Bendway High Capacity Single Arch Public Entanglement Transport:
Overview: The Bendaway High Capacity SAPET is a medium capacity entryway/security system that meets the needs of level 4, A class residential properties. It has .55 millisecond time compression that is more than ample for the typical .0278 millisecond reconstitution transfer time and .3945 millisecond security clearance scans that close the gap so users will not sense any time delay through use. Redundant Warble dampeners ensure minimal disorientation and transfer inbalance. Your tenants need not break stride to step from lobby to penthouse level in one step. Even up to four of them arm in arm. Thanks to Bowlsey net recalibration, maintaining net projection continuity during location jump is not a problem.
Specifications: Maintains maximum load Capacity to accommodate high volume transference between Master interface to and from up to fifty-five sub locations at a rate of thirty six events per minute between unique locations with an additional load of eight percent for common events. Can handle up to four simultaneous events between common locations without danger of matter-aberration. Features Warble delay for multiple location overlap to maintain sensory continuity despite cueing or security delays. Utilizes Bowlsey Net recalibration.
Sita Gravtech got into a cab after the meeting. Her friends were waiting for her at Club Frazil. Peter, the entanglement engineer she'd been seeing, would be there and she wanted to see him, but she wasn't sure she was up for light entertainment with what was going down. She'd just agreed to do participate in the expedition to the Rift and she wasn't sure she'd made the right decision. She needed time alone to think, to digest, to restructure, to prepare. She wondered how one prepares for such a strange journey. She would have to share some truths about herself that were private, not just with her close colleagues, but with the entire crew including Peter. Not that he really mattered, but he was a distraction that may be played out. At present he was what she needed. But tonight? She didn't know what she wanted to do tonight.
The cab asked where she wanted to go for the third time, "Home. Just take me home," she sighed. No point in going out. She would be too distracted and wasn't yet sure how much she could share with people. Allele said Ministry wanted the project kept quiet. Did that mean it was officially a secret project? She didn't trust Ministry to look out for their welfare. Once Allele's group found out whatever Ministry wanted, what better way to keep it quiet than wipe the members of the team? Sita and the rest of the team might go on with their lives like nothing happened. The thought was vile, a defilement on par with being proxy raped.
Sita's anxiety grew, her resolve stressed nearly to breaking when Jon contacted her, "Sita! Can you imagine it? Getting set loose from Ministry? This is incredible. Nobody gets to do that. "
"People get to do that, Jon," Sita answered, annoyed.
"Yes, but only rangers, and for short periods of time for specific actions," chided Jon.
"I'm uncomfortable with it."
"Are you uncomfortable with getting to examine a site that possibly dates back to Europan Origins?" he asked.
"No, that's pretty compelling," she admitted.
"No anthropologist has ever been severed from Ministry before. We may learn as much from the experience as from the dig itself," he added.
"That's because you're a cultural pathologist, Jon. I'm not so sure," Sita grumbled
Sita's work was related to Somentity logistics. She was trying to find the reasoning behind the mechanism of Somentity functions. She had questions about the need for certain senses. Sight, temporal cognition, and hearing made sense in that they were needed to navigate through physical spacetime, but olfactory, hunger, sexual sensation, even love seemed unnecessary. Though pleasant or dominating, they served no survival need that anyone had yet determined. If they were vestigial, vestigial of what? She hoped answers may lie in the libraries of a prior Ministry, if any of it survived.
Jon sighed, "One thing is certain, if there is anything out there worth finding it will be found by
someone, if you want that to be you, you won't get another chance."
"I did say yes." Sita said.
"Yes, but you need to be okay with it. The adjustment regimen to prepare for severance can be slow or quick depending on our attitude. I'm worried you'll choke. You need to relax. Get your mind off it and it will go easier."
"Jon, worry about Jon." She replied
"Okay, I'm a little worried too. I'm just saying don't over think it. Ministry hasn't lost anyone yet. The rangers have made the system foolproof."
The cab reached Sita's Apartment Building on the inner rim of the fourth ring of the seven rings of the city of Cirque Sept. She sat in the cab thinking about getting an opportunity like this. It was true, there wouldn't be another. If they find what they're looking for or not, her career depended on her willingness to try. Otherwise, it would devolve into managing a research branch of some minor historical society. She would barely be able to afford a fifth ring apartment, not even one in an upper tier. She could even be pushed out to the sixth if she wasn't careful.
She ended with Jon and told the cab to wait. She decided Club Frazil and Peter was what she needed. It would push her fears behind her. Now rushed, she strode quickly into her building. The cold blue light that flooded the lobby meant she would arrive at the club after dinner hour. It would be rude to eat a full meal there, but she was hungry. It was a stressful day and she needed to replenish. She would have to eat something while cloaked.
