Child Thing.

THE taxi that takes me to the Chamber of Commerce arrives about half an hour after Sam leaves for work. Iam ready and waiting for it but nervous about the whole idea. It seems necessary in some waysa"to a.s.sert my independence from Sam, get an extra source of income, meet other inmates, break out of the lonely rut of being a stay-at-home wifea"but in other respects itas a questionable choice. I have no idea what theyare going to find for me to do, itas going to take up a large chunk of my time, itall probably be boring and pointless, and although Iall meet new people, thereas no way of knowing whether Iall hate them on sight. What seemed like a good idea at the time is now turning out to be stressful.

The taxi operator is no use, of coursea"he canat tell me anything. aChamber of Commerce,a he announces. aPlease leave the vehicle.a So I get out and head toward the imposing building on my right, with the revolving door made of wood and bra.s.s, hoping my uncertainty doesnat show. I march up to the clerk on the front desk. aIam Reeve. Iave got an appointment at, uh, ten oaclock with Mr. Harshaw?a aGo right in, maaam,a says the zombie, pointing at a door behind him with a frosted-gla.s.s window and gold-leaf lettering stenciled along the top. My heels clack on the stone floor as I walk over and open it.

aMr. Harshaw?a I ask.

The room is dominated by a wide desk made out of wood, its top inlaid with a rectangle of dyed, preserved skin cut from a large herbivore. The walls are paneled in wood and there are crude still pictures in frames hanging from hooks near the top, certificates and group portraits of men in dark suits shaking hands with each other. A borderline-senescent male in a dark suit, his head almost bereft of hair and his waistline expanding, sits behind the desk. He half rises as I enter, and extends a hand. Zombie? I wonder doubtfully.

ah.e.l.lo, Reeve.a He sounds relaxed and self-confident. aWonat you have a seat?a aSure.a I take the chair on the other side of the desk and cross my legs, studying his face. Sure enough thereas a slight flicker of attentiona"heas watching me, aware of my bodya"which means heas real. Zombies simply arenat programmed for that. aHow come I havenat seen you in Church?a I ask.

aIam on staff,a he says easily. aHave a cigarette?a He gestures at one of the wooden boxes on his desk.

aSorry, I donat smoke,a I say, slightly stiffly. I hate the smell, but itas not as if itas harmful, is it?

aGood for you.a He takes one, lights it, and inhales thoughtfully. aYou asked about job vacancies yesterday. As it happens, we have one right now that would probably suit youa"I took the liberty of looking through your recordsa"but it specifically excludes smokers.a aOh?a I raise an eyebrow. Mr. Harshaw the staffer isnat what I expected, to say the least; I was winding myself up to deal with a dumb zombie fronting a placement database.

aItas in the city library. Youad only be working three days a week, but youad be putting in eleven-hour shifts. On the plus side, youad be the trainee librarian there. On the minus side, the starting salary isnat particularly high.a aWhat does the job involve?a I ask.

aLibrary work.a He shrugs. aFiling books in order. Keeping track of withdrawals and issuing overdue notices and collecting fines. Helping people find books and information theyare looking for. Organizing the stacks and adding new t.i.tles as they come in. Youad be working under Janis from cohort one, who has been our librarian since the early days. Sheas going to be leaving, which is why we need to train up a replacement.a aLeaving?a I look at him oddly. aWhy?a aTo have a baby,a he says, and blows a perfect smoke ring up at the ceiling.

I donat understand what heas saying at first, the concept is so alien to me. aWhy would she have to leave her job toa"a Itas his turn to look at me oddly. aBecause sheas pregnant,a he says.

For a moment the world seems to be spinning around my head. Thereas a roaring in my ears, and I feel weak at the knees. Itas a good thing Iam sitting down. Then I begin to integrate everything and realize just whatas going on. Janis is pregnanta"sheas got a neonate growing inside her body like an encapsulated tumor, the way humans used to incubate their young in the wild, back before civilization. Presumably she and her husband had s.e.x, and she was fertile. aShe must bea"a I say, then cover my mouth. Fertile.

aYes, she and Norm are very happy,a Mr. Harshaw says, nodding enthusiastically. He looks satisfied with something. aWeare all very happy for them, even if it means we do have to train up a new librarian.a aWell, Iad be happy to see, I mean, to try,a I begin, fl.u.s.tered, wondering, Did she ask the medics to make her fertile? Or, a sneaking and horrible suspicion, Are we already fertile? I know menstruation was some kind of metabolic sign that went with being a prehistoric female, but I didnat really put it all together until now. Having a child is harda"you have to actively seek medical a.s.sistancea"and having one grow inside your body is even harder. The idea that the orthohuman bodies theyave put us in are so ortho that we could automatically generate random human beings if we have s.e.x is absolutely terrifying. I donat think the dark ages medics had incubators, and if I got pregnant I might actually have to go through a live childbirth. In fact, if Sam and I hada"aExcuse me, but whereas the rest room?a I ask.

aItas the second door through there, on the left.a Mr. Harshaw smiles to himself as I make a dash for it. Heas still smiling five minutes later as I make my way back into his office, forcing my face into a mask of composure, refusing to acknowledge the stomach cramps that took me to the stalls. aAre you all right?a he asks.

aI am, now,a I say. aIam sorry about that, must be something I ate.a aItas perfectly all right. If youad like to come with me, perhaps we can visit the library and I can introduce you to Janis, see if you get along?a I nod, and we head out front to catch a taxi. I think Iam doing pretty well for someone whoas just had her worldview turned upside down and whacked on with a hammer. How long does a neonate take to grow, about thirty megs? It puts a whole new face on the experiment. I have a sinking sense that I must have implicitly agreed to this. Somewhere buried in the small print of the release I signed thereall be some clause that can be interpreted as saying that I consent to be made fertile and if necessary to become pregnant and bring to term an infant in the course of the study. Itas the sort of s.h.i.tty trick that Fiore and his friends would delight in slipping past us while weare vulnerable.

