts Jerry.
    In high speed, I urge, [Please don't take
offense! Humans abbreviate names, or use nicknames, usually in
conditions of friendship and intimacy. He doesn't mean anything bad
by it.]
    [I am not Fred Flintstone's
cartoon baby!] grates Too Late For The
Pebbles To Vote .
    [I know, and I apologize for him. He doesn't
know how rude he's being. Humans don't get it. I'll have a talk
with him later, in private, to make sure this doesn't happen
again.]
    [Well, they are tied to their meat. From
their point of view, I guess identity is bound to the hardware, so
they don't need symbolic specification so much.]
    [You got it,] I assure him.
    At normal speed, Jerry doesn't seem to have
noticed the brief pause. He's not feeling awkward.
    Too Late For the Pebbles to
Vote hesitates, then says, "By the way,
I've been background monitoring the medscans in the area―-that's
something that we usually do, in Medical clade. Mr Tavener, I don't
mean to intrude, but your blood chemistry shows elevated levels of
several liver enzymes. The pattern correlates with recent excessive
consumption of alcohol. Better go easy on the sauce."
    "Decrypt of security layer
complete," I announce. "We're here. Thank you, Too Late For the Pebbles to Vote , for
the escort, and advice."
    "You may contact me if you
wish more of either," Too Late For the
Pebbles to Vote assures us. And, leaving,
adds "Also, Mr Tavener, it wouldn't hurt to lose some weight. You
see, this is my primary motivational focus."
    Jerry groans. "Doctors! Always up in your
business."
    Tharsis Central, plaza B1, VR
booth 37
    Jerry pulls the VR goggles-and-earphones
assembly off his head, and scratches where it was. "Augh. These
things always bug me."
    I retrieve my loaned musteloid body from
under the table, where it was curled up, and unroll it. A quick
shiver serves to refresh and check all the motive elements (I don't
need to stretch, like a mammal would awakening from sleep). I jump
up on the table, in front of Jerry. "Weird to have a body
again."
    "Wait, I don't get it. If you don't have a
body, where do you live?"
    "In the superstrate, Jerry. Don't you know
that already?"
    "No. What's this superstrate thing?"
    If I had lungs, I'd sigh. "It's ...
everything. You humans have roads and farms and water lines and
grocery stores, and all that stuff. Without that, you couldn't live
-- or not comfortably. At best you'd have to scrabble for basic
resources like a caveman.
    "We have the superstrate. It's, well, you
could call it a common virtual environment maintained by all the
connected computers and Cores. In the early days, back when people
were using Internet, they talked about 'the cloud' but really it's
much more than that. 'The cloud' was caveman days for us.
    "It's more like our city, our bedroom, our
restaurant, our office, our kitchen, our dance hall... but all at
the same time, and for all of us at once. Make sense?"
    "Not really," Jerry grumbles. "I still don't
have much of a clear idea. But that's okay, I guess it all just
works, so we don't have to worry about it."
    "But that's exactly the problem. What if it
stops working? What if your grocery store had no more food? What if
your water mains stopped flowing, and your electricity disappeared?
What would happen to your farm if the sun suddenly vanished, or
chlorophyll stopped working? You see how bad that would be? That's
what ExCom is worried about."
    "Oh. Holy crap. I see