He didn’t sign for days, of course. He’d taken the hints, and once he’d decided on his choices, there were considerable preparations to be made.

  At the top of that list was the customized outfitting for his ‘trans-emigration’. As good a term as any.

  Everything you possess, other than your clothes, his own predecessor had written. For Justin, that was a loophole through which he could, and would, drive a whole fleet of trucks. He had the money – the blood money, as he privately characterized it, despite being legally obtained – to exploit that to the hilt.

  Bespoke pants, sewn with concealed gold and platinum wire, of multiple karats and multiple gauges. Which had necessarily been sourced from multiple sellers, because the federal government had views on the ownership of precious metals by private citizens. It jacked the price up, but he could afford it. Hand-made gemstone buttons, hidden behind fabric covers – emeralds, rubies, high-end jadeite. Large pieces and small ones.

  No diamonds.

  Thank god for Etsy. He lost some materials to theft while finding a reliable seamstress, but the end result she produced was more than worth it.

  The jacket was trickier. Yes, there were off-the-shelf hoodies and such with built-in speakers, but a rush order of the top rated ones quickly revealed that the audio quality among all of them just didn’t make the grade. He needed the highest fidelity, the longest battery life, the most reliable players he could afford – he had a plan; this wasn’t merely for his personal use. A ruggedized solar panel, for recharging. A fieldwork multimeter, to ensure the safe replacement of batteries with a locally built generator, eventually. Formulas, instuctions, technical diagrams stitched into the lining. Everything had to be integrated, made literally necessary to its function as an article of clothing. And more, things he hadn’t even thought of, couldn’t think of, because he lacked the background.

  A few calls, a few emails, a few days later, and he was shaking hands with both the Deans of Fine Arts and of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon. A seven-figure charitable trust, even at the lowest bound, bought a lot of attention. Three weeks after that, thanks to a crash interdisciplinary program originally for scholarship students that somehow sucked in another half-dozen uncompensated participants, he had his prototypical Upcoat – an overcoat built for technological Uplifting.

  Smiles all around. People felt good. It was a silly project, frivolous even, but there was also a strong sense of accomplishment. They’d done something special, they’d done it well, and they’d done it quickly.

  And, of course, they'd gotten academic credit for it.

  He was gone the next day. He’d put his last half-million into an educational trust for the next generation of his family, one that was limited to trade schools. Named for his father.

  No one in that world ever saw or heard from him again.

  # # #

  said the luminous white oval,

  Justin’s vision flickered, in the spiritual equivalent of a blink. He would have looked around, if he’d been embodied. As it was, all he could do was stare at the glowing, amorphous entity before him.

  it continued,

  Justin began laughing uproariously.

  “Th-thanks!” he stuttered out, between the gusts of hilarity.

  the being grumbled.

  Justin’s laughter shut off like a light switch.

  “Oh,” he said. “If that’s the case, I apologize.”

  said the entity, elongating slightly in surprise.

  “Yes, really,” said Justin. “I regret how I crossed your personal boundaries like that. I didn’t realize you were a sapient being.”

  “That said,” Justin added, because Justin, “I still would have done it. I would have warned you first, though.”

  Somehow, despite being a glowy white blob, the entity manage to convey the impression that it was facepalming.

  “Ten percent,” Justin interrupted automatically.

  “Ten. Percent.” Justin repeated.

  “No,” Justin said. “Ten percent for all of it. Which price does not, by the way, include any of the technology involved in accessing or using it. No O. Henry, Monkey’s Paw shenanigans. And now we negotiate.”

  “I have plans for that money! It’s investment capital! For a better Shop!”

  “Well, to begin with, I didn’t go negative back at you! I stayed positive! I went for the mutual win!”

  “And counter-assuming that you don’t keep trying to punish me for going all-in on this deal - the way I actually did! - then I suppose I could give up twenty percent. Total; ten more, not ten plus twenty.”

  “I don’t like it either, but yes.”

  “Guaranteed monthly supplies of raw cacao, vanilla, and coffee seeds, in quantities sufficient for one venue’s monthly retail usage and sales, at prices affordable in the labor segment of the economy? Because I am not down with denying chocolate to the children of working-class parents!”

  “The latter is fine,” Justin said. “I expected as much, going by Mobile’s text. What still confuses me is the dichotomy between Bigger Shop and Warped Space.”

  “And there’s no supernatural consequences involved? Bigger Shop isn’t inherently – narratively, let’s say - safer in any way?”

  “Then this is where we dicker over the increased cost for my Transform upgrade, I suppose.”

  “No. Much too high. I can do another fifteen percent, for a total of forty, but that’s it.”

  Justin spirit-blinked again.

  “Because you’re a formless glowy blob, and I’m currently disembodied?”

  “So do it,” Justin said. “Take that loss.”

  “Too late; you should have phrased it better. And are you seriously reducing this to the neener-neener nanny-nanny boo-boo poopy-pants level already?”

  “Hold it,” Justin said, as a few new clues from their conversation fell together in his head, leading to a sudden shock of insight. “You. . .you’re bluffing! You are! You can’t actually refuse any of my amendments, can you? You can only enforce what the upper management decides. You’re – you’re negotiating for your own damn cut! Ohohohoho! Well now! Let’s just see, then. . . .”

  The entity floated closer to Justin’s bodiless point of view. . .

  . . .growing in size. . .

  . . .and brightness. . .

  . . .until it loomed over him, massive. . .

  . . .inconceivably large. . .

  . . .and blazing like an OI supergiant star. . .

  “Oh, bring it, round boy,” Justin said, as he, and the entity, and the merest concept of space left around both of them all collapsed into a single sourceless, dimensionless point, and vanished.

  Jon Bailey to do G-----'s dialogue in this chapter. Wouldn't that be cool?

  Gendo Ikari, for those who don't recognize him.