The Subtle Awakening: Book One of Ghosting the Stars

By Peter Bishop

The invention of the Groff changed everything. It propelled people out-of-body and into the shallows of subtle-space, to skim, or ghost, intimately alongside the physical world. As the twenty-first century staggered towards its conclusion everyone was travelling out-of-body, for work or pleasure, legal and illegal. But with new freedoms and opportunities came new forms of power, crime, vulnerability and madness. Now, an immensely powerful SuperGroff could punch minds far deeper.

The Argentinian Collective’s leading scientist, Vicente, has disappeared during a mission into deepest subtle-space. Vicente’s partner Tasha, a renowned psychotherapist, believes it is madness to enter such regions and that out-of-body galactic travel is impossible, merely a dangerous illusion.

As the search for Vicente erupts into full-scale conflicts both in subtle-space and South America, casualties mount, deepest beliefs are challenged and relationships transformed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483474540

Peter Bishop

Peter Bishop is Professor of Urban Design at The Bartlett School of Architecture and the founding partner of Bishop & Williams Ltd. Between 2006 and 2011 he was Director of Design for London, the Mayor’s architecture think-tank and design studio. He is a fellow of University College London and the RIBA, and an adviser to the city of Goyang in Korea and on major regeneration projects in London, Sydney and Riyadh.

Book preview

Works)

Chapter 1

Perhaps too casually Dr Tasha Barcellos checked that her Gronski #5 personal scrambler was fully charged before dropping it into her all-purpose, well-worn leather shoulder bag. While reasonably confident she could protect herself, it always paid to make sure, especially when going into Subte hot-spots like the Collective’s HQ. ‘You never know’, she said to herself. It was one of her favourite mantras.

When the call came, Tasha had just started to unwind after another demanding day. Boots off and sitting very easy on her favourite Moroccan cushion she decided no music today, just some quietness and a strong drink.

It was a call she had been both dreading and expecting. Bernardo rang from the Collective, using their most secure line which itself was highly worrying, saying they needed to talk with her, face to face, in the flesh. It was about her partner, Vicente, who had gone missing while on a mission.

She’d just had a therapy session with a guy in his mid-thirties who’d recently returned from being O.B., or out-of-body. He insisted that he had travelled in subtle-space outside the solar system. Very soon after launching he’d panicked and spiralled out of control. ‘He was one of the lucky ones’, she mused. She knew of many more of these deluded individuals who never returned. Of course, their bodies didn’t get lost. They could be seen, gradually deteriorating in their launch-pods. As for those who did return, distraught and traumatised, their bodies were clearly visible in hospitals or with various recovery organisations, with therapists and counsellors like her, with a range of religious affiliations, or just wandering the streets. Plenty more bodies could be found in the morgues.

This very frightened man wasn’t a member of the Collective or another variant of the Cult. He’d gone to some backstreet, unlicensed Groff operator. These were cheap but dangerously unreliable on all counts. Curiosity, greed, adventure – there were many reasons people signed up and paid handsomely for such journeys. This one was due to heartbreak and grief. His partner of many years had died after a long, painful illness and he believed that subtle-travel would let him follow and visit the dead in subtle-space. While she knew that this fantasy had ancient roots, a highly seductive version had increasingly captured the popular imagination. Some pretty shady characters quickly saw its potential for rich pickings.

Effective therapy was never a certainty. There was always some long-term scarring. This traumatised man was typical of many since, what she termed the Cult, had become more popular.

Now she was being told by the leadership of one of this Cult’s numerous factions, splinter groups, denominations, call them what you like, that her own partner, a long-time member, was missing. While relieved that this group had a fairly ethical and democratic approach to things, it still gave her the shivers.

Vicente didn’t share her misgivings and he seemed to occupy an important position in what they pretentiously called ‘the Collective’, but she’d only half paid attention when he’d tried to explain the whole thing to her.

