Free Infoquake by David Louis Edelman

person."
    Jara rolled her eyes. He saw the incomprehension written all over
her face: This is the same kind of backwards logic that the Islanders and the
Pharisees use. I thought you were smarter than that.
    "What about a hoverbird?"
    "I don't like hoverbirds. Bad memories."
    "Okay, then why don't you teleport? I know, it's expensive. But time
is money, isn't it?"
    Natch had had no reply. He was not very good at elaborate explanations. He simply knew he did his best thinking while in a tube car
staring at giant sequoias. Teleporting or multi projecting out to the
redwoods just wasn't the right way to do it. It was wrong, like an imperfect bio/logic program was wrong.
    Maybe what he appreciated about the tube was that it was done
right. TubeCo had an eye for perfection in everything they did. Their
vehicles were not "hunks of tin," as Jara had accused. They were sleek
and beautiful, the product of a business that had reached its awesome
maturity. Transparent from the inside but breathtakingly translucent
from the outside, the tube cars floated on a cushion of air just molecules thick and whooshed over slim tracks with quiet grace. Even the
armrests on the chairs were sculpted from synthetic ivory and contoured for maximum comfort. Unlike so many technological marvels
these days that blended into the background-microscopic OCHREs
that regulated the human body, multi projections that were nearly
indistinguishable from real bodies, data agents that existed only
within the mind-the tube was a visible, palpable manifestation of
human achievement. It was progress writ large.
    The redwoods, in contrast, were nature writ large. Natch gazed
through the transparent wall at the sequoias towering over the tube
tracks. These trees had watched over this route long before the tube
even existed. Most of them had undoubtedly seen the days of Sheldon
Surina and Henry Osterman, the days of bio/logics' founders. Some of the trees had stood here since long before the Autonomous Revolt or
even the First American Revolution. All of human history, in fact, was
but a footnote to their tranquil and reflective existence.

    The tube car completed its circuit through the redwood forest and
slid to a graceful stop at the Seattle station, but Natch stayed on for
another pass. Then another, and another. He watched the trees, he pondered the future, he formulated plans. Gradually, the effects of the UNo-Snooze program wore off. Natch let his guard down and drifted off
to sleep.

    In his sleep, he dreamed.
    He dreamed he was standing in a grove of redwoods, dwarfed by
their majesty. He felt small: a forgotten attribute in the great schema
of the universe. He was trapped down here. The forest was endless.
Tube trains whizzed by just over the next hill, powerless to do anything but circle around in vain looking for an outlet.
    But Natch had found a method of escape. He had prepared for this
moment. He was a bio/logic programmer, a master architect of human
capability. He had studied in the Proud Eagle hive, apprenticed with
the great Serr Vigal, gone up against formidable enemies like the Patel
Brothers. And he had brought all his skill and learning to bear when
he had crafted the ultimate program: Jump 225.
    He stared at the canopy of leaves many kilometers up in the sky. It
looked impossibly distant. But then he thought about the jump program, the way it swirled and swooped in MindSpace with impossible
grace. The sheer number of its tendrils, its connections. The geometric
shapes that formed mathematical constellations beyond human perception.
    Natch was confident. He started the jump program, felt programming instructions flowing off the Data Sea and into the data recepta- Iles built into his very bones. Felt the tingling of OCHRE systems
interpreting the code and routing commands to the proper leg muscles.

    He Jumped.
    Natch propelled himself right-foot-forward in an elegant arc
towards the sky. The code was grounded in