Hacking the Sun - The Re-Remake

Chapter 1 Dreams of Yet Another Retro Geek 3/3

"Stop Playback."

Pine Rim Hovels read the wooden sign with green pines and a rising sun. Like Jessica's complex, its walk-through scanner spoke as she whimsically walked by.

"Welcome, guest of suite 31."

Lithely, grinning, she skipped down a red carpet that ran the gamut of ivory walls. She carried another box carrier all the way down, down to the sliding room door number 31. 

Inside the apartment room, Jessica saw the back of a sofa draped with long, white hair. The head turned and revealed the face of an elderly woman, whose smile the sun envied. "Hey Jess," she said warmly.

"Heeeey, Beth." Jessica lifted the box. "Know what I brought? The usual. See, you didn't even have to guess. It's got that special cheese and e'erything."

Beth's sofa lay beside a blue cabinet, whose color that warped into the flanking dresser and walls. The blue came in spiral shades, like the deep sea. And efore the elder woman lay an ottoman, its holoprojector playing the news: TNN, a live segment where aliens and humans conversed in satin.

Jessica ay the carrier on the kitchen counter. 

"...The New Pharaoh of Egypt recently held a conference with delegates from The Chinese Confederacy in order to renegotiate the budget for trans-national infrastructure. Namely..."

Beth broke away from the hologram. "Jess," she said. "I prepared tea and forgot. Be fantastic and turn on the kiln, would you?"

After tapping the stove interface, Jessica placed a stool on one end of the sofa.

"Anything new happen today?" Beth began.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," she said, taking a seat.

"That's strange for someone who sees everything."

"Nah. Some customers cool and-or respectable, and the usual normies who need help in this spotless cesspool. By the way, my average travel time rounded to thirteen minutes"

"Less than last time."

"Chya! Barely, considering the district stretches twelve miles in every direction. Tacquizza leaves a six-mile radius every way."

"You travel that fast on your board?" Beth asked with a hint of concern.

"Maybe..."

"Well, maybe you need to be careful. The worst part of your being reckless is that I have to sound old and tell you to be careful, and that's just not okay, Jess. You take pleasure in making me feel old?" She flicked at the gravity board below Jessica's feet

"I got my airbag!" Jessica said, pointing to her collar. "I have to be quick, Beth. Remember? Customer interactions are variables. There was that one time this chic made me wait thirty minutes to have money transferred to her account. My OCD kicked in; interactions should not exceed delivery time."

"Well, at least you're a dedicated worker. You're a good delivery... girl skater."

"Well, I'm no half-asser."

Beth laughed softly. "You must be very busy because I have yet to find better than Tacquizza's tacos. Pizza's not terrible either."

"Other places are just stingy with the meat. That's all it is. Customers don't like itty bitty pieces cut into another dimension."

"Anything to make meat invisible, Jess. Azareans have that curious little attitude toward meat."

"I know you're being sarcastic, but Tacquizza is family-owned, you know? Owners don't treat the cows like meat—that sounds weird. Animal husbandry is sophisticated. Sophisticated is what it is. So, you have the aliens funding the diets so long as the animals aren't treated like dirt... or animals. English is terrible, and I'm getting bored talking about this. "