2062 The VERSE, Dark Node, Cluster Unknown, Address Invalid The library was a large rectangle, flanked on one side by a row of tall windows with view of what seemed to be Paris, and on the other side, 3 levels of shelves on the other side. He walked in, and dull glows of light began throughout the room. Streams of tickers, chyrons, glowing hieroglyphs, and alien alphabetic phonemes flowed over the books, like glowing rivers flowing by riverbanks of ancient hardback and leatherback books. The ...

2062 The VERSE, Dark Node, Cluster Unknown, Address Invalid The library was a large rectangle, flanked on one side by a row of tall windows with view of what seemed to be Paris, and on the other side, 3 levels of shelves on the other side. He walked in, and dull glows of light began throughout the room. Streams of tickers, chyrons, glowing hieroglyphs, and alien alphabetic phonemes flowed over the books, like glowing rivers flowing by riverbanks of ancient hardback and leatherback books. The ...

2062 London - Bern - New York - The Verse Zephyr Spring did a final pass over the day's work, for the oracle feeds, and waved goodnight to her interest grid. She was an artist of the nanoment. The nanoment, a nano moment, brief bits of time, where one captured the zeitgrid and signal propagated throughout a layer of friends, family, fans. An endless loop of inspiration. Partitioned through the interface, simulacra scattered across countless interest grids, worldlets in plural, in all the...

2062 London - Bern - New York - The Verse Zephyr Spring did a final pass over the day's work, for the oracle feeds, and waved goodnight to her interest grid. She was an artist of the nanoment. The nanoment, a nano moment, brief bits of time, where one captured the zeitgrid and signal propagated throughout a layer of friends, family, fans. An endless loop of inspiration. Partitioned through the interface, simulacra scattered across countless interest grids, worldlets in plural, in all the...

2062 Houston, Space Cooperative Main Campus Robin played a message from her friend who just left Wellington for Nairobi, 2 of the 3 capital cities of the Space Cooperative. "Hi, Robin, the weather by the shore was beautiful, it reminds me of when we were recruits, during field training. You remember what that was like? They used to drop us off in the middle of nowhere and we had to figure things out. It was like camping, for me at least, it was a kick seeing future desk jockeys, like you, str...

2062 Houston, Space Cooperative Main Campus Robin played a message from her friend who just left Wellington for Nairobi, 2 of the 3 capital cities of the Space Cooperative. "Hi, Robin, the weather by the shore was beautiful, it reminds me of when we were recruits, during field training. You remember what that was like? They used to drop us off in the middle of nowhere and we had to figure things out. It was like camping, for me at least, it was a kick seeing future desk jockeys, like you, str...

2062 The VERSE ALBERTO was no longer in the library of a grand apartment in the Champ de Mars section of Paris. He was... somewhere else. A moment ago, he was sitting at a Louis XIV desk in the library, and a giant electric peony grew from the green felt desk blotter, and blossomed. It grew like a spirit of fog and light, so large that he was inside it. The next moment he was elsewhere. "Hello, are you alright?" A woman sat across from him, a brunette with green eyes, wearing a furry half-swe...

2062 The VERSE ALBERTO was no longer in the library of a grand apartment in the Champ de Mars section of Paris. He was... somewhere else. A moment ago, he was sitting at a Louis XIV desk in the library, and a giant electric peony grew from the green felt desk blotter, and blossomed. It grew like a spirit of fog and light, so large that he was inside it. The next moment he was elsewhere. "Hello, are you alright?" A woman sat across from him, a brunette with green eyes, wearing a furry half-swe...

2062 From Wellington, En Route to Nairobi The captain sat back in the copilot's chair, closed his eyes, and replayed a memory from his cache implant. He was back at the compound of the former triumvirate copresident, for the Division of the Pacific, his host a resident under house arrest His host, an exile under house arrest, told a story. "The Space Cooperative's biggest business, underneath its army of Rocketmen taking humanity up the "well", was managing money, and not just its o...

2062 From Wellington, En Route to Nairobi The captain sat back in the copilot's chair, closed his eyes, and replayed a memory from his cache implant. He was back at the compound of the former triumvirate copresident, for the Division of the Pacific, his host a resident under house arrest His host, an exile under house arrest, told a story. "The Space Cooperative's biggest business, underneath its army of Rocketmen taking humanity up the "well", was managing money, and not just its o...

2062 Wellington, departing for Nairobi Before he left, the captain was given a card by "Wellington"."What is this?" The captain held a card handed to him. The card had an octagon, intersected by 4 lines, making 8 "slices", which read: "With this player, we will reach a body of water we seek" "This is your key to a vault. Present this to 'Nairobi'. All the world thinks 'Nairobi' went along with transgressions that I was pinned with, and which I pressured 'Nairobi'...

2062 Wellington, departing for Nairobi Before he left, the captain was given a card by "Wellington"."What is this?" The captain held a card handed to him. The card had an octagon, intersected by 4 lines, making 8 "slices", which read: "With this player, we will reach a body of water we seek" "This is your key to a vault. Present this to 'Nairobi'. All the world thinks 'Nairobi' went along with transgressions that I was pinned with, and which I pressured 'Nairobi'...

