AreYouSureThatYouRemember/Chapter_3.md

Chapter 3

Michael was sitting in an awkward position, in the bigger room. His back was positioned against a glowing device, clearly not designed for charging spine devices. It was a gadget wireless charger. But it did the job at charging the spine device too. As Michael sat there and waited, he chit chatted with the father of the family. Mr. Johnathan Molly. Alice Molly was also present, the same girl that he already met in the corridor. And there was also her brother Frank Molly. And a little baby girl by the name of Newt.

The little baby girl was very interested in Michael as she tried to climb onto him. At first there was not enough charge to move, but now he could pick her up. So he did. And she sat on his lap. "I was confused about the name, Molly." - said Michael. Johnathan didn't answer. He was looking at Michael, but was deep in his thoughts. After a few seconds of figuring out the right words, he said - "I saw you carry no gadgets apart from the charge meter and the spine device. Do you keep your wallet at home?"

"I don't like connected devices on me, sir."

"Very well, then you are Computer Literate I suppose." - continued Johnathan - "It's very rare that when person understand the cause of addiction before having a chance of getting addicted, that he falls for the addiction.". Michael thought about it and answered - "I suppose, but I know people who are Computer Literate and who don't bother with their own necessities.". Johnathan thought about it and said - "Damn them, crackers.". Michael smiled. He didn't like crackers himself. They made carrying connected devices a rather privacy danger sometimes. It was not easy to break security of those devices. After all the mega-net was designed for security. But crackers, as always, found ways to use the system against people. So walking out with a connected device without necessity was seen as addiction.

"What do you think about our current computer situation?" - asked him Johnathan. Frank, a ten year old boy, stepped into the conversation - "I love it" - he said. Michael thought for a second. "I had learned the principles of sharing in school and in the forums. But in my opinion, to raise a chance of families without too much selling ability to make money, we need to come back to copyright.".

"Copyright?" - frowned Mr. Johnathan - "It's an old system for lazy people.".

"I know..." - said Michael - "That's the point. For example, my dad cannot sell a program no matter how hard he tries. He is not very good of a convincer. So I think if copyright would return, he could make a bit more money. Because he would secure the right to sell copies only for himself. He will not need to convince anybody to buy it then."

"Does he develop new software?" - Johnathan got confused. Michael smiled and shrugged a bit - "Nobody does anymore.". Johnathan leaned back on his chair, smiling, while his children watched them with at most excitement. "So you want to tell me, that what ever software he currently has installed will be under his copyright, so to speak? This doesn't make any sense. There are millions of devices in the mega-structures that have unchanged, identical copies of the same software. Who will have the copyright of the software? That is impossible."

"But what do you want me to do, he can't argue good enough." - Michael started getting angrily confused. Johnathan smiled - "I can sell him arguing lessons.". Kids smiled while Michael started thinking about it - "How much?".

"You want to buy it for your dad? Or you want it for yourself?"

"My self. My dad is too depressed, you know. But I want to have a wireless charger in my bed, so not to fiddle around with charging cables all morning."

There was no dollar in those years. The economies of the mega-structures were holing on various digital currencies all interchangeable with each other. The oldest one of them, considered a measure to all others, was BitCoin. You can think of it as today's gold. It was rarely used in exchange. But rather servers of this precious stuff were filling banks. Or would I say, bankers homes. Since there was no more trust in a facility that would hold too much money for it self. The banks of the future operated more like exchanges of today. Offering a kind of balancing to make other currencies relatively stable in comparing it to BitCoin. And in the same time, providing a service of exchanging one coin into another. It was a rather lazy business but was already over-saturated. Almost every house with money to buy a server-size computer operated a service like this.

Michael didn't have a wallet device on him. But he already knew that he would like to buy arguing lessons from Mr. Johnathan Molly. He was even more desiring to buy it, because he himself just realized that Molly's arguing made him want to buy something from Molly. It was a marvelous sensation.

After all, he thought, even if he doesn't buy anything, he wants to see this Alice Molly again. So there is an excuse to come back.

As Michael went home he was getting a bit furious inside about the whole manipulating by Mr. Molly. But on the other hand he was excited to try it out himself. He was raising on the escalator at one of the places, where he could see a large section of the mega-structures. And was looking down at the people. The layers were endless. So he saw people just a bit smaller than himself, as well as he saw ants far below them. He might've seen a million human beings at once. And he thought to himself how much great gadgetry he could get himself if he would be able to sell all of them something.

