37
“Mister Whitehead?”
Dale’s painstakingly reverse-engineered mental image of the hotel’s network and camera system shattered into sand and dispersed on the ceaseless motion of the outside world. He suddenly realized that not only was he in an uncomfortable plastic chair, he was perched on the edge, leaving an aching line across his butt. His eyes had so intently focused on the screen that he needed a moment to recalibrate them.
Non-digital reality self-assembled, very slowly.
The air smelled lush and humid, the faint hint of chemical fertilizer tickling Dale’s nose. His mouth tasted of peanut butter and strawberry jam, matching the crumb-scattered paper plate next to his familiar keyboard. He’d eaten the sandwich without any awareness of doing so, but at least the bland food had soot
