Gene Mapper Read Online Free Page A

empty—I could still see the “real” seating—but by the time my lump of sherbet floating in iced espresso arrived, I’d almost forgotten how it looked.
    The waitress was walking from table to table, handing out magazine widgets to help people kill time in the late afternoon. Last time I was here, it had been Old Master widgets that let you sketch like Rembrandt. Another time it was ship-in-a-bottle widgets. All you had to do was move your tweezers around a bit and you could build something pretty amazing. Or chess, complete with avatar opponent. Café Zucca worked hard to get the most out of their stage.
    “Looks good. What’s the house special?”
    “I’d go with Times of the World . Sascha has a special feature.”
    The banner popped into the space in front of me, beckoning in large letters. The Horror: Linuxpocalypse 2038!
    “Is this for real?”
    “Sascha scooped the story. She says we’re going to have a crisis next year. I think she’s right.”
    “Sascha?”
    The waitress pointed to the banner subtitle: Sascha Leifens Reports: Engineers Gone Wild!
    “Sascha is a founder of World Reporting Network, Mamoru. She’s terribly popular. I’m a fan too.”
    I’d never interacted with this cast member before, but she knew my first name. She pulled the July 11 issue of Times of the World from the basket and presented it with a flourish. The perfect smile, the model posture, the personalized banter—Zucca’s Behavior Module was top notch.
    “Be sure and tell me what you think. Enjoy!”
    She winked and waved. As she headed to the next table, the “breeze” blew through her hair. The blinding summer sun was off the zenith, its light creating a halo around her white shirt. As I watched, a river of perspiration started cascading down my spine.
    It was 39° C in the shade, a typical midsummer Tokyo afternoon. The tables had umbrellas, but the spaces between were in full sun. No one but an avatar could walk around outside like this without having her shirt plastered to her torso with sweat.
    Zucca’s powerful AR stage was full of cast member avatars who were indistinguishable from the real thing. My real waitress was walking around in this melting summer heat wearing the same white shirt, long slacks, and a garçon-style apron, but no way could she have looked as fresh as the avatar she was “wearing” on the stage.
    The paper copy of Times of the World was heavier than I expected. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d held a physical magazine in my hands.
    Out of habit, I poked the title with my index finger and flicked left, but all that did was move the paper a little. I carefully grasped the upper right corner of the page—the feeling took me back—and peeled it to the left. The familiar PLAY button was waiting under the linuxpocalypse banner on the next page. Zucca’s stage had inserted an AR projection into a physical magazine. I was probably just holding a bundle of blank pages. So you got the luxury of real paper but a familiar way to enjoy the content. Nice. I tapped the playback button.
    “Shut up and listen, bitch!”
    I heard a snarl of anger. Something white flew at me from out of the page. I automatically ducked. Luckily I wasn’t holding my espresso.
    It was 3D video. A red-faced old man was sitting up in a hospital bed. His breathing was ragged, and his arm was stained with blood where the IV tube had torn loose. It was hard to watch. The object that flew off the page at me must have been a pillow.
    “I told you, we fixed it!”
    “Oh, dear. You mean you fixed it on your computers. Isn’t that right? Why didn’t you think about the hundreds of millions of other PCs around the world?”
    The interviewer was off-screen, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Baiting her subject didn’t seem like the best way of getting useful information. Was this the famous Sascha?
    “Was the whole world my responsibility?”
    “So you don’t feel responsible after all. Such a