Chapter 11 Part 3

"I have told you mortal that I would not allow you to take a book from this shelf, and yet you refuse to heed my warning. I now intend to make good on my promise of tearing you limb from limb. Have you anything to say before I send you to your end?"

"I..", the scholar paled, "I...don't understand. I changed your code. You shouldn't be able to do this. How are you doing this?"

"I warned you of your pride and understanding of things,  mortal, but yet you did not listen. To see the code is one thing, to control the code is another. Your scientists see genetic code, but yet they do not control it. they tweak it. They play with it, but it is not a language which they control, they only peak and tweak. My existence is not determined by the code, it is merely reflected in the code. I now advise you to make peace with your deities."

The shrieks of the scholar got the attention of the remaining guards. When they got there, they only found a bloody stump of what was once the man. Not one of the guards saw Cerberus.

Rei had heard this story a thousand times because people loved to speculate about what had happened to the man. Since there was so much dialog involved, and since the only man who heard it was dead, she assumed that people had made up much of it. Probably the man had run across a holographic security device and became fatally wounded. Perhaps that holographic security device had the name Cerberus.

Rei had believed these explanations when the situation had seemed less personal. Now that she was being asked to go to the restricted area, she was not so confident that her explanation was correct. Whatever this Cerberus was could hypothetically kill her.

Rei glanced up from her ruminations to get her bearings and noticed a Palcan shooting to its destination. She was near her home. What caught her attention was that there was a digital sign near the Palcan that was an advertisement. The ad was for some consulting agency for businesses, and had a picture of three people in an intimate business setting. One person wore a suit and gestured with his hand to a chart to the other two. The caption to the picture was what had caught her attention the most. "Security Solutions," it said. "Because sometimes three heads are better than one."

Rei laughed a little nervous laughter to herself. All this Cerberus matter was taking up more space in her mind than necessary. She took a turn up the familiar path that led to her apartment. One thing that hadn't changed much since the emergence of the holonosphere were apartment buildings. The only good thing that had happened was that the holonosphere allowed for sound dampening and more precise climate control so a person did not have to worry about the neighbors waking him up or the lack of maintenance on the air conditioner. Rei checked her mail in the lobby before she went upstairs. The postal service had run a successful campaign when the holonosphere emerged suggesting that it could just as easily disappear. The result was that mail was still in us, but mostly by businesses. It was independent of the holonosphere as a sort of back-up system in case things became chaotic. It was for this reason bills were sent mostly this way as businesses were more concerned about customers reliably getting their bills than they were speed or convenience. What was different, though, was that instead of a mailbox one simply picked up a digital pad out of a cradle that was designated with a certain number on it. One could take this pad with them, and all that was required to get the mail was to take this pad and place it in the appropriate cradle (or back in it in Rei's case). Postmen to pick up and deliver the mail were no longer necessary. One only needed a pad and a cradle, and one was set.