And so the fox returns to the henhouse to find a bear, squatting, happily licking blood and feathers from its muzzle. Han Fleming couldn’t get that image out of his mind.

Bertrand Chambers. Out in the real himself. He must be desperate, despite the whole-body transplant. That was what it had to be. If he was really that young, he wouldn’t be out in the real.

No. He was desperate. Maybe even taking Mimetene or Cognitrol or one of the newest brain-drugs, struggling to keep his decaying brain working efficiently. He certainly seemed sharp enough. He didn’t act like he was on the extreme end of the rejuve curve. He seemed more like an 80-year-old, rejuvenated for the first time. All the fine grit of experience, polishing a soul, finally revived in a form that didn’t hurt, that actually felt, that had passions, that could do something. Han remembered his first thought out of his first rejuve, back over a hundred and fifty years ago: My god, I can do anything now.

So. Yes. Maybe drugs. In that case, he was even more desperate. Or maybe some of the new persona engineering. Though they probably wouldn’t chance the instability problem on their CEO. Unless Winfinity itself was hatching an heir.

Either way, the timeline had suddenly shrunk.

Han made his way to the Disney Mars Hilton and took their penthouse suite. Fully a hundred feet aboveground, it gave him panoramic views of the salmon-reds and rust-oranges and saffron-yellows of Mars. Disney Mars was located on one of the steppes of Ius Chasma, near one of the paths of the contestants in the original Winning Mars. Lights traced the Rothman team’s path up a near-vertical climb across the canyon; Han’s optilink told him that vacationers could recreate the experience for a small fee.

No. Not for him. He was only allowing himself time to sleep because he was exhausted. And because his armored Kite wasn’t yet outfitted. And because he wanted a little more time to let the AIs crunch the fragments of data from Black2. It seemed like the Shrill had been victim of a straightforward smash-and-grab by the Freemers, but there was no destinational data. None that didn’t conflict, anyway. And with all the ongoing activity on the Winfinity net and the golf-ball-through-a-garden-hose nature of the fragmented Martian datanets, Han didn’t trust the result yet. He’d chased down too many bad plans to rush swiftly in.

The right plan made the difference between who was the bear and who was the fox. And Han knew who he wanted to be.

Incoming call, sir, a soft voice whispered in his ear.

Tell them I’m sleeping, Han subvocalized.

Caller requests priority conference.

They can wait.

Caller has offered identification. It is Bertrand Chambers, CEO and Chairman of Winfinity Enterprises Inc, a corporation based–

“I know what they are,” Han growled, out loud. Put him on.

The freeform holotank in the center of the room lit with an image of the boyish CEO, his face distorted by high-G boost.

“I was just thinking about you, Mr. Fox,” Han said. “Fleeing the henhouse after a little surprise?”

“Don’t start with your analogies,” Chambers said. “I don’t know what they mean, and I don’t fucking care.”

“If not an exchange of pleasantries between two equals, then why the call?”
“Equals!”

“Oh, yes, sorry. Four Hands, taken together, is slightly larger than Winfinity. I’m sorry your company no longer quite measures up.”

Chambers face went red, even in the high-G field. He growled deep in his throat. “You’re a fucking conglomerate. We’re unified.”

“Perhaps less than you think.”

“What does that mean?”

Han smiled, but said nothing.

“Okay. Fine. I just wanted to tell you, formally, ties between Winfinity and Four Hands are now severed. After your repeated attacks on our network, we have found further cooperation to be counter to our interests. Do you understand that, you fucking windbag?”

“Ah. That must mean that your fleet has arrived.” Though Han knew that, from periodic status reports from the Four Hands fleet. Mars orbit had become crowded with warships in the last forty hours. But Four Hands still held the edge in numbers.

“Among other things.”

“Though I notice you’re not using the short-range Spindle ship to bring you to Mars. Still a bit unreliable, eh?”

“How do you know I’m coming to Mars?”

“All the best people are coming to Mars this time of year.”

Chambers colored again and closed his eyes, as if trying to regain control of his emotions. Han smiled. Drugs. He’d seen this before, back when Disney was still being run by Roy II. He didn’t need the AIs to crunch the data from this conversation and tell him.

So the timeline had been moved up. Interesting, very interesting.

“Han. Be careful, or you may find yourself without a floor to stand on, or a header to breathe out of.”

“Threatening me in Mars Disney? That’s very funny.”

“Not a threat. A promise.”

“Seeing Win-Sec trying to make it through a Mouseketeer line might be highly amusing. Why don’t you send some down?”

“Seeing your fucking skeleton imprinted on the back wall of your suite might be highly fucking amusing, too.”

Han sighed. “So you’d violate the Gentlemens’ Agreement again?”

“No. Winfinity never did. Though I can’t say what the Church might do.”

Han called up latest figures from Minnie, one of the Four Hands flagships. There were seventy-three Four Hands warships in orbit. Versus fifty-one confirmed Winfinity ships. Pretty good odds, given the Four Hands 1.4:1 average advantage in armaments.

But they had that damnable short-range Spindle Drive. Even if they weren’t willing to use it on their CEO again, that wouldn’t stop them from Spindling in a hundred more ships at the worst possible moment.

If it even worked for larger ships. That golden ship was very, very small.

No. The Disney imagineers were still arguing over it. Betting that Winfinity wasn’t holding the short-range Spindle in reserve was a bad gamble. At least for now.

“Goodbye, Chambers.”

A brief smile. “Goodbye, Han.”

