“Whitaker certainly seems to have a lot to lose if something goes wrong,” Toller said. “Is that what you’re getting at? This whole story about them doing it on the University dime sounds nice when Shutter’s tells the story but it sounds like a game to him—but perhaps those two aren’t playing.” “So you’re going … Read more
The “highly orchestrated action in Student Records” would begin to play itself out in mere minutes; but Elaine found herself far away from the activity: across campus, standing right outside the Engineering Computing Commons in the air conditioned antechamber of Engineering Wing H. Frog sat on the stairs fiddling with a small laptop open on … Read more
She waited for the girls to seat themselves before gradually descending back into her own. The sway-backed leather seat seemed to swallow her whole. “Today I received the most astounding surprise,” Fedora said. One of her spider hands scrabbled for her spectacles—a strange pair of glasses that looked entirely out of place on her thin … Read more
Frog grabbed her safari hat and snugged it atop her head. She flung the door to the hallway—she paused a moment there, a silhouette framed by the sudden brightness of the Computing Commons flooding into the dimly lit room. “I’ll tell Zane we’re going, I think he’s downstairs doing homework on the atrium computers,” she … Read more
The next day landed on a Friday, the results of the winners from the previous day’s DarkNet exploits would be revealed after the majority of classes for the day at ended 5pm. According to Elaine’s intelligence on the subject—from Zane via Frog mostly—it looked like his ARG team had tied with Brad’s team due to … Read more
“When she does go to prom on this leg, she’ll be able to wear a dress that shows off her legs. It will have a similar complexion to the rest of her body and only someone looking very closely will be able to tell that she’s wearing a prosthetic.” She jabbed a thumb over her … Read more
With the welding visor down, Elaine couldn’t see anything except for an augmented reality interface and the subject of her work: a miniaturized servo-actuator designed to add extra mechanical strength to some myofiber muscles inside of a prosthetic leg. The new myofibers involved a torsional nanotube carbon yarn awash in electrolytic fluid to bear away … Read more
A queue of people had already begun to form in front of the MU basement theater. The university had set up a small ticket office there adjacent to the gift shop along the corridor that led out into the amphitheater area—where the ASU Improv did their shows for larger audiences. The movie poster for The … Read more
The Memorial Union of Arizona State University always looked as if it prided itself at being the center of all student flow for the campus—and this fact had not been lost on the administration or student groups. The long, broad hallways adorned themselves with tapering banners emblazoned in the maroon and gold of the school … Read more
The metallic voice of the robotic automatic message repeated what the earlier voicemail said about the subject of potential academic probation and she cut it off midsentence. “What is it?” Frog asked. “Academic services again,” Elaine said. “I didn’t know those automatic systems were so persistent. I might need to hack into it just to … Read more