Heaven is a Place on Earth Read Free

told it who she was and that she wanted Cal Copplin. Instead of buzzing her in, the display showed Cal's face. Another recorded message.
    “Ginny,” Cal said. “I was hoping you'd come to find me. If you are alone, please say so now.”
    “ I'm alone,” she said, frowning. What on earth was going on?
    “ Great. Now listen. In a moment, the door will open. Come inside and go to my flat. That door will be open too. I've just sent you an address. When you're inside my flat, call the address and there will be further instructions.” Cal didn't look like he was playing about, but Ginny couldn't think what else might be going on.
    She checked her messages and there was a fresh one from Cal containing a QNet address.
    The door buzzed and clicked open. She went inside, looking about the smart entrance hall as if a boxing glove on a spring might pop out of the wall. Cal's unit was on the ground floor at the front. When she pushed the door, it swung inwards. No tin of paint fell from the ceiling. She went in and closed the door behind her.
    Cal's unit was enormous. She passed two bedrooms before she reached a lounge room as big as her entire apartment. Beyond that was a separate kitchen. She hadn't realised Cal was rich. She called out to him but there was no answer. She peered in at the kitchen. It had two microwaves plus one of those fancy new food printers she'd seen advertised. Back in the lounge room, she called again. Then she went to check the bedrooms, deciding Cal must be in his tank. But the first bedroom she found had no tank in it and neither did the second, larger bedroom. Now that was weird. And why would a man who lived on his own need two bedrooms? What possible use could anyone have for a spare bedroom?
    She went back to the lounge room and flopped into a sofa, glad to be off her feet. Whatever stupid game Cal was playing, she was beginning to grow irritated with it. And what did he mean, “I was hoping you'd come to find me.” In what sense was he lost?
    She popped up a phone and dialled the QNet address. There was a short delay and messages flashed by. She caught the word “routing” and then “encrypting” in a stream of numbers and meaningless words. Almost before she had registered this new strangeness, Cal's face appeared on the display.
    “Cal! What the hell are you – ”
    But it was another recording. “Hello, Ginny,” her friend said and her stomach clenched just a little. There was something in his expression that she didn't like, a sadness, as if he were about to say something he knew she wouldn't want to hear. “Thank you for putting up with all this nonsense, Gin, but I'm in a bit of trouble and I need you to do something for me. Now, go to the sitting room and you'll see a glass coffee table. Say 'OK' when you've found it.”
    She didn't need to look far. It was right in front of her. “OK,” she said.
    “ Right, now I want you to switch off your augmentation – just for a moment – then put it back on again. You'll need to switch it right down to zero, Gin. Not even minimal aug. Go completely native, OK? When you come back online, just say 'continue' and I'll explain what you saw.”
    She looked at the table. It looked smart, but perfectly ordinary. Being glass, she could see right through it. There seemed to be nothing under it. She pushed down the anxiety that was rising in her and told herself not to be such an idiot. It was just some game Cal was playing. A trick of some sort, maybe.
    She turned down her augmentation from latched to basic but her systems stopped her going any farther. She had to shoo away warning messages, give her system password and repeat her command before her implants would allow her to switch them off. Even then they didn't quite go away. A message pulsed continually in her peripheral vision to tell her they were waiting for her to restart them. Having finally achieved something like zero augmentation, she looked again at the coffee table. The shock of