Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2026
A phantasm appeared in the air in front of them, a glowing transparent sphere showing the globe of Terra, the continents and countless islands of the archipelaogs, the ice caps. It all rotated.
Pool’s mouth hung open, even though Luc was positive he had seen similary constructs in his office once.
Etelka’s eyes gleamed like a child’s, aquamarine irises disappearing for the expanding pupils. Luc liked the expression on her face.
Talking to mostly Etelka, Luc explained: “You can ask specific questions of it: show me the port of Londbridge.”
The globe zoomed in and the sphere disappeared as it centered first on northwestern Europe, then on the massive sprawl of Londbridge, then on the port, even showing the moving airships coming and going along faint lines of trajectory.
“Now local important events, synopses only.”
Adjacent to the image of the port, a series of bulleted texts appeared. Repairs on this facility. Emergency shutdown of a powerplant and subsequenet outages. The outcome of a trial of some insurgents–tried as a group and sentenced to some penal colony. On and on.
Luc showed them how to scroll up or down and how to expand the notes using hand gestures.
Pool was looking around for a projector, as in the cinema for it seemed to have evolved from the same principal. He was squinting at the walls.
Luc pointed up to a tiny disk, the size of a half-penny, in the middle of the ceiling.
“You can access it from the bedrooms. One thing to be wary about is that the media is heavily censored. It exists to entertain, but the information it gives is scrubbed for anything critical of the government, and injected with proregime propaganda, that most people swallow without question.”
“Here, we are protected from observation by the regime–and they do do that. I have my Net run through several proxies so the location is obscured. You would even be able to get information about Tesifon here. My buildings don’t exist in there maps and databases.”
“You can also ask it about specific topics–I noticed you were curious about the biotech, Etelka,” he continued. “Some subjects and much of the more detailed process, the how-tos, are proprietary and you’d have to get employed by a corp to gain access, but the overviews should be available.”
“I ordered in some food. I have to leave for a bit. We can go out later, when I return, if you’d like.”
Luc left for a minute and returned with a plastic tray with three bowls and three spun metal bottles with what turned out to be beer. “He handed a bowl and a bottle to Etelka first, who was uncomfortable not eating at a table, and didn’t quite know how to situate herself.
He handed the same to Pool. “I wasn’t sure if you needed food, but I’ve seen you eat and drink, so I got you some too.”
Pool, accepting them, replied, “Thank you, Luc. It is very kind to be included, considering…”
From tray Luc passed them each plastic chopsticks, which they took hesitantly.
“Are to we eat in the fashion of the East?” Asked Etelka.
“I hadn’t realized that you were unfamilar with it. Most people do nowadays. I can have someone bring down some spoons or forks, if you’d like…”
“No matter. I will make the attempt,” she said.
The globe had been sent back to the ether by a magic word from Luc.
Ion Fyr 