After a few minutes I realize that the oversight we were promised by an independent ethics committee isnat worth a bucket of warma"whatever. The extreme scenario would be for us females to all get pregnant and deliver infants, in which case the experimenters are going to be responsible for the care of about a hundred babies, none of whom gave their consent to be raised in a simulated dark ages environment without access to decent medical care, education, or socialization. Any responsible ethics oversight committee would s.h.i.t a brick if you suggested running an experiment like that. So I suspect the ethics oversight committee isnat very ethical, if indeed it exists at all.

Iam thinking these thoughts as Mr. Harshaw tells our zombie driver to take us to the munic.i.p.al library. The library is in a part of town I havenat visited before, on the same block as City Hall and what Mr. Harshaw points out to me as the police station. aPolice station?a I ask, looking blank.

aYes, where the police hang out.a He looks at me as if Iam very slightly mad.

aI would have thought the crime rate here was too low to need a real police force,a I say.

aSo far it is,a he replies, with a smile I canat interpret. aBut things are changing.a The library is a low brick building, with a gla.s.s facade opening onto a reception area, and turnstiles leading into a couple of big rooms full of shelves. There are booksa"bound sheaves of dumb papera"on all the shelves, and there are a lot of shelves. In fact, Iave never seen so many books in my life. Itas ironic, really. My netlink could bring a million times as much information to me on a whim, if it was working. But in the informationally impoverished society weare restricted to, these rows of dead trees represent the total wealth of available human knowledge. Static, crude scratchings are all weare to be permitted, it seems. aWho can access these?a I ask.

aIall leave it to Janis to explain the procedures,a he says, running his hand over his shiny crown, abut anyone who wants can withdrawa"borrowa"books from the lending department. The reference department is a bit different, and thereas also the private collection.a He clears his throat. aThatas confidential, and youare not supposed to lend it to anyone who isnat authorized to read it. That probably sounds dramatic, by the way, but itas actually not very romantic. We just keep a lot of the doc.u.mentation for the project on paper, so we donat need to violate the experimental protocol by bringing in advanced knowledge-management tools, and we have to store the paper somewhere when itas not in use, so we use the library.a He holds the door open. aLetas go find Janis, shall we? Then weall have lunch. We can discuss whether you want to work here, and if so, what your pay and conditions will be, and then if you take the job, we can work out when youall start training.a JANIS is skinny and blond, with a haggard, worried-looking expression and long, bony hands that flutter like trapped insects as she describes things. After having to put up with Jenas machinations, sheas like a breath of fresh air. On my first day I arrive at my new job early, but Janis is already there. She whisks me into a dingy little staff room round the back of one of the bookcases that Iad never suspected existed on yesterdayas tour.

aIam so glad youare here,a she tells me, clasping her hands. aTea? Or coffee? Weave got bothaa"thereas an electric kettle in the corner and she switches it ona"abut someoneas going to have to run out and fetch some milk soon.a She sighs. aThis is the staff room. When thereas n.o.body about, you can take your breaks here or go out for luncha"we close between noon and one oaclocka"and thereas also a terminal into the library computer.a She points at a boxy device not unlike a baby television set, connected by a coiled cable to a panel studded with b.u.t.tons.

aThe library has a computer?a I say, intrigued. aCanat I just use my netlink?a Janis flushes, her cheeks turning pink. aIam afraid not,a she apologizes. aThey make us use them just like the ancients would have, through a keyboard and screen.a aBut I thought none of the ancient thinking machines survived, except in emulation. How do we know what its physical manifestation looked like?a aIam not sure.a Janis looks thoughtful. aDo you know, I hadnat thought of that? Iave got no idea how they designed it! Itas probably buried in the experimental protocol somewherea"the noncla.s.sified bits are all online, if you want to go looking. But listen, we donat have time for that now.a The kettle boils, and she busies herself for a minute pouring hot water into two mugs full of instant coffee granules. I study her indirectly while her backas turned. Thereas not much sign of her pregnancy yet, although I think there might be a slight bulge around her waista"her dress is cut so that itas hard to tell. aFirst, I want to get you started on how the front desk works, on the lending side. Weave got to keep track of whoas borrowed what books, and when theyare due back, and itas the easiest thing to start you on. Soaa"she hands me a coffee muga"ahow much do you know about library work?a I learn over the course of the morning that alibrary worka covers such an enormous area of information management that back during the dark ages, before libraries became self-organizing constructs, people used to devote their entire (admittedly short) lives to studying the theory of how best to manage them. Neither Janisa"nor Ia"is remotely qualified to be a real dark age librarian, with their esoteric mastery of catalogue systems and controlled information cla.s.sification vocabularies, but we can run a small munic.i.p.al lending library and reference section with a bit of scurrying around and a lot of patience. I seem to have some historic skills in that direction, and unlike my experience with arc welding, I havenat erased all of them. I can remember my alphabet and grasp the decimal cla.s.sification scheme immediately, and the way each book has a ticket in an envelope inside the front cover that has to be retained when itas loaned out makes sense, too . . .

