Infinispace The Social Belt

Images & Words: Shadow Steps


Image
The Social Belt, A.I. Generated

Words
Neal Ulen

When : Where
289 DE (2599 CE) : Terra / Techspire / The Tangle


Note: This is an unfinished, unedited first draft excerpt from an upcoming Infinispace novel.

Most people have a sense of home when returning to haunts where they’ve grown up. Not Horatio. He loathed the Tangle, but from time to time certain aspects of his undisclosed servitude required that he descend from the Spire when he was on Earth and retrace its narrow and dangerous avenues. The last time he had felt any semblance of familiar while walking among other Citizens was when he was just a child. Now he was a young man, fifteen years removed from being uplifted out of this milieu of poverty. Being asked to drag his feet through the filth felt like a test to him … or a reminder. Perhaps that was the point. He never considered this place his home, merely a way station; only the first page to the short story of his life.

Tonight he was meeting Ophelia and Hamlet in the Green Plaza, and it required that he pass through the Social Belt. If Citizens couldn’t afford the prices to live incredible fantasies somewhere in Infinispace or a Dream Theater, they resorted to the more mundane and traditional offerings here. Economical, but often unpredictably unsafe.  Unsafe wasn’t the proper term, more like unsavory or deadly.

He loathed the Tangle, but from time to time certain aspects of his undisclosed servitude required that he descend from the Spire.

It was rare, but Horatio was required to shadow Hamlet whenever his friend left the Spire … no exceptions. He touched the black serpent tattoo that snaked up his left arm and watched it writhe and squirm in anticipation. It could sense the loathing and trepidation in his mind directly through its symbiotic connection to his bio.node.

A sly smile crossed his face as he knew he had his own shadow watching over him, just as he watched over Hamlet. These were the same streets he knew as a child, but he was no longer that same weak and lonely child.

.FIN.


Images & Words © 2019-2023, Neal Ulen.
Other images/videos cited © to their respective owner(s).


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