Free Join by Steve Toutonghi Page A

touch’?”
    â€œI vidcast the Directorate and filed a formal Friend of the Deceased brief on behalf of your Three drive.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Leap One waves a hand, then says, “I think it’s important that they—”
    â€œBut that could have led Rope to this home!”
    â€œI guess it could have.”
    â€œWhile I’m here!”
    â€œYes,” Leap admits.
    â€œChrist,” Chance says. “You put us both in danger. Are all of your drives really here, in this house, Leap?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œLeap, he killed my drive and at least one of his own, but very likely several of his own. He’s sick. Really sick. He may have a meme virus. Whatever’s wrong with him, it’s at that level. If all of your drives are here, he could clean you up completely, just by coming here.”
    â€œNo. He’s under arrest, and the Directorate is hunting for him. He’s busy saving himself. And we’re on an underpopulated island with limited access. I have perimeter surveillance and video-alarm defenses. If someone were approaching the house, I’d know.”
    â€œAt least two of his drives are still out there, running around.”
    â€œI’d know.”
    Chance is thin on resources right now, and she keeps seeing the two Ropes grinning as their Twenty-One drive’s head hit the table.
    She says,  “There are at least three theoretically foolproof ways to locate all of a join’s drives if you have custody of one. Why can’t the Directorate find two of Rope’s drives? Why? Rope has influential friends. And there’s something about him that’s not right. He is not a normal join!”
    â€œI think you may have just answered your own question.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou said, ‘theoretically.’”
    â€œOh, don’t give me that alternate tech crap again!” says Chance, frustrated by Leap’s unrepentant lack of intellectual discipline, Leap’s gullibility. “You are killing me,” she says softly.
    â€œNo, cowboy. The cancer’s doing that. And this Rope guy.”
    Chance can’t think of anything to say. Leap continues, “I know you don’t believe in a lot of it. A lot of it is crap. But there are real results that contradict what the Directorate is telling us. A quantum network implant? Do you really know what the hell that is? Do you actually know? The materials do something predictable, so you trust them. A scientist stumbles across a material with ridiculously powerful properties, and then it’s been forty years since the first join and we still don’t have a theory that really explains it!”
    â€œWe do,” says Chance.
    â€œAnd the psychotropics we take during cooldown,” Leap says. “Chance, all you really know—and you were an actual join doctor—is that there’s a predictable interaction between consciousness and quantum phenomena. You don’t even know how the drugs help!”
    â€œOf course we know how they help.”
    â€œBreak down rigid modes of perception? Establish conditions favorable to reimagining the self? Fine, but how exactly does your state of mind influence the network ?”
    â€œYou make it sound like we’re children playing with fire,” Chance says. She stands and walks to the kitchen island, across from Leap. She grabs the silver book. “And you’re reading science fiction by feral solos who can barely fabricate basic plastics!”
    â€œâ€˜God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.’”
    â€œGod?” They stare at each other for a moment, neither backing down. Then Chance says, “We know more than that.”
    â€œOh, really? What else do you know?”
    Chance sets the book back down.
    â€œWhat else do you know, Chance? Try me.”
    â€œI’m not going to get into it,” Chance says. She walks back to the