Among the things we know very little about are the history and origins of certain military personnel conscripted into sleeper cells by Curious Yellow once the worm determined it was under attack by dissidents armed with clean, scratch-built A-gates. The same goes for the dangerous opportunists who took advantage of Curious Yellowas payload capability in order to set up their own pocket empires. Yourdon, Fiore, and Hanta came to our attention in connection with the psychological warfare organizations of no less than eighteen local cognitive dictatorships. They are extraordinarily dangerous people, but they are currently beyond our reach because they are, to put it bluntly, providing some kind of service to the military of the Invisible Republic.
What we know about the sleeper cells is this: In the last few megasecs of the war, before the alliance succeeded in shattering and then sanitizing the last remaining networks of Curious Yellow, some of the quisling dictatorshipsa higher echelons went underground. It is now almost two gigaseconds since the end of the war, and most people dismiss the concept of Curious Yellow revenants as fantasy. However, I donat believe in ignoring threats just because they sound far-fetched. If Curious Yellow really did create sleeper cells, secondary pockets of infection designed to break out long after the initial wave was suppressed, then our collective failure to pursue them is disastrously shortsighted. And I am particularly worried because some aspects of the YFH-Polity experimental protocol, as published, sound alarmingly amenable to redirection along these lines.
My biggest reason for wanting you to have undergone major memory erasure prior to injection into YFH-Polity is this: I suspect that when the incoming experimental subjects are issued with new bodies, they are filtered through an A-gate infected with a live, patched copy of Curious Yellow. Therefore preemptive memory redaction is the only sure way of preventing such a verminiferous gate from identifying you as a threat for its owners to eliminate.
I watch myself writing this letter to myself. I can read it as clearly as if itas engraved in my own flesh. But I canat see any marks in the paper, because my old self has forgotten to dip his pen in the ink, and heas long since fallen to scratching invisible indentations on the coa.r.s.e sheets. I seem to stand behind his shoulder although his head is nowhere in my field of vision, and I try to scream at him, No! No! That isnat how you do it! But nothing comes out because this is a dream, and when I try to grab the pen, my hand pa.s.ses right through his wrist, and he keeps writing on my naked brain with his ink of blood and neurotransmitters.
I begin to panic, because being trapped in this cell with him has brought memories flooding back in, memories that he cunningly suppressed in order to avoid triggering Curious Yellowas redaction factories. Itas a movable feast of horrors and exultation and life in the large. Itas too much to bear, and itas too intense, because now I remember the rest of my earlier dream of swords and armor and the reversible ma.s.sacre aboard a conditionally liberated polity cylinder. I remember the way our A-gate glitched and crashed at the end of the rescue as we threw the last severed head into its maw, and the way Loral turned to me, and said, aWell s.h.i.t,a in a voice full of world-weary disgust, and how I walked away and scheduled myself for deep erasure because I knew if I didnat, the memory of it all would drag me awake screaming for years to comea"
a"And Iam awake, and I make it to the toilet just in time before my stomach squeezes convulsively and tries to climb up my throat and escape.
I canat believe I did those things. I donat believe I would have committed such crimes. But I remember the ma.s.sacre as if it was yesterday. And if those memories are false, then what about the rest of me?
NOT entirely by coincidence, the next day is my first run with the shoulder bag. It started life as a rectangular green vinyl affair. It now sports a black nylon lining that Iave st.i.tched together with much swearing and sucking of p.r.i.c.ked fingertips to conceal the gleaming copper weave glued to its inside. It looks like a shopping bag until I fold over the inner flap. Then it looks like a full shopping bag with a black flap covering the contents. Right now it contains a carton of extremely strong ground espresso, a filter cone, and several small items that are individually innocuous but collectively d.a.m.ning if you know what youare looking at. Itas a good thing the bag looks anonymous, because unless Iam hallucinating all my memories, what Iam going to take home from work in that bag today will be a whole lot less innocuous than coffee beans.
I get in to work at the usual early hour and find Janis in the staff room, looking pale and peaky. aMorning sickness?a I ask. She nods. aSympathies. Say, why donat you stay here, and Iall get the returns sorted out? Put your feet upa"Iall call you if anything comes up that I canat handle.a aThanks. Iall do just that.a She leans back against the wall. aI wouldnat be here but Fioreas cominga"a aYou leave that to me,a I say, trying not to look surprised. I wasnat expecting him so soon, but Iave got the bag, so . . .
aAre you sure?a she asks.
aYes.a I smile rea.s.suringly. aDonat worry about me, Iall just let him in and leave him to get on with things.a aOkay,a she says gratefully, and I go back out and get to work.
First I pile yesterdayas returns on the trolley and push them around the shelves, filing them as fast as I can. It only takes a few minutesa"most of the inmates here donat realize that reading is a recreational option, and only a handful are borrowing regularly. But then I skip the dusting and cleaning Iam supposed to do today. Instead, I grab my bag from behind the reception station, dump it on the bottom shelf of the trolley, and head for the shelves in the reference section next to the room where the Church doc.u.ments are stored.
Into the bag goes a dictionary of s.e.xual taboos, held in the reference shelves because some weird interpretation of dark age mores holds that libraries wouldnat lend such stuff out. Itas my cover story in case Iam caught, something naughty but obviously trivial. Then I leave the trolley right where it is with the bag tucked away on the bottom shelf, where itas not immediately obvious. I head back to the front desk. My palms are sweating. Fiore is due to visit the archive, which means advancing my plans. Janis has always handled him beforea"but sheas ill, Iam running the shop, and thereas no point delaying the inevitable. Iave got all my excuses prepared, anyway. Iave barely been able to sleep lately for rehearsing them in my head.
