Metafire

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Chapter 17 Revelation

On board Metafire Two, Erisa and Randy had no privacy at all once out of the box. Frank Simplaceanu introduced them to the other people in the capsule. Randy continued to glower at Dave Johnston. Frank introduced his wife, Angela, and his grown daughter Jane. Jane was perhaps twenty. Frank and his wife, perhaps twice that. These people, with the exception of the black haired Dave, were all light complexioned with light brown hair. The other two, James Sporkin and Beth Gilliano, were dark eyed and similarly black and thick haired.

Sporkin, in particular, looked distant and intense. Sporkin was the genius that invented the Metafire Internet mirror technology. It employed a type of data compression that he had called "symbolic knowledge" compression. Without Sporkin's super compression, Metafire would not have had a business. It could not have effectively mirrored such large sites as all the sites in New York City.

Sporkin said hello and went immediately back to work at his computer terminal. Beth and Jane volunteered to take Erisa and Randy around the cabin and explain the different facilities.

The group, in such small quarters, had opted to divide the area into a men and women's sleeping area. Since the capsule had two extra passengers, there was hardly any way not to bounce off each other. In fact, even after the division of men and women, the sleeping arrangements left people uncomfortably close.


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