Foreign Investment - 22/Jul/2012
February 2011, Kandor City.
All alone.  In a foreign place.  A quarter billion miles to home.  She certainly wasn't walking.
Jan shivered.  She was new-born.  How could they trust her?  What if she got it all wrong.  She sat down on a crate.  Took a deep breath.  Knocked on it.  Time to get to work.
The office-workshop, with accommodation above, wasn't ideal.  But, they were in a hurry.  Things were changing in Fenspace.  If they waited another month they might have no market, or have to do a complete product re-design.  So.  Kandor.  Branch office.  Now.
Security first.  Someone smart would check-out new businesses, as they arrived.  Before they were ready.  All installed OK.  No detectable bugs in the fabric of the structure.  Jan marvelled at how her hands knew to do things.  Things this body had never learned.  But, she expected, the novelty would wear-off pretty quick.
Heavy-duty power systems, installed.  Cooling ready.  Time to unpack the FTL communicator.  Carefully touching its security locks, disabling the self-destruct.  Locking it in its new location.  Locking her AI core in place.  Yes, the self-destruct would kill her, too.  But, she was ready for that.
At last!  Everything tested OK.  The clock showed Janet'd had enough time to get back to Dublin.  Just.  Give her another fifteen minutes, just to make sure.  Put on a cup of tea.  Unpack the fridge.  Fill it from the cold box.  OK.  Enough waiting.
Success!  The FTL communicator instantly talked to Dublin, Janet's workshop.  A blur of data, and they resynchronised.  Jan/Janet now remembered both setting-up the Kandor workshop, and her flight back to Earth.  They cut the data link. Paused.  Re-connected.  Everything worked smoothly.  Jan could feel Janet doing incremental backups, so she wouldn't loose more than ten minutes, even if the whole Kandor set-up was destroyed.  Perfect.
Next, the other remotes.  J1 to 5, all unpacked, all booted first time.  She felt them like fingers on a hand, side glances of attention, all smoothly integrated.  The Hollywood Machine did good work, if they could negotiate access to it.  Her AI core was multi-processor, and that seemed to let her handle six remotes as well as Janet could handle two.  They'd learned a trick or two by studying Alice.
The Uniform Machines, sorry, "Wright Suit Synthesisers", unpacked OK.  Three to start with.  Hopefully that'd be enough.  Their anti-tamper logic was different, but just as thorough as the FTL communicator.  Next the front office. Furnishings unpacked and assembled.  The two scanning booths with their privacy arrangements.  A dozen hands made fast work.  All OK.  Jan was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Something must go wrong!
But, all seemed ready for business.  If things went well, then maybe they'd also sell off-Earth rated "Wright Frames".  *Ding*  A potential first customer. With an almost unconscious act of will J3 went to attend.  Almost certainly just an inquiry.  Who'd buy from a business on its first day?  She hadn't even double-checked the banking details.  But still...
A good start.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Technology Exchange - 22/Jul/2012
December 2010, Dublin.
Contractual agreements.  NDAs.  Promises.  Hand shakes.  Past a certain point you just had to trust people.
O'Neill Station really needed a Body Builder.  If one of the AI Crew was badly injured then the easiest thing was to produce them a new body.  But, the Body Builder was the basis of Arthur's multi-million dollar business.  How could they be trusted with one?
Some sort of exchange was required.  They sat down with their lawyers and engineers.  Surprisingly, it went quite well.  The fact that one side was Sarah and Kelly, and the other was Janet and her family lawyers helped.  Kevin Wright chairing and facilitating had a lot to do with it.
The Hollywood Machine was obviously not on the table.  Both sides agreed that. It was too fundamental to the operation of the station.  So, it came down to various of Kelly's creations.  And, whether they could be reverse-engineered from Steam Punk to something more generally acceptable.  Sarah agreed Kelly had some rights as to their disposition.
