In peripheral vision I glimsed sim5 directing a gun at my head.   Relevance software focussed my attention on a table lamp that was switched off at a wall socket.   Software developed for optical astronomy at Mt Palomar integrated the visual inputs of my eyes for accuracy and location in space, dynamics software (courtesy of MIT Engineering Faculty) made calculations involving the inertia of my body and the estimated inertia of sim2 I was holding, combined with manufacturer's information on the gun, (colt 44 from their website) the arc of it's movement and a physiological estimate of the strength of my relevant muscles.  I twisted and fell, pulling sim2 into the bullet's path, picked up the table lamp with my other hand, calculated a trajectory to have the light break on the gun hand so that the live contacts would shock sim5, and shot out a foot to turn on the light at the wall socket.

The bullet hit sim2 in the shoulder, the lamp bulb broke on the gun hand of sim5 as it started lighting up.  The muscles of sim5's hand spasmed and he dropped the gun.  I followed up the movement, disengaging from the now inert sim2 and scooped up the gun.  With the gun I covered sim3 and sim5.

The skurking headpiece disengaged, and I became aware of the webbed restraints in the skurking room.  My pulse rate was 150, and I had been exercising now for five minutes at 90% of maximum effort.  This form of exercise sure beat jogging!

Skurking was a form of fitness training made possible by direct neural input/output VR equipment.  An input scenario was generated in the skurker's mind using electrical induction stimulation techniques.  The skurker physically "fought" generated opponents using computer enhanced skills.   Since the neural input could be directed to the cerebellum, quite astounding feats of martial skill could be achieved by the novice.

A master strategy routine kept track of each opponent in space, various subroutines allocating each opponent a proficiency estimate based on observed skill, strength and fitness.  Tactical subroutines assessed energy levels and damage degradation, further subroutines used the output as data to calculate options for strategic management.   Each skurker built a unique "add on" strategy package, suited to the skurker's physique, inclination and ability to manage the software.  In simulated combat most actions were automatic, but some decisions had to be made.  Successful automatic activities were developed from fatal errors.  The fatal errors could be reviewed in playback mode and new tactical options formed, tested and incorporated.

As Senior partner in the leading training organization Barvennon Associates, I suppose it is natural for mom to believe in the continuing requirement for education.  Trouble is, there has been a paradigm shift.  The world has changed decisively in a way that she doesn't really comprehend.

Back in the Sixties a psychologist called Marshall MacLuhan noted that the generation of children that had grown up with TV from babyhood displayed a different style of thinking.  These television educated children used wholistic logic instead of linear logic to apprehend the universe.  MacLuhan called wholistic TV thinkers "cool" as opposed to the older linear thinkers who grew up with books or radio plays, which he called "hot".

The internet had brought about a new style of "multistrand" thinking.  The children of the new millennium had learned to compartmentalize their minds, and could carry on simultaneous multiple communications with up to eight different people.

This multistrand thinking had more in common with the "hot" thinking that preceded mother's generation.  Trouble was, most people now between the age of twenty and seventy can not see that their thinking is superceded.  They are stuck in their TV generated "cool" or "wholistic" comprehension of the universe, and unable to see individual trees in the forest.  All is not lost.  Neural growth drugs combined with re-education might work.  Someday.

Dad is different.  He is from the pre-boomer generation.  Born in the early 1940's in Australia he just missed out being in the TV era, yet was still in his early twenties when the computer age was born in the early sixties.   Software wizards (latest term is "Nazgul") are the princes of the information age.  They are an elite group, who generate enormous amounts of power and wealth through their software skills.  They are all "hot" thinkers.  "Cool" or "wholistic" thinkers have the wrong mindset for the intricate and exacting task of construction of software.   The Nazgul are displacing the politicians and media stars as the powers in the new era.  Their artifice creations (digital persons) dominate the media, their enterprises dominate commerce.  Their wealth dwarfs that of those who have inherited their wealth from the Industrial princes of the twentieth century.

Holiday.

It was an hours out of "the Alice" that problems developed.  I had opted for the great circle route to visit Dad at Bali.   I had a break at Alice Springs for fuel.  Technically, personal ultralights are supposed to be nearly foolproof.  The engine has self checking devices that monitor everything down to the wear on the piston rings, and will object strongly if they are not given an oil change every 50 hours.  Other sensors measure the flexibility of the airframe, and indicate any possible problems that might be hazardous.  As well, there is an "Amber box" that maintains regular contact with emergency services and flight control, and which will automatically signal for help in the unlikely event of a breakdown.

The engine spluttered, the automatic pilot tilted the nose downwards to prevent stalling, and a flashing amber light indicated that the emergency beacon had been activated.   Shortly thereafter a flashing red light sprang into existence to indicate emergency beacon malfunction.

"O Great!.  Marooned in the Simpson desert with a litre of water, and nobody knows where I am.".  I looked about for a landing spot.  The ultralight needed about two hundred meters of unobstructed, reasonably level dirt to land.

After landing I discovered that the fuel line had broken.  Then the electric fuel pump had emptied the tank.  I thought that it was interesting that the emergency beacon had failed simultaneously.    I would be posted as "missing" within an hour.  At night my flashlight would attract the attention of overflying search & rescue aircraft.  I estimated that I was at least 100 Km from Ulurhu, which would be in a NW direction.

Half an hour later a chopper fanned in.  Two wiseguys emerged, and walked over to the ultralight.  When they found it was empty, they conferred for a few minutes, and then one of them went to the chopper and made a call.

Then they settled down to wait.

About half an hour later an aircraft dropped a parachute.  When I saw the dog, I made my way down to the wiseguys.

"Hi fellahs.  When I saw you land I started back..."