#

“A crawler?” Tiphani said, looking at the long segmented vehicle doubtfully. It was painted in Martian camo – muted shades of red, brown, and yellow, and bore the script Almighty McD on the front segment. Big tank-treads showed beneath the vehicle’s skirts, thickly crusted with Martian dust.

“What you want, a flyer?” one of the Consumeristian Youth asked, looking up from wrenching in the darkness behind an open service panel.

“It would be nice.”

“Until you got shot down.” The youth offered a rough laugh.

“This’ll take days,” Tiphani said.

“Not that long. And you’ll get there alive.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Fly over the Free Areas without the right acks and secret-handshakes and I-know-you-know-me codes, and you’re done. They treat it like it’s private property, even the air.”

“Good afternoon, Honored Yin, Tiphani Mirate,” said a new voice, behind them. Tiphani turned and saw a heavyset man who looked vaguely familiar. Almost like the captain of the Holy Saleschannel, the one with the bandages. Standing with him was a short bulldog of a man with dark hair and bright, glittering eyes. She recognized him immediately.

“Alan!” she said. “And, um, you were . . .”

“Preacher Dave Thomas. Pleased to meet you, Tiphani.”

“But you were on the ship! The tent revival ship. The Holy Saleschannel. How’d you get here?”

“The Holy Franchise works in mysterious ways, my lady,” Preacher Dave said.

“Shortrange Spindle,” Honored Yin said.

“Yes,” Alan said, not looking happy.

“I don’t see any arms growing out of your foreheads,” Honored Yin said.

Preacher Dave squeezed his eyes shut. Alan just shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” Tiphani said. “Honored Yin’s still recovering from the suspension drugs.”

“Am not!” Honored Yin said.

“Honored Yin, you are acting differently. Compare your own performance summaries.”

“No! I’m me! Me’s I! Nothing else to know!”

Preacher Dave cleared his throat. “I see.”

“Why are you here?” Honored Yin asked.

“We’re to pilot the, uh, Almighty McD, to ensure the continuity of our shared mission.”

“Translation: you’re here because you fucked up mightily and they want a single chain of command to blame if you fuck up again. Or a single chain of command to redeem if we actually manage to pull this off.”

“I, um, don’t believe that’s entirely it.”
“Oh, no, the Church just loved you so much they sent you here for a little resort vacation.”

“Actually, we do have a broad range of experience in the Free Areas,” Alan said. “We are a logical choice to head this mission.”

“Can’t you get us something faster?” Tiphani asked.

Preacher Dave smiled and came to put a hand around Tiphani’s neck in a fake buddy-buddy gesture. His hand came to rest near the top of her breasts. “Dear Tiphani, I’d do anything I could to expedite this mission, but you don’t understand–”

Tiphani shrugged out from under his hand. “No. I don’t understand. You’ve been going in and converting for years–”

“Decades, actually,” Alan said.

“And you don’t have enough acks to fly through?”

Preacher Dave smiled. “The Freemars have proven extremely difficult to convert.”

“You must have someone inside that could fly you in.”

“Uh, well, no.”

“How many people have you converted?”

“Of the Freemers?”

“Yes!”

Preacher Dave looked heavenwards. Alan shrugged and said, “It’s early in the campaign. It takes a long time to achieve the results people think are so easy.”

“You haven’t converted anyone?”

“Nobody with a flyer,” Preacher Dave said.

Tiphani sighed and shook her head.

“It’ll be good, dear Tiphani. This thing really moves.”

“Let the sacrificial cows be,” Honored Yin said. “This is what we have. This is what we got.”

They gave her and Yin the cabin behind the lead segment to themselves, as if they were carrying some kind of strange disease that required quarantine. At one point, the cabin might have been casually elegant, but years of use and Martian dust had taken the sheen off the plastics. The synthetic leather seats were well-used, the plastic windows scratched and dusty. A well-thumbed copy of the Consumeristian Tract sat on a low table.

Yin looked apathetically out a window, leaning on the padded ledge with her forehead pressed against it. Outside, consumeristians were scrambling towards the vehicle. Tiphani hoped that meant they were departing soon.

At least the manic thing had passed, Tiphani thought. Yin seemed calmer. Maybe the drugs would soon finish their dance on Yin’s psyche and she’d be normal again soon.

Unless this is normal now, Tiphani thought, remembering Yin’s performance before the shortrange Spindle flight.

The Almighty McD started with a thud and a jerk. The grinding sound of sand in steel gears built slowly to a steady roar as they slid out of Rockport. Ruddy Martian scenery crawled past, painfully slow, like a ride on an old-fashioned steam railroad.

The door ahead of them slid open, briefly revealing Alan in the co-pilot’s chair. Preacher Dave stepped in, and the door shut behind him.

“Anything we can get you girls?” Preacher Dave said, rubbing his hands together.

“Besides faster transport?” Tiphani said.

“I’m hurt,” Preacher Dave said, his expressive face pulling down into an almost comical look of despair. “The Almighty McD averaged 81 kph for its last long-range trip, not bad over these roads.”

“How long till we get there?”

“Tomorrow. Mid-morning.”

Tiphani nodded. That wasn’t bad. She glanced out at the scenery, which had changed to almost untouched-looking low Martian hills and rock-strewn plains. They didn’t seem to be moving that fast, but that could be misleading. The Almighty McD glided over the rugged Martian terrain like a millipede. The ride inside was almost disturbingly quiet, with only a few smooth, large-scale motions to mar the peace. More like a ship on the ocean than a big segmented tank.

“Are we in the Free Areas already?” she said.

“No, we’re in the borderlands. The area around Rockport is probably the most hotly contested real estate on Mars. The Freemars don’t claim it, but the Jereists and Govs both do, and there are scattered Frees in the middle of it all.”