Kelly suggested her self-propelled "crash cart".  This was generally accepted as a good idea, but the medical profession was naturally conservative, and something as obviously handwavium-based was tricky.  Similar the rest of her medical gadgets.  The farming tools might be of interest, to other people with bio domes, but this was currently a bit of a limited market.
Building a non-camouflaged version of Kelly's "Mirror Spiders", with something that looked a lot more like conventional hard tech, looked attractive.  They could be sold for station maintenance.  "Work Spiders" sounded a usable name, after they turned down "Wright Spiders".  Looked like a good long-term project.
Eventually, they decided there was only one choice.  Kelly's "Uniform Machine". In some respects this was comparable to the Body Builder, in that it made uniforms that were high-quality, hard-wearing, and, most important, handwavium-free.  Oh, and they were custom-fitted spacesuits.  Anyone could wave-up a space suit, but these were comfortable day-to-day wear.  Kelly was pretty sure they could be tweaked to have different colours, and, probably even to fit men.
There was a digression into fashion, but it was agreed that a basic standard dull-grey model would sell well for $2k - bright orange was turned down; pink firmly rejected.  Ones customised for a particular organisation, with places to attach rank markings, for $3k.  And, top-of-the-line individually customised ones for $5k.  If it was made clear these were subsidising the basic ones they could probably get away with this.
Maybe they could even make them for vacuum sports teams?  Kelly said she'd experimented on the suits, and couldn't find any suitable dye, or bleach, that didn't also damage their space-worthiness.  "Wright Suits".
It'd been a long meeting, but everyone was reasonably satisfied.  Kelly needed to get them a Uniform Machine to work on.  Arthur needed to build or find a spare Body Builder, and agree what anti-tamper precautions went with it.  Janet agreed, as an aside, to look around for some better waved medical equipment for Kelly.  Something that could induce safe suspension without risking a biomod would be good.
They very carefully didn't discuss the elephant in the room.  Alice.  Janet and Kevin were pretty sure that Kelly (and hence Sarah) knew Alice was Faster-Than-Light communications technology, and, there was a good chance they knew it would work off Earth.  There were people who'd literally kill for that.  And, probably everyone in the room knew it.
Janet had worked on the problem.  The best she could come up with was the size of two bath tubs, weighed half-a-ton, drank power like a fish, and could only handle a single data stream.  Admittedly that was terabits per second, and had an estimated pseudo velocity of tens of kilo-lights.  And neither end had to be at a fixed location.
Janet started to talk about causality light-cone considerations, phase-space configuration issues and virtual spectra, but while she could see Kelly's bright encouraging expression, other eyes were glazing over.  She quickly switched-back to matters of general interest.
So far she could only manage about 90% up-time, but was still fighting the prototypes into accepting substitutes for thermionic valves, and was pretty sure she could hit 99%.  Assuming 10k hours per year, that was still about four days per year downtime, but, with any luck she'd get it up to 99.9%, about ten hours per year.
The others were impressed.  Kevin Wright particularly so.  Janet explained she'd been stealing ideas from all over science fiction, and this was just one that looked to work.  She suggested they sell the 1.1 version (0.1% downtime) for off-planet use.  Say, for a $100k each, giving them about the same profit margin as the robot frames.
Sarah said she'd need to check, but she was pretty sure they'd want to buy one. Or, more sensibly at least two, the other end for their Australian offices.  She suggested Janet prepare for the stock markets to descend on her, waving their cheque books.  Micro seconds counted to them.  And, to tie them up with non-resale agreements, for the 'satellite' data link; call it a round $500k for all the bits.
It looked like "Wright Now Telecom" was going to be formed...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