She now found herself heading to one of the outlying districts in the far west of Buenos Aires. Things had been improving for the area until the recession in ’37. Now it was going back downhill. Like most global mega-cities, Buenos Aires had become a magnet for the rural poor, not just from Argentina, and they mostly settled in the already struggling outlying districts like this one. It wasn’t as dangerous as some cities but you had to be careful in many areas. The Collective had made itself important. It provided employment, plus some training. It also brought business into the otherwise neglected neighbourhood. Its edgy technological innovations and its reputation for reliability made it a significant player in the world of advanced Subte. These were major money earners for the Collective.

The Collective’s HQ sounded grander than it looked. More like a sprawling warehouse complex, surrounded, she knew, not just by the old high, stained, concrete wall topped with multiple layers of razor and electric wire but by a sophisticated electronic and Subte-surveillance security system. She didn’t know the precise inventory of weapons available but Vicente had once told her that it would take a military-level attack to capture it.

She drove slowly through the HQ’s outlying perimeter walls. Warning lights on the dash-board indicated a high level of powerful external scanning. The built-in scramblers, standard in all modern vehicles but upgraded in Tasha’s, were working overtime to protect the car interior. A message on the car’s display screen told her to switch her scramblers down to personal safety settings only, so that a general security scan could occur. The same level of security surrounded all aspects of the Collective, whether on-line, in the mind or on the ground. It was probably the same with all factions of the Cult no matter in which region or country they were based, especially since the cult street wars just a few years ago, the grandiose named First Subte War. Authorities blamed rival gangs but others suggested wider forces at work, ranging from mega-corporations to rogue religious groups, various extreme political affiliations to organised crime syndicates. Shadowy elements of various nations’ military could also be thrown into the mix of suspects. Historians, sociologists and other scholars were still trying to unravel the events.

The heightened suspicions had even infiltrated the various Lunar and Martian colonies, supposedly operating as non-partisan, scientific research stations under the UN Extra-Terrestrial Settlement Treaty. The relations between these colonies were always fraught even at the best of times and these certainly weren’t the best of times.

Tasha found trying to understand the Cult was frustrating. Usually she didn’t bother. The Cult had no central authority, hierarchy or even ideology. It consisted of many, very separate groups, often at loggerheads with each other. The only thing they had in common was the absolute belief that subtle-travel allowed journeys far out into space, beyond the Solar System, even beyond the galaxy. They insisted that not only could contact be made with worlds in the physical universe, but that people could land on them and live there. At least, that was what she had heard.

All these Cult splinter groups made extensive use of SuperGroffs, a powerful and highly advanced version of the widely available basic Groff.

Just the basic Groff had already caused turmoil and the complete overhaul of all societies. It could regularly kick people into depths of consciousness far beyond the range of normal expectations, indeed depths which had previously only been achievable by a few gifted individuals after years of rigorous training. The result was an almost universal ability to have sustained out-of-body, or O.B., experiences. Tasha was on the State regulatory board for Subte-therapy and knew all about the complex issues involved with everyday basic Subte. These problems were nothing compared with those appearing because of enhanced Groffs, not to mention the rarer but immensely powerful SuperGroff with its world of Deep-Subte. Where believers saw intergalactic highways, she saw pathways to insanity.

After parking her car, she was told by a friendly young man at the high-security reception that she was a bit early for the meeting. More likely they weren’t ready for her. Punctuality wasn’t one of the Collective’s strong points, thought Tasha as she was escorted from the car-park and into the compound. The main Subte operating complex, housing the SuperGroff and the pod-hall, was mostly underground but, at five stories high, was still clearly the largest of the main buildings.

The meeting wasn’t particularly long but it was certainly challenging for her. She had visited the HQ several times before, but that was quite a while ago. Things looked different. A bit more urgency and security now, she felt. Mind you some things never changed and one of these was the Collective’s overall decor and dress. What she called grungy eco-anarchic. Cheap, durable, environmentally and socially correct, pragmatic and basically dull.