The lobby was empty and her nearly ran straight through the lobby's bendway and down the thirtieth floor hallway to her apartment. She lived in a typical dual-phase complex apartment. The inside of her apartment and the other apartments on the floor were desynchonized from the public spaces that accessed them. Her home was somewhat larger than it would seem in that it's layout overlapped the hallway she'd just rushed down and other public areas. Whether in the hall or the apartment, one had no sense of the other overlapping space.
Immediately upon entering, Sita threw on her changing cloak, set it for her preferred evening attire and went to the kitchen to fix something to eat. The cloak indicated that she needed at least 12 ounces of base matter. She asked the pantry to make her a 10 ounce favorite savory which she devoured at the kitchen table and washed down with a few mouthfuls of Relix-10r. The purple liquid complimented the savory nicely. Between the food and the drink she would satisfy her cloak requirement plus a little for reserve.
When she finished eating, she took the rest of her drink into the living room and sat by a window to wait out the cloaking regimen. She looked out at the inner rings of the city. She lived in the inner of the two professional rings. From her vantage point she looked directly across at the Doctoral third ring where Lepton lived, and Allele would live if she hadn't taken the place outside of the city.
Inner rings were narrower but higher than their outer neighbors. Sita could see some of the second Socio-Politic ring, and even had a glimpse of the first Europan ring that encircled Ministry. Conversely from her bedroom she saw the lower rings, comprised of the fifth:
Professional/Administrative, sixth: Artisan/Technical, and seventh: Outlabor rings. Surrounding the whole was the farther Worker plain. As she finished her drink she wondered if the rift expedition would secure her doctorate and allow for a move across the way.
Her cloak indicated she was complete. She finished her drink, removed the cloak, checked that all was right. Her hair now straight and a little longer with gold tips, simple black dress, diamondized fingernails, and turquoise eye color. She was barefoot as was the fashion, her ears enhanced with a slight point to hear better in loud rooms. Otherwise her facial features remained unchanged. She was ready.
The cab took a cross ring avenue near Sita's apartment so most of the ride was along Firth Drive that separated the fourth and fifth rings of the city. A rapid river called the Firth of Thrash separated the rings. Water was pumped at tremendous force to keep it from freezing. The rushing whitewater was both beautiful and dangerous. Although Ministry simply reconstituted the Somentity projection of anyone who fell into the rushing river, pain was still a factor that usually required extended therapy to overcome.
The cab rounded the curve into the ring's Disportment and Repose Quarter, or the D and R, that housed clubs, theaters, stadiums, and other recreational facilities for the enjoyment of the Professional class and their guests. In the distance Sita spotted the cantilevered dance floor of Club Frazil that jutted out over Waterside Drive and the river itself at the entrance to the Spiral Crossover that Bisected the entire D and R served as its main drag."
The cab dropped her off at the club entrance. She had told Peter she would meet him at the bar if she could make it and so found a seat and ordered a drink. She had an agreement with Peter not to use comms to arrange their rendezvous as the uncertainty of prior arrangements was more romantic. She knew he'd be checking in at the bar regularly and settled in to wait. She found an empty seat at the bar and leaned over the counter to gain the bartender's attention. There was a faint odor of wet concrete as after a rain, though she would not recognize it, there being no concrete nor warm enough conditions for rain on Europa.
There was a man sitting at the chair beside her that she hadn't noticed before. He removed a small green stone from his pocket and placed it on the bar between them, then turned to her as she looked past him to search for Peter.
"Sita." he said with a plain but deliberate tone as if he expected her to give him her complete attention without question.
"Yes?" she answered without wondering who he was or how he knew her.
"It would be well for you to let Allele go after Jon," he told her. She looked more closely at him as he spoke. She felt locked to his gaze and only when he'd finished did she notice he'd been holding her wrist as he spoke. He was an older man with gentle features that inspired trust in her as if he were her spiritual advisor.
"Well, yes I suppose I should," she replied.
"That's good, very, very good." He said and looked down breaking their eye contact.
Peter sat down at her other side, "I like the hair and nails, what's the occasion?"
Sita turned toward him, "Peter."
"Yes, Are you okay Sita?" he asked.
"I'm fine.This man was telling me something."
"Who?" he asked looking past her. She turned to find an empty seat where he'd sat.
"There was a man. He said something to me," she answered, slightly dazed
"I didn't see anyone," Peter said. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"No? I mean yes, I'm fine. Now I don't know. Maybe I was day dreaming."
Peter gave her a puzzled look, "There's a first time for everything I guess. Come on, we're all outside."
They got up and headed toward the terrace. Neither of them noticed the man still sitting at the bar
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