The next morning, I did breakfast one last time with Sirius, 
Remus, and the entire Weasley clan plus teenaged hangers-on.
Thanks to the Headmaster's visit the previous night it was no
secret that I was departing for Hogwarts that morning, so the
meal became something of an impromptu "bon voyage" party.  

I even got a going-away present -- after the meal was over but 
before I'd had a chance to return to my room to pack, Fred and 
George cornered me in the hallway.  While Sirius acted as a 
lookout, they presented me with a plain cardboard box, marked
only with three interlocking, handwritten "W"s.

"Samples of our future wares," one explained.

"You seem to be the type who'd enjoy them," the other added.

"Even if you are a professor," the first amended.

"Well, geeze, guys, I don't know what to say."  I studied the 
box.  "Unless it's 'how far away should I stand when opening 
this?'"

The two of them grinned.  "We're not stupid," number two said
piously.  "We're not going to prank a professor."

"At least not this obviously," the other added with a shrug.
"When we prank you for real, you'll know it had to have been 
us..."

"But you won't be able to prove it!" the first ended 
triumphantly.

I raised an eyebrow at them.  "Should I take that as a challenge,
boys?"

They traded glances.  "If you like," the first replied.

I laughed.  I had to admire these two and their chutzpah.  "Tell
you what, guys.  If you get me some time this year -- really get 
me, with something innovative and new, nothing tired like buckets
over open doors -- I'll give you both extra credit A+'s ... um,
O's," I corrected myself, recalling the Hogwarts grading system
at the last moment.  "One each."

"Deal!" they said together, and stuck out their right hands.  I
shook both at the same time, one with my right hand and one with 
my left, then let go, crossed my arms, and shook again.  This got 
me a pair of broad smiles, followed by a furtive disappearance 
from the hallway.

A couple meters away at his post, Sirius was shaking his head and
chuckling.  "You're in trouble now, Doug."

I shot him a wry smile.  "I'm always in trouble," I said.  "It's
a defining characteristic of my life.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Allegedly Singing Voice by Leslie Fish

Quote:Rome never looks where she treads,

Always her heavy hooves fall

On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;

And Rome never heeds when we bawl.

Her sentries pass on – that is all,

And we gather behind them in hordes,

And plot to reconquer the Wall,

With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk – we!

Too little to love or to hate.

Leave us alone and you'll see

How we can drag down the Great!

We are the worm in the wood!

We are the rot in the root!

We are the germ in the blood!

We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak –

Rats gnawing cables in two –

Moths making holes in a cloak –

How they must love what they do!

Yes – and we Little Folk too,

We are as busy as they –

Working our works out of view –

Watch, and you'll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,

But we know Peoples that are.

Yes, and we'll guide them along,

To smash and destroy you in War!

We shall be slaves just the same?

Yes, we have always been slaves,

But you – you will die of the shame,

And then we shall dance on your graves!

We are the Little Folk – we!

Too little to love or to hate.

Leave us alone and you'll see

How we can drag down the Great!

We are the worm in the wood!

We are the rot in the root!

We are the germ in the blood!

We are the thorn in the foot!

Sally Ride, first American woman in space, succumbed to pancreatic cancer.
She will be missed.
http://www.washingtonpost...23/gJQAas574W_story.html
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

Eden.

Rain thundered down as Lazerun Seraph sat on the edge of one of the few intact buildings in Eden, making the last few adjustments to her power armour, listening to the combination of rain on her helm and the dull hum as her suit power relays.

As the last status message scrolled over her H.U.D, she smirked and ran to the edge, leaping across to the next building as her suits camo kicked in, reducing her form to nothing more than a flickering after image as she impacting on the other building, her fingers digging into the brickwork she   crawled along the wall. Casting her gaze around, she listened to her radio, chuckling as she heard some chatter from Crey mooks.

 Not really much of a threat, but it always felt good cracking their skulls and it be a good test of her suits upgrades.

Following the signal, she eventually reached what looked like some sort of camp sight, Crey juggernauts patrolling the perimeter while at the centre, bathed in the light from several flood lamps was some sort of metal coffin. She watched as scientists scuttling around it like ants before dropping down and sprinting into the shade for some heavy equipment. Looking over the edge, she moved to the next piece of shade, keeping the coffin in her line of sight as she moved closer. 

Ducking behind a  console, she heard one of the chatting to a bored looking guard. “See, by creating a symbiosis with the lobotomised crystal, we have created what could be the first generation of anti devouring earth troopers! With such things, we could take out the Hamidon! Think of how much we could charge for that!”

She had no idea what the hell the guy was going on about beyond the fact that Crey had got their hands on some innocent and was twisting them into some sort of weapon that they could sell to the highest bidder.

So of course, as a Sabre of Paragon, Laz knew what she had to do.

Moving closer, she hear some noise from the edge of the camp and watched as several Juggernauts entered, dragging a heavily restrained Greater Devourer, the beast thrashing in it's chains as they dragged it towards the coffin.

Watching from the shadows, she saw the top of the coffin open. A young woman dressed in a simple black body suit stumbled out, her face obscured by her white hair, while some sort of metal and crystal device seemed to be bolted onto her back.

The chatty guy in a lab coat stepped forward holding some sort of remote, pressing a button the girl screamed, her body twitching as the ground beneath her pulsed. With another press of the remote, she buckled and screamed again, the mud beneath the devourer exploded upwards as spears of magma lanced it's flesh.

Feeling her stomach turn, she watched as the button was pressed again and again, each time the girl screamed as more magma lashed up to tear into the bound beast. 