Currently coordinating the Collective’s leadership were Esmeralda and Bernardo. She’d met them before, at one of Vicente’s work gatherings. Both were OK in their own way. But they were very firm, unshakable believers and that made simple conversation difficult, let alone friendship. Bernardo, a late middle-aged strongly built man, who seemed to always move with a calm gracefulness, was nicknamed the monk due to his almost monastic commitment to developing skills in subtle-space and his devotion to achieving existential-insight plus philosophic astuteness. Amiable enough and at least wearing touches of colour, he had little time for close relationships. Esmeralda was more Tasha’s age, perhaps a bit younger, more forty-something. Often referred to as the ninja due to her superb combat skills in subtle-space, Esmeralda was cool rather than calm, combative rather than consensual. Her slight build was deceptive. She packed a punch – physical and intellectual. Her dress-sense was rigorously haute-utilitarian and Tasha doubted she listened to, or read, anything frivolous or even just amusing. She didn’t know much about either’s background but supposed that they were typical of those who belonged to the Collective, drawn mostly from the so-called Southern Cone countries of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, not that this said much given the huge influx of migrants from all around the world over the past two centuries. She also knew that the Collective had attracted misguided idealists, not just from the rest of America, both South and North, but from every continent. She’d heard that it wasn’t easy to be accepted into the Collective, that there was a rigorous selection procedure. She imagined that high on the list of requirements was a ready ability at self-deception.

Esmeralda and Bernardo had been in a kind of relationship some years back. At least that was what Vicente had told her although she couldn’t imagine what form it took.

At the Collective Tasha was shown into a totally-secure room, just the three of them. It was of moderate size but very bare, Tasha felt she had stepped into a sacred site, the inner-sanctum of cultic utilitarian seriousness.

‘OK’, Tasha sneered, ‘so this must be really big and sensitive if you couldn’t tell me except in the flesh, and we have to meet in here’.

‘What we are about to tell you is top secret Tasha’ said Bernardo quietly. ‘We know you don’t share our views but we do ask that you respect our request for total confidentiality’.

Tasha nodded with what she hoped was a clearly wry look while trying to deal inwardly with her anxieties and concern.

‘Vicente went missing nine days after leaving. His tracer has lost all contact. That was six days ago. Fifteen days is far too long even for basic levels of subtle-space and he was going much deeper’, said Bernardo earnestly. Tasha just looked bored at the statistics. Bernardo interpreted her manner for ignorance, so he tried to explain.

‘To give you some idea, the standard return time for the Martian loop, using a SuperGroff, is less than three hours. Fifteen days would seem like years to him’.

‘You mean he can’t find the way back to his body?’ Tasha was getting restless. ‘Let’s cut to the chase please! Vicente is missing, you say. I’ll go along with that idea for the time being. So where was he sent?’

‘We don’t know precisely, that’s why he went. Anyway, he wasn’t sent. He insisted on undertaking the journey’, snapped Esmeralda impatiently. ‘We understood you knew that he was going on a long and difficult journey. He said he’d told you’.

‘Yes, he told me all that nonsense. But what do you mean you don’t know where he went or where he was heading?’ Tasha looked directly at Esmeralda: ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

‘Ah, well of course he did. But that is the crucial issue’.

Tasha was surprised at Esmeralda’s formal manner. Why wasn’t she upset? Perhaps she was. Tasha always felt other people were better at controlling their emotions than she was.

Esmeralda was unfazed by Tasha’s stare. ‘As you probably know our purpose is to undertake ethically responsible subtle-travel and deep-space settlement’.

Tasha stared coldly and silently as Bernardo took over: ‘The problem with long-range, out-of-body travel in deep subtle-space, given that for obvious reasons you can’t carry instruments, is that it has been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to precisely locate and identify where anyone is. It is also equally difficult, perhaps even more so, to identify and locate any material object such as a planet, moon or asteroid, that may be discovered’.

Tasha had to stand and move around. ‘That’s as absurd as believing you can travel beyond the Solar System, using out-of-body travel, let alone actually land somewhere! Anyway, there are no material objects in subtle-space, certainly no planets or moons!’

‘Of course there aren’t’, responded Bernardo patiently. ‘Haven’t you ever travelled deep? Vicente told us that you had plenty of experience in deep subtle-space, way beyond the physical world’.

Tasha gave a big sigh. ‘Well then, I guess I have’.

‘Haven’t you done the Lunar or Mars trip? I thought all you Subte-therapists had to go to those places as part of your advanced training?’ queried Esmeralda with the hint of a sneer.

‘Fine. You’ve made your point. Can we get on with it?’ snapped Tasha.