Around midmorning a black car pulls up and parks in front of the library steps. I put down the book Iam reading and stand up to wait behind the counter. A uniformed zombie gets out of the front and opens the rear door, standing to one side while a plump male climbs out. His dark, oily hair shines in the daylight: The white slash of his clerical collar lends his face a disembodied appearance, as if it doesnat quite belong to the same world as the rest of his body. He walks up the steps to the front door and pushes it open, then walks over to the desk. aSpecial reference section,a he says tersely. Then he looks at my face. aAh, Reeve. I didnat see you here before.a I manage a sickly smile. aIam the trainee librarian. Janis is ill this morning, so Iam looking after everything in her absence.a aIll?a He stares at me owlishly. I look right back at him. Fiore has chosen a body that is physically imposing but bordering on senescence, in the state the ancients called amiddle age.a Heas overweight to the point of obesity, squat and wide and barely taller than I am. His chins wobble as he talks, and the pores on his nose are very visible. Right now his nostrils are flared, sniffing the air suspiciously, and his bushy eyebrows draw together as he inspects me. He smells of something musty and organic, as if heas spent too long in a compost heap.
aYes, she has morning sickness,a I say artlessly, hoping he wonat ask where she is.
aMorning sicka"oh, I see!a His frown vanishes instantly. aAh, the trials we have to suffer.a His voice oozes a slug-trail of sympathy. aIam sure this must be hard for her, and for you. Just take me to the reference room, and Iall stay out of your way, child.a aCertainly.a I head for the gate at the side of the station. aIf youad like to follow me?a He knows exactly where weare going, the old toad, but heas a stickler for appearances. I lead him to the locked door in the reference section, and he produces a small bunch of keys, muttering to himself, and opens it. aWould you like a cup of tea or coffee?a I ask hesitantly.
He pauses and gives me the dead-fish stare again. aIsnat that against library regulations?a he asks.
aNormally yes, but youare not going to be in the library proper,a I babble, ayouare in the archive and youare a responsible person so I thought Iad offera"a He stops being interested in me. aCoffee will be fine. Milk, no sugar.a He disappears into the room, leaving his keys with the lock.
Now. Heart pounding, I head for the staff room. Janis is snoozing when I open the door. She sits up with a start, looking pale. aReevea"a aItas all right,a I say, crossing over to the kettle and filling it up. aFioreas here, I let him in. Listen, why donat you go home? If youare feeling ill, you shouldnat really be here, should you?a aIave been thinking about thinking.a Janis shakes her head. I rummage around for the coffee and filter papers and set the stand up over the biggest mug I can find. I scoop the coffee into the paper with wild abandon, stopping only when I realize that making it too strong for Fiore will be as bad as not getting him to drink it all. aYou shouldnat think too much, Reeve. Itas bad for you.a aIs it really?a I ask abstractedly, as I peel the foil wrapping from a small tablet of chocolate I bought at the drugstore and crumble half of it into the coffee grounds as the kettle begins to hiss. I wad the foil into a tight ball and flick it into the wastebasket.
aIf you think about getting out of here,a says Janis.
aLike I said, Iall call you a taxia"a aNo, I mean out of here.a I turn round and she looks at me with the expression of a trapped animal. Itas one of those moments of existential bleakness when the coc.o.o.n of lies that we spin around ourselves to paper over the cracks in reality dissolve into slime, and weare left looking at something really ugly. Janis has got the bug, the same one Iave got, only sheas got it worse. aI canat stand it anymore! Theyare going to put me in hospital and make me pa.s.s a skull through my c.u.n.t, and then theyare going to have a little accident and Iall bleed out and theyall give me to Hanta to fix with her tame censorship worm. Iall come out of the hospital smiling like Yvonne and Patrice, and there wonat be any me left, thereall be this thing that thinks itas me anda"a I grab her. aShut up!a I hiss in her ear. aItas not going to happen!a She sobs, a great racking howl welling up inside her, and if she lets it out. Iam completely screwed because Fiore will hear us. aIave got a plan.a aYouavea"what?a The kettle is boiling. I gently push away her groping hands and reach over to turn it off. aListen. Go home. Right now, right this instant. Leave Fiore to me. Stop panicking. The more isolated we think we are, the more isolated we become. I wonat let them mess with your head.a I smile at her rea.s.suringly. aTrust me.a aYou.a Janis sniffles loudly, then lets go of me and grabs a tissue off the box on the table. aYouave gota"no, donat tell me.a She blows her nose and takes a deep breath, then looks at me again, a long, hard, appraising look. aShould have guessed. You donat take s.h.i.t, do you?a aNot if I can help it.a I pick up the kettle and carefully pour boiling water into the funnel, where it will damp down the coffee grounds, extract the xanthine alkaloids and dissolve the half tab of Ex-Lax hidden in the powder, draining the sennoside glycosides and the highly diuretic caffeine into the mug of steaming coffee that, with any luck, will give Fiore a strong urge to take ten minutes on the can about half an hour after he drinks it. aJust try to relax. I should be able to tell you about it in a couple of days if things work out.a aRight. Youave got a plan.a She blows her nose again. aYou want me to go home.a Itas a question.
aYes. Right now, without letting Fiore see you herea"I told him you were at home, sick.a aOkay.a She manages a wan smile.