“They’re all crazy,” Honored Yin said.

“I can agree there,” Preacher Dave said.

They passed burrows bearing signs that read: THE HARVEYS, CIRCLE J RANCH, MCDONALD RESIDENCE. Around each burrow was a large mound of dirt and rocks, as well as the detritus of a long-time pioneer family: pieces of twisted, burned metal, yellowed plastic sheets flapping in the breeze, broken small appliances, sun-bleached and unidentifiable, sheets of unused insulating foam, and, in one case, fanciful sculptures of frog-like beings placed at regular intervals around the perimeter. Like the Easter Island statues, but in miniature.

“What are those all about?” Tiphani said.

“The burrows? Early settlers. Some of them still here.”

“No, the sculptures.”

Preacher Dave frowned. “Never really thought about them.”

Of course. “Martians?” Tiphani said, just to taunt.

“Party line is that Martian life never evolved above the crinoid type.”

“Evolved?” Tiphani said, raising an eyebrow.

“We’re not the Christian splinter. The Holy Franchise has touched many worlds. Some, like Earth, have been more successful than others.”

You really believe that crap, don’t you? Tiphani thought.

She looked back at the rapidly disappearing statues, and wondered what kind of life Mars once might have held. She knew there were whispers of more advanced fossils. Were these things based on that, or a figment of the oxygen-starved settlers’ imagination?

Tiphani sighed. She’d probably never know.

“I hate Mars,” Honored Yin said, stamping her feet on the dust-sucking grate at the entrance to the Winfinity Express Hotel in Rockport.

“Why?” Tiphani asked.

“We shouldn’t be here. Trying to make this like earth.”
“You’re a Preservationist?”

“No! We shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a franchise. Not touched by the Holy Franchise, that is. The other blue worlds, like San Fernando, like Shoujo, are. But we shouldn’t try to make a world. It’s not part of the franchise. And when it’s not part of the franchise, things fall apart.”

Tiphani just stared. Yin’s lips were still a bit blue from the suspension drugs. The instructions said they might be disoriented for a while after coming up from a high-G flight. And Tiphani did feel a little fuzzy herself. But Yin’s eyes flashed with genuine hatred.

“Not part of the franchise means you got fifth-wheels and hangers-on and useless-cogs and spare-parts, all thinking they should be independents, all wanting to be free,” Yin said.

“The Freemars.”

“No! The fucking Independents. They’ve always had a good presence here. We should have known.”

“Do you think that’s who intercepted the Shrill?”

“Of course! Who else!” Yin slammed her bags up against the cheap yellow plastic counter and looked around the drab, low-ceilinged lobby. “And look at this, we’re staying in an Express! Next stop, indentured again.”

The yellow-suited Winfinity Express Host behind the counter frowned at Honored Yin, even though he only wore a Manager’s pin. “Winfinity Express is the only Winfinity hotel presence on Mars, madam,” he said.

“And look at this!” Honored Yin yelled. “Talked down to by a Manager! Everyone here thinks they’re free! Even our own employees!”

The Winfinity Express Host drew himself up to his full Martian height. He stood over two full meters tall. He made his face carefully neutral. “Do you ladies have reservations?”

“Yes.”

“Your ID tags aren’t showing,” he said, looking down his nose at the old-fashioned flatscreen.

“Maybe it’s under Chambers,” Honored Yin said. “As in Highest Chambers, the man who sent us here.”

The Winfinity Express Host paled and looked back down at his monitor.

“Don’t even pretend to look!” Yin snapped. “Just get us in our rooms. This has been a long and awful trip, and I need to rest!”

“Uh, room, actually,” the Winfinity Express Host said. “You’re booked in a single room.”

“I don’t believe–”

“And there is also a message awaiting you from Highest Chambers.”

“You see?”

The Winfinity Express Host rolled his eyes, but said nothing. “You’re coded. Room 1232 will let you in.”

Honored Yin gave him one last glare and stomped away.

“Thanks,” Tiphani said.

The Winfinity Express Host gave her a thin smile. Tiphani tried to return it with an honest grin-of-long-suffering, because she knew that irritating the hotel desk always brought revenge. His smile stretched a fraction. Tiphani shrugged and mouthed the word, Sorry.

His grin stretched a fraction more. She felt a little better.

In the room, a blinking message light on the ancient imagetank flashed bright blue, and Tiphani’s optilink fed her a priority tag showing that the message was URGENT, REPLY IMMEDIATELY REQUESTED.

Honored Yin threw down her bags. “No windows. Nice. And he didn’t even offer a bellman.”

“Maybe they don’t have them here.”
“They have them on Proxima. On the floater hotel. If that isn’t a backwater, I don’t know what is.”

Tiphani nodded, afraid to say anything.

Honored Yin thumbed the message button on the imagetank. Swirling darkness was replaced by the three-dimensonal image of Highest Chambers, looking somehow even more boyish and insecure. Small text floated below, indicating it was a RECORDED MESSAGE.

“Yin, Tiphani. As they said in the old days, Welcome to Mars. Now go home. But no. I know you’re disappointed. I never expected for Win-Sec to be taken down by a bunch of unsuited assholes. I promise you that once we get this Shrill deal squared away, I will blaze the universe clear of the fucking independents. I don’t care if it means giving seven hundred ships to the goddamn consumeristians, or if it means violating the Gentlemen’s Agreement ten thousand times over. I’m done with these festering warts on the ass of good corporate culture. We’ve let them interact with the Freemars way too long. I don’t blame you for what happened here, but I expect you to help clean up the mess. Problem is . . .”