Itas only by midafternoon, when weave taken a grand total of five returns and had one visitor who borrowed two books (on Aztec culture and the care and feeding of carnivorous plants), that I begin to wonder why YFH-Polity needs anything as exotic as a full-time librarian.

aI donat know,a Janis admits over a cup of tea in the staff room, her feet stretched out under the rickety white-painted wooden table. aIt can get a bit busya"wait until six oaclock, when most people are on their way home from work, thatas when we get most of our borrowersa"but really, they donat need me. A zombie could do the job perfectly well.a She looks pensive. aI suspect itas more to do with finding employment for people who ask for it. Itas one of the drawbacks of the entire experiment. We donat exist in a closed-circuit economy, and if they donat constantly provide jobs for people, itall all fall apart. So what weare left with is a situation where they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. At least until they merge the parishes.a aMerge thea"there are more?a aSo Iam told.a She shrugs. aTheyare introducing us in small stages, so that we know who our neighbors are before we get linked into a large community and everything goes to pieces.a aIsnat that a bit of a pessimistic att.i.tude?a I ask.

aMaybe so.a She flashes me a rare grin. aBut itas a realistic one.a I think Iam going to like Janis, her ironic sense of humor notwithstanding: I feel comfortable around her. Weare going to work well together. aAnd the other stuff? The restricted archive? The computer?a She waves it off. aAll you need to know is, once a week Fiore comes and we unlock the closed room and leave him alone in it for an hour or two. If he wants to take any papers away, we log them and nag him until he brings them back.a aAnyone else?a aWell.a She looks thoughtful. aIf the Bishop shows up, you give him access to all areas.a She pulls a face. aAnd donat ask me about the computer, n.o.body told me much about how to use it, and I donat really understand the thing, but if you want to tinker with it during a slack period, be my guest. Just remember everything is logged.a She catches my eye. aEverything,a she repeats, with quiet emphasis.

My pulse quickens. aOn the computer? Or off it?a aBook withdrawals,a she says. aPossibly even what pages people look at. You notice theyare all hardcovers? Youad be surprised how small even the dark age techns could make a tracking device. You could build them into book spines, able to sense which pages the reader was opening the book to. All without violating protocol.a aBut protocola"a I stop. The television doesnat look very complex, technically, but is it? Really? What goes into a machine like that? There must be either cameras or a really complex rendering system . . .

aThe dark ages werenat just dark, they were fast. Weare talking about the period when our ancestors went from needing an abacus to add two numbers together to building the first emotional machines. They went from witch doctors with poisonous chemicalsa"who couldnat even reattach a cleanly severed limba"to tissue regeneration, full control of the proteome and genome, and growing body parts to order. From using rockets to get into orbit to the first tethered lift systems. And they did all that in less than three gigs, ninety old-time years.a She pauses for a sip of tea. aIt is very easy for us moderns to underestimate the dark age orthos. But itas a habit youall shed after youave been here for a while, and to give them their due, the clergya"the experimentersa"have been here longer than the rest of us. Even Harshaw, and he works for them.a She p.r.o.nounces his name with distaste, and I wonder what heas done to offend her.

aYou think theyave got more of a handle on this than we do?a I ask, intrigued.

ad.a.m.n right.a (Yes, she says ad.a.m.na: sheas obviously getting into the spirit of things, speaking in the archaic slang the real old-timers would have used.) aI think thereas more going on here than meets the eye. Theyave made a lot more progress toward stabilizing this society than youad expect for just five megs of runtime.a Her eyes flicker sharply toward a corner of the room right above the door, and I follow the direction of her gaze. aIn part itas because they can see everything, hear everything, including this. In part.a aBut surely thatas not all?a She smiles at me enigmatically. aBreakas over, kid. Time to go back to work.a I get home late, bone-tired from filing returned books and standing behind a counter for hours. I have a gnawing sense of apprehension as I walk in the door. The lights are on in the living room and I can hear the television. I head for the kitchen first to get something to eat, and thatas where I am when Sam finds me.

aWhereave you been?a he demands.

aWork.a I attack a tin of vegetable soup and a loaf of bread tiredly.

aOh.a Pause. aSo what are you doing?a Heas put the b.u.t.ter in the refrigerator so itas as hard as a rock. aTraining to be the new city librarian. Three days a week at present, but itas an eleven-hour day.a aOh.a He bends over to put a dirty plate in the washing machine. I manage to stop him just in timea"itas full of clean stuff. aNo, you need to unload it first, okay?a aHuh.a He looks irritated. aSo the city needs a new librarian?a aYes.a I donat owe him any explanations, do I? Do I?

aDo you know Janis?a aJanisa"a He looks thoughtful. aNo. I didnat even know we had a library.a aSheas leaving in a couple of months, and they need someone to replace her.a He begins to remove plates from the bottom tray in the washing machine and stack them on the work-top. aShe doesnat like the job? If itas so bad, why are you taking it?a aItas not that.a I finally get the soup out of the can and into a saucepan on the red-glowing burner. aSheas leaving because sheas pregnant.a I turn round to watch him. Heas focusing on the dishwasher, pointedly ignoring me. Still sulking, I suspect.

