25 January 2106 by Pete III
"I'll sink my teeth into this one, Ken-san" Hu said, "Where's here?"
"My safe house," Ken said turning the knob of the door in front of us.
The door, itself, was located in an otherwise blank wall that climbed to a ceiling perhaps three meters up. The other walls in the area seemed to belong to warehouses or factories. Sprinkled throughout the area were the odd eateries or small markets meant to support the workers who were employed in the warehouses and factories. The oddness begins in that most warehouses and factories are fully automated, requiring very few humans to be maintained.
These all seemed to be run by humans.
As we entered Ken's safehouse I asked him about the people we'd seen walking around outside.
"Yes, you would think that hiring people to do what robots can do would be cost-prohibitive. However, when you're dealing with items that need to stay under the sensors of the Bodies Government and Corporate, only humans can't be hacked."
"Yes they can," Hu said.
"Well, not from a far and not without it being quite obvious they've given up secrets. A robot can be hacked into, harvested for data and closed back up again with no one having an idea that the 'bots had been hacked at all."
"Yes, yes--you've got a point there, Ken-san."
"This is your safehouse?" I asked, looking around at the large, empty room. "I cannot say that it is what I expected at all."
"You expected more of the comforts of home?" Ken asked.
"Hai," I said, suddenly remembering that he didn't normally speak English so much. He smiled and held his hand up as I passed him.
"Pito, don't take another step." I did as Ken said a he tapped at the display on his dev. Suddenly lights erupted from the ceiling of the warehouse illuminating a couch directly in front of me. I could also see a coffee table, several chairs, a large array of electronic, chemical and mechanical laboratory equipment and several other walls that, I would soon discover, hid two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen.
"Amazing!" Hu said, reflecting my own opinion.
"How did you...?" I couldn't get the question out of my mouth fully--at first I thought it was the same technology that had allowed me to see Ryca in my closet. I touched the couch and my hand did not pass through it--it was really there.
"SPL--Self-Programming Luminescence. My own design--emitters in the ceiling give off light that essentially counteracts the colors of whatever the light waves strike. If your couch reflects the red spectrum, the SPL will send out only light that will not be reflected at all at levels that are 'bright' enough to cancel out existing light sources."
"So, when the lights came on, they were actually coming off?" Hu asked.
"Exactly," Ken said.
"Now I see why Pete calls you ichiban!"
"Well, I appreciate the complement, but I'm not the number one electronics genius in the world. Make yourselves comfortable." Ken gestured toward the couch and chairs. "Would either of you like some refreshment?"
"Water, definitely water for both of us," Hu said.
"Very good," Ken said stepping into the kitchen.
"So, who is ichiban if not you, Ken-San?" Hu asked flopping down on the couch. I decided to take a closer look at Ken's lab equipment.
"I'm not sure, but I suspect that it's the person who conjured up that chemcoding system Pete experienced the other night."
"Yes, that was a very strange experience," I said sitting down on one of the chairs. Ken entered and handed us both abnormally large glasses of water.
"Thank you, Ken," I said, doing my best to empty the glass in one attempt. Hu followed suit, all of the running we had done had dehydrated us quite a bit. Ken disappeared back into the kitchen only to return with his own abnormally large glass of water. By "abnormally large" I mean these glasses were two-and-a-half decimeters tall.
"Now, Pito, you said that Ryca had mentioned seven-hundred hours as our meeting time?"
"Indeed."
"That's not for another nine hours," Hu said.
"So, we spend the night here and when Pete's 'chemcode' becomes active, he can wake us up and we can be underway."
We each took turns freshening up--we showered and ate some instameals Ken had in his kitchen. Not the most healthy food, Hu reminded us, but sustenance, nonetheless.
Ken and Hu took the bedrooms and I fell asleep on the couch--until, that is, four-hundred hours when I awoke with a start. No, it wasn't the chemcode kicking in--whatever that might be--it was a person. Someone had entered Ken's safehouse. Luckily, thanks to the SPL Ken had re-activated, that someone couldn't see me...
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