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Ch 13, SFame: Space Fame

After class Logan didn't particularly feel sociable and his concerns only grew over the topics of discussion Harper would likely bring up. His mind was still awash with being 'cut loose' with the end of orientation and what it would mean to really and truly enter into the trans-human society. His preoccupation with his thoughts ultimately led him to one of several sitting-areas on a higher level of the spire.

The viewing area he ultimately chose to provide the setting for passing the time while picking through his thoughts was really more a widening of the hallway than anything else. The right wall bumped out further apart than the usually 3-ish meter width and where it expanded there was a single step down into a slightly sunken floor which extended to the wall, which was taken up by a floor-to-ceiling window. A little more than an arm's distance from the railing separating the walkway from whatever the see-through material was (his implant informed him that it was transparent aluminum) was a set of seats. The bucket chairs were clustered three to a set, which each set separated by a small side table; there were four sets in all, totaling twelve seats and five mini tables.

Taking a seat in one of the middle chairs of the middle clusters, Logan stared out into space and down at the moonscape below. The blackness of space was nowhere near as all-encompassing as he had once thought; other than the sea of stars, the young man was astounded at the various faint smudges of color interspersed throughout. Even the sea of white comprising the surface of the moon was anything-but-total; there were various pock marks of numerous meteor craters and, as he seriously regarded the moon's surface for the first time, was certain he could see various 'roads' worn into it by what were probably any of a number of moon vehicles. Logan promised himself then and there that he'd take a trip in one of them when he got the chance... but first, he realized, he had homework.

Continuing to fill his vision with the combination of black-and-white with the view beyond the window, Logan elected to let that serve as the backdrop of his vision as he used his implant to access the metanet and open up the LHM program. From there it was an incredibly simple prospect of accessing several menu commands which and previously been blocked to him. He did a double-take when he found out that he had just over 9100 messages waiting for him; as he took it all in, another message joined the list... and another. Logan also noticed that he could see a breakdown of the messages waiting; a lot of them, he was pleased to see, were labeled as positive in nature.

Once he had a moment to assess what he was looking at, reality started to settle in: Pete had tasked the class to explore their waiting messages. He had the ability to read them, sort them, mark them for future interaction, and delete them. Even though he was unable to actually respond to them, he readily acknowledged that he would be faced with a problem. "It'll take forever to get through all of this!"

The young man tried to figure out where to even begin; he had literally THOUSANDS of messages waiting for him! He remembered a joke once his grandfather said-- something about the best way to eat an elephant was one bite at a time. Although elephants had been extinct since before Logan was born, the phrase was still valid; it meant that larger tasks should be cut down to smaller components, and that made sense. Looking at the huge number of messages he was facing, Logan had to consider how to reduce that to 'bite sized' pieces... perhaps divide them into sets of one hundred?

It sounded like a reasonable approach and, as he considered it, his implant obligingly began partitioning them into sets. He was warming up to the idea of reviewing one hundred an hour. With sixty minutes in an hour, that meant he'd have to get through them in less than thirty seconds a piece, but it wasn't like he'd have to ANSWER them... just look them over. So, he reasoned, if he did 100 messages an hour, and he had over 9100 messages... Logan took a second to consider how long it'd take him to get through everything.

His implant helped: 91 hours was just over 5.5 days.

When the young man wondered at that figure, he was further informed that the computation included eight hours of sleep with every other minute devoted to reading messages. Logan very quickly struck down that plan; he wasn't really looking to lock himself away in his residence and be a slave to his social media account. Besides, he reasoned, the final class check-in was less than 24 hours a way, so there'd be no way he would possibly get through the entirety of his account-- five and a half days was not a reasonable turnaround time. He also didn't have to go through ALL of the messages, he was sure that he--

His implant was proactively 'helpful' again: with eight hours of sleep, he could still get through over 1200 messages in his waking hours.

Logan promised himself that he'd check with Pete about how aggressively interested in implant was in helping him, and he rolled his eyes when his calendar popped up and a reminder was set for during class time the following morning to check in with Pete regarding fine-tuning his user settings. He had to ignore the irony of that in favor of continuing to figure out how he'd handle his messages; he had a lot of them to review. Perhaps that was something his implant could help address in the meantime.