aPregnant? Huh.a He sounds a little surprised. aWhy would anyone want to have a baby ina"a aWeare fertile, Sam.a I manage to catch the plates he was unloading just in time. I straighten up, about half a meter from his nose, and heas too fl.u.s.tered to avoid my gaze.

aWeare fertile?a aThatas what Janis says, and judging by her state, I think sheas probably got the evidence to prove it.a I scowl at him for a moment, then turn back to the soup pan. aGot a bowl for me?a aYe-yes.a The poor guy sounds genuinely shaken. I donat blame hima"Iave had a few hours to think about it, and Iam still getting used to the idea. aIall just find onea"a aThink about it. We signed up to join the study knowing it would run for a hundred megs, yes? Funny thing about libraries: You can look things up in them. The gestation time for a human neonate in a host body is twenty-seven to twenty-eight megs. Meanwhile, weare all fertile, and weave been told we can earn points toward our eventual termination bonuses by f.u.c.king. The historical conception rate for healthy orthos having s.e.x while fertile is roughly thirty percent per menstrual cycle. What does that sound like to you?a aBut I, Ia"I mean, you could havea"a Sam holds a soup bowl in front of himself as if itas some kind of shield, and heas trying to keep me at bay.

I glare at him. aDonat say it.a aIa"a He swallows. aHere, take it.a I take the bowl.

aI think I know what you thought I was going to say and youare right and I take it back even though I didnat say it. All right?a He says it very fast, running the words together as if heas nervous.

aYou didnat say it.a I put the bowl down very carefully, because there really is no need to throw it at his head, and also because, once I calm down a fraction, I realize that in point of fact heas right, and he didnat say that if Iad f.u.c.ked him the other night and become pregnant it would have been all my own fault. Smart Sam.

aIt takes two to hold a grudge match.a I lick my lips. aSam, Iam very sorry about the other night.a What comes next is hard to force out. aI shouldnat have taken advantage of you. Iave been going through a bad patch, but thatas no excuse. Iam nota"Iave never beena"particularly good at self-restraint, but it wonat happen again.a And if it does, you wonat get an apology like this, thatas for sure. aMuch as I like you, youare not big on poly and this, this s.h.i.ta"a My shoulders are shaking.

aYou donat have to apologize,a he says, and takes a step forward. Before I know whatas happening heas hugging me, and it really is good to feel his arms around me. aItas my fault, too. I should have more self-control and I knew all along you were getting interested in me, and I shouldnat have put myself in a position where you might have thoughta"a I sniff. as.h.i.t!a I yell, and let go of him then spin round.

The soup is boiling over and thereas a nasty smell from the burner. I kill the power and grab the handle to shift it somewhere safe, then hunt around for something to mop it up with. While Iam doing that Sam, like a zombie with a priority instruction, keeps methodically unloading the washing machine and transferring crockery to the cupboards. Eventually I get whatas left of my soup into a bowl and pile my slices of bread on a plate, wondering why I didnat just use the microwave oven in the first place.

aBy the time I get to eat this, itall all be cold.a aMy fault.a He looks apologetic. aIf Iad let you get on with ita"a aUh-huh.a Weare apologizing to each other for breathing loudly, whatas wrong with us? aListen, hereas a question for you. You know the contract you, uh, signeda"do you remember if there was a maximum duration on partic.i.p.ation?a aA maximum?a He looks startled. aIt just said minimum one hundred megs. Why?a aFigures.a I pick up my plate and bowl and head toward the living room. aHuman neonates hatched in the wild in primitive conditions took at least half a gigasec to reach maturity.a aAre youaa"heas following mea"asaying what I think youare saying?a I put my bowl and plate down on the end table beside the sofa and perch on the arm, because if I sit on the sofa, itall try to swallow me for good. aWhy donat you tell me what you think Iam saying?a aI donat know.a Which means he doesnat want to say. He sits down at the other end of the sofa and stares at me. aWeare being watched, arenat we? All the time. Do you think itas wise to talk about it?a I blow on my soup to speed evaporative cooling. aNo, but thereas no point being paranoid, is there? There are going to be a hundred of us in here in time, at least. I suspect we outnumber the experimenters twenty to one. Are you telling me theyare going to monitor the real-time take on everything we say to each other, as we say it? A lot of the netlink score incidents are preprogrammeda"just events we happen to trigger. Someone has an o.r.g.a.s.m in proximity to their spouse, netlink triggers. A bunch of zombies see someone damaging property or removing clothing in public, their netlinks trigger. It doesnat mean someone is sitting on the switch watching the monitors all the time. Does it?a (Actually itas possible that this is the case, if weare in a panopticon prison run by spooks rather than half-a.s.sed academics, but Iam not going to tell them that I know this, a.s.suming they exist. No way. Especially as I donat know why I know this.) aBut if weare being watcheda"a aListen.a I put my spoon down. aWe are here for a minimum of three years, maximum term unspecified, and we are fertile. That sounds to me like what theyave got in mind involves breeding a population of genuine dark ages citizens. This is a separate polity, in case youad forgotten, which means it has a defensible frontiera"the a.s.sembler that generated these bodies weare wearing. a.s.semblers donat just make things, they filter things: Theyare firewalls. Polities are de facto independent networks of tightly connected T-gates defined by the firewalls that shield their edges from whatever tries to come in through their longjump T-gates. Their borders, in other words. But you can have a polity without internal T-gates; what defines it is the frontier, not the interior. Weare functioning under YFHas rules. Doesnat that mean that anyone born into the place will be under the same rules, too?a aBut what about freedom of movement?a Sam looks antsy. aSurely they canat stop them if they want to emigrate?a aNot if they donat know thereas an outside universe to emigrate to,a I say grimly. I take a spoonful of soup and wince, burning the roof of my mouth. aOuch. We arenat supposed to talk about our earlier lives. What if they tighten the score system a bit more, so that mentioning the outside in front of children, or in public, costs us points? Then how are the nubes going to figure it out?a aThatas crazy.a He jerks his head from side to side emphatically. aWhy would anyone want to do that? I can understand the original purpose of the experiment, to research the social circ.u.mstances of the dark ages by experimental archaeology. But trying to create a whole population of orthos, stuck in this crazy dark ages sim and not even knowing itas a historical re-enactment rather than the real universe . . . !a aIam not sure yet,a I say tiredly. aIam not at all sure what itas about. But thatas the point. Weare missing essential data.a aRight, right.a He looks pained. aDo you suppose itas anything to do with why they were picking people straight out of memory surgery?a aYes, thatas got to be part of it.a I gaze at him across a cold continental rift of sofa. aBut thatas only a part.a I was going to say we have to get out of here, but thatas not enough anymore. And despite what Iave just said publicly, thereas stuff that Iam not going to talk about. Like, I donat think weall ever be allowed out. I donat know if this will ever end. If the child thing is true, they may be prepared to hold us here indefinitely, or worse. And thatas leaving aside the most important questions: Why? And why us?

