Entry 50

I barely fell the small piece of metal drop into my ear. One minute I felt the cool metal and the next it was gone. I was worried that it had fallen into the dark, waxy depths of my ear, but I tried to push that worry to the back of my mind. Ven trusted this alien technology. Blaue and John were both products of alien technology. I had to learn to trust it like I trusted my cell phone back on Earth.

“See, that wasn’t so bad.” It was like Blaue’s voice was sounding directly into my mind, because the sound was so close to my ear. I stared at her, shocked. She simply smiled.

“This will come back out in the end?” I asked.

“Yes, it will,” Ven answered. “Do not worry about it. Both Blaue and I can talk to you through it. It also enables Blaue to track where you are.”

“Like those microchips they put in dogs,” I said, not sure how I felt about the idea of being tracked. Ven simply stared at me with confusion.

“It’s not under your skin.” John understood my statement and feelings. “It will come back out. Don’t worry.” It seemed that everyone was telling me not to worry, which simply made me feel like I should worry.

“Can anyone else track me with this?” I asked, my mind going back to the Society of Anthropologists.

“Not easily,” Ven answered. “Blaue has a very specific frequency. Someone would have to know her specific frequency, which should only be known by her captain and the shipyard that made her. So only me, and her past captains, and the shipyard know her frequency, and Blaue has not had that many past captains. We’re talking a handful of sentients in a Universe of quadrillions.”

“Quadrillions?” I repeated the strange word.

“Millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions,” John answered. The word clicked into my mind and even though I could not begin to grasp the number.

“The Universe actually has more sentients than that,” Blaue said. “The count in the quadrillions actually only counts the official citizens of the Universe. For example, none of the citizens of Earth are counted. It also does not count synth…” A sharp look from Ven caused her to change her words. “I mean, androids. There are probably quadrillions of living, breathing sentients, not to mention androids, who are not accounted for by the official number.”

“How do they keep track of that many people?” I asked in surprise.

“Birth and death reports, citizenship records, as well as censuses,” Blaue answered. “Citizens have a record that follows them electronically. Every citizen has an electronic file from the moment they are born. Censuses are done every fifty years to make sure there are no errors in the electronic system, just to double check that everything is up to date. The system is very accurate and very hard to circumvent. It takes a very crafty and powerful Artificial Cognizant to create passable fake identification.”

“I don’t have any identification,” I said, discovering more things to worry about as I went. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” Blaue answered. “If you are asked for ID just tell them you are not a citizen and direct them to me, your local Artificial Cognizant. No one expects anyone to keep all of your electronic files on you. You will be expected to have some sort of computer to take care of it. But I wouldn’t worry. Unless you get into trouble, no one should ask to see your ID.” Somehow that did not relieve me.