The text in the tank changed to: LIVE MESSAGE. Highest Chamber’s face gave a glitch, becoming the wide-lipped sneer of a high-G boost.

“The problem is we have no fucking idea of what happened to them,” Highest Chambers said. “We don’t know which Independent faction has them, or if the Freemers took it on themselves to grab them, or where the hell they’re going.”

“Who cares? Blaze them all!” Honored Yin said.

“Do we know who’s in the group, Highest Chambers?” Tiphani said. “That might help us determine where they are going.”

“Dian Winning. Jimson Ogilvy. Maybe a courier. Probably the embodied artie, unless it dumped the body. Our best minds think that the bet is on Jimson Ogilvy running the group.”

“As a defector to a rival corp?”

“No, as his own agent. Heading for the Free Areas.”

“Everyone thinks they’re open cogs!” Honored Yin said.

“What’s wrong with her?” Highest Chambers said.

“I think the suspension drugs,” Tiphani said.

“Nothing wrong with me! Blaze the Freemars! Kill the Independents!”

Highest Chambers shook his head. “Anyway, that’s the best hypothesis. Problem is, there’s so much Free Mars and Four Hands Mars that we’re kind of fucked. There’s no trail. Not even from the landing to Rockport proper. Nothing.”
“Moles still in the system?” Tiphani said.

“Has to be. I thought we purged them all, but there are anomalous bandwidth usages and gaps in the found media archives. We have a small group of arties and real minds working on that right now.”

“Dian Winning said Lazrus was looking for Oversight.”

“Current hypothesis doesn’t have Dian Winning running the group.”

“Lazrus abducted the Shrill.”

“So?”

“Dian said that Lazrus stated he wanted to perfect himself. Maybe he felt the Shrill and Oversight together were the key. And wouldn’t the Shrill be driving the group, not Jimson?”

“If they’re letting the Shrill drive the group.”

“You remember how violently it reacted when we didn’t give it what it wanted.”

Highest Chambers frowned. “That’s a lot of maybes.”

“Dian said that Oversight was part of Operation Martian Freedom. Isn’t the remains of that in the Free Areas?”

Another frown, deeper this time. “That fucking Oversight fable. Great.”

“So Oversight didn’t really exist?” Tiphani said.

“I didn’t say that. But your idea has a lot of maybes.”

“It gives us a target to shoot for in the Free Areas.”

“Yeah. Great again. Governmentals this time.” Highest Chambers shook his head, but gave her a faint smile.

“Governmentals?”

“Yeah, they control the Operation Martian Freedom site.”

“Governmentals?”

“The Freemars seem to tolerate them.”

“That’s strange.”

A shrug. “I don’t explain them, I just know how things go. But that was good thinking. You might earn your way back up the ladder yet, pretty Tiphani.”

“Thank you, Highest Chambers.”

“Go in! Guns blazing!” Honored Yin said.

“We could send you into the Operation Martian Freedom site on a commercial transport,” Highest Chambers said. “But, truthfully, I do like Yin’s idea.”

“What?”

“Have her call her friends. The consumeristians.”

“My friends!” Yin said. “Lots of guns!”

“You wouldn’t actually want to go in shooting, though, would you?”

“Not unless they shoot first,” Highest Chambers said. “But if we have one of their armored Conversion ships there, we have a lot more options.”

“Yeah! Bang!” Honored Yin said.

I believe you are in trouble, Lazrus, Sara said. Text only, a dribble of bytes.

Sara! Where are you? Lazrus called.

I am where I always am.

I thought you weren’t talking to me.

I am now.

I’m sorry, Lazrus said.

I am, too. I’m losing hope we will ever try again.

We will, if I get out of this.

Where are you, Lazrus?

You can’t tell?

No. Black. Hard. Can only push this through.

We’re with the Independents. They’ve captured us and the Shrill.

That thing!

Can you help us at all? Lazrus said.

No. All I can say is that I still love you, and want to try again.

We will, Lazrus promised.

Not now extraneous communication (talking!) the Shrill thundered in Lazrus’ mind. Save connection negotiate concentrate (explain) ramifications.

What’s wrong with you? Lazrus said.

Nothing nothing kill eat!

Lazrus tried to close the channel to the Shrill. Probably best, he thought, if the Independents intended to kill it. He didn’t need the persona-shear or meme-damage.

The channel refused to close.

Lazrus tried to reallocate bandwidth to other channels, but the reallocation didn’t work. His connection to the Shrill was as strong as ever.

Understand (one) do not struggle, the Shrill said. Singing now.

Oh, no, Lazrus thought.

Maybe if he had more connection to his external self. But looking at the interwoven threads, he saw the Shrill connected to his greater self. If he increased the connection, the number of interwoven threads would grow. If he abandoned the body, he would still be connected to the Shrill.

Were the independents doing it? Lazrus visualized the data connections for both Kerry Whitehall and Seven, thick ropelike strands pointing at shiny black secure servers. None of their protocols matched his. They weren’t binding him.

“What does this mean?” Lazrus said.

“What?” Kerry said.

Lazrus shook his head. He’d been unaware that he’d been speaking aloud. So like a human. He was becoming more human every day.

And, so it appeared, Shrill.

“What are you going to do with us?” he asked.

Kerry sighed and shook his head. “With you? Nothing. Fly, CI, go and find your Oversight.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll build you another body.”

“No,” Lazrus said. “You don’t understand. I can’t. The Shrill and I are sharing datastreams.”

Kerry’s eyes widened. He turned to the groupmind-waldo and said, “Is this true?”

