Free Reality 36 by Guy Haley Page A

go."
      "Richards… Please come back," said Promethea, her frown melting into something else entirely. "No one visits me."
      "So you do get lonely."
      She looked away, her arms tightening under her breasts. "I admit, company is nice. This is something else, they're… I don't know."
      "Eh?" said Richards. Seventy-six was seventy-six was seventy-six, there were no fewer and no more Fives than there ever had been, as many as there had been since the general recall. "Fives don't disappear."
      "Even Pl'anna hasn't been to see me."
      "And? That's Pl'anna for you, inconstant."
      "It's not just her. I hear that Rolston and k52 haven't been seen for a while, either…"
      "Don't be silly."
      "I'm not being silly. I know it seems that way." Promethea shook her head. "No one has seen them. I've looked and looked. I think they may have gone somewhere… else."
      "Where else would they go? Their Gridsigs are out there," said Richards, puzzled. He isolated three disparate notes from the bloodrush roar of the five billion sentients registered on the Grid and flashed them up in the virtuality. "See? Sometimes they like to keep themselves to themselves, to sit on mountain peaks, contemplate the meaning of life, or the fractal design of flower petals, or some other pretentious toss like that; especially Rolston." He held up his fingers of his right hand and counted them off with his left. "Pl'anna would blow off a friendship for shopping. k52 is barely comprehensible. Last I heard he was out in Nevada with the VIA, something esoteric in the Reality Realms, see?" He nodded encouragingly, Pro glared back. It was hard work being her friend, but worth it. Most of the time.
      "Yes, Richards, I know their sigs are there! You make me so mad! But they have gone ."
      "There is nowhere else to go! Just the Grid, and the Real. Two realities, one digital, one material, one on top of the other," he said, laying his hands one on the other. "As dense as the information that comprises our personalities and memory is, an AI really is not that big. Trust me, Pro, I do this for a living."
      "Don't talk down to me," she said sharply. "And if the three missing Fives are in either reality at all, they'd have left more traces than their sigs! There is no other trace, do you understand? No sign of activity beyond their Gridsigs ambling back and forth, back and forth like zombies. Go to them, they wander off, they are never quite where you are."
      "Oh," he said. "I see." So he found he was intrigued. Typical Promethea. "Look." He peered through the wipe. His quarry was slo-moing out of the door. "I'll look into it. They probably decided to try life as goats for a year or something."
      "Richards! Can you imagine k52 and Pl'anna as goats?"
      Richards shrugged. "OK, well, maybe not. No, definitely not. But Rolston, that's really not beyond the bounds of possibility. I'd say it was a likelihood. He spent four years trying to learn cow, remember…"
      "Stop it, this is important! If they've gone, what about the rest of us? What if someone is trying to kill us? What if someone is succeeding? We're not exactly loved."
      She was right about that. Feared, yes; hated, often; loved, rarely. Promethea was an exception. She was revered by her audiences, her music was a connection with people the other Fives did not have. Her complaints were therefore ridiculous.
      "I've no idea."
      Pro huffed and took a breath. "Richards, please do stop being so obstructive. This isn't my speciality, I am a composer, you're the detective…"
      "Security consultant," he corrected.
      "…you work it out. It's your job!"
      "OK! Calm down. It really is true about Rolston and the cows though." She rolled her eyes. "Fine! I'll look into it. I'm a very busy man, you know, you should be grateful." He winked at her.
      "You are neither a man nor more busy than you wish to be, but thank you, although I don't think you will find them. They