I pour milk into the coffee mug, then pick it up. aIam just going to give the Reverend his coffee,a I tell her.
aTo givea"a Her eyes widen. aI see.a She takes her jacket from the hook on the back of the door. aIad better get out of your way, then.a She grins at me briefly. aGood luck!a And sheas gone, leaving me room to pick up the mug of coffee and the other item from the sink side and to carry them out to Fiore.
THE simplest plans are often the best.
Anything I try to do on the library computer system will be monitored, and the instant I try to find anything interesting theyall know I know about it. Itas probably there as a honeypot, to snare the overly curious and insufficiently paranoid. Even if it isnat, I probably wonat get anywhere usefula"those old conversational interfaces are not only arcane, theyare feeble-minded.
To put one over on these professional paranoids is going to take skill, cunning, and lateral thinking. And my thinking is this: If Fiore and the Bishop Yourdon and their fellow experimenters have one weak spot, itas their dedication to the spirit of the study. They wonat use advanced but anachronistic surveillance techniques where nonintrusive ones that were available during the dark ages will do. And they wonat use informational metastructures accessible via netlink where a written manual and records on paper will do. (Either that, or what they write on paper really is secret stuff, material that they wonat entrust to a live data system in case it comes under attack.) The ultrasecure repository in the library is merely a room full of shelves of paper files, with no windows and a simple mortise lock securing the door. What more do they need? Theyave got us locked down in the gla.s.shouse, a network of sectors of anonymous...o...b..tal habs subjected to pervasive surveillance, floating in the unmapped depths of interstellar s.p.a.ce, coordinates and orbital elements unknown, interconnected by T-gates that the owners can switch on or off at will, and accessible from the outside only via a single secured longjump gate. Not only that, but our experimenters appear to have a rogue surgeon-confessor running the hospital. Burglar alarms would be redundant.
After I knock on the door and pa.s.s Fiore his coffee, I go back to the reference section and while away a few minutes, leafing through an encyclopedia to pa.s.s the time. (The ancients held deeply bizarre ideas about neuroanatomy, I discover, and especially about developmental plasticity. I guess it explains some of their ideas about gender segregation.) As it happens, I donat have to wait long. Fiore comes barging into the office and looks about. aYoua"is there a staff toilet here?a he demands, glancing around apprehensively. His forehead glistens beneath the lighting tubes.
aCertainly. Itas through the staff common rooma"this way.a I head toward the staff room at a leisurely pace. Fiore takes short steps, breathing heavily.
aFaster,a he grumbles. I step aside and gesture at the door. aThank you,a he adds as he darts inside. A moment later I hear him fumbling with the bolt, then the rattle of a toilet seat.
Excellent. With any luck, heall be about his business before he looks for the toilet paper. Which is missing because Iave hidden it.
I walk back to the door to the restricted doc.u.ment repository. Fiore has left his key in the lock and the door ajar. Oh dear. I pull out the bar of soap, the sharp knife, and the wad of toilet paper Iave left in my bag on the bottom shelf of the trolley. What an unfortunate oversight!
I wedge my toe in the door to keep it from shutting as I pull the key out and press it into the bar of soap, both sides, taking care to get a clean impression. It only takes a few seconds, then I use some of the paper to wipe the key clean and wrap up the bar, which I stash back in the bag. The key is a plain metal instrument. While thereas an outside chance that thereas some kind of tracking device built into it in case itas lost, it isnat losta"it moved barely ten centimeters while Fiore was taking his ease. And Iam fairly certain there are no silly cryptographic authentication tricks built into ita"if so, why disguise it as an old-fashioned mortise lock key? Mechanical mortise locks are surprisingly secure when youare defending against intruders wh.o.a.re more used to dealing with software locks. Finally, if thereas one place that wonat be under visual surveillance, itas Fioreas high-security doc.u.ment vault while the Priest is busy inside it. This is the chain of a.s.sumptions on which I am gambling my life.
I make sure my bag is well hidden at the bottom of the trolley before I slowly make my way back to the staff room. And I wait a full minute before I allow myself to hear Fiore calling querulously for toilet paper.
The rest of the day pa.s.ses slowly without Janis to joke with. Fiore leaves after another hour, muttering and grumbling about his digestion. I transfer the soap bar to the wheezing little refrigerator in the staff room where we keep the milk. I donat want to risk its melting or deforming.
That evening, I lock up and go home with my heart in my mouth, sweat gluing my blouse to the small of my back. Itas silly of me, I know. By doing this, I risk rapid exposure. But if I donat do it, what will happen in the longer term is worse than anything that can happen to me if they catch me with a library book from the reference-only collection and a distorted bar of soap. It wonat be just me who goes down screaming. Janis knew about Curious Yellow and was afraid of surveillance. I donat know why, or where from, but itas an ominous sign. Who is she?
Back home, I head for the garage before I go indoors. Itas time to power up the bug zapper in anger for the first time. The bug zapper is the cheap microwave oven I bought a few weeks ago. Iave had the lid off, and Iave done some creative things with its wiring. A microwave oven is basically a Faraday cage with a powerful microwave emitter. Itas tuned to emit electromagnetic energy at a wavelength that is strongly absorbed by the water in whatever food you put inside. Well, thatas no good for me, but with some creative jiggery-pokery, Iave succeeded in b.u.g.g.e.ring up the magnetron very effectively. It now emits a noisy range of wavelengths, and while it wonat cook your dinner very well, itall make a real mess of any electronic circuits you put in it. I open the door and shake my copper-lined bagas contents into it, then reach through the fabric to retrieve the bar of soap. I really donat want to fry thata"Fiore might get suspicious if he got the s.h.i.ts every time he went to the library while I was on duty.