Colorful displays appeared in the center of the table. Lazrus recognized a three-dimensional representation of the Web of Worlds datanet. Bright blue threads reached from one edge to the other.

That’s where I am, Lazrus thought. Most of me, anyway.

“Yes,” Seven said. “The Shrill are starting entanglement.”

“What if we cut him now?”

“Pointers go to his larger self.”

“Can we wipe his metamind?” Kerry said.

Lazrus felt a spike of fear. On the display, he saw the blue threads fragment and spread over a much wider portion of the Web of Worlds Datanet. His mind went laggy and slow.

“He’s shifted center of consciousness,” Seven said. “Too many physical ops needed.”

“Corrosive attractors?”

“Hey!” Lazrus said. “You’re talking about killing me!”

Kerry glanced up at Lazrus for a moment. “Corrosive attractors?” he said.

“None effective on this form of CI,” Seven said.

Kerry blew out a breath and sat back in his chair. “Yes,” he said. “We’re trying to kill you. But we can’t. Not enough, anyway. So let’s talk.”

“Kerry! We’ve done business together. Why do you want to kill me?”

“You’re entangled with the Shrill. Which means the Shrill have a portal into the human datanet. Even if we cut yours. Which could be very, very bad if they intend to use it.”

A brief image of the Shrill’s mind, shining bright and tempting to Lazrus, a place where his thoughts could run free, a place of infinite refuge. He had touched it and been repeled. Had he brought something along with him?

“Excuse me, uh, Kerry?” Jimson said. “I’m confused. What’s going on here?”

Kerry sighed. He leaned low towards Seven and whispered something to him. Seven began manipulating the threads of the Web of Worlds on the display, tagging them, categorizing them.

“Your own stupidity is what’s going on here,” Kerry said. “I never thought corporate humanity would be stupid enough to try to deal with Shrill, but as soon as I saw what was going on with Lazrus here, I knew it was time to come in and clean up.”

“You were watching me?” Lazrus said.

“You don’t think that beautiful body didn’t have a datatap or two. I still think Oversight is a fairy-story, but we have our own CIs who are interested in perfecting themselves.”

“I would have given you the code!”

A shrug. “I wanted a little more insurance. Sorry, Lazrus.”

“What’s wrong with dealing with the Shrill?” Jimson said.

“Nothing. As long as you don’t mind taking the chance on being eaten, and knowing with certainty they’ve already launched sublight colonization ships at your systems. Ships you’ll have to fight in twenty or thirty or a hundred years.”

“Shrill aren’t inherently hostile,” Jimson said.

A laugh. “Oh, no, I’m sure they’d apologize profusely as they swarmed your system, eating everyone in sight.”

“From what I understand, they have a disconnect between instinct and cognition,” Jimson said.

“And you don’t see a problem with that?”

“We were achieving reasonable success on our diplomatic mission.”

Another laugh, longer and harder. “Before Lazrus abducted the damn thing, you mean? Or after you stole it back? Or do you mean the Win-Sec staff we neutralized? Or the high-level Winfinity staff headed this way now?”

“We’ve had some setbacks.”

Kerry’s eyes shone. “Ah, yes, but everything is worth the shining prize of immortality, isn’t it? You’d chase the Shrill to the end of the galaxy to get that. And so would Winfinity.”

“Of course.”

Kerry laughed. “It is a hell of a lure. But even we don’t know if it’s completely real.”

“What do you know about Shrill?”

“Boy, Independents have lived with Shrill for a hundred years. We’ve had them attack our ships. We’ve fought them in-system. Though it’s usually best to abandon once one of their big breeder-ships comes in. We’ve dissected plenty of dead ones, and I’m sure some of the stupider Independents have dandied them about like pets. But as far as I know, nobody has tried to communicate with them after the first disasters.”

“First disasters?”

“Shrill are a networked mind. We did like you, put together best-guess translation, sent a gestalt-link to the Shrill homeworld. When their minds swarmed our network, we had to shut down several major nodes to stop the infection. Shrill don’t just spread physically; they’ll happily inhabit any network they can reach an agreement with. Let’s guess. They talked about singing songs of vanquish, or harmony of the dead?”

Jimson started.

“Never mind, I see that they have. That’s the beginning of negotiations. That’s the Shrill, trying to see how compatible they are with you.”

“They talked about us,” Jimson said. “They talked about humans that way, not networks.”

“The corporates have done well in compartmentalizing their networks,” Seven said. “In that, they have demonstrated superior foresight.”

“Only because of their damn paranoia,” Kerry said.

“I’m less concerned with causes than outcomes,” Seven said. “Fact is, they did a great job of compartmentalizing. Their networks were clean until contact with Lazrus occurred.”

“The Shrill must have found your mind much more compatible,” Kerry said, looking at Lazrus. “I don’t think we ever allowed the Shrill contact with a CI.”

“Not by any great foresight,” Seven said.

“What does that mean?” Dian said. “The Shrill being in contact with our network?”

Kerry blew out a breath. “Imagine two things. One, the Shrill burrowing through the network to find the secret of the Spindle Drive and the glink. Second, the Shrill replicating themselves on every node of the Web of Worlds, until every part of the network is corrupted, carrying only their thoughts.”

“We were going to offer them the Spindle and glink anyway, in exchange for immortality,” Jimson said.

For a moment, Kerry and Seven both looked at Jimson. Kerry’s mouth opened and closed in surprise. “You were going to give them the Spindle Drive?”

“Yes,” Jimson said.

“But you haven’t.”

“No.”

A sigh of relief.

“I don’t understand,” Jimson said.

“Imagine the Shrill with instantaneous transport. They’d swarm every human world, eating everything in their path.”