His user interface immediately pulled up the list of social media messages, and set up a blank file folder, awaiting his input. Thinking a moment, he spoke up. "Urgency?"

Logan was quickly notified that none of his messages were marked urgent, priority, or emergency, so that didn't help a lot. Thinking a moment longer, he realized that is best bet would be to divide his messages into categories, or some kind of way to divide them into searchable subject matters. He wasn't exactly sure he would go about doing that, and willing invited his implant to help; an interface immediately opened up, pointing out the positive/negative/neutral classifications that Logan was already familiar with seeing. It was a start.

Although he felt like his implant was treating him like some kind of remedial student, he couldn't really argue that he wasn't actually asking for it-- besides, he reasoned, it WAS one way of dividing the messages. Logan really hated the idea of negative comments; he knew enough about the extranet from his time to know that 'trolls' were a thing, and he didn't like the idea of encountering them, but he did pause the moment the confirmation option for the delete function came up with over a thousand messages on the chopping block. In the end he elected not to delete them, and went back to considering a different way to divide up his pending homework.

There was value to separating the kind of message, but the positive/negative/neutral manner was just asking for trouble. Would there be another way to divide them by content, perhaps? If so, Logan mused, what content should he use to break down his incredibly lengthy list of messages? Why did he even have so many messages in the first place? Was that all due to Star? He found himself wondering just how many of his messages were due to Star, and that led him to a fresh idea. He asked his implant with thoughts alone how many of his messages involved or referenced Star in some way.

The response was quick to compute and he was informed that almost 80% of the messages were Star-related in some way.

Sighing, he let out a shrug. "Well... that's something... let's stick with those. Just over 1900 messages not involving Star. Store the rest, and I'll start with this smaller list. Hmm... how can we break this down further?"

Although his question was more rhetorical than anything else, the implant popped up with several other options based on contents which could further help him subdivide the numbers left. One of those options specifically caught his attention. "Okay... well... that one could work, I guess. How about about messages that don't involve Harper or Star then? How many of THOSE are there?"

The implant once again had a quick response for him: just under 1000 messages didn't include either Harper nor Star.

Finally getting closer to a reasonable number to review before class, Logan was so focused on adding some organization to his numerous messages that he wasnt' fully aware of everything going on around him until the forceful shutter of his chair accompanying the thump of the chair connected to his. Turning to regard the disruption, the young man was stunned dumb by what met his eyes: a woman leaning over the seat beside him with a large, fluffy dog mounting her fron behind.

Although he was stunned by what he saw, Logan immediately acknowledged the familiarity of the canine he ran into while the four legged creature was having sex in an elevator, but he also recognized "Lillian?!?"

Gripping the backing of the chair next to Logan's, Lillian was bent over, her simple blue dress hiked up from behind to give the dog access to her from behind; the fact that her panties were down around her ankles was not lost to the young man. Rather than acknowledge his recognition of her, she seemed completely lost in the moment. "Oh! Oh, Noah! Yes! Oh, god!"

Still frozen in place, Logan's eyes drifted from the woman to the dog then back again; he also didn't miss the moment his implant courteously added "Noah" over the dog's head-- and that it bounced along in time with the canine's thrusts. Sighing, the young man stood up and quickly stepped away from the action, mumbling to himself. "It's official-- either everyone's gone insane, or I have."

Behind him, he heard the dog growl softly, lustily "Well now, Lillian... I bet you're glad you checked your messages, aren't you, sweets?"

Exiting the situation to provide the two some privacy (not that they seemed to mind since they were going at it right in the hallway), Logan proceeded down the corridor at a heightened speed. He wanted to continue picking through his messages to try and work it down to a serviceable number to look through, but he--

"Logan!"

Pulling his focus away from the HUD superimposed over his vision, the young man realized suddenly that he very nearly slammed into-- "Oh! Harper!"

