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recognition. Sometimes the sniper felt like a character in one of his daughter’s science fiction stories. Given the opportunity to make important decisions for the sake of humanity, the mad scientists she dreamed up always picked the wrong path. Honestly, Devon hated his daughter’s writing. Her stories always had depressing endings. Of course he never told her that he preferred the more upbeat science fiction of Gynerator over her dispiriting premises.
                  Life as an officer in Central Authority’s agency had never bothered Devon until he had a family. He initially joined up with the hope of one day catching his father’s assailants. Before he had even left basic training, it was clear from Devon’s marksmanship scores that he would be best suited to the sniper division. Why wouldn’t he take this opportunity? His mother had always taught him to pursue what he was good at and enjoyed. He at least had the talent required for this occupation.
    Devon placed his finger on the trigger; A.I.’s responsibility for aiming did not ease his conscience. He played over and over again the image of his wife and daughter sitting around the small table in their cramped apartment. He needed this job. He needed the money it provided.
    As the sniper took a deep breath, all he chose to think about was Gynerator’s newest novel – Paradiso Code . He exhaled and pulled the trigger, but he didn’t let the situation bother him. He was filling a niche in the social order. Nothing more and nothing less.
     
    Episode 3: “Character”
     
                  Patty Plattson had to make a “mentalmark” of the site she just visited, courtesy of the nanotubes in her brain. She had spent so much time browsing tattoo removal parlors that she had forgotten the image shoot she had at 2:00 PM. Sending a psychic command to the shower head in her apartment’s bathroom; she got undressed and threw her clothes into the ImmedClean hamper by the shower. She wished she didn’t need to wash so much, but rising temperatures in The City made it difficult for a girl to look kept together.
                  In two minutes              flat she had been sanitized, and the blow dryers in the floor kicked on. Her body dried quickly, yet her long, flowing black hair provided the greatest challenge. While she disliked the system, Patty had to admit that “nanodrying” was the fastest way to get her locks ready for the shoot. Once when she was a child (technically fifteen year olds counted as adults in The City, even though Patty’s mother never saw it that way) some cruel boys put some LICE (Living Intelligent Computerized Entities) in her hair. These novelty nanoids fit their description, causing an itchy scalp until she had a doctor destroy the pests.
                  Needless to say, Patty had never been comfortable with the nanosphere ever since. Sticking her head into the hair torrefying bubble, she still felt ill at ease with the idea of the tiny robots spreading all over her head and drying it. In less than a minute, she had her head out of the machine and started putting on her clothes. With a thought, she summoned the hair styling arms attached to the bathroom sink’s mirror. She had a preset style programmed into the device, so she could focus on getting dressed, while the robot did the rest.
                  It had been only an additional two minutes by the time she slung her handbag over her shoulder and walked out the door. Her automated dog feeder would take care of her pet tanuki [11] , and the schedule she pulled up inside her mind did not indicate that she had anything else going on that day besides the image shoot and a date with Blathasar at 7:00. So why did she get the feeling that she had forgotten something? Of course, when it came to intuition, she sometimes confused impending danger with absentmindedness.
    ***
                  As she exited her