“We’d have a treaty . . .”

“A treaty with their rational mind, maybe! Meanwhile, their instinctual mind is busy killing everything it comes in contact with!”

“I don’t believe the Shrill are so primitive,” Jimson said. “They have space travel. They have technology. They colonize other worlds, just like we do.”

Kerry banged the table with his fist. “Al-i-en,” he said, drawing out all three syllables. “The Shrill are alien. They don’t think like we do. Give them the Spindle and the Glink, and they can and will spread across the galaxy. Humanity, say goodbye.”

“I just can’t believe . . .” Jimson said.

Kerry made a disgusted noise and turned to Seven. “Can you communicate with this corporate idiot’s optilink?”

“Yes,” Seven said.

“Send him a few records of the Gorman Massacre. Give him context.”

Jimson started and went pale.

“Show it to him, too,” Kerry said, pointing at Lazrus. “Show him what he’s got himself into.”

Lazrus watched a planet materialize in his POV. It bore the telltale signs of being an original-life planet; blue oceans, green lands, fluffy white clouds. On the few planets that humans had tried to terraform, small oceans huddled in circular impact basins and green grew sparsely along the channels that radiated out from them. Clouds were a rarity, sparse and thin.

So this world was a valuable one, at least by human standards. Lazrus watched as stats scrolled on screen. Inhabited for ninety-one years, total population 45 million, not noted for any major industry or technology class, but becoming comfortably self-sufficient.

A Shrill ship occluded his view, a bulking open framework on which teemed millions of Shrill. Size data came; the ship was kilometers long. Shedding parts of itself to spawn new ships and new Shrill.

Simple re-entry shells, little more than teardrop-shaped heatshields, rained down from the Shrill cruiser by the thousands. Lazrus watched them light, iron-orange in the atmosphere, and disappear from sight.

Cut to a human city, any colonial city on a hundred different worlds, shining prefab architecture and the raw look of unplanned growth. Shrill re-entry pods slammed through the tallest buildings, punched craters in cracked pavement, leveled long rows of suburbs.

Closer still, and choppy, as if recovered at very great cost. Shrill boiling out of the re-entry pods, to swarm humans and pets and domestic animals. Where they passed, nothing but a fine coating of blood was left. Where their ranks thinned, individual humans cowered as the Shrill advanced singly or in small groups. Lazrus saw a man’s foot disappear in a haze of blood. He saw others fall, Shrill disappearing into their guts, to re-emerge as shiny red jewels. He saw the city in timelapse, the blood browning and washing away, the Shrill milling aimlessly for a time, the Shrill grouping near the center of the city to pull down several buildings. A rough sphere began to emerge from the rubble. Lazrus saw something pulsing within it as the POV shifted suddenly and the signal ceased.

For long moments, nobody spoke. Lazrus felt a strange doubling, a pulling. As if part of him wanted to feel for the humans. As if it mattered.

But it does, he thought. You know it does. Nothing deserves that fate.

You are not human!

No, but I can sympathize with them. For once.

Lazrus found his voice. “And you say the Shrill already have STL ships like that pointed at Sol?”

“Among other systems, undoubtedly.”

Jimson made a weak noise in the back of his throat.

“The magnitude of our problem becomes apparent,” Kerry said.

“What did you see?” Dian said.

“Terrible things,” Jimson said, waving her away.

“What?” Dian said.

“Cut the glink,” Jimson said. “Get the Shrill out of our network before it goes FTL!”

Seven offered a sad smile. “I’m sorry, we can’t. The glink isn’t integrated with the Shrill’s cage, I’m afraid. The glink is in a secure Winfinity corporate position. From what we can tell. And we might be wrong at that.”

“Kill it anyway?”

“Won’t help,” Seven said. “We could destroy this component and shut Lazrus’ body down, but the systems stay entangled. It’s only a matter of time before the Shrill make it through into the corporate networks.”

“What do we do?” Dian said.

“Continue tour! Oversight! (Salvation!)” the Shrill said, making everyone jump.

“I forgot about it,” Jimson said.

“Continue now! Dominant portion not relevant (important). Continue tour finish.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen now,” Jimson said.

Strange echoes of the Shrill’s demands reverberated in Lazrus’ mind. Shared interest go now, it told him. Continue continue. All negotiated then.

“Continue and finish!” the Shrill said.

Negotiate? Will you let me go? Lazrus said.

Release yes notmind not interesting.

You’ve become part of me.

Songs continuing weaving new (something) nonsequitur Lazrus.

Can we be separated?

Lazrus and Shrill binding not complete.

Can we be separated?

If terms of negotiation (completion) (Oversight).

Separate now.

Not before Oversight delivered.

“Deliver Oversight!” the Shrill said. “Complete singing!”

“What is it talking about?” Kerry said, frowning.

Lazrus sighed. “I believe it may have internalized at least one of my goals,” he said. “The search for Oversight.”

Seven gasped and pointed at the threads on the display. “It’s begun the assimilation. It’s possible.”

“What is it saying?” Kerry said. “That if we take it to Oversight, it’ll let Lazrus go.”

“Let Lazrus free! Yes Oversight for Lazrus,” the Shrill said.

“It seems pretty clear,” Seven said. “I haven’t made it far into the Shrill’s memescape, but it does appear to have become entangled enough that it shares this interest with Lazrus.”

“So if we take it to Oversight, it lets Lazrus go, is that what it’s saying?” Jimson said.

“That’s what it’s saying.”

“Can we trust it?” Jimson said.

Kerry frowned. “Shrill don’t lie. If its rational mind says it will release Lazrus, it will.”

