Progress
February 7, 2138
Mother accuses me of being willfully anachronistic because I insist on using the old Gregorian dates instead of perfectly sensible metric time. We had an argument this morning because I slipped and called her "mother" to her face instead of Rhonda. She got very flustered and yelled at me for romanticizing the past. She doesn't understand the use of formalities and somehow sees the word "mother" as an insult, as if I called her GenClon. She thinks that my interest in the artefacts and history of the American Empire is nothing less than obsessive and unhealthy. I can't let her find my small but precious stash of old style cotton clothing or she'll ship me off the MedVar to get my head scanned and possibly a Corrections Chip implanted. The Aptitude test is in ten rotations, if I practice my Spanish and Middle Japanese, I may be able to get in line for training as a Lorekeep. This would no doubt vex Rhonda, who expects me to follow her footsteps into Microtech, but I have no passion for Molecular Manipulation, no matter how lucrative it is.
February 11, 2138
Although I've been keeping my mouth shut for the last couple of days, Rhonda found my Stephen King Holos. Her reaction was almost as unpleasant as if she had found an actual paper book. We had another argument. She thinks that I'm not applying myself enough. She yelled at me for my mediocre marks in basic DNA restructuring. She doesn't care about my exemplary performance in Pre-unification Languages, Historical Reconstruction or Dynamic Anthro. She went on and on about how I've been sheltered by life in ValleyBright Octagon, and how I'll never be able to afford a Dom in even one of the lesser Octagons on an Instructor's, Lorekeep's or Temporal Custodian's wages. I said that maybe I didn't want to live in an Octagon and she started screaming. I suppose I shouldn't have called her hysterical, that word has fallen so far out of vogue.
February 12, 2138
Rhonda has arranged for us to take a city tour beyond our Octagon. Although I've been on class trips to the Colony on Ceres and we once took a vacation to the coast, it's always been by secure transport. Today, we're taking a landroller and a couple of Octagon mekguards. Early this morning we received innoculations at MedVar. I hate the idea of little machines running around in my bloodstream, but Rhonda insisted and I suppose there is a small chance we might be exposed to toxins.
February 12, 2138
We're back and I'm exhausted. I think this whole trip was supposed to be an exercise in frightening me into molecular manipulation or biochem research, but the Outside wasn't all that bad. The neighborhoods where a lot of the faculty for the Public Research Centers and Humanities Collegium lived weren't that bad. Mother hated the primative building materials, but I thought the neat little doms made out of brick and stone were charming. Their trees and gardens were mostly stunted and sickly without an Octagon level protected atmosphere, but we saw patches of greenery here and there, and a few people managed to plant some adaptable plants that were thriving. Most of the neighborhoods had their own modestly defensible walls, and I even saw a few older model MekGuards. Then we went to the slums, not the inner slums because Rhonda didn't have a deathwish despite her sudden gung-ho bravado, but The Edge certainly had enough hostile elements, and it was easy to see that Vaunt has taken its toll on the communities there. The trademark red eyes and twitching of Vaunt addicts was visible almost everywhere. But it wasn't really the filth and the Nano addictions that got to me, it was the ads. The people who live in The Edge can't afford the private sources of power so they bring in extra creds through advertising. They're everywhere, projected onto doms, on biosuits, holos that float over sidewalks, tattoos that illuminate and shift to display product logos, streetlights that broadcast commercial loops. The people there seem pretty immune to them. Except for one Vaunt addict who ran at us screaming obscenities before the Mekguards terminated him, the people in the Edge mostly stayed away from us. I wanted to interview one, Rhonda just looked at them with disgust.
February 14, 2138
Today Rhonda and I took a tour of the MedVar facility. We were granted special dispensation to see our GenClons. This required a brain scan first. There are no organic abnormalities in my brain structure I was pleased to note. I don't think Rhonda enjoyed my gloating. Most people who have GenGlons are never allowed to see them, the reasoning is that they would be upset. I'm not sure what I was expecting, perhaps a tub full of organs. But the fact is that my GenClon looks just like me. Although there's no higher brain functions and the GenClon is hairless, it was like being able to watch myself asleep. His age will be suspended around twenty revolutions, so that his organs will be in top shape should I ever have need of them. Rhonda got irritated at me calling my GenClon a him, she kept saying that he was an it. I said, if he's an it, why does he have a penis? I don't think she thought it was very funny. Mother went on and on about how her job allows her to pay for our GenClons which are necessary if an accident ever occurs. She kept going on about how synthetic organs are inferior and shorten the life of the recipient. I just kept thinking about how sad those soulless things looked floating in their tubes, they reminded me of puppets.
February 16, 2138
A riot started in the inner slums today. One of the random MekPol sweeps of the place turned up a major illegal Vaunt lab. After it was destroyed the Vaunt addicts went wild. The Octagon Aegis system was turned up to lethal levels today to keep potential looters out. We're advised not to leave our doms until the situation is dealt with. I programmed rain for our garden today and have been looking out of my window feeling melancholy. According to the Newsfeed one of the walls of the teaching communities I visited a few days ago was breeched by the rioters. That community wasn't one with MekGuards. I fear for the worse.
February 17, 2138
Today is the Aptitude test. Wish me luck.
part of the wordmongers' masque