Harper Knight stood right in front of him, an arm out as if to ward off a collision. Once it was apparent the two weren't about to smash together the actor smirked. "A lot on your mind, huh? Guess I shouldn't be surprised."

Despite Logan's earlier reservations about spending time with Harper, the young man realized that there were much more awkward situations in which he might find himself-- like sitting next to Lillian while she got pounded by a 200 lb fuzzy, four legged dog. Offering an apologetic smile, Logan offered up a simple reply "Guess I was a little too deep in my implant feed."

Harper offered a casual shrug and a ready laugh. "Yeah... I get what'cha mean... tons of social media messages to get caught up on. The two of us are a force of nature, you know. Maybe you should sit down before you surf through your admirers though... safer for everyone that way."

Before Logan could object, Harper had about-faced and stepped up beside the young man, slipping an arm around his shoulder and moved in to flank him, proceeding down the hall at a casual pace, strolling along like a old chum. "Anyway," Harper continued, "I'm thinking before it gets much later we should consider hitting up the lounge for dinner."

Logan had practically forgotten that Harper had wanted to chat with him after class. The whole uncomfortable discussion about social media came rushing back... with a vengeance. "Dinner?"

Harper winked. "Yeah... glad I 'ran into you'. Found an amazing replicating station that serves some killer Indian food. You much into Indian?"

Generally, Logan wasn't much for spicy food and, in his limited experience with eastern cuisine, most of it wasn't really to his taste. He wasn't about to press the issue, not with Harper having been so unhinged. "I... like rice?"

Cackling as if Logan had told a joke, Harper gave him several strong pats on the back. "Sounds like you haven't had much experience with the finer points of South Asian cooking... well, we're gonna pop THAT cherry tonight!"

Caught somewhere between stunned and horrified, Logan couldn't stop the words from coming out as his brain tried to break the resulting silence. "Are there a lot of cherries in Indian recipes?"

Harper just rolled his eyes and laughed, dragging Logan off to god only knew where... presuming there was a god of trans-humans, of course.

* * * * * *

The restaurant Harper chose was the exact same one they went to the first night; in Logan's estimate, all food establishments were essentially the same anyway since all the food they produced was created off of some kind of nano-machine blueprint for a meal rather than a real recipe. Not long ago in his mind (though centuries in actuality), Logan really wouldn't have cared how food was prepared in a restaurant though, after experiencing "future meals" for the better part of the week he had to admit something was missing.

Harper had been surprisingly quiet while they waited for drinks, so Logan took it upon himself to break the ice. "You notice how weird the food is?"

The movie star shook his head. "It's not 'weird'. It's 'sanitized'."

The statement seemed entirely out of character for Harper and it caught Logan by surprise. "Come again?"

Harper swirled the drink around in his glass as he spoke. "Oh-- just thinking of a line from one of my early movies. I was playing the son of of a food exec. It was a dramatic historical piece of the development of imitation chocolate after the mass cocoa die-offs in the late 21st century. My 'dad' was talking about how it was the perfect chemical recreation of cocoa flavor, and my line was how it didn't actually taste like chocolate. He explained that the flavor was 'sanitized'-- what people tasted was the actual, real, pure flavor of cocoa and not all of the minuscule amounts of other elements of what was really part of the bean."

Logan let that sink in for a moment. He remembered Star telling him about how the food created for consumption was based on memories rather than simple chemical compounds so Harper's explanation couldn't be THAT accurate, but it was possible that the real answer was somewhere in the middle: memories didn't always measure up to reality, and anything made TOO perfect wasn't wholly real... or something to that effect.

Only once his brain finished running down that particular thought did Logan realize that Harper was talking to him; he'd missed the initial part of the discussion and he was left with a very open-ended question. "So whadda YOU think about it, Logan?"

Not having realized that he'd asked it for help, Logan was surprised when his implant pulled up the last few seconds of conversation: Harper found the 'future' to be a very different place from the time in which they'd lived. He was looking for Logan to agree. The young man was certainly ready to do that. "Things here are... well... pretty crazy, yeah. I agree with ya there. Definitely going to take some getting used to."

