BEg2 ch 38 - brief summary

[Michael Bailey]

Tells Shawn the emotherapist all the Windust emotions she couldn’t tell her
father; tells Shawn she’s through with his tutelage.

He gives her a final bit of wisdom.


The passage of time without harm to Ziggy & Otis makes her feel a tiny bit
better each day.


She realizes her sister Brooke is pregnant.


Avi gets in the habit of confiding in Maxine during visits to her office.
He hates working at hashslingrz & wants to quit but they just bought into a
co-op.


Periodically Maxine looks at the Windust dossier file on her hard drive, &
mysteriously, more material is being added to it.


& of course she can’t stay out of DeepArcher.

Running into Lester Traipse:

“ “So! Lester. Who did the deed?”

         “Interesting. First thing most people want to know is what’s it
like being dead.”

         “OK, what’s it—”

         “Ha, ha, trick question, I’m not dead, I’m a refugee from my life.
As for whodunit,
            I’m supposed to know? I arranged over the phone to drop a
shrink-wrapped cube of cash
            as a first installment for Ice underneath The Deseret pool at
midnight, next thing
            I know, I’m here wandering around with my spectral thumb in my
metaphysical ass.”


         “Igor Dashkov said you talked about trying to seek some kind of
asylum in DeepArcher.
            Is this who I’m really talking to now, Igor? Misha, Grisha?”


         “Don’t think so, I say ‘the’ too much”


Then she finds a place created by her sons, Zigotisopolis. It’s a retro New
York from before the Trump-and-his-ilk depredations, which would have
required formidable research. She doesn’t announce herself, but makes a
mental note to talk with them about it, back in “reality.”

Which she’s finding increasingly difficult to distinguish from the virtual
worlds.

Sees some weird things on the street, most notably the merchant fraudster
Uncle Dizzy, who proffers a ring of invisibility. When she gives it back to
him, he puts it in, *and disappears!*


Meeting up with Eric, she helps him take a photo for a traveling ID, and
his take - he’s been having reality-doubt too - is that maybe those Montauk
folks (he was with her when she went to their deep Web site & heard the
Colonel’s briefing) are messing with reality via time travel. Eric says
he’s going to be a radical activist in some kind of hacker Counterforce -
she later realizes that’s his way of saying goodbye.

Driscoll still available via email, looking to get a day job & her own
place w/out roommates, sad but not surprised that Eric’s flown the coop.

Stolid Horst is the only one in the family not subject to the
fantasy/reality blurring.



Discussing this with Heidi - also not prone to this form of “borderline
disorder” - there’s mention of a “Granada-Asbury Park Uncertainty Question”
and, I finally figured out, a related Frank Sinatra song detailing the
quandary:
https://youtu.be/cweF4oj4RII

This convo occurring at the airport where Heidi’s waiting to board a flight
to Munich with Conkling, whose 4711 Cologne sets off TSA alarms - he’s
still obsessed, Heidi and he are still an item. But no Munich trip that day.


Magical Messenger Marvin brings another CD: when she plays it there’s a
familiar face & voice. It seems Eric in his righteous quest has met kindred
spirit Reg Despard. They’ve found financing & they are going somewhere
snowy & mountainous in a rolling data center to do - something. He asks her
to destroy the disc after watching it.

Horst watching over her shoulder recognizes the scenery as maybe Bozeman
Pass - she pauses the disc, Horst is not jealous recognizing Eric, but
envious of Eric driving out there in the frozen wastes - he loves that
stuff, and broaches taking Maxine there sometime.

Unwilling for him to see potentially dangerous content, she gently nudges
Horst back to the TV before un-pausing the disc.

Eric only has a little more to say, as to how they’re only getting started
just yet. The disc ends abruptly mid-sentence: “Maybe someday -“

But that could just be artsy editing by Reg Despard.