This was inhuman.

Stepping out of the shadows, she felt the vazilock device in her chest start to power up as a wave of darkness rolled out from her, draining the vitality of the guards as she felt her body almost hum with stolen power.

It was a dangerous trick, it was all to easy to become lost in the high, but she had something to focus on, to ground her  as she punched the nearest Juggernaut, his chest plate cratering as he fell.

She had to save that girl.

The scientist screamed and pointed the remote at her, hammering the button as if his life depended on it, the poor girl twitching like a puppet on broken strings as she held out a hand, her eyes glowing crimson under her fringe as she slapped the mud in front of her. A wall of magma rolling out to trip Lazruen up, sending her tumbling face first into the mud.

Quickly leaping to her feet, she saw the shock wave wasn't discriminatory, the Crey Juggernauts laying prone, either trapped in place or impaled in the magma. The nutso in the lab coat screaming as he fidgeted with the remote. “You worthless hunk of Junk! What happened to the Friend or Foe system? It must need recalibrating.” 

Rolling to her feet, she stood in front of the scientist, looming over him as she snarled. “Yeah, how about no.” She brought her armoured fist down on his head, knocking him cold and grabbing the remote crushing it in her hand

The poor girl staggered as the remote was destroyed, dropping to her hands and knees before rolling over onto her back.

Splashing though the mud, she dropped to the girls side and checked her vitals, letting out a sigh of relief as she felt a strong pulse. Reaching to her belt she pulled her mediport off and attached it to the girls jump suit before activating it, sending her to the Atlas hospital before trigging a spare teleporter To follow her.

* * *

Altas Park Hospital
Examination room

The clockwork turned to Laz, giving her a slightly irate look as she straighten her dress. “You know, this unit did have a date planed for tonight?” she muttered, Laz noting the usual vocal quirk as Medical Unit Theta walked over and start putting some X-rays up on the light board. “If it wasn't for how much trouble your family gets into, this unit would of probably ignored the call.”

Laz sheepishly smiled. “Sorry Mut, but you are the best medic I know. I mean, how many times have you patched up my old man or Neph?”

The clockwork woman sighed at the use of her nickname and pointed to the X-rays. “Fine, but this unit has 3 bits of news. Good, Bad and what the hell, which would you hear first?”

“Um... the good news first?”

Mut turned and crossed her arms. “She is in surprisingly good shape despite what those idiots at Crey  have done. She looks to be early twenties, possibly of Latino decent or Hispanic.”

“Okay, the bad news?”

Mut taped a X-ray of the woman’s head. “She has been given an implant that is disturbingly similar to what the Preatorian seer's have installed, but Crey have done a sloppy job.” She taped portions around the implant. “It has caused damage to her language centrers, this unit also found traces of what ever drug they use to erase their memories in her system.” Mut shook her head.

Laz shifted slightly, she had seen many Sabers wake with no memory of their past. She wasn't sure what Crey did, but it made her skin crawl. “What’s the last bit of news then?”

“This is.... well.” Mut put up an X-ray and pointed.

As Laz lent in, her jaw dropped slightly. The x-ray was of the girls back, showing that the crystal on her back was just grafted on, it had grown into her, the girls ribs, spine and a portion of her pelvic bone covered in a strange crystalline growth. “What the hell is that crap?”

“As far as this unit can tell, it is a symbiotic crystal. She could not take a sample though, that stuff is as hard as diamonds.”

The Scared woman looked down at the Clockwork. “What the hell was Crey trying to do?”

Mut shrugged. “This unit does not know, but there is the question of what will we do when she wakes up? She can stay here for a bit, but after that? ”

Chewing her lip slightly, Laz got her phone out. “Well, we got some spare rooms at home. I'm just hope dad doesn’t mind...”

Has anyone thought how the Scoobies would react to meeting Eimi? I'm thinking it starts at stunned disbelief.

If Fred and George leave Hogwarts because of Umbridge and tell Peeves to "give her hell from us" on their way out, how do you think Doug will behave in that situation? Remember that the teachers didn't lift a finger to help Umbridge any more than absolutely necessary. They even gave Peeves advice ("It unscrews the other way."). For some reason, I can see Doug handing Peeves a list of harmless, yet obstinate as hell pranks he could pull on Umbridge.

