LeeSki_SkiMore's SciFi Site: Future.Novel: Lev.UP, page 7

The inaccessible was all Eller had come for; a floor not covered with leaves, elves, or
yellow brick, just a floor. . . and a drain, in a spot without any peopleware flitting about.
He clic'd on phone, then clic'd on hand. His phone popped free of its pouch in his
fibersuit.
Eller took the phone in both hands. He twisted its bio-plast rigged rear case cover off.
As he laid the phone cover on the cool spongesteel, he slipped the half naked phone
back into his fibersuit's pouch. From its nest in his jacket Eller took a tunable lase-light.
He focused his eyeware on the lase-light's icons. Clic'd visible. Clic'd red. With the thin,
dark cylinder of the lase-light pointed at the phone case he said, real.voice, "clicon
light."
A smooth cylinder of light blazed bright and hard, yet soft and rich.
Eller blinked against the impact of such color, so pure. So, deep, rich, and sensual.
One more time, rapidly tiring adrenal glands pulsed. Shivers racked his body, laughing
at his fibersuit's climate control. With his shaking hand pressed hard against the floor to
steady it, Eller held the solid seeming cylinder of light over the back of the phone.
He clic'd main menu. Then, another translucent scene showed over his view of
the fed.real of the restroom. He fell into humming along with the latest version of the
recently re-updated, re-released, pre-original transRocker VR hits that had started
playing.
After a few moments his humming drifted off, music forgotten as he watched the
changes in this creation of OBee's that was his most highly prized tool. As if made
molten by the terrible pressure of all those photons, the phone's darkly glowing case
turned into a quivering puddle on the spongesteel floor. With a black flash, the pre-
programmed lase-light's output changed to a searingly sharp hue of blue.
The puddle's quivering became rhythmic. Waves ebbed and flowed. The waves
peaked, the puddle divided by three.
As his shaking ebbed, his paranoia returned. Eller wished that the process would go
faster. Annoyed with the reality he cherished so, he mumbled complaints about his
beloved tool, "I just don't understand why it has to take so long to get around to it?
Someone is going to pixel-in here, and pee on my head."
The concave faces of the facets that told the tempering of the tool's light-activated
bio-optical plastic appeared as the case crinkled into slender shapes in the lase-light's
beam. Eller clic'd close tool. The flood of photons drained away into the shimmering
spongesteel pool.
Eller had hand-op tools in a society where the only tool allowed in public was the
universal tool that was hardwired to all.

"Toolbar to the left, toolbar to the right."
"Menus drop, menus pop."
"Why not a nut, not a bolt, not a screw could be twist."
--"Tapped Out Without A Twist", The New Net Knights,
from the VR-Live: Takin' A Powder Power Tour--

In a society where the real world was not what the visual world appeared to be, Eller
tried to thrive. Where knowledge was free or hackable to all, the most simple manual-op
tools were the greatest of threats. A terror to those whose paranoia was festered by such
things as access to ports and conduits, panel covers and machine cases. . . even drains,
access denied. The individual, the revolutionary, the common criminal alike. Refuge
denied, for the lack of a few hex-shaped bit of hardware. Twist-locks combined with
relaxable, electro-ceramic, 'smart' hook-and-loop fasteners clamped the building panels
of the world together.