I drop the oven door shut and zap the book for fifteen seconds. Then I push a b.u.t.ton on the breadboard Iave taped to the side of the oven. No lights come on. Thereas nothing talking in the death cell, so it looks like Iave effectively crisped any critters riding the bookas spine. Well, weall see when I take it back to the library, wonat we? If Fiore singles me out in Church the day after tomorrow, Iall know I was wrong, but sneaking a dirty book out of the library for an evening isnat in the same league as stealing the keys toa"
The plaster of paris! Mentally, I kick myself. I nearly forgot it. I tip the right amount into an empty yoghurt pot with shaky hands, then measure in a beaker of water and stir the ma.s.s with a teaspoon until it begins to get so hot that I have to juggle it from hand to hand.
Ten minutes pa.s.s, and I line a baking tray with moist whitish goop (gypsum, hydrated calcium sulphate). Hoping that it has cooled enough, I press both sides of the soap bar into it a couple of times. I have a tense moment worrying about the soapas softening and melting, and I make the first impression too early, while the plasteras so soft and damp that it sticks to the soap, but in the end I think Iave probably got enough to work with. So I cover the tray with a piece of cheesecloth and go inside. Itas nearly ten oaclock, Iam hungry and exhausted, tomorrow is my day off, and I am going to have to go in to work anyway to visit Janis and make sure sheas all right. But next time Fiore visits the repository, Iam going to be ready to sneak in right after heas left. And then weall see what heas hiding down there . . .
10.
State.
SUNDAY dawns, cool and mellow. I groan and try not to pull the bedclothes over my head. By one of those quirks of scheduling, yesterday was a workday for me, tomorrow is another, and Iam feeling hammered by the prospect of two eleven-hour days. Iam not looking forward to spending half my day off in forced proximity to score wh.o.r.es like Jen and Angel, but I manage to force myself out of bed and rescue my Sunday outfit from the pile growing on the chair at the end of the room. (I need to take a trip to the dry-cleaners soon, and spend some time down in the bas.e.m.e.nt washing the stuff I can do at home. More drudgery on my day off. Does it ever stop?) Downstairs, I find Sam laboriously spooning cornflakes into a bowl of milk. He looks preoccupied. My stomach is tight with anxiety, but I force myself to put a pan of water on the burner and carefully lower a couple of eggs into it. I need to make myself eat: My appet.i.te isnat good, and with the exercise regime Iam keeping up, I could start burning muscle tissue very easily. I glance inward at my mostly silent netlink to check my cohortas scores for the week. As usual, Iam nearly the bottom-ranked female in the group. Only Ca.s.s is doing worse, and I feel a familiar stab of anxiety. Iam nearly sure she isnat Kay, but I canat help feeling for her. She has to put up with that swine Mick, after all. Then my stomach does another flip-flop as I remember something I have to do before we go.
aSam.a He glances up from his bowl. aYes?a aToday. Donat be surprised ifa"ifa"a I canat say it.
He puts his spoon down and looks out the window. aItas a nice day.a He frowns. aWhatas bugging you? Is it Church?a I manage to nod.
His eyes go gla.s.sy for a moment. Checking his scores, I guess. Then he nods. aYou didnat get any penalties, did you?a aNo. But Iam afraid Ia"a I shake my head, unable to continue.
aTheyare going to single you out,a he says, evenly and slowly.
aThatas it.a I nod. aIave just got a feeling, is all.a aLet them.a He looks angry, and for a moment I feel frightened, then I realize that for a wonder it isnat mea"heas angry at the idea that Fiore might have a go at me in Church, indignant at the possibility that the congregation might go along with it. Resentful. aWeall walk out.a aNo, Sam.a The water is boilinga"I check the clock, then switch on the toaster. Boiled eggs and toast, thatas how far my culinary skills have come. aIf you do that, itall make you a target, too. If weare both targets . . .a aI donat care.a He meets my gaze evenly, with no sign of the reticence thatas been d.o.g.g.i.ng him for the past month. aI made a decision. Iam not going to stand by and let them pick us off one by one. Weave both made mistakes, but youare the one whoas most at risk in here. I havenat been fair to you and I, Iaa"he stumbles for a momenta"aI wish things had turned out differently.a He looks down at his bowl and murmurs something I canat quite make out.
aSam?a I sit down. aSam. You canat take on the whole polity on your own.a He looks sad. Sad? Why?
aI know.a He looks at me. aBut I feel so helpless!a Sad and angry. I stand up and walk over to the burner, turn the heat right down. The eggs are b.u.mping against the bottom of the pan. The toaster is ticking. aWe should have thought of that before we agreed to be locked up in this prison,a I say. I feel like screaming. With my extra-heavy memory erasurea"which I have a sneaking suspicion exceeded anything my earlier self, the one who wrote me the letter and then forgot about it, was expectinga"Iam half-surprised I got here in the first place. Certainly if Iad known Kay was going to dither, then pull out, Iad probably have chosen to stay with her and the good life, a.s.sa.s.sins or no.
aPrison.a He chuckles bitterly. aThatas a good description for it. I wish there was some way to escape.a aGo ask the Bishop; maybe heall let you out early for bad behavior.a I pop the toast, b.u.t.ter it, then scoop both eggs out of the water and onto my plate. aI wish.a aHow about we walk to Church today?a Sam suggests hesitantly, as Iam finishing breakfast. aItas about two kilometers. That sounds a long way, buta"a aIt also sounds like a good idea to me,a I say, before he can talk himself out of it. aIall wear my work shoes.a aGood. Iall meet you down here in ten minutes.a He brushes against me on his way out of the kitchen, and I startle, but he doesnat seem to notice. Somethingas going on inside his head, and not being able to open up and ask is frustrating.