Retrospectroscope - 20/Jul/2012
Start July 2010, Dublin.
It'd been a busy six months.  Arthur was amazed he was still sane.  Assuming he was.  Janet was OK, and Alice had become a not-quite member of the family.
He was now a tens-of millionaire.  The Tax Man had taken a good chunk, of course.  But, after Eire's recent financial problems, Arthur liked to think he was doing his small bit to help.
They'd diversified, a bit, and become a small telecom provider, even though they hadn't got a spectrum license; their competitors were still complaining about that.  Volume was still limited by Alice providing mind phones - she had to wave each one herself, using one of her humanoid bodies.  The base stations were less of a problem.
He'd attended his first Fen convention.  KandorCon.  Amazing.  In many respects he was still a 'Dane, but his friends said there was still time for hope.  He'd taken his aunt along, and Janet, of course.  Alice attended by teleconference; they still hadn't solved her tie to Earth, and she was a lot bigger, these days.
The company was running smoothly.  Kevin Wright was still Managing Director, but he'd let the Sales Director role slip to a new hire; he still kept Personnel Director for himself.  Arthur remained Technical Director, Janet was Head of Engineering, and Alice was Production Director.  Arthur's aunt recommended someone who became Financial Director.
Arthur had changed his name by deed poll - he was now "Arthur Arthurkin".  People accused him of being a bit recursive, but he refused to discuss the matter.  Some were amazed to find his previous name had been "Arthur J. Arthur"; no he would tell them what the 'J' stood for and claimed it was 'Just'.
He'd found time to get his pilots license, and personally flew the team, plus aunt, to Luna, for the con.  They took a pass near some of the finished and still on-going construction works.  Fenspace never ceased to amaze him.  One of Alice's mind phones was wired-in as an emergency pilot, she'd got her license about the same time he did, but they weren't planning on admitting its presence.
Civil rights for AIs was his main reason to attend.  He spoke briefly, himself, but was mainly there to introduce Alice.  She spoke passionately, about being a person with no rights at all, less than a wild animal.  The light-speed delay wasn't too much problem and she was well received.  The mind phones in Arthur and Janet's pockets gave Alice an interesting perspective.
Australia fell into line shortly after KandorCon.  They probably had the most to lose.  AIs were now persons with full rights, but details were still being thrashed out, like competency, and age of majority.  Turing Tests looked likely, but understandably "Voight-Kampff" tests had been voted-down.  Particularly when it was pointed out quite a few Homo Sapiens would fail one.  Organised religion was, predictably, up in arms.
Arthur had attended quite a few con items, and toured the various presentation and dealers rooms.  He headed straight for the second-hand books and media, but suddenly realised he could afford to buy new.  Then, he went back to the second-hand stuff.  He came away with several armfuls.
Just listening to talk in the bars was interesting.  Nearly as good as the technical presentations.  SMOF (Secret Masters?) doing this, First Fen doing that - Stellvia got quite a few mentions, but not, he noticed, O'Neill Station. Once he thought he saw one of the Angels, in the distance, but it was difficult to be sure.  He avoided the more raucous stuff.
They say the retrospectroscope is the only 100% reliable scientific instrument. But, he still felt he should have worked it out.  After they came back from KandorCon he took Bea into the lab, and went over her minutely, component by component.  It was tedious, but the only thing he could think of that they hadn't tested.
All the components matched the parts list he'd used for the ten O'Neill Station AI crew, Nurse Blake, and Janet.  No, he wasn't going to wave-up an AI based on exactly one of those frames, just to test a theory.  Even though it was possible the Hollywood Machine made all the difference.
Then, he double-checked.  There were some PIC micro-controllers used in a number of places that he always programmed himself; Kevin Wright had bought-in pre-programmed ones for production.  On a hunch, he checked his version against downloads extracted from the externally-sourced ones.
All the code and data matched.  But, what was unused space in his, contained text.  Their terms and conditions.  Which included Kevin Wright's:
'Not licensed for off-planet use'.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Collaborative Working - 20/Jul/2012
Mid December 2009, Dublin.
No legs had been broken.  Or other body parts.  They had the two cached robots, from Australia.  And it looked like a good name for the thieves would be 'Boskone'.  They'd disappeared without a trace.