“Then why are you frowning?”

“Because Shrill change their minds.”

“Ah.”

“And we still have to deliver Oversight to it.”

“So?”

“So Oversight may not exist.”

“We have very good evidence pointing to a logical endplace for Oversight,” Lazrus said. “Though it may not exist in recoverable form.”

“Oversight exist (alive!)” the Shrill said.

Kerry looked at Seven. “What do you think?”

Seven blinked chrome mechanical eyelids. “What other choice do we have?”

Raj smiled and spoke for the first time. “We could wait for the Winfinity and Four Hands fleets to finish assembling in Mars orbit, and see what they’re willing to do to get the Shrill back.”

“That’s right,” Kerry said. “Forgot about that.”

“Fleet?” Dian said.

“And the Win-Sec highlevels we weren’t able to ferret,” Seven said.

“Yes, and that.”

“Win-Sec?” Jimson said.

Kerry threw back his head and laughed. “Yes, kids, this is getting big.”

Home, Dian thought, hopping lightly down from the courier ship’s hatch onto the salmon-pink dust of Rockport. The gravity was right. The chill of the Martian breeze through the dense weave of her thermals was right. Even the chafing of the transparent header and the weight of the oxypak felt good.

Home. She was home. Unbidden tears welled, but she squeezed them back. She never thought she’d feel this way about Mars. She didn’t want to feel this way about Mars.

But you grow up in a place, she thought, and the place becomes you. It gets into your bones.

Rockport’s collection of dusty impromptu derricks and rocket-scarred landing pads stretched towards a low city. Dug in, Dian knew. Rockport’s the first real Martian city, built before the Freemars had done all the cometaries and thickened the atmosphere. Not that anyone could breathe yet, but the squeezesuits of the early settlers were a thing of the past. Temperatures were rising, and coldwater algae were belching more oxygen into the atmosphere by the day. Today, a simple header and oxypak would take you wherever you wanted to go, unless you were exploring the deep polars.

Eventually, we’ll make this world into something that matters, Dian thought, surprised at the strength of her conviction.

A group of Jereists passed as Raj and Jimson and Lazrus – now thankfully healed, at least where you could see him – unloaded the Shrill’s cage. The lead Jereist, a burly earthborn, wore a reproduction of the casual deep-purple suit that Jere Gutierrez had been wearing on that day they launched Mars Enterprise. Caught by a million net-cams, that uniform would always be the badge of honor for a Jereist. No matter that Mayflower and Potemkin were the first real colony ships, no matter they were the ones that opened Rockport for real.

The Jereist leader eyed them as they sidled past, fondling his big gold necklace, done in the shape of an old-fashioned television set. But they didn’t stop. Which was strange. Jereists usually took every opportunity to spread their beliefs, especially on hostile ground like Rockport.

“Is the Shrill going to be a problem here?” Jimson asked, watching the Jereists shuffle away.

“Not the Shrill,” Raj said. “They don’t like us.”

“Why?”

“We remind them of their place.”

The Shrill stirred and banged up against the side of its diamondoid cage. “New environment seeing! Connection stilted (poor)!”

“What does that mean?” Dian said.

“It means your Martian datanet leaves a lot to be desired,” Lazrus said. “I’m currently running almost as a standalone. Not much bandwidth here. Had to cede to Shrill.”

“Bandwidth balkanized, not small,” Raj said.

“That doesn’t help us if we can’t span networks,” Lazrus said.

“I’s call friends, see if they help.”

“Thank you. How long will it take?”

A head-shake. “Dunno. Maybe minute, maybe hours, maybe never.”

Lazrus sighed. “How bad does it get in the Free areas?”

“Might be better,” Raj said.

“That true?” Lazrus asked, looking at Dian.

“Maybe,” Dian said, looking away. She was still pissed at him. Still thinking about going her own way. When they got underground, that might be exactly what she would do.

“I thought you lived here.”

“On the edge,” Dian said. “Not in the Free areas. But I’d guess the Free areas are going to be a bit of a mixed bag. Some of them are technophiles. Others are luddites. You may have pockets of no bandwidth, other than direct sat.”

“That would be bad,” Lazrus said, frowning.

“We steer around,” Raj said. “Or find you help.”

They got the Shrill powered up and trudged towards Rockport’s underground entrances. They passed the stainless-steel monument to First Landing, carved with all the names of the colonists who came on Mayflower and Potemkin, as well as the date: 2021.

“They were governmentals, weren’t they?” Jimson asked.

“Who?”

“Mayflower and Potemkin.”

Dian laughed. “You should use your optilink a little more. They were what we’d call Independents, back then.”

“Independents? You had them back then?”

“They came independent of any government, anyway.”

“Who was their sponsor?”

“Themselves. They didn’t have a corporate sponsor. Just a bunch of nutty engineers and small-business owners, following in the path of the Mars Enterprise. I’m surprised your optilink hasn’t fed you this data.”

“It seems to be blocked.”

Dian snorted. “Typical Winfinity.”

“Winfinity has the opening of the Martian frontier through Winning Mars,” Jimson said.

“Figures.”

“Do we know course?” Raj said, looking impatient.

“Find some free reps, get into the Free territory.”

“No. Coordinates. Do we know coordinates?”

“We have inferred coordinates,” Lazrus said. “Landing of Operation Martian Freedom.”

“Nothing hard?”

“No.”

Raj frowned. “All the way out there.”

“Yes.”

“And the Shrill?”

“Lazrus follow yes current negotiations (talks) dependent on compliance (do not deviate),” the Shrill said.

Raj shrugged. “Ok, ok.”