Two kilometers is a nice morning walk, and Sam lets me hold his hand as we stroll along the quiet avenues beneath trees suddenly exploding with green and blue-black leaves. We have to walk through three tunnels between zones to get to the neighborhood of the Churcha"there are no lines of sight longer than half a kilometer, perhaps because that would make it obvious that our landscapes are cut from the inner surfaces of conic sections rather than glued to the outside of a sphere by natural gravitya"but we see barely anyone. Most folks travel to Church by taxi, and they wonat be leaving their homes until weare nearly there.
The Church service starts out anticlimactic for me, but probably not for anyone else. After leading the congregation into a tub-thumping rendition of aFirst We Take Manhattan,a Fiore launches into a long peroration on the nature of obedience, crime, our place in society, and our duties to one another.
aIs it not true that we were placed here to enjoy the benefits of civilization and to raise a great society for the betterment of our children and the achievement of a morally pure state?a he thunders from the pulpit, eyes focused gla.s.sily on an infinity that lurks just behind the back wall. aAnd to this end, isnat it the case that our social order, being the earthly antecedent of a Platonic ideal society, must be defended so that it has room to mature and bear the fruit of utopia?a A real tub-thumper, I realize uneasily. I wonder where heas going? People are shuffling in the row behind me; Iam not the only one with a guilty conscience.
aThis being the case, can we admit to our society one who violates its cardinal rules? Must we forebear from criticizing the sins out of consideration for the sensibilities of the sinner?a He demands. aOr for the sensibilities of those who, unknowing, live side by side with the personification of vice incarnate?a Here it comes. I feel a mortal sense of dread, my stomach loosening in antic.i.p.ation of the denunciation I can feel coming. Thereas got to be more to this than a furtive library book, and I have a horrible sinking feeling that heas figured out the soap impression and the plaster of paris and the mold Iam preparing for the duplicate keysa"
aNo!a Fiore booms from the pulpit. aThis cannot be!a He thumps the rail with one fist. aBut it grieves me to say that it isa"that Esther and Phil are not merely adulterating their souls by sneaking their vile intimacies behind the backs of their ignorant and abused spouses, but are adulterating the fabric of society itself!a Huh? Itas not me that heas going after, but the thrill of relief doesnat last long: Thereas a loud grumble of rage from the congregation, led by cohort three, whose members are the ones Fiore is accusing. Everyone else looks round and I turn round with thema"not to go with the crowd could be dangerous right nowa"and see a turbulent knot a couple of rows back, where well-dressed churchgoers are turning on each other. A frightened female and a defensive-looking male with dark hair are looking around apprehensively, not making eye contact, but trying toa"yes, theyare looking for escape routes as Fiore continues. Something tells me theyare too late.
aI would like to thank Jen in particular for bringing this matter to my attention,a Fiore says coolly. My netlink dings, registering the arrival of more points than Iad normally rack up in a month, an upward adjustment I can blame on the fact that Iam in the same cohort as the little snitch. Sheas scored big-time with this accusation of adultery. aAnd I ask you, what are we going to do about the sickness in our midst?a Fiore scans the audience from his pulpit. aWhat is to be done to cleanse our society?a My sick sense of dread is back with a vengeance. This is going to be a whole lot worse than anything Iad antic.i.p.ated. Normally, Fiore singles a handful out for ridicule, laughter, the pointed finger of contempta"a minor humiliation for sneaking a library book out of the reference section would be nothing out of the ordinary. But this is big bad stuff, two people caught subverting the social foundations of the experiment. Fiore is on a roll of righteous indignation, and the atmosphere is getting very ugly indeed. A roar goes up from the back benches, incoherent rage and anger, and I grab Samas hand. Then I check my netlink and freeze. Heas fined cohort three all the points heas just given to Jen! aLetas get out of here before it turns nasty,a I mutter into Samas ear, and he nods and grips my hand back tightly. People are standing up and shouting, so I sidle toward the side of the aisle as fast as I can, using my elbows when I have to. I can see Mick on the other side, yelling something, the tendons on the sides of his neck standing out like cables. I donat see Ca.s.s. I keep moving. Thereas a storm brewing, and this isnat the time or place to stop and ask.
Behind me Fiore shouts something about natural justice, but heas barely audible over the crowd. The doors are open, and people are spilling out into the car park. I gasp with pain as someone stomps on my left foot, but I stay upright and sense rather than see Sam following me. I make it through the crush in the doorway and keep going, dodging small clumps of people and a struggling figure, then Sam catches up with me. aLetas go,a I tell him, grabbing his hand.
There are people in front of us, cl.u.s.tered arounda"itas Jen. aReeve!a she calls.