Arthur'd spoken to his science fiction friends, and 'Boskone' was apparently from the "Golden Age", the 'Doc' Smith "Lensman" books.  Space opera bad guys, involved in all sort of criminality, but particularly drugs, and slaving.  It figured that there'd be people who saw handwavium, and asked "How can this make me money, and I don't care who gets hurt".
Alice was delighted to be reunited with them; they were the closest thing she had to family.  She'd decided on the surname 'Melbourne'.  Alice worked with Jenny, to figure-out exactly what'd happened when she was waved.  Jenny remarked she was learning engineering at an amazing rate, faster than she thought she herself'd have done.  Motivation?
Looking back, it seemed almost inevitable.  But, Jenny hadn't seen it coming, either.  Alice had waved up 'Bea' and 'Chaz', three second-hand phones in each. What no one expected was that Alice'd find herself looking out through two new sets of eyes.
She'd deliberately put SIM cards in all the six phones, with their mutual phone numbers on, so they could all easily talk to each other.  Instead, all three brains seemed to be 'running' her, and no amount of shut-downs, SIM card shuffling, and reboots seemed to fix this.
She'd even tried a Faraday cage test - they were all still in contact with each other.  Jenny, returning from a consultancy trip 'up', sighed, and took Alice out to do clothes shopping for her two new bodies.
The thinking speed of an AI seemed to give Alice time to simulate three different persona, but she called two of them 'masks'.  When she relaxed it was clear she was still one person in three bodies.  She seemed to think she'd murdered her sisters, before they'd even been born.
Jenny wasn't happy about Alice's state of mind, so she suggested Arthur involve her in the new factory project.  She seized on this distraction with all six hands, and was soaking up new skills at a remarkable rate.  Jenny remarked it was social skills she herself'd been lacking when waved-up; Alice seemed to have started with these and was acquiring technical ones.
As sometimes seemed to be the case, the answer to the factory issue was 'all of the above'.  New Body Builders were being built for long-term heavy-duty production use, and in the process scaled-up into something it took a crane to move around.  Alice was really pleased to be the AI that made the factory run.  Human staff would be employed, as well, to work with Alice on all parts of the production process, except the actual robot frame building.
Alice'd learned another trick.  Apparently if she made a cable connection to a phone, then waved it up, it would run a distributed fragment of her mind.  This didn't make her any smarter, but it certainly allowed her to split her attention far more ways.  While these 'mind phones' could still make normal calls, her mental field didn't seem to be using RF to exchange thoughts, and worked at least over tens of miles.  Later, they discovered, world-wide.
She'd been on a privacy and ethics course (or Bea had, anyway).  Now she proposed that all factory staff get and carry a waved phone, at work, as part of their terms and conditions.  And could use it for personal calls, too, at reduced call rates.  She'd keep people's private affairs, private.
Arthur was dubious.  Jenny remarked it would massively assist cooperation, safety, and probably help a lot with industrial espionage.  Kevin Wright commented that group minds weren't covered by privacy legislation, though the rest of them thought that a bit disingenuous.  Jenny said she'd been unsure, but she'd run it past Sarah, on her last visit, and she seemed to think it was a good idea.  So it was settled.
Alice had found time to acquire a boyfriend.  Or rather, the 'Chaz' part of her handled this.  A rather shy sociology Masters student, who seemed fascinated by her, on a professional and romantic level.  Kevin Wright suggested she not get 'distracted' while operating heavy machinery.  Which caused some embarrassment, and, Jenny suggested to Arthur, private experimentation.
They'd had a bit of a shock.  Jenny got permission to take Alice 'up' to see Kelly, who was fascinated with the prospect of meeting her.  Alice and Kelly had chatted, on a secured line, quite a bit before the visit.  Everything was OK until they got about 50 miles up.  Alice shut-down.
Jenny regretted not having a better communication system as they continued on their flight plan to O'Neill Station.  On arrival Kelly and Jenny checked Alice out, and could find nothing wrong.  Messages from Dublin revealed Bea and Chaz were OK, as were all the mind phones, but they had suddenly lost Alice.  Jenny didn't, quite, hurry her consultancy work.  But, it was agreed the less urgent parts would be done either from Dublin or on a later trip.
At about 50 miles up on the return trip Alice suddenly revived.  Initially she didn't know what'd happened, but quickly resynchronised with Bea, etc.  Back in Dublin she again checked-out OK.  Experiments showed she was all-right, anywhere on Earth, as long as she didn't go too high.  There was no clear explanation.
"Guess we now know why Fen don't buy our product", remarked Arthur.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind