"User experience. I help design their interactive stuff. How's Ottawa?"

"They pay you for that, huh? Well, nice work if you can get it."

Art believed that Audie was being sincere in her amazement at his niche in the working world, and not sneering at all. Still, he had to keep himself from saying something snide about the lack of tangible good resulting from keeping MPs up to date on the poleconomy of semiconductor production in PacRim sweatshops.

"They sure do. How's Ottawa?"

"Amazing. And why London? Can't you find work at home?"

"Yeah, I suppose I could. This just seemed like a good job at the time. How's Ottawa?

"Seemed, huh? You going to be moving back, then? Quitting?"

"Not anytime soon. How's Ottawa?"

"Ottawa? It's beautiful this time of year. Alphie and Enoch and I were going to go to the trailer for the weekend, in Calabogie. You could drive up and meet us.

Swim, hike. We've built a sweatlodge near the dock; you and Alphie could bake up together."

"Wow," Art said, wishing he had Audie's gift for changing the subject. "Sounds great. But. Well, you know. Gotta catch up with friends here in Toronto. It's been a while, you know. Well." The image of sharing a smoke-filled dome with Alphie's naked, cross-legged, sweat-slimed paunch had seared itself across his waking mind.

"No? Geez. Too bad. I'd really hoped that we could reconnect, you and me and Alphie. We really should spend some more time together, keep connected, you know?"

"Well," Art said. "Sure. Yes." Relations or no, Audie and Alphie were basically strangers to him, and it was beyond him why Audie thought they should be spending time together, but there it was. *Reconnect, keep connected.* Hippies.

"We should. Next time I'm in Canada, for sure, we'll get together, I'll come to Ottawa. Maybe Christmas. Skating on the ca.n.a.l, OK?"

"Very good," Audie said. "I'll pencil you in for Christmas week. Here, I'll send you the wish lists for Alphie and Enoch and me, so you'll know what to get."

Xmas wishlists in July. Organized hippies! What planet did his cousins grow up on, anyway?

"Thanks, Audie. I'll put together a wishlist and pa.s.s it along to you soon, OK?"

His bladder nagged at him. "I gotta run now, all right?"

"Great. Listen, Art, it's been, well, great to talk to you again. It really makes me feel whole to connect with you. Don't be a stranger, all right?"

"Yeah, OK! Nice to talk to you, too. Bye!"

"Safe travels and wishes fulfilled," Audie said.

"You too!"

25.

Now I've got a comm, I hardly know what to do with it. Call Gran? Call Audie?

Call Fede? Login to an EST chat and see who's up to what?

How about the Jersey clients?

There's an idea. Give them everything, all the notes I built for Fede and his d.a.m.ned patent application, sign over the exclusive rights to the patent for one dollar and services rendered (i.e., getting me a decent lawyer and springing me from this d.a.m.ned hole).

My last lawyer was a d.i.c.khead. He met me at the courtroom fifteen minutes before the hearing, in a private room whose fixtures had the sticky filthiness of a bus-station toilet. "Art, yes, h.e.l.lo, I'm Allan Mendelson, your attorney. How are you?

He was well over 6'6", but weighed no more than 120 lbs and hunched over his skinny ribs while he talked, dry-washing his hands. His suit looked like the kind of thing you'd see on a Piccadilly Station homeless person, clean enough and well-enough fitting, but with an indefinable air of cheapness and falsehood.

"Well, not so good," I said. "They upped my meds this morning, so I'm pretty logy. Can't concentrate. They said it was to keep me calm while I was transported. Dirty trick, huh?"

"What?" he'd been browsing through his comm, tapping through what I a.s.sumed was my file. "No, no. It's perfectly standard. This isn't a trial, it's a hearing.

We're all on the same side, here." He tapped some more. "Your side."

"Good," Art said. "My grandmother came down, and she wants to testify on my behalf."

"Oooh," the fixer said, shaking his head. "No, not a great idea. She's not a mental health professional, is she?"

"No," I said. "But she's known me all my life. She knows I'm not a danger to myself or others."

"Sorry, that's not appropriate. We all love our families, but the court wants to hear from people who have qualified opinions on this subject. Your doctors will speak, of course."

"Do I get to speak?"

"If you *really* want to. That's not a very good idea, either, though, I'm afraid. If the judge wants to hear from you, she'll address you. Otherwise, your best bet is to sit still, no fidgeting, look as sane and calm as you can."

I felt like I had bricks dangling from my limbs and one stuck in my brain. The new meds painted the world with translucent whitewash, stuffed cotton in my ears and made my tongue thick. Slowly, my brain absorbed all of this.

"You mean that my Gran can't talk, I can't talk, and all the court hears is the doctors?"

"Don't be difficult, Art. This is a hearing to determine your competency. A group of talented mental health professionals have observed you for the past week and they've come to some conclusions based on those observations. If everyone who came before the court for a competency hearing brought out a bunch of irrelevant witnesses and made long speeches, the court calendar would be backlogged for decades. Then other people who were in for observation wouldn't be able to get their hearings. It wouldn't work for anyone. You see that, right?"

"Not really. I really think it would be better if I got to testify on my behalf.

I have that right, don't I?"

He sighed and looked very put-upon. "If you insist, I'll call you to speak. But as your lawyer, it's my professional opinion that you should *not* do this."

"I really would prefer to."

He snapped his comm shut. "I'll meet you in the courtroom, then. The bailiff will take you in."

"Can you tell my Gran where I am? She's waiting in the court, I think."

"Sorry. I have other cases to cope with -- I can't really play messenger, I'm afraid."

When he left the little office, I felt as though I'd been switched off. The drugs weighted my eyelids and soothed my panic and outrage. Later, I'd be livid, but right then I could barely keep from folding my arms on the grimy table and resting my head on them.

The hearing went so fast I barely even noticed it. I sat with my lawyer and the doctors stood up and entered their reports into evidence -- I don't think they read them aloud, even, just squirted them at the court reporter. My Gran sat behind me, on a chair that was separated from the court proper by a banister.

She had her hand on my shoulder the whole time, and it felt like an anvil there to my dopey muscles.

"All right, Art," my jacka.s.s lawyer said, giving me a prod. "Here's your turn.

Stand up and keep it brief."

I struggled to my feet. The judge was an Asian woman about my age, a small round head set atop a shapeless robe and perched on a high seat behind a high bench.