I canat ignore her without being obvious. aWhat do you want?a I ask.
aHelp us.a She grins widely, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she spreads her arms. Sheas wearing a little black-silk number that displays her secondary s.e.xual characteristics by providing just a wisp of contrast: her chest is heaving as if sheas about to have an o.r.g.a.s.m. aCome on!a She gestures at the dark knot near the Church entrance. aWeare going to have a party!a aWhat do you mean?a I demand, looking past her. Her husband, Chris, is conspicuously absent. Instead, sheas acquired a cohort of her own, followers or admirers or something, Grace from twelve and Mina from nine and Tina from sevena"all of them are from newer cohorts than our owna"and theyare watching her, looking to her as if sheas a leader . . .
aPurify the polity!a she says, almost playfully. aCome on! Together we can keep everyone in line and hold everything togethera"and earn loads more pointsa"if we make a strong enough statement right now. Send the deviants and perverts a message.a She looks at me enthusiastically. aRight?a aUh, right,a I mumble, backing away until I b.u.mp into Sam, whoas come up behind me. aYouare going to teach them a lesson, huh?a I feel Samas hand tightening on my shoulder, warning me not to go too far, but Jenas in no mood to pick up minor details like sarcasm: aThatas right!a Sheas almost rapturous. aItas going to be real fun. I got Chris and Mick readya"a Thereas a high-pitched scream from somewhere behind us. aExcuse us,a I mumble, aI donat feel so good.a Sam shoves me forward, and I stumble past Jen, still stammering out excuses, but the situation isnat critical. Jen doesnat have time to waste on broken reeds and moral imbeciles, and sheas already drifting toward the group in the Church door, shouting something about community values.
We make it to the edge of the car park before I stumble again and grab hold of Samas arm. aWeave got to stop them,a I hear myself saying. I wonder what that toad Fiore thought he was unleashing when he transferred so many points from one cohort to another. Doing that to the score wh.o.r.es is only going to have one result. At the very least, cohort three is going to rip the s.h.i.t out of Phil and Esthera"but now weave got Jen, trying to spin the whole thing as social cleansing in order to position herself at the head of a mob. I can see a hideous new reality taking shape here, and I want nothing to do with it.
aNot sensible.a He shakes his head but slows down.
aI mean it!a I insist. I swallow, my throat dry. aTheyare going to beat Phil and Esthera"a aNo, itas already gone past that point.a Thereas an ugly quaver in his voice.
I dig my heels in and stop. Sam stops, too, of necessitya"itas that, or shove me over. Heas breathing heavily. aWeave got to do something.a aLike. What?a Heas breathing deeply. aThereare at least twenty of them. Cohort three and the idiots whoave gotten some idea that they can parade their virtue by joining in. We donat stand a chance.a He glances over his shoulder, seems to shudder, then suddenly pulls me closer and speeds up. aDonat stop, donat look round,a he hisses. So of course I stop dead and turn around to see what theyare doing behind us.
Oh s.h.i.t, indeed. I feel wobbly, and Sam catches me under one arm as I see whatas happening. There are no more screams, but that doesnat mean nothingas going on. The screaming is continuing, inside the privacy of my own skull. aThey planned this,a I hear myself say, as if from the far end of a very dark tunnel. aThey prepared for it. Itas not spontaneous.a aYes.a Sam nods, his face whey-pale. Thereas no other explanation, crazy as it seems. aRitual human sacrifice seems to have been a major cultural bonding feature in pretech cultures,a he mutters. aI wonder how long Fioreas been planning to introduce it?a Theyave got two ropes over the branches of the poplars beside the Church, and two groups are busy heaving their twitching payloads up into the greenery. I blink. The ropes seem to curve slightly. It might be centripetal acceleration, but more likely itas because my eyes are watering.
aI donat care. If I had a gun, Iad shoot Jen right now, I really would.a I suddenly realize that Iam not feeling faint from fear or dread, but from anger: aThe b.i.t.c.h needs killing.a aWouldnat work,a he says, almost absently. aMore violence just normalizes the killing, it doesnat put an end to it: Theyare having a party and all you could do is add to the fun . . .a aYeah, Ia"but Iad feel better.a Jen had better have bars on her windows and sleep with a baseball bat under her pillow tonight, or sheas in trouble. And she royally deserves it, the mendacious b.i.t.c.h.
aMe too, I think.a aCan we do anything?a aFor them?a He shrugs. Thereas no more screaming, but a tone-deaf choir has struck up some kind of anthem. aNo.a I shiver. aLetas go home. Right now.a aOkay,a he says, and together we start walking again.
The singing follows us up the road. Iam terrified that if I look back, Iall break down: Thereas absolutely nothing I can do about it, but I feel a filthy sense of complicity with them. As for Fiore . . . heas got it coming. Sooner or later Iall get him. But Iam going to bite my tongue and not say a word about that for now, because Iave a feeling he staged this little show to teach us a lesson about the construction of totalitarian power, and right this moment all the spies and snitches are going to be wide-awake, looking for signs of dissent.
A kilometer up the road and ten minutes away from the ghastly feeding frenzy, I tug at Samas arm. aLetas slow down a little,a I suggest. aCatch our breath. Thereas no need to run anymore.a aCatch oura"a Sam stares at me. aI thought you were mad at me.a aNo, itas not you.a I carry on walking, but more slowly.
His hand on my arm. aWe didnat join in.a I nod, wordlessly.
aThree-quarters of the people there were as horrified as we were. But we couldnat stop it once it got going.a He shakes his head.