Bernardo had a serious but trusting face. ‘While you do in fact go deep when travelling O.B. to the Lunar or Martian bases the presence of the physical universe is never completely lost. It’s like swimming very quickly underwater in a small lake. It all happens so fast. You dive in and before you know it you’ve arrived at the furthest shore! But going really deep while on very long-range travel, is like swimming in the vast darkness of the ocean’s depths. For most of the time there’s no sense at all of any physical universe. But when you get close to something big and physical like a moon or planet, its presence can be detected indirectly, like the way in which ancient sailors, without compass or maps, on vast unknown oceans, could detect signs of land – sounds of waves breaking, types of cloud, smells. We then move in that direction until the object becomes visible from subtle-space. If we get close enough ghosting becomes possible, just as we operate here on earth. But, of course, although we can observe everything, from the landscape to the stars, we carry nothing but our minds. So, we can never actually leave subtle-space. Our bodies remain in their pods on Earth’.

Tasha just listened with a stony look. She was getting irritated with all this Cult-talk. As far as she was concerned, her partner had been punched deep into an altered state of consciousness and couldn’t find his way back to sanity.

‘Vicente is brilliant’, stated Esmeralda matter-of-factly. ‘You’re probably disinterested in his work but he has developed the capacity not just to memorise immense star fields, of extraordinary complexity, that can be used to identify the observer’s position in any known system, but also to apply advanced post-chaos theory to decipher the results. Simulations have shown an extraordinary degree of accuracy’.

Tasha gave Esmeralda a pained look and shifted her gaze to Bernardo: ‘Can I see him? Now’. She knew that people’s bodies were safely stored when they entered the subtle-world. The bodies needed to be protected and sustained while waiting for consciousness to return to normal levels, or, in Subte-speak, while waiting for the return home.

‘Of course, but his body isn’t here. It is at our base in Patagonia’.

‘What!’ With the Collective’s base in Patagonia almost two thousand kilometres south, Tasha felt even more estranged from her partner.

‘We’ve put out calls, deep into subtle-space, as strong as we dare without the danger of alerting others, but nothing is working’, said Bernardo.

‘Others? What bloody others?’ snapped Tasha.

‘We need to go and look for him. Send out a search party’, responded Bernardo, ignoring her question.

‘Look Tasha’, said Esmeralda, suddenly softening her manner, which Tasha found highly disconcerting, ‘we believe the search has more chance of success if you are on it’.

‘You must be joking!’

‘OK’, Bernardo said with a melancholy patience. ‘We know you think we are crazy and deluded but we do share similar beliefs up to a point. You’re an expert in the psychological dimensions of subtle-travel and, of course, rescue’.

‘Maybe we do share some things, but only in terms of straightforward O.B. experiences. Everyone accepts that. But, the belief in long-range out-of-body, subtle-travel beyond the Solar System, or trans-galactic, is a very dangerous mental delusion. It goes along with belief in subtle-worlds, inhabited by populations of subtle-bodies. Oh, yes, and the belief in physically colonising other worlds using subtle-travel. Sure, I know all about this insanity from my traumatised patients’.

‘Whether you believe or not, Vicente needs your help. You have the strongest emotional and intuitive connection with him. As you know this can really help with the tracking process’.

Tasha looked quizzically at Esmeralda as she spoke. ‘I’ll try to help when you locate him or, even better, when Vicente comes to consciousness in his own body, but not until then. Anyway, why are we having this discussion in such high security? It wouldn’t be the first time that one of your trips went wrong. You usually handle the fallout yourselves’. She paused thoughtfully. ‘Just a minute, you didn’t send Vicente out on his own on such an extreme journey into deep consciousness, or subtle-space? That wouldn’t just be irresponsible but lunacy, even criminal’.

‘Of course he didn’t set out on his own!’ snapped Esmeralda. ‘However, unfortunately, his companion had, err, a breakdown deep into the journey’.

‘What!’

Bernardo smoothed in again, ‘As a therapist you are surely aware that when going to extreme depths in subtle-space, or in your terms, when going that deep into the mind, one can encounter long repressed, hidden, dormant, or just unknown complexes. These can hit us with overpowering force, almost as something from outside ourselves’.

