Read Gridlinked for Free Online Page A

an order of magnitude greater than concussion to damage it. He continued staring at the old man. What had he said? Cereb? He could think of no suitable reply. The shutde was going to Cereb, the moon with the runcible installation. It did not go anywhere else.
    The old man leant forward. 'I said, y'heading for Cereb?'
    He said it very loudly. Other passengers turned to see what the commotion was.
    'Yes,' said Cormac acidly. 'I am heading for Cereb.'
    He felt ridiculous.
    'Don't like the place myself. Damned AIs - a man needs to think for himself.'
    Cormac turned away from him. A finger like an iron bar prodded him in the ribs.
    'Whaty'think?'
    Cormac snapped, 'AIs are efficient. Without them we would—'
    'Belt.'
    'I beg your pardon?'
    The old man pointed down at Cormac's seat belt. Cormac fastened it across. You did not need belts in executive class; shockfields did that job. You did not have to put up with obnoxious old men either. He lay back and breathed a controlling breath, tried access again and got a sluggish response. Schematics of some sort of engine flashed up in his visual cortex. He had not asked for that. He opened his eyes again when he felt the distinctive twisting in his inner ear as the AG of the delta-wing engaged and it lifted from the ground. He listened to the rushing of wind as the wing shot forwards and immediately began to tilt up. Through the elliptical portal on the front surface of the wing, before tüeir seating section, he saw grey cloud coming at them like a falling wall. Viewed through the portal behind, control towers dropped away as the wing turned up to forty-five degrees. AG re-aligned and the acceleration increased. The shuttle punched dirough the wall of cloud.
    'Now this is what I call technology!'
    Cormac glanced at the old man, hoping he was not being addressed this time.
    'Better than a bunch of moronic nanocircuits!'
    Cormac closed his eyes.
    RuncibleAI. I am in transit. Please reply.
    There was that inexplicable delay, but düs time he received his reply.
    Horace Blegg will brief you once the shuttle is out of the well. He will contact you.
    Cormac kept his eyes closed. He did not want to open them. Horace Blegg: the prime human agent of Earth Central, AI and government. He was called 'Prime Cause', and he only turned up when something critical was happening. Cormac clicked a few key facts together. Blegg was reputed to be Japanese. There were not many of them to be seen since the great 'quakes had sunk the islands. The story went that Blegg was a naturally occurring immortal from the pre-space age, that he was apparently the survivor of one of the first fission explosions on Earth. Rumour and fantasy stuck to the man like burrs to a dog. He was a legend.
    Cormac opened his eyes and glanced at the old man. The old man winked at him.
    with one hand shoved in his pocket and his damaged arm held as steady as possible, Stanton walked through the sliding glass doors into the medshop. To his left a number of motorized trolleys had been abandoned and had yet to take themselves off to their various niches in the wall behind. Each trolley was wheeled - AG was perhaps too expensive for this shop - and had a basket at waist height and a control box on the back that some advertising executive must have thought amusing to devise in the shape of an old-fashioned tin first-aid kit. Stanton ignored the credit-card slot in the top of his box; instead he dropped a handful of New Carth shillings into the tray below it. The tray tilted and the box swallowed his money. A read-out next to the card slot nickered up to show him his credit. As he walked on down the aisles of the shop, the trolley followed like a pet dog.
    The shop offered everything an injured man might want, from aspirin and synthiskin sprays up to cell-welding units. Far at the back he could even see the chromed glitter of racked surgical robots. Stanton made his selection of temporary dressings and bandages, syn-düskin and some long