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"Evolutionary success ... is going to absolutely require mobility on, at a minimum, an interplanetary scale. We either go or we die out."
- Richard Morgan
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| Pokkecon | ||
| A device tied into a good will network. |
| Tsuyoshi finished transferring the first tape to a new crystal disk. Time for a break. He left his apartment, took the elevator and went out to the comer coffeeshop. He ordered a double iced mocha cappuccino and paid with a chargecard.
His pokkecon rang. Tsuyoshi took it from his belt and answered it. “Get one to go,” the machine told him. “Okay,” said Tsuyoshi, and hung up. He bought a second coffee, put a lid on it and left the shop. A man in a business suit was sitting on a park bench near the entrance of Tsuyoshi’s building. The man’s suit was good, but it looked as if he’d slept in it. He was holding his head in his hands and rocking gently back and forth. He was unshaven and his eyes were red-rimmed. The pokkecon rang again. “The coffee’s for him?” Tsuyoshi said. “Yes,” said the pokkecon. “He needs it.” Tsuyoshi walked up to the lost businessman. The man looked up, flinching warily, as if he were about to be kicked. “What is it?” he said. “Here,” Tsuyoshi said, handing him the cup. “Double iced mocha cappuccino.” The man opened the cup, and smelled it. He looked up in disbelief. “This is my favorite kind of coffee … Who are you?” Tsuyoshi lifted his arm and offered a hand signal, his fingers clenched like a cat’s paw. The man showed no recognition of the gesture. Tsuyoshi shrugged, and smiled. “It doesn’t matter. Sometimes a man really needs a coffee. Now you have a coffee. That’s all.” “Well…” The man cautiously sipped his cup, and suddenly smiled. “It’s really great. Thanks!” “You’re welcome.” Tsuyoshi went home. |
| Technovelgy from Maneki Neko,
by Bruce Sterling. Published by Hayakawa's Science Fiction Magazine in 1998 Additional resources -
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news articles:
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| EBS-260 Handjet Free Hand Dot Matrix Printer |
| CD, DVD Bit Rot And PKD's Civic Notification Distorter |
| Zoom Education Idea Is 100 Years Old |
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