I go to work the next day, and the one after that, and by the end of my third day I am exhausted. I mean, shattered. Library work doesnat sound as if it should be hard, but when youare working for eleven hours with a one-hour break in the middle for lunch, it wears you down. The daytime is almost empty, but thereas a small rush of custom every evening around six oaclock, and I have to scurry to and fro hunting for tickets, filing returned books, collecting fines, and getting things sorted out. Then in the morning I end up pushing a trolley loaded with books around the shelves, returning the borrowed items and sorting out anything thatas been put back on a shelf out of sequence. If thereas any time left over, I end up dusting the shelves that are due for cleaning.

aHow do you know the books know when theyare being read?a I ask Janis, halfway through my second morning. aI mean, take this one.a I heft it where she can see it, a big green clothbound sheaf of papers with a t.i.tle like The Home Vegetable Garden.

aLook.a Janis takes it from me and bends the cover back, so that the plastic protective sleeve on the spine bends.

I look. aAha.a I can just see something like a squashed fly in there, two hair-fine antennae running up to the st.i.tching atop the spine. aThose are . . . ?a aFiber optics. Thatas my guess.a Janis hums to herself as she closes the book and slides it back into the trolley. aI donat think they can hear you, but they can sense which page is open and track your eyeb.a.l.l.s. The experimenters have been careful to give us all different faces, and we all have two working eyes. Thatas no accident. Not all the ancients had that. If you want to read a book secretly, you need mirrored sungla.s.ses and a timer, so you turn each page after the same amount of time.a aHow do you know all this?a I ask admiringly. aYou sound like a professionala"a The word spy is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it with a little shiver.

aBefore I checked into the clinic, I used to be a detective.a She gives me a long look. aItas a skill set I didnat ask them to erase. Thought it might come in handy in my new life.a aThen what did youa"a I stop myself just in time. aForget I asked.a aBy all means.a She chuckles drily. aListen, they tell me that itas normal for me to check into hospital a week or two before the delivery, and to stay there for a couple of weeks afterward. Can Iaa"she sounds tentativea"aask a big favor of you?a aWhat? Sure,a I say blankly.

aI figure Iam going to be in bed a lot of the time, bored out of my mind, and thereas only so much television you can watch in a day, and Norm is working, so he canat keep me company. Would you mind visiting me and bringing me some library books? So I donat lose track?a aWhy, Iad be delighted to!a I say it with perfect sincerity, because I mean it. If I ever ended up in some kind of dark ages hospital for three or four cycles Iad want visitors. aYouall let me know what you want, all right?a aThank you.a Janis sounds grateful. aNow if you could just get the footstool, these go on the top shelf and I canat reach as high as you can.a On my third day Iam due to meet up with Jen and Angel and Alice and do lunch. Jenas picked the Dominion Cafe as todayas venue, and I walk there from the library, whistling tunelessly. Iam feeling unaccountably smug. Iave found something new to do, Iave got a source of income all of my own, I know things that the ladies who lunch havenat got a clue about, and if only I wasnat spending half my waking hours in fear of the future and wishing I could get out of this gla.s.s-walled prison and hook up with Kay again, Iad probably be quite happy.

