Kite was sitting cross-legged on the cooler like she was meditating or something like that. I know her from this place where everybody goes to get coffee and sack lunches in the morning. From time to time she flits in, sits for a while, then flits away again. I found it strangely intriguing until I learned that she just didn't like all the flies and bad smells there. I slowly began to realize that that was pretty much the way I felt about it too.

The place smells like a dumpster behind a busy restaurant on a really hot day. And when it rains, boy it gets really ripe. And so many flies. Thousands and thousands of flies.

I saw a little frightened old man there one morning. He looked like one of these guys who wound up suddenly street-bound because of a clerical error on the part of a worker down at the Social Security office. So there he was, terrified to death, his little rolling suitcase and shaving kit, standing in line with all manner of felons and drug addicts, everybody holding their little white foam cups in anticipation of the fresh kettle of coffee that was due to come out of the kitchen any minute now.

He straitened his back and puffed out his chest all of the sudden.

"This place is evil to the core!" he said rather loudly.

He stood there for a while looking around at people to see if anybody was going to challenge is position. Everyone ignored him, so he marched away. He made a point of gesture, which everybody also ignored, as he dropped his unfilled foam cup into the trash can on his way out the gate. I never saw him again after that.

You see them from time to time. The system usually sweeps them up before they get too lost.

Kite can't wait until computers become sophistocated enough to have our brains uploaded into them. This is actually a popular theme in science fiction novels these days. I've read several books where you explore the implications of uploaded consciences being allowed varying degrees of civil liberties. For instance if you were to upload your mind into a robot of some sort because your biological body was going to die, would you be able to maintain your identity and rights and property?

"Imagine being able to create multiple instances of youself", Kite speculated, "then they could all fight over your stuff like a bunch of spoiled neices and nephews."