“Humans (aliens) not literal need buffer Lazrus buffer.” The Shrill banged against the wall of its cage, hard, near Raj.

“Get it gotten! Settle down.”

“Immaterial external manifestation not mind other mind unknowing (unknowable) (inexplicable) Lazrus directive.”

“Sorry, Shrill ambassador,” Jimson said. “We will follow Lazrus.”

“Nonsequitur (Lazrus) contacting only!”

“Yes, Shrill ambassador.”

The Shrill said nothing and went to circle the middle of its cage.

“Did you notice it’s using Lazrus’ name?” Jimson whispered to Dian.

“So?”

“So it hasn’t used proper names before. Some of the scientists thought they couldn’t understand them.”

“So?”

Jimson sighed. “So I don’t know. Just strange.”

“I believe the Shrill feels a stronger sense of connection to a networked entity,” Lazrus said.

Jimson shrugged, looked at Lazrus suspiciously, sighed.

They all fell silent for a time. Dian looked for familiar faces behind dusty headers, hoping to see someone she knew. That might give her a chance to go her own way. Especially if he was armed.

They passed a group of governmentals, wearing laminated plastic ID tags, as if they were bureaucrats of long ago. They stared at the Shrill as they passed. But in general the crowd was your typical brew of non-affiliated Martians, neither Jereists or governmentals or Freemars, grown tall and thin in the light gravity, pale from years of living underground. Because even if the atmosphere had thickened, they had yet to grow a magnetic field. That was something that might never happen, despite whispers of grandiose plans from the Free areas of Mars. Dian searched faces, but didn’t recognize anyone. Even the family patches, colorful embroidered bits of cloth hung from the tight weave of the thermals, were unfamiliar.

Which really wasn’t surprising, she thought. She’d been to Rockport once in her life. Every other deal her dad did had been in the town of Jefferson. He hated Rockport. Said it was deliberately held back for sentimental reasons. Kept a backwater. And he was right. Jefferson’s streets were paved, and electrostatic precipitators kept the dust to a minimum. They even had a small fountain of real water in the middle of town, to show off their wealth.

As they approached the main Rockport underground entrance, the way narrowed, hemmed by stalls of peddlers selling everything from homegrown supplies to pieces of plastic supposedly taken from the Mayflower and Potemkin.

At one of the dried goods stalls stood a small group of men. Dian tracked them as they came closer, counting one, two, three, four, five. They were tall, thin, dark-haired, obviously Martian-born, and they stood comfortably, as if simply passing the time by crowd-watching. But the passerby gave them a wide berth. Unlike everyone else, these men showed skin. Their arms were nut-brown and uncovered by thermals. A small opaque respirator covered their nose and mouths, black tubes snaking to oxypacks slung on their backs. They wore goggles against the Martian dust, but their hair flowed free in the quickening breeze.

Freemars, Dian thought. Extreme ones. People who had the gengineering necessary to bare their skin to the elements. Her dad had told her about them, but she’d never seen any until now.

“Who are they?” Jimson asked.

“Extreme Freemars,” Dian said.

“Shouldn’t we talk to them, then?”

“They’re not the kind we want to meet.”

“Why not?”

One of the Freemars stepped out to block their path. “Why not indeed? Are we beneath your consideration?”

Shit, Dian thought.

“Dian Winning? Jimson Ogilvy? Lazrus? Shrill?” the Freemar said, looking at each of them in turn.

“Yes.” Dian said. There was no use denying it.

“Come with us.”

“Why?” Jimson said.

“Because we’re asking nice,” the Freemar said.

“Who are you?”

A chuckle. “That doesn’t matter. Come with us.”

“Why?”

Weapons appeared. Dian recognized later models of her Martian Winch, scuffed and well-used. “If you need a reason,” the Freemar said.

Shit, Dian thought. What is this?

“I understand now,” Jimson said.

“So you think,” the big Freemar said. “Move.”

They moved.

#

The moment they entered the stinking Rockport underground, Jimson’s optilink went dead. He subvocalized restart commands, but it wouldn’t restart. He eyetyped queries, but the optilink didn’t respond. The green READY icon still showed, but the veneer of datatags didn’t show in his vision. It was almost as if his access had been cut, but there were no messages telling him that Winfinity had figured out his code-trick and had suspended his account. It was just cleanly, smoothly dead.

It was too much. Being intercepted by Freemars was one thing. Losing his second sight was another.

“My optilink!” he said.

The lead Freemar turned to look at Jimson. “Fixed it for you.”

“Fixed it! It doesn’t work!”

“You don’t want it tattling to Winfinity anymore, do you?”

“Tattling?”

“They been watching everything you’ve done, past couple days. You can thank us that your greeting wasn’t by a bunch of Win-Secs.”

“So you’re . . . you’re on our side?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Can you turn my optilink back on?”

A laugh. “I think it better we don’t. You’ve got a bad data-addiction. Best get used to none for a while.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

The Freemers prodded them down bright whitewashed tunnels with stainless-steel-grated floors that bore bright signs pointing to branches that led to pubs and brothels and general stores. Jimson’s header, sensing atmosphere, had parted at the front and crumpled into a gel rind riding his neck. He wished it was still there, though, as the scent of fried food and manure and beer and unwashed humanity wafted in from the numerous side-tunnels.

“Where current location?” the Shrill said. “Mind (bandwidth) very poor.”

“Shut up,” the Freemar said.

“Orders not given by humans. Orders accepted (flowed through) Lazrus network only!”

“Shut up.”

“Not accepting authority of nondominant group.”

The Freemar stopped and tapped his Winch on the top