MINDLYFT (COMPLETE)

CHAPTER 7

Watching Dimples perform at work everyday I couldn't help but be impressed. I also felt a sense of pride and even admiration at how well she managed the creative tasks assigned her. Even her boss was starting to show a little more respect. As tempting as it was to let her go a few days completely unmonitored, I reminded myself that her independent capacity meant she needed to be watched more, not less.

She came home every evening and followed the same routine. While Dimwit and Blondie played games or had a few drinks, Dimples opened a book, nearly always fiction. I'd started to screen the technical materials and non-fiction KnowLoads she had access to but didn't see the harm in her reading fiction, even though it was illegal. It was unlikely she'd learn hacking or CloneLaw from a fiction book. Especially since few had been written later than 2040, and most of the good ones available on the DarkSphere, or in print, were much much older.

On a few occasions she even started to open up to me a little. Normally introverted, I found she was willing to discuss some of the things she was reading, and we had some interesting philosophical discussions about the meaning of life, love, and even the existence of God. A small fantasy seeded in my mind that she and I would become best friends, and that when enough bitty was saved, I'd take her with me into the untethered world.

Then one evening, against my better judgement, I did something impulsive. I noticed the book she was reading, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. I could already envision the questions she'd ask me about it, if she trusted me enough to ask. If not, it would give her nightmares at the very least.  I had do something fast. 

"Dimples, can I interrupt your reading for just a minute?" She looked up at me with that normal quizzical look every time I tried to start a conversation with her. Slightly pensive, slightly annoyed, and slightly bewildered.

"I was just thinking that it might be nice for you to have a day off. I'm planning to start hiking in the mountains and nearby forests more and I'd like you to come with me one of these days, maybe tomorrow." I smiled expectantly when I said it, hoping I'd see a reflection of it on her face, but her expression didn't change.

"I don't have any free days," she said. "You know this."

"Well, yes I know," I said, hesitating. "But there's a feature on your cap, well a feature I created and have used before called SlackerDay, that can be installed, so your boss won't know you're gone."

Finally her expression changed but not in the way I'd hoped for. It was more like a look of revelation than anything else. If there were a Cap feature it might have been a lightbulb illuminating above her head. I should have come up with another explanation. From her expression I knew this one, the truth, was a mistake.

"Yes then," she said, as if reading my own apprehensions. "I'd like to go with you." She finally gave me the excited smile I'd wanted at first only something didn't feel genuine about it. That feeling only lasted for a second though because I was suddenly exhilarated about a day off with my new best friend.

Hacking the Cap network with the Slacker feature, using Dimple's cap to interface a false image into her coworkers caps, only took a couple of hours. They'd see her in the office working at her desk all day. If someone tried to interrupt her there was an auto feature, where she'd look up and smile, and apologize that she couldn't talk because she was working on something very important. If her boss became extra inquisitive an alarm would ring and I could interface from wherever we happened to be. The only way to get caught was if her boss took her own cap off during work hours, which was a near impossibility, as it could lead to severe disciplinary measures up to and including termination.

The following morning Dimples and I rose early and started our day at one of the cushy skyline restaurants circulating above the stratosphere. After we both finished eating and were sipping our coffee she looked at me as if considering herself in a mirror.