I take a deep breath. aIam p.i.s.sed at myself for not making a stand while there was time. You can game a mob if you know what youare doing. But once people get moving in groups like that, itas really hard to contain them. Fiore didnat need to set that off. But he did, like pouring gasoline on a barbecue.a Both of which are items Iave only lately become acquainted with. aAnd after that sermon and the score transfer, he couldnat have stopped it even if he wanted to.a aYou sound like you think itas a matter of choice.a I glance sidelong at him: Samas not stupid, but he doesnat normally talk in abstractions. He continues: aDo you really think you could have stopped it? Itas implicit in this society, Reeve. They set us up to make it easy to make people kill for an abstraction. You saw Jen. Did you really think you could have stopped her, once she got going?a aI should have stuck a knife in her ribs.a I trudge on in silence for a few seconds. aIad probably have failed. Youare right, but that doesnat make me feel better.a We walk slowly along the road, baking beneath the noonday heat of an artificial late-spring sun in our Sunday outfits. The invertebrates creak in the long, yellowing gra.s.s, and the deciduous trees rustle their leaves overhead in the breeze. I smell sage and magnolia in the warm air. Ahead of us the road dives into a cutting that leads to another of the tunnels with built-in T-gates that conceal the true geometry of our inside-out world. Sam pulls out his pocket flashlight, swinging it from his wrist by a strap.
aIave seen mobs before,a I tell him. If only I could forget. aThey have a peculiar kind of momentum.a I feel weak and shaky as I think about it, about the look on Philas facea"I hardly knew hima"and the hunger stalking the shadow of the crowd. Jenas malicious delight. aOnce it gets past a certain point, all you can do is run away fast and make sure you have nothing to do with what happens next. If everybody did that, there wouldnat be any mobs.a aI guess.a Sam sounds subdued as we walk into the penumbra of the tunnel. He switches his flashlight on. The cone of light bobs around crazily ahead of us as the road swings to the left.
aEven a sword-fighting fool of a hero canat divert a mob like that on their own once it gets going,a I tell him, as much for my own benefit as anything else. aNot without battle armor and some heavy weaponry, because theyare going to keep coming and coming. The ones behind canat see whatas happening up front, and the fool who stands in the way without backup is going to end up a dead fool really fast, even if he kills a whole load of them. And anyway, your sword-fighting fool, heas no smarter than any of them in the mob. The time to stop the mob is before it gets started. To stand up in front of it first, and tell it no.a Weare walking into the dark curve of the tunnel, out of sight of either entrance. Sam sighs.
aI knew someone whoad do that,a he says wistfully. aThe man I fell in love with. He wasnat a fool, but head know how to handle a situation like that.a The man? Sam doesnat seem like the type to mea"until I remember that Iam seeing him through gender-trapped eyes, the same way heas looking at me, and that Iave got no way of knowing who or what Sam was before he volunteered for the experiment. an.o.body could do that,a I tell him gently.
aMaybe so. But I think Iad trust Robinas judgment before Iad trusta"a I stop as suddenly as if I have just walked into a wall. The hairs on the back of my neck are all standing on end, and my stomach is knotting up again as if Iam going to be sick.
aWhatas wrong?a asks Sam.
aThe person on the outside youave been pining after,a I say carefully. aHeas called Robin. Is that right?a aYes.a He nods. aI shouldnat have said, weall get penalizeda"a I grab his hand like itas a floatation aid and Iam drowning. aSam, Sam.a You idiot! Yes, you! (Iam not sure which of us I mean.) aDid it ever occur to you to ask if maybe I knew Robin?a aWhy? What good would that have done?a His pupils are huge and dark in the twilight.
aYou are the biggesta"a I donat know what to say. Truly, I donat. Stunned is the mildest word that describes how I feel. aThe name you gave Robin was Kay, right?a aYoua"a aKay. Yes or no?a He tenses and tries to pull his hand away. aYes,a he admits.
aO-kay.a I donat seem to be able to get enough air. aWell, Sam, we are going to continue on our way home, now, arenat we? Because who we were before we came here doesnat make any difference to where we are now, does it?a His expression is impossible to read in the darkness. aYou must be Vhoraa"a I nearly slap him. Instead, I reach out with the index finger of my free hand and touch his lips. aHome first. Then we talk,a I tell him, stomach still churning, aghast at my own stupidity and willful blindness. Okay, so I walked right into this one. And I think I just sprained my brain. Now what?
He sighs. aAll right.a He still doesnat use my name. But he turns to shine the flashlight ahead of us. And thatas when I see the outline of the door in the opposite wall.
ITaS funny how the more we travel the less we see.
Traveling via T-gates, we avoid the intervening points between the nodes because the gate is actually a hole in the structure of s.p.a.ce, and in a very real sense there are no intervening points. And itas not much different in a car. You get in, you tell the zombie where to take you, and he steps on the gas. Not that thereas a machine under the bonnet that clatteringly detonates liquid distilled from ancient fossilized bioma.s.s (just a compact gateway generator and a sound effects unit), but it feels the same, in terms of your interaction with your surroundings.
Meanwhile, outside the cars and the corridors and the gates and the head games we deny playing with each other, thereas a real universe. And sometimes it smacks you in the face.