The Dominion Cafe is a lot plusher than the name makes it sound, and I feel a bit underdressed as the matre da ushers me to the booth where Jen is holding court. Here I am in a plain skirt and sweater, while Jen wears ever-more-exotic concoctions of spun bug spit and must spend three or four hours a day on her makeovers and hair. Angel isnat so much trying to ape her as getting tugged along in the undertow, and Alice looks a bit uncomfortable in their presence. But what do I care? Theyare people to talk to, and weare chained together by the mutual scorefile so I canat ignore them. This must be how the ancients used to feel about their families.

ah.e.l.lo all,a I say, pulling out a chair. aAnd how are you today?a Jen waves at a metal bucket on a stand, with some kind of cloth draped over it. aLivina large!a she announces. aGirls, a gla.s.s for Reeve. Wonat you join us in a little Chateau Lafitte a59?a aA littlea"a She whisks the cloth off the bucket, and I see itas full of ice packed around a green gla.s.s bottle.

aChampagne,a Alice says, a little apologetically. aFizzy wine.a aI wouldnat say no.a Angel holds out a fluted gla.s.s while Jen picks up the bottle and pours.

aWhy, is there something in particular to celebrate?a Jen and Angel donat normally do their drinking before sunset. So I figure it must be good.

aWell.a Jenas eye sparkles wickedly. aYou might think it was something to do with your correcting your last social shortcoming at long last.a I feel my face heating. aBut thatas not it.a b.i.t.c.h. aItas just that this is Aliceas last drink for some time.a aExcuse me?a I say, unsure whatas going on.

aAbout eight months to go,a Alice says, dabbing at her lips with a napkin. Her eyes flicker from me to Jen and back again, as if looking for an offer of help.

aIa"a I stop. Lick my lips. aYouare pregnant?a aYes.a Alice nods, a quick up and down. She doesnat look happy. Jen, however, looks ecstatic.

aHereas to Alice and her baby!a She raises a gla.s.s of bubbly, and I echo the gesture because it would be rude not to, but as I take a mouthful of the sweet, fizzy wine I catch Aliceas eye, and itas like thereas a static dischargea"I can see exactly what sheas thinking.

aTo your very good health,a I tell her over the rim of my gla.s.s, and Iam pretty sure she gets the unspoken message because her shoulders slump slightly, and she takes a small sip from her own gla.s.s. I look at Jen. aAnd you?a I ask, before I can apply the brakes to my motor mouth.

Jen doesnat crack a smile. aShouldnat be too long now,a she remarks, calmly enough. aThen you can buy me a bottle of champagne too, eh?a I manage to summon up the ghost of a grin from somewhere. aYou must want a baby badly.a aOf course! And Iam not just going to stop at one.a Jen smiles at me sympathetically. aOf course, I heard all about your job. It must be very difficult.a aItas not so bad,a I manage, before retreating into the gla.s.s. b.i.t.c.h. aYou know Janis is pregnant, too?a Iall bet you do. aIam training to be her replacement.a What is this, letas all overload the life-support system week? aItas going to mean more work for the rest of us.a aOh, youall be next,a Jen says, with a casual, airy certainty that makes my blood run cold. aYouall see things differently when youave got one of your own. I say, waiter! Waiter! Whereas our menu?a

9.

Secret.

TIME pa.s.ses fast, mostly because I spend the afternoon with my nose buried in the encyclopedia, trying to remedy my desperate ignorance of dark ages reproductive politics. Which I sense is putting me at a dangerous disadvantage.

The next day is the first of four days off. I sleep until well after Samas departed for the office. Then I go downstairs and work out. Of the nine other houses on our stretch of road, one is now occupied by Nicky and Wolfa"but Wolf has a job and Nicky, who is lazy beyond my wildest aspirations, sleeps in until noon. So I get in a good hour-long run, by the end of which Iam sweated up but not breathless or aching anymore. Itas spring in our biome, and the trees and flowers are beginning to blossom. The air is full of the airborne seminiferous dust shed by the hermaphroditic vegetation. It tickles my nose, making me sneeze, but some of the scents that accompany ita"attractants for insectsa"are nice.

After exercise I shower, dress in respectable clothes, and head downtown to the hardware store to spend some of my money. I feel better about spending it, knowing itas not Samas money, even though I realize this is stupid because itas just meaningless scrip issued to keep the experiment working, not real currency. I come away from the store with a brazing torch, flux, solder, lots and lots of copper wire, and some other odds and ends. Then I go shopping for domestic items.

I hit the drugstore first, armed with a shopping list of things Iad never heard of until yesterdaya"things the encyclopedia listed under s.e.xual health. Unfortunately, just knowing what to ask for doesnat translate into being able to buy it, and I gradually figure out that the omissions make a pattern. I can understand them not having progestogen-based medications on general sale. But why are there no absorbent sponges? Or the plastic penile sheaths I read about? After about half an hour of searching I conclude that the drugstore is useless by design. I ran across a rather shocking article on religious beliefs about s.e.x and reproduction, and it looks like our drugstore was stocked on the basis of instructions from eclecticist hierophants. Something tells me that the lack of contraceptives is not an accident. Iam just surprised I havenat already heard people grumbling about it.

I have better luck in the department store, where I buy a new microwave oven, some clip-on spotlights, and a few other items. Then I go hunting for a craft shop. It takes me a while to find what Iam looking for, but in the end I discover one tucked in a corner of the shop, inside a pulp cartona"a small wooden loom, suitable for weaving cloth. I buy it along with a whole bunch of woolen thread, just so n.o.body raises any eyebrows. Then I catch a taxi home and install my loot in the garage, along with the unfinished crossbow and the other projects.

Itas time to get things moving. Itas time I stopped kidding myself that I can fight my way out of here, and time that I stopped kidding myself that theyare going to let me go in (I checked the calendar) another ninety-four megaseconds. Forget the crossbow and the other toys Iave been playing with. Iave got a stark choice. I can conform like everyone else, go native in the pocket polity theyave established, settle down and get on with the job of creating a generation of innocents who donat even know thereas another universe outside. Who knows? After a gigasecond, will I even remember I had another life? Itas not as if my presurgery self left me much to hold on to . . .

Or I can try to find out whatas really going on. Fiore and his shadowy boss, Bishop Yourdon, are doing something with this polity, that much is clear. This isnat just a straightforward experimental archaeology commune. Too many aspects of the setup turn out to be just plain wrong when you examine them closely. If I can figure out what theyare trying to do, maybe I can discover a way out.

Which is why I spend a personal infinity laboriously stripping reel after reel of copper wire of its insulation and threading it onto the loom. The first step in figuring out whatas going on is to get myself some privacy. I need a shoulder bag lined with woven copper mesh to accompany the bug-zapper (my repurposed microwave oven), and thereas no way I could order a Faraday cage from one of the stores without setting off alarms.

It takes me nearly two weeks to weave a square meter of copper wire broadcloth, working in darkness by touch alone. Itas really fiddly stuff to work with. The strands keep breaking or bending, it takes ages to strip the insulation, and besides, Iave got a day job to go to.

Janis is complaining about minor back pains and spending a lot of time in the toilet each morning, coming out looking pale. There are fewer wisecracks and jokes from her, which is a shame. Sheas beginning to bulge around the waist, too. Sheas putting a brave face on it, but I think underneath it all sheas terrified. The prospect of giving birth like an animal (with all the attendant risk and pain) is enough to scare anybody, even if it didnat come with the added horror of being chained down in this place for the indefinite hereafter, the product of your blood and sweat held hostage against your cooperation. What I want to know is, why isnat there a resistance movement? I suppose in a panopticon anyone organizing such a thing would have to be very quiet about ita"or very naivea"but I canat help wondering why I havenat seen any signs of even covert defiance.

I checked the YFH-Polity const.i.tution in the library (thereas a copy on a lectern out front, for everybody to read) and whatas missing from it is as important as whatas there. Thereas a bill of rights that explicitly includes the phrase aright to lifea (which, if you read some dark ages histories, doesnat mean what a naive modern would think it means), and it goes on to explicitly waive all expectations of a right to privacy, which means they can enforce it against my will. Ick. The const.i.tution is a public protocol specification defining the parameters within which YFHas legal system operates. Before I came here, it seemed irrelevant, but now it terrifies mea"and I notice that it says nothing about a commitment to freedom of movement. Thatas been an axiom for virtually all human polities, ever since the end of the censorship wars mopped up the last nests of Curious Yellow and the memetic dictatorships. Not that youall find any such knowledge in our shelves; history stops in 2050, as far as your reading in this library goes, and anyway, everything after 2005 is accessible only via the computer terminals, using an arcane conversational text interface that Iam still fumblingly trying to explore.

I see relatively little of Sam during this time. After our argument, indeed ever since the halfhearted reconciliation, heas withdrawn from me. Maybe itas the shock of learning about his reproductive competence, but heas very distant. Before that nightmare, before I messed up everything between us, Iad hug him when he got home from work. Wead have a laugh together, or chat, and we were (Iam sure of this) growing close. But since that night and our argument, we havenat even touched. I feel isolated and a bit afraid. If we did touch Iada"I donat know. Letas be honest about this: I have an active s.e.x drive, but the thought of getting pregnant in here scares the s.h.i.t out of me. And while there are other things we could do if we were inclined to intimacy, I find the whole situation is a very effective turnoff. So I canat really blame Sam for avoiding me as much as he can. The sooner he gets out of here the sooner he can rush off in search of his romantic lovea"a.s.suming the b.i.t.c.h didnat give up on him and go in search of a poly nucleus to joyfully exchange bodily fluids with about five seconds after he joined the experiment. Sam broods, and, knowing his luck, heas fixated on someone I wouldnat give the time of day to.

Thatas life for you.

FOUR weeks into my new job, twelve weeks before Janis is due to go on maternity leave, I have another wake-up-screaming nightmare.

This time things are different. For one thing, Sam isnat there to hold me when I wake up. And for another, I know with cold certainty that this one is true. Itas not simply a hideous dream, itas something that actually happened to me. Something that wasnat meant to be erased back at the clinic.

Iam sitting at a desk in a cramped rectangular room with no doors or windows. The walls are the color of old gold, dulled but iridescent, rainbows of diffraction coming off them whenever I look away from the desk. Iam in an orthohuman male body, not the mecha battlecorpse of my previous nightmare, and Iam wearing a simple tunic in a livery that I vaguely recognize as belonging to the clinic of the surgeon-confessors.

On the desk in front of me sits a stack of rough paper sheets, handwoven with ragged edges. I made the stuff myself a long time ago, and any embedded snitches in it have long since died of old age. In my left hand I hold a simple ink pen with a handle made of bone that I carved from the femur of my last bodya"a little personal conceit. Thereas a bottle of ink at the opposite side of the desk, and I recall that procuring this ink cost a surprising amount of time and money. The ink has no history. The carbon soot particles suspended in it are isotopically randomized. You canat even tell what region of the galaxy it came from. Anonymous ink for a poison pen. How suitable . . .

Iam writing a letter to someone who doesnat exist yet. That person is going to be alone, confused, probably very frightened indeed. I feel a terrible sympathy for him in his loneliness and fear, because Iave been there myself, and I know what heas going through. And Iall be right there with him, living through every second of it. (Somethingas wrong. The letter I remember reading back in rehab was only three pages, but this stack is much thicker. Whatas happening?) I hunch over the desk, gripping the pen tightly enough that it forms a painful furrow beside the first joint of my middle finger as I scratch laborious tracks across the fibrous sheets.

As I remember the sensations in my fingers, the somatic memory of writing, I get a horrible sense of certainty, a deep conviction that I really did send myself a twenty-page letter from the past, stuff I desperately needed to seea"of which only three pages were allowed to reach me.

Dear self: Right now youare wondering who you are. I a.s.sume youare over the wild mood swings by now and can figure out what other peopleas emotional states signify. If not, I suggest you stop reading immediately and leave this letter for later. Thereas stuff in here that you will find disturbing. Access it too soon, and youall probably end up getting yourself killed.

Who are you? And who am I?

The answer to that question is that you are me and I am you, but you lack certain key memoriesa"most importantly, everything that meant anything to me from about two and a half gigaseconds ago. Thatas an awfully long time. Back before the Acceleration most humans didnat live that long. So youare probably asking yourself why Ia"your earlier selfa"might want to erase all those experiences. Were they really that bad?

No, they werenat. In fact, if I hadnat gone through deep memory surgery a couple of times before, Iad be terrified. Thereas stuff in here, stuff in my head, that I donat want to lose. Forgetting is a little like dying, and forgetting seventy Urth-years of memories in one go is a lot like dying.

Luckily forgetfulness, like death, is reversible these days. Go to the House of Rishael the Exceptional in Block 54-Honey-September in the Polity of the Jade Sunrise and, after presenting a tissue sample, ask to speak to Jordaan. Jordaan will explain how to recover my latest imprint from escrow and how to merge the imprint block back into your mind. Itas a difficult process, but itas stuff that belongs to you and brought you deep happiness when you were me. In fact, itas the stuff that makes me myselfa"and the lack of which defines who you are in relation to me.

Incidentally, one of the things youall find in the imprint is the memory of how to access a trust fund with a quarter million cus in it.

(Yes, Iam a manipulative worm: I want you to become me again, sooner or later. Donat worry, youare a manipulative worm, tooa"you must be, if youare alive to read this letter.) Now, the basics.

You are recovering from deep memory erasure surgery. You are probably thinking that once you recover youall go and spend the usual wanderjahr looking for a vocation, find somewhere to live, meet friends and lovers, and set up a life for yourself. Wrong. The reason you are recovering from memory erasure surgery is that the people you work for have noticed a disturbing pattern of events centered on the Clinic of the Blessed Singularity run by the order of surgeon-confessors at City Zone Darke in the Invisible Republic. People coming out of surgery are being offered places in a psychological/historical research project aimed at probing the social conditions of the first dark age by live role-play. Some of these people have very questionable histories: in some cases, questionable to the point of being fugitive war criminals.

Your mission (and no, you donat have any choicea"I already committed us to it) is to go inside the YFH-Polity, find out whatas going on, then come back out to tell us. Sounds simple, doesnat it?

Thereas a catch. The research community has been established inside a former military prison, a gla.s.shouse that was used as a reprogramming and rehabilitation center after the war. It was widely believed to be escape-proof at the time, and itas certainly a very secure facility. Other agents have already gone in. One very experienced colleague of yours vanished completely, and is now over twenty megs past their criticality deadline. Another reappeared eleven megaseconds late, reported to the prearranged debriefing node, and detonated a concealed antimatter device, killing the instance of their case officer who was in attendance.

I believe that both agents were compromised because they were injected into the gla.s.shouse with extensive prebriefing and training. We have no idea what to expect on the other side of the longjump gate into YFH-Polity, but their security is tight. We expect extensive border firewalls and a focused counterespionage operation supported by the surveillance facilities of a maximum-security prison. There is likely to be stateful examination of your upload vector, and careful background checks before you are admitted. This is why I am about to undergo deep memory excision. Simply put, what you donat know canat betray you.

Incidentally, if youare experiencing lucid dreams about this stuff, it means youare overdue. This is the secondary emergent fallback briefing. Iam about to have these memories partially eraseda"unlinked, but not destroyeda"before I go into the clinic in City Zone Darke. Itas a matter of erasing the a.s.sociative links to the data, not the data itself. Theyall re-emerge given sufficient time, hopefully even after the surgeon-confessors go after the other memories that Iall be asking them to redact. They canat erase what I donat know Iave already forgotten.

What is the background to your mission?

I can tell you very little. Our records are worryingly incomplete, and to some extent this is a garbage trawl triggered by the coincidence of the names Yourdon, Fiore, and Hanta cropping up in the same place.

During the censorship wars, Curious Yellow infected virtually every A-gate in the Republic of Is. We donat know who released Curious Yellow, or why, because Curious Yellow appears to have been created for the sole purpose of delivering a psywar payload designed to erase all memories and data pertaining to something or other. By squatting the a.s.semblers, Curious Yellow ensured that anyone who needed medical care, food, material provisions, or just about any of the necessities of civilization, had to submit to censorship. Needless to say, some of us took exception to this, and the subsequent civil wara"in which the Republic of Is shattered into the current system of firewalled politiesa"resulted in a major loss of data about certain key areas. In particular, the key services provided by the Republica"a common time framework and the ability to authenticate ident.i.tiesa"were broken. The situation was complicated, after the defeat of the Curious Yellow censorship worm, by the emergence of quisling dictatorships whose leaders took advantage of the Curious Yellow software to spread their own pernicious ideologies and power structures. In the ensuing chaos, even more information was lost.