“B”
B2120C approached the bio-information control point. The air was stale, even though the rush of people and sentient mechanics stirred the air. Shafts of sunlight beamed down quite happily through light portals in the ceiling. The main entry point she moved through diverged into multiple channels that collapsed down to seven-foot high corridors. Here the light changed into the synthetic radiance used by cam-watchers. This was the cold, morose light just at the range of human perception. The collapsing channels limited the access of certain kinds of vehicles, but increased the intensity of the process like the cup of one’s earlobe focuses energy into the ear. Once one enters a check channel, there is no going back and the bleakness of the process is contrasted by the increasing frantic nature of what it means to travel with many possible information triggers. The best thing to do is to place an upshot patch on one’s arm or sip cool Onbio fluid, listen, stare at information projections and watch the bumpy texture of the floor.
Moving from the East to West camp you are quickly sorted by gender, age and other characteristics by the Heuristics. The version control officers move through the lines and pull particular people out of the line. If you are not pulled out, you are scanned through large sorties. The sorties are large cave-like corridors that beam directions directly to your head unit. You follow the directions and the footsteps of the many who had passed before you. As people approach the examination point at each channel, you can see the anxiety increase. They fidget with devices, casually delete data, shift, twitch and stare at the many information screens. They talk out to loved ones or hold cam-links at arms length and address personal managers. They look anywhere, but at each other. The officers are rough and people waiting in the channels take this out on each other, fully aware that the cruelty of the process means that some just simply disappear.
Being a professor meant that series B2120C would get extra attention. She knew that there was no way to mask the information that she carried. It meant she had to act even more guiltily in the channel. It was all a mind game that she had played many times before and had gotten quite good at. In fact she had created data nodes that trained people in the confidence play required to mask certain triggers, but she knew it was really only a matter of time until show won the lottery.
“B you have a 120 minute meeting with a creative consultant at 1000 hours,” her manager projected into her mind, “I will download the meeting notes to you once you clear the sortie.” She thanked her manager for the reminder. B danced with the undulating plasticity of the floor texture. She knew that this was part of the sorting process and she had witnessed it in action as someone had tried to flee the sortie. It didn’t really matter, as an officer usually sited the panicked escapee with a stun weapon. Stun weapon darts intelligently lock onto their target as they are fired. B mused about such a low-tech system the West camp used. She had written many critiques of the process, as well as the many potential flaws that could be used to one’s advantage.