Like now. I have known all along, in an abstract kind of way, that weare living in a series of roughly rectangular terrain features laid out on the curved inner surface of several huge colony cylinders, spinning to provide centripetal acceleration (a subst.i.tute for gravity), in orbit around who-knows-what brown dwarf stars. The sky is a display screen, the wind is air-conditioning, the road tunnels are a necessary part of the illusion, and if you go for a walk in the overgrown back lot youall find a steep hill or cliff that you canat climb because it goes vertical only a few meters up. I havenat given much thought to how itas all st.i.tched together, other than to a.s.sume there are T-gates in each road tunnel. But what if thereas another way out?
I clutch his hand. aStop! Turn your flashlight back. Yes, there, right there.a aWhat is it?a he asks.
aLetas see.a I tug him toward it. aCome on, I need the light.a The tunnel walls are made of smoothly curved slabs of concrete set edge to edge, forming a hollow tube maybe eight meters in diameter. The road is a flat sheet of asphalt, its edges meeting the walls of the tube just under the halfway point up its sides. (Now that I think about it, what could be running under the road deck? It might be solid, but then again, there could be just about anything down there.) What Iave noticed is a rectangular groove in the opposite wall. Close up I can see itas about a meter wide and two meters high, a plain metal panel sunk into one side of the tunnel. Thereas no sign of any handle or lock except for a hole a few millimeters in diameter drilled halfway up it, just beside one edge.
aGive me the flashlight.a aHere.a He pa.s.ses it without argument. I get as close to the wall as I can and shine the light into the crack. Nothing, no sign of hinges or anything. I crouch down and shine it into the hole. Nothing there, either. aHmm.a aWhat is it?a he asks anxiously.
aItas a door. Canat say more than that.a I straighten up. aWe canat do anything about it right now. Letas go home and think about this.a aBut if we go home, we wonat be able to talk!a In the dim light of the flashlight, his eyes look very white. aTheyall overhear everything.a aThey donat see everything,a I rea.s.sure him. aCome on, letas go home. This afternoon I want you to mow the lawn.a aBut Ia"a aThe lawn mower is in the garage,a I continue implacably. aAlong with other things.a aButa"a aIf theyare not waiting for us when we get home, theyare not monitoring the tunnels, Sam. Noticed your netlink recently? No? Well, we donat seem to have lost any points just now. There are gaps in the surveillance coverage. I think I know somewhere else theyare not monitoring, and you ought to know weare not the only people who want out.a I feel safe telling him that much, even though if they brainscoop me and feed me to Curious Yellow right now, itall take down three of us: me and Sam and Janis. Kay may be in denial right now but shea"No, youave got to keep thinking of him as Sam, I tell myselfa"isnat, I think, going to sell me to the bad guys. I am pretty sure I can read Sam well enough now to know whatas bugging him. Itas funny how I was in l.u.s.t with Kay but couldnat tell if I trusted her. Now I trust Sam, but I doubt Iall ever f.u.c.k him again. Life is strange, isnat it? aYou do want out, donat you?a I ask.
aYes.a He sounds tremulous.
aThen youare going to have to trust me for a little bit longer because I donat have an escape plan yet.a I squeeze his hand. aBut Iam working on it.a Together, we walk toward the light.
THAT afternoon Sam changes into jeans and a T-shirt and mows the lawn. Iam in the garage wearing overalls and safety goggles, because Iave made a mold from the plaster of paris dies and Iam pouring solder into it, casting a lead copy of the key to Fioreas cabinet of curiosities. The lead key wonat turn in the lock, but itall do okay as a template for the engraving disk and the small bar of bra.s.s Iave got waiting.
To confuse anyone whoas watching, Iave got some props sitting arounda"a wooden wall plaque purchased from the fishing store, a plate to engrave with some meaningless dedication. When I showed Sam what I was up to he blinked rapidly, then nodded. aItas for the womenas freehand cross-st.i.tch club,a I said, pulling the explanation right out of my a.s.s. There is no such club, but it sounds right, a backup explanation that will trigger a reflex in whatever watcher is scanning us for anomalous behavior.
We may be living in a gla.s.s jar with bright lights and monitors trained on us the whole time, but itas not likely that everything we do is being watched by a live human being in real time. We ma.s.sively outnumber the experimenters, and theyare primarily interested in our public socialization. (At least, thatas the official story.) To monitor an intelligent organism properly requires observers with a theory of mind at least as strong as the subject. We subjects outnumber the experimenters by a couple of orders of magnitude, and Iave seen no sign of strongly superhuman metaintelligences being involved in this operation, so I think the odds are on my side. If we are up against the weakly G.o.dlike, I might as well throw in the towel right now. But if not . . . You can delegate all you want to subconscious mechanisms, but you run the risk of them missing things. Sic transit gloria panopticon.
The Church services are almost certainly monitored in every imaginable way. But after Church, Fiore and his friends will be too busy re-running the lynching from every imaginable angle and trying to figure out how the social dynamics of a genuine dark ages mob operate. They wonat be watching what I get up to in the garage until much later, probably just a bored glance at a replay to make sure Iam not f.u.c.king my neighboras husband or weeping hysterically in a corner. Because theyare used to using A-gates to fab any physical artifacts they need, they probably look at what Iam doing as some sort of dark ages hobby and view me as a slightly dull but basically well-adjusted wife. I even gained a couple of points last week for my weaving. I laboriously hand-wove a Faraday cage lining for my shoulder bag right under their noses, and they treated it as if I was diligently practicing a traditional feminine craft! There are gaps in their surveillance and bigger gaps in their understanding, and those gaps are going to be their downfall.