‘Surely this person was very experienced with such travel?’

Esmeralda answered, ‘Yes, he was, but ...’, she shrugged. ‘He just couldn’t continue any further but had to return as quickly as possible to his body. It happened well into the journey and apparently, Vicente elected to continue’.

Tasha finally left the meeting a while later, anxious, depressed, angry and frustrated, her mind spinning with the madness of it all.

‘Hi Tasha’.

She paused by her car and turned around. It was Francisco, an old friend of theirs who’d fled with Vicente from Chile. He seemed nervous. ‘It’s been quite a time’ he said as they gave each other a kiss on the cheek.

Tasha just nodded sadly. ‘Seems like another lifetime’.

‘Look, I can’t say much. Certainly, not here’. He slipped a shabby looking business card into her hand. ‘But you might want to contact this guy. He used to be a member of the Collective, a senior player in its security section. Now he has very little to do with it and operates on his own. He might be able to help’. He blew her a kiss and moved off through the car park.

She scanned the card as she drove home:

LOST SOULS

Carlos Padraza: Private Investigator

Specialising in Subte & missing persons

She’d hardly walked through the door before her powerful home-scrambler indicated someone wanted to enter her mind-space. The AI had run a check. It was Alex, her twenty-three-year-old son. She opened level-one acceptance.

‘Dad’s missing’.

‘I know. I’ve just returned from the hive’.

He ignored her dismissive term for the Collective’s HQ: ‘I’m going to look for him’.

‘That doesn’t surprise me’. She groaned inwardly. Alex was just as much a believer as his father. ‘Is this just your decision or are you being sent?’

‘Mine and I’m doing it my way’.

‘You mean low-tech?’

‘Of course. As bare-back as possible. Leaves less trace’.

‘And the Collective? What do they think?’

‘Haven’t told them. Their security isn’t as good as they like to believe’, said Alex sounding smug.

‘How did Lena react when you told her?’

‘Haven’t told her either. Anyway, talk more later. Bye’.

A slight beep signalled the closing of the scrambler’s portal.

She turned to make herself a strong drink but decided tea was better for clear thinking and went into the kitchen. She knew Alex and Vicente were close, even more so since Alex moved out two years ago after completing his studies. But they both had strong opinions, stubborn, when it came to esoteric matters. She should have paid more attention instead of just getting irritated and dismissing it all. Vicente had certainly tried to explain their heated disagreements to her.

Sipping the maté helped and, despite the rain, she took it out onto her small balcony and absentmindedly tended her hanging garden. As far as she could remember the arguments were about the ethics of hosting. Everyone knew that trying to enter another mind uninvited was strictly illegal. The early model scramblers, although basic and crude, had done much to reduce such occurrences. The chaos caused by the widespread availability of even low intensity Groff apparatuses and their capacity to enable out-of-body experiences, let alone spy on other people and into their minds, was still freshly remembered. Cheap, effective defensive scramblers combined with tight regulation, laws and policing had reduced the problem. Such activity was now on a par with other spheres of crime – physical and cyber.

She couldn’t help blaming herself for Vicente’s involvement in all this. They’d met while she was travelling in southern Chile after completing her initial training in Subte-therapy. He was Chilean, from the capital Santiago, and had just graduated in Astrophysics. While he’d heard of the Groff, of course, he didn’t know much about any of it. Middle-class Chileans hadn’t embraced going O.B, even on a basic level the way that Argentineans had, indeed the way many people around the world had, since the invention of the Groff Apparatus almost three decades earlier.

It had been one of those extraordinary Patagonian early summers – clear blue skies and deliciously warm so long as you were out of the wind sweeping up from Terra del Fuego and the Antarctic. Still intoxicated with her training in out-of-body travel she was a bit evangelical about its psychological benefits.

She would have liked to say that she and Vicente were immediately attracted to each other but that wasn’t strictly true. They’d both been staying at a basic hostel just outside Puerto Natales. It was early in the season and fairly quiet, not yet busy with young travellers from all over South America. She’d heard that business had been better before the start of the First Subte War, and before the global recession had hit international travel. The richer countries of Europe, North America and Asia had had to tighten their fiscal belts once the new space race had kicked in, especially with the rush to Lunar and Martian settlements. Now it was mainly locals tromping the Patagonian wilderness.

Breakfast had been a bit simple but she’d been expecting that. The nice-looking, blonde-haired guy with the horrible upper-class Chilean accent sitting quietly in the corner seemed totally out of place in the shabby hostel. She’d already fended off a couple of passes from macho-guys and even a young woman with a female version of the same attitude. She couldn’t believe these people still existed. It was almost the twenty-second century for God’s sake! The famous Latin machismo stance had almost disappeared up North, at least in the cities of Argentina. There were still major gender-related issues, of course, but these guys were troglodytes, throwbacks. Anyway, she’d always been attracted to the shy, uncertain types. His accent put her off a bit but she slowly got used to it. She had to make the first move and suggested a bar with live-music that she’d noticed a couple of days earlier.

After that things moved quickly and many delicious days were spent together either walking the mountains or in bed.

Only after locating one of Patagonian Chile’s comparatively rare public-access Groffs, in the small but bustling port city of Puerto Arenas, last stop before Antarctica, did they share the erotic possibilities of co-mingled disembodied minds. Tasha had her Subte-licence so could take Vicente on a low-intensity ride. While Tasha had had a few youthful flings using the Groff, in her time as a student in Buenos Aires, for Vicente it was a first. When she suggested doing it he couldn’t quite understand how you could be sexual if you’d both left your bodies behind. It was a steep learning curve, for both, into a new kind of exciting intimacy. When they eventually had hooked up again with their bodies the feelings were extraordinary, not just for each other but for the sensual world around them.

After her return to Buenos Aires they tried to keep in touch but several years would pass before they would meet again. His eventual escape to Argentina as the situation worsened in Chile with CPC forces overthrowing the democratic government in much of the country was difficult and dangerous.

42669.png

The bitter wind agitating the dark surface of the Ngrok-Flood awoke Vicente from his dream. How did he know its name? He sunk his head into the heavy, upturned collar of his drab greatcoat and turned his attention to the strange, organic-looking bridge sweeping over him. Above this immense structure he could see the display of electrical storms which struggled unceasingly over this part of the planet. Huge, but ill-defined masses of frozen liquid were stacked one on the other, absorbing and being absorbed, creating and recreating, high over the surface of this melancholy place. He felt he’d been standing there forever.

A peculiar looking creature waded among the reeds a short way in front of Vicente, where the nearest waters of the Ngrok-Flood lapped sluggishly against the granular, black soil. To one side, around the edge of the Flood he could see a small village on the horizon and he trudged towards it.

He was met by the grey, airless streets of his childhood dreams, which burrowed randomly ever deeper into the most squalid regions of this grim village. He could scarcely keep his balance on the greasy earthen path, the surface of which was made even more treacherous by the drizzle which was, even now, not falling but rather hanging suspended in the motionless air, trapped between the damp fetid walls of the homes pressing in on either side. The whole village seemed deserted.

He set back off across the exposed plains to the huge bridge he could see shimmering in the moist air rising in the yellowish morning light. Every now and then a massive blast of wind, coming across the Flood, would hit him and force him to stumble. But he continued to struggle towards the enticing structure. At least it was a sign of advanced intelligence in an otherwise unpromising landscape.

42671.png

It wasn’t a large apartment but at least there was a view even if the scene itself was just rusting roofs and the back of numerous high-rise that characterised this part of Buenos Aires.

‘I’m just not happy about the new work on the apparatus’, said Alex as he still lay on the bed gazing at the ceiling. It was badly in need of some fresh paint. His lanky, naked, untanned body casually stretched out.

‘You wouldn’t be happy with any work on any apparatus’, replied Lena as she dressed.

This was supposed to be their night together but they were steadily getting more distant as their disagreements deepened.

‘You’re trying too hard to be too purist or something like that. Besides, it’s not very romantic. What’s wrong?’ asked Lena. Alex’s moods and self-involvement were beginning to really annoy her. She had her own life to live, something that Alex seemed to rarely acknowledge.

‘Dad’s missing’.

‘What!’

‘Yeah. Really deep’.

‘What was he up to that far out?’ asked Lena sitting back down on the edge of the bed.

‘Maybe something to do with the resettlement project’.

‘I thought that was on hold after the last catastrophe’.

‘I’m not even convinced that there was an actual catastrophe. I think that was all made up to cause a distraction’, yawned Alex.

‘What about the swarming experiments? Surely they’ve stopped trying to go down that track’.

‘Nuh, they’re still happening’, said Alex scarcely looking at her.

‘But so many of your best people have been traumatised or have just vanished. Your dad wasn’t involved in any of that surely?’

‘It’s not his area. Look, I think his mission had something to do with the resettlement project but why would an astrophysicist be sent out?’

‘Maybe they’ve found something?’, said Lena brushing her hair.

‘Or somewhere…’, replied Alex pulling the sheet over him and closing his eyes.

‘So, what are you going to do?’

‘Don’t know’.

42673.png

It was always a relief to reach one of the low orbit subtle-habitats, S-habs, hovering, at least that’s how Juanita imagined it, just beyond the Earth’s ghosting zone. This one was very basic and unpretentious compared with some she’d visited. Those had generally belonged to large corporations, high-level government departments, or wealthy eccentrics. Unlike this one, established by local government specifically for general use by the public, the flash ones were strictly off-limits to all outsiders. Without authorisation, there was no chance of getting past the security goons guarding the entrance. Only in her capacity as a journalist had she managed to gain access, with some difficulty, to put together a few general interest stories. These were more like PR for the corporations and government than the serious investigative work she did in her own time. The fluffy stuff paid the bills but that was it as far as she was concerned.

The S-hab was pretty crowded but she’d found a corner just to pause for a while and take stock of what she’d recently discovered. All around her was a kind of drifting soup of hazy, ephemeral forms, all kinds of travellers, moving out-of-body on various jobs or errands, visits to friends or just ghosting around sight-seeing. It was difficult to relax. If she was in her body she’d be shaking from excitement and fear. She’d been watching the (ZO) facility at Matazana, ghosting from what she felt was a safe distance. They had plenty of security at the place, physical and Subte. (ZO) were certainly up to something, which wasn’t surprising. Anyone with a brain knew that they operated on the very edge of what was legal. Anyone who actually used their brain knew that (ZO) also operated on the wrong side of that very flexible boundary. But, even by their dodgy standards this was bad shit. Maybe she’d gotten too close. She’d managed to pick up some loose chatter, but it had been risky. Anyway, she felt safe enough here in this corner, but must be careful once she left.

It felt OK once she’d exited the S-hab and then headed towards the Subte-station that she’d launched from. She was looking forward to getting into the physical once again, back to her pod-bound body. As usual, subtle-space at this low level was busy. She was used to it. The Earth’s physicality, all the bits and pieces that made up its landscapes, weren’t visible but you could sense its presence. She liked that feeling of coming home that you got as you moved closer to the interface between the physical and the subtle.

The distinctive signal, the call of her Subte-station was guiding her and hazy physical forms started to appear the closer she came to the station. It wasn’t until the last moment that she noticed the two powerful-looking ghosts heading straight for her. One of them called her name, she was sure of it, but they got it wrong, Jacinta instead of Juanita. ‘Stupid bastards’, she spat. They’d been hiding in the crowd and were definitely not friendly. Even with the wrong name, she knew they were targeting her.

‘Stuff it’, she muttered to herself, annoyed at having relaxed too soon. A quick glance confirmed that there was no way that she could fight her way out of this. She just wasn’t skilled at combat in subtle-space. All that heavy mind-stuff seemed too much like the bullying she’d experienced in her admittedly short life. She’d learnt to be quick and agile, useful skills that still came in handy, especially on Saturday nights. OK, enough humour, she told herself. The clowns were getting too close. It was time to concentrate.

The crowded laneways of low-obit subtle-space certainly helped. She was used to running, hiding and evading, often from the cops trying to chase down young and not so young protesters. There were always plenty of these as almost continuous demos interfered with the not-so-smooth running of Buenos Aires. Issues weren’t hard to find – corruption and