Read Living in Syn for Free Online

not an ounce of fat.  The redhead offered him a good time and he stopped
to talk.  Miller focused on blowing the perfect smoke ring.  As soon as the
mark cleared Miller out of his peripheral vision, Miller turned and strolled
toward the syn.
    The moment that the street disappeared from Miller's
peripheral vision, a twenty-something female with perfect features
stepped into the alley, and moved up on Miller, ready to kill.
    Mission screamed again.  He pounded on the dumpster and got
nowhere.  Watching helplessly became the real nightmare.
    Just as he could see Miller's hand starting its move, the
female shrewdly pushed a broken bottle with her foot.  It was just enough sound
to turn Miller around to see what was behind him.
    Miller whirled around and the male syn stepped up behind
him, grabbed his arms above the elbows and pulled them behind his back.  The syn
used a bit too much force and he dislocated the right arm, and forced out a
single scream of pain from Miller.  The world played in slow motion, and as the
male pulled Miller's arms, Mission could see the buttons popping off his shirt,
bouncing off the broken asphalt, coming to rest.
    At virtually the same time, the female delivered a shot
with the knuckles of a stiff right hand to the left pectoral, and then grabbed
his ears and snapped his neck with incredible speed.  The female was so fast
and so deadly, she inflicted the final ten to twelve blows in less than two
seconds.  The male dropped Miller's body in a pile of discarded newspapers and
they walked out quickly.  The redhead stood there, paralyzed with fear.  Total
time from the male entering the alley till the two syns made their exit: less
than 40 seconds.
    Mission woke up to his own screams.  He went to the
bathroom and threw up, and then came back to his living room and poured another
drink.  Tomorrow when he sobered up, he would consider this dream and then
drink even more.

6
 
 
    Mission looked worse now than when he woke up from his
nightmare, screaming and shaking.  Since he woke up that morning, he cursed his
computer as he went over and over the data on the four syns in Miller's file. 
In the three days since, he didn't take time to eat or to sleep or to shower. 
His pale complexion and dark circled eyes combined with his scruffy beard
stubble to yield a look that morticians dream about.  He relocated the coffee
machine to an end table in the living room, and his ashtray, a foot in
diameter, overflowed with cigarette butts.
    "No dammit!  All four files.  Split the screen into
four columns and display one file in each.  Then we are going to compare line
by line."
    "This compare has been performed on three separate
instances and yielded the following ..."
    "I don't care.  Why should you care?  You got some
place to go?  A hot date maybe?  Then walk through the compare with me, line at
a time, on my command!  Now begin!"
    He got so worked up that even he recognized it was
unhealthy.  He looked at the hard copy he had printed so that he could keep
looking even when he moved to the bathroom. 
    Look at something new.  Something you normally pass over. 
He flipped through the raw stats from diagnostics, before they were interpreted
into a report that could be handled by someone other than a roboticist.  Each
field showed some cryptic sort of code and then an associated quantity broken
into active and reserved.
    He fumbled through the stack of papers and found a legend
for the raw stats.  The report mapped the different areas of the brain, their
intended functions, and different indications of utilization.  The computer
continued to report on the line by line compare.
    Mission laid out the four raw stats reports, and compared
them line by line, looking for big variances.  He found one.  This guy
established three times the number of synaptic connections as the other three. 
Now what area is this?  It's the ...  language center.  Okay, so does anything
in the history