His gaze caught an already far away house of Mr. Molly and the sixteen lane road right below it. His face turned all serious. With enough money he could buy good crackers. Or maybe he could learn to become one himself. And then he could find the driver of that second car. As he thought that, he found himself on the thought that he could still get the same information that Johnathan Molly wanted to sell him, but without paying. Using the mega-net. And it was true. Only he really wanted to see Alice Molly again. There was no choice.

A few hours later Michael was knocking on Mr. Molly's door. In his hand was a device fitted to a hand. Without a screen or any buttons. It was comfortable to hold. But it could also be placed on a table without it rolling off. I seemed like the weight of the device was artificial. The electronics inside it were miniature enough to make it be no larger then a nail. But added size and weight made it more comfortable to use. It was a computer.

Mr. Molly opened the door and Michael placed the device on one of the tables. Then he took out a rolled down piece of rubbery thing and unrolled it. "I like to feel the keys" - he said. The rubbery thing, was a keyboard. Michael touched the computer in a particular spot with his finger and it lighted up. Making a hard to see image in the air. It was trying to make a holographic image. But there was too much light in the room. "Can you close the light?" - asked Michael.

Johnathan Molly saw it and wanted to give him a darkness casting device. But he didn't do that... Something about the primitive holographic display of Michael's computer made him feel nostalgia. Frank was standing beside a switch confused about what to do. "Turn it off" - said Johnathan. And the boy flicked the switch. It had a very soothing sound, as Michael had noticed.

While the light started dimming and the windows started shutting, for a few shy seconds Michael was staring at Alice Molly. He was searching inside of her features of his deceased step-sister. And a sparkle of attraction burned bright inside of him. He was to shy to admit it.

The room was dark and the picture was visible in the air. There was a shiny interface of floating three-dimensional icons. One of which looked like a sack of coins. Michael stretched that icon with his hands and the icon transformed beautifully into and even stranger interface with graphs and numbers flowing around. There was a text floating in air that said "Balance". But there was no number besides it. Michael took out a special eye piece and put it on like glasses. For him the number appeared, nobody else saw it. It was a privacy feature.

With a few gestures he made a different icon fly closer to him. It was an icon of a paper airplane. He unrolled it with his fingers, which gave him a transaction form. There was two things that needed to be inputted. The receiver and the amount. Michael let Mr. Molly to use the form. Mr. Molly touched the receiver icon and it prompted to write the address or to drag and drop a code of it. Mr. Molly took out his own computer. A similar device but with a nicer finish and painted with one thin golden line around it's circumference. He touched with his finger on his computer and it opened a similar interface. Michael's interface sensed the presence of the other computer and made room for it. Mr. Molly also wore his eyepiece to navigate through something that Michael didn't see. From there he dragged out something that suddenly got visible. It was a code of random letters and numbers. Mr. Molly dragged it right into the prompt in Michael's interface. And the icon of a generic person changed to a face of Mr. Molly.

"You are using your own face for an avatar?" - said Michael judgmentally. Mr. Molly didn't answer. He touched the amount prompt and asked Michael - "May I..." - for his rubbery keyboard. Michael smiled and gave him to use it. Mr. Molly put on a glove and typed the amount. It was unwise to touch devices of other people with your own fingers. Because any device could have sensors to read the finger form. And thus gain access to their data on the mega-net. Of course such a scan could only work once. Since each time a person touches a scanner, the image is never the same. So using the same scan more then once would probably not work. Still it was a percussion, especially when dealing with computer literates. Which Mr. Molly knew, sometimes were also crackers.

As soon as the transaction passed, Mr. Molly started laughing. Michael didn't know what happened. Mr. Molly looked at Michael with a funny face and then dragged another thing from his private view. An icon appeared of a drunk monkey. "And you are using this as an avatar?" - said Johnathan Molly.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing."

And so the transaction was made. Michael looked back at Alice. And saw her also laughing at the drunk monkey image. Frank didn't laugh. He was frowning since it was stupid for him to laugh at drunk monkeys. Though he was probably frowning to stop himself from smiling. Michael smiled at first and then started laughing as well. Little baby Newt didn't understand the joke. But she saw everybody else laughing, so she joined the laughing too.