Part 10
Space Beacon
Over the next few days I fell into a routine quite easily. Dial LCL, still down. Dial Matrix, trying not to hope that Emilia would be there, trying not to be disappointed when she inevitably wasn't, not sending any messages to anyone because there was nothing to say. Dial Gibson, for lack of anything better to do. Sometimes they'd have something interesting. I was starting to get interested in how programs worked, building myself up to having a look at one of them. Thinking back, it was exactly like building myself up before the first time I started taking screws off the toaster.
My sister e-mailed again. I don't even know how long after the LCL crash it was. My sense of time was deteriorating. Either I was lost in the TV, or a poetry book, or my sketchpad, or Amy. She had some things to say about Mama and Papa, so I listened and told her what I thought.
It was nice. It wasn't the same. But it was still nice.
I jumped so hard that I fell out of my chair, racing to reply.
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Message to: J. Rook
Hi, I'm here. What is it? Message?
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Bless him, he got back to me quick.
There was a forwarded message.
The rest of that evening, I sat in front of Amy, I stared at that message, and I cried. I cried out of helplessness, out of lack of understanding, out of futility.
Before I went to bed, I typed once more.
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Message to: J. Rook
Thanks. Have you got any idea what it means? I'm having a bit of trouble over here.
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The next day, he replied.
Fantastic. I tried to log in to Gibson.
Pain in my neck. This happened relatively frequently when I tried to call long-distance; but there were always new c0dez coming through at Matrix.
And there was something worth reading, as well.
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Message to: Hollinger
Wow! That's a really neat analysis. Do you do that for a living, or something?
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Then I went off to check out Sector 001.
Now that was something that was *worth* sitting and staring at for a while.
Eventually I got round to creating an account.
But, as it turned out, they already knew me there!
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Message to: Sean Smith
I am my own invitation :-)
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I dropped a few other messages and disconnected for the night. Sector 001 was soon part of my daily routine; and not long after, an interesting message dropped onto Matrix.
I jumped at that.
It looked so simple. And there, there it was, that poem by Emilia.
I saved a copy.
Of course I looked at it for a while, and remembered days gone past. Aren't coincidences weird, though? The first thing I saw after I pulled myself back together again, well...