1907 Mexico City Magdalena was born to a German father and Mestiza mother in an Alcadia, in a village known as "the Place of the Coyotes". She caught polio when she was 6 and was isolated. Her photographer father nurtured the artist inside her. The early years were punctuated with her parents' unhappy marriage and many hardships. Despite delays in her education, she was on the verge of starting at an elite medical school, when she fell in love with a bad-boy intellectual (to the dismay o...

1907 Mexico City Magdalena was born to a German father and Mestiza mother in an Alcadia, in a village known as "the Place of the Coyotes". She caught polio when she was 6 and was isolated. Her photographer father nurtured the artist inside her. The early years were punctuated with her parents' unhappy marriage and many hardships. Despite delays in her education, she was on the verge of starting at an elite medical school, when she fell in love with a bad-boy intellectual (to the dismay o...

2062 The Cooperative is a rising power on and beyond Earth. It is a superpower transporting humanity throughout the solar system, also charged with supporting one of the world’s dominant mediums of exchange, the Atlanticcoin. It is the Dutch East India Company for an Interplanetary Age. Its public image as a titan with the future of humanity resting on its shoulders casts a shadow, filled with secrets, over the lives of billions. The light of a freak solar tempest, a massive coronal mass ejec...

2062 The Cooperative is a rising power on and beyond Earth. It is a superpower transporting humanity throughout the solar system, also charged with supporting one of the world’s dominant mediums of exchange, the Atlanticcoin. It is the Dutch East India Company for an Interplanetary Age. Its public image as a titan with the future of humanity resting on its shoulders casts a shadow, filled with secrets, over the lives of billions. The light of a freak solar tempest, a massive coronal mass ejec...

1999 The Markets It was love at first website. The 'Information Age" became the Age of the Internet. It was the year of Internet, Infrastructure, and IPOs. "TMT".With the emerging markets crisis over, the markets moved on. Interest cuts not only kept the world from imploding, the money flowed to "TMT" ("Telecom Media Tech"). Spectrum, fiber optics, chips, software, and websites ruled. Initial Public Offerings, IPOs, were the way to enjoy the story. Hundreds of companies "went public", ra...

1999 The Markets It was love at first website. The 'Information Age" became the Age of the Internet. It was the year of Internet, Infrastructure, and IPOs. "TMT".With the emerging markets crisis over, the markets moved on. Interest cuts not only kept the world from imploding, the money flowed to "TMT" ("Telecom Media Tech"). Spectrum, fiber optics, chips, software, and websites ruled. Initial Public Offerings, IPOs, were the way to enjoy the story. Hundreds of companies "went public", ra...

2062 NYC - LONDON - BERN - NAIROBI - WELLINGTON - The Verse In the beginning, the Carbons, as creators of the Verse, thought only of themselves. Their vanity, morality, and mortality, determined their methods. At first, the "Carbons" did the heavy lifting, coded the rides and rails of the Verse, and created the first "Contracts". The creators were blind to the future unfolding in unpredictable ways. Their early models of tomorrow failed. Knowing no other way, they resorted to turning themselv...

2062 NYC - LONDON - BERN - NAIROBI - WELLINGTON - The Verse In the beginning, the Carbons, as creators of the Verse, thought only of themselves. Their vanity, morality, and mortality, determined their methods. At first, the "Carbons" did the heavy lifting, coded the rides and rails of the Verse, and created the first "Contracts". The creators were blind to the future unfolding in unpredictable ways. Their early models of tomorrow failed. Knowing no other way, they resorted to turning themselv...

2062, Nairobi, before going back to Houston The transport landed before dawn, the morning haze made the spires of the campus glow and shimmer at its peak. The Captain boarded a roller and headed for the spires. His host was waiting.Not even the fiercest solar winds in recorded history would stop an entity which began to think in terms of more than one world, and saw the future like a State. The only thing which could bring down humanity's greatest enterprise was also manmade. Money. The ...

2062, Nairobi, before going back to Houston The transport landed before dawn, the morning haze made the spires of the campus glow and shimmer at its peak. The Captain boarded a roller and headed for the spires. His host was waiting.Not even the fiercest solar winds in recorded history would stop an entity which began to think in terms of more than one world, and saw the future like a State. The only thing which could bring down humanity's greatest enterprise was also manmade. Money. The ...

Decades Before 2062, Private Homestead in TexasHis world was a stretch of land handed down for decades. Generations fought, worked, and gave their all after the first of his line came to the New World. After a long wandering, they found land to make their own, began with nothing, and built a world for them and theirs. Even as the first launches captivated his elders, everybody expected to remain Earthbound. He thought that was his future too. The homestead forever.His grandfather and father t...

Decades Before 2062, Private Homestead in TexasHis world was a stretch of land handed down for decades. Generations fought, worked, and gave their all after the first of his line came to the New World. After a long wandering, they found land to make their own, began with nothing, and built a world for them and theirs. Even as the first launches captivated his elders, everybody expected to remain Earthbound. He thought that was his future too. The homestead forever.His grandfather and father t...