Harper gave his drinking glass a light tap on the table. "I hear ya there, Logan. I mean... this whole social media thing-- totally insane! Can you believe there's this whole undercurrent here on the moon? People are all happy to your face in the hall, and then spitting all sorts of venom on the metanet!"

That wasn't precisely Logan's experience, but he knew better than to challenge Harper. The closest he could come up with was pointing out similarities. "I would have figured that it'd be pretty similar to Hollywood though, right? Lots of not-genuine people being all fake and everything?"

The star laughed a single, blunted 'ha' and slammed an open hand on the table. "True... VERY true... but I could natigate Hollywood... this place still has me a little uneven. It'll just take some time and I'll find my way. YOU though, Logan... you're gonna have to watch yourself. You may be on top right now, but you never know just how much of it is fame, and how much of it is people toying with you."

Logan really didn't like the way Harper made that sound. "Oh... I'm not interested in being 'on the top'... I'm perfectly happy flying under the radar, thanks."

Harper glanced around the restaurant. Unlike the first time the two had eaten there, Harper had selected a table in the back away from others and, as Logan watched him, the Hollywood star was eyeing all of the other guests within view as if he expected them to mean him harm. "In certain circles, trying to avoid attention only gets more of it."

At first Logan thought Harper was referencing the fact that he'd chosen an out-of-the-way spot for them, but he ended up doing a double-take, surprised that the man sitting across from him made a comment which was surprising similar to what Star had told him the prior night. Hearing the same thing from Harper as he heard from his niece was a major wake-up call. "Do you think I should be more... involved?"

Eying him carefully, Harper was quiet as the server stopped by, slid their respective plates in front of them, and offered them the same casual platitudes Logan would have expected from a waiter in his own time. Only once the man was gone did Harper respond. "Yes."

Logan blinked, stunned with the answer he got back. "Are you SURE?"

Harper nodded. "More than ever. I mean... just look at the messages I'M getting-- I've spent all my time being active, present, involved, and putting myself out there, and what messages do I get? Almost half of them include you! Do you have ANY idea how crazy it is for these people to have an old cinema star like me among them, and yet they're talking to me more about YOU than they are about me?"

If the thought wasn't so disconcerting, Logan might have almost been flattered. "Why are they messaging YOU about ME?"

Throwing his arms up in the air, Harper blurted "EXACTLY what I want to know! I figure they could just message YOU directly!"

Logan considered what he could do to calm down his dinner companion. He wondered if appealing to Harper's ego would be useful. "Well... if it helps any, a good portion of my messages are about you too."

It worked... perhaps too well. Harper's eyes lit up. "Really? You think it's some kind of social shift toward being indirect? Maybe there's this whole 'ask people about others' norm now?" He stared at Logan for several moments before adding "Well? What do the messages say, Logan?"

Fidgeting, Logan shirked away. "I.....'m not sure. I've been too busy organizing my messages to actually read them."

Worried that his response might have angered Harper, Logan was relieved immediately when the Hollywood star started laughing instead. Finally looking down to his meal, Harper shook his head mirthfully. "Man... you gotta start READING em. And here I thought you were one of those guys who actually DID their homework."

Sighing, Logan looked down at his own meal; Harper ordered for him, and the young man was worried that the food would be spicy-- it smelled spicy. Poking at the sauce-covered meat with his fork, Logan spoke up "I'm just trying to figure out the best way to go about reading as many as I can since we're supposed to check our messages before tomorrow."

Rolling his eyes, Harper began eating with a not insignificant appetite. "Dude... you'll be able to read more if you just open one... so do it."

Logan shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Okay, I guess I'll--"

Harper interjected "Open one that mentions me."

Sighing, Logan relented. Setting his fork down so he could focus (not that he needed to since his implant did the hard work), the young man selected one message at random. It was from someone named Diedre, and was very straight forward:

"Ditch Harper, Logan. You spend too much time around him and you'll get dragged down like every Class 1 Celebrity does to everyone around them."

He glanced at Harper, who was looking straight at him. "So? What's it say?"

Logan lied through his teeth. "Just a hello."

Harper must have believed him. "I said find one that talks about me, man!"

Quickly sifting through a half dozen messages that included Harper, Logan was surprised to see more and more of the same; the vast majority of what he received that included Harper were messages of warning. His dining companion was almost done with his meal before he pressed the issue again. "Come on, Logan... you have an implant-- it doesn't take THAT long to read a message!"

Logan looked at Harper, wondering if what they said about actors being good at detecting lies was true. "I was opening a few just to get a general feel for the public impression... so far it seems pretty positive."

Apparently Harper was an exception, or was too blinded by his own self-impression to second guess Logan's words. "Jesus... why'd YOU get all the reasonable folks? Most of the dip shits who messaged me were hyper critical and basically called me a douche bag."

That honestly surprised Logan; he figured trans-humans tended to be much kinder. "Really? A douche bag?"

Harper groaned, shaking his head. "No... not in so many words... folks these days probably don't even know what a douche bag is. Most of em are just being worse than socially-aligned movie critics and telling me all the things I'm doing wrong. And I'm not really even doing anything wrong! They're just..." he sighed "...never mind."

Logan KNEW he shouldn't kick over that particular ant hill, but he couldn't help himself. "You know... if you want to talk about it, I'm right here. I wanna help if I can."

At first, the young man thought he saw a hint of gratitude in Harper's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by indignation and, just as fast, a glint of some kind of scheme washed both impressions away. Logan didn't like the way Harper was looking at him. "Actually, Logan... there IS something you can do to help... if you really mean it."

Knowing full well that he was going to regret it more than offering help, Logan felt compelled to continue down the path he knew would only lead to something... unpleasant. "What, Harper? How can I help?"

The star smirked. "Well... you remember how we established that the social media in this age is fucking insane?"

In Logan's mind they had done no such thing. He pressed forward without agreeing. "Are you thinking that you--?"

Harper didn't wait for a full answer. "I think I know what's going on. People are generally messaging shit my way because I need to be seen as more approachable, humble, and vulnerable. People are obsessed with you because they don't know you, and they're putting you on some kind of pedestal."

While Logan couldn't argue that he had some kind of social media clout due to his niece, he didn't think clarifying that to Harper would help much. He also didn't like the implication of the way Harper was scheming. "What does that have to do with--"

Once again, the star didn't let him finish. "All we have to do to set things right is for you to get angry and smack me around a bit-- I'll accept the blame for you getting angry. We'll both come across as more relatable... me because I show vulnerability, and you because people will realize you're not such a fucking boy scout."

Logan was about to respond that he definitely didn't approve of that idea, but he was caught off-guard by several dozen messages suddenly hitting his feed on the LSM. It seemed far too much of a coincidence and, without answering Harper, he opened one... then another... and another... and another...

"Do it."

"Go for the face!"

"He deserves it."

"Fuck his shit up!"

Harper froze; apparently Logan wasn't the only one getting messages. "What the fu--" he paused when he saw the server standing just off to the side of their table. "Are you fucking broadcasting this?!?"

Another message came through Logan's feed, but he was surprised that it wasn't processed the same way as the others. "Now is a good time to leave, Logan."

Seeing that an argument was escalating quickly between Harper and the server, Logan decided to honor that piece of unsolicited advice and quietly slipped out; the meals were already registered against their individual rations and, despite the fact that Logan hadn't eaten, he found himself far less hungry and far more interested in departing.

Once he was out in the hallway he let out a deep breath and activated his implant in an attempt to get more information about the errant message. He was surprised when he got an immediate reply in a manner similar to the first. "You don't have to do a search, Logan. I'm right here."

Spinning in place, Logan looked around for whomever was nearby but he was alone in the hallway. He called out. "Is someone there?"

The strange messages continued. "No. Just you, Logan. And me."

Suddenly feeling very exposed, Logan began hurrying back toward his residential block. He called aloud "Where are you?"

He got another answer via messaging. "In your head."

Logan came to a stop, speaking at a whisper. "Are you... hacking my implant?"

His heart almost stopped when he heard his own voice in his mind rather than his ears, mirthfully responding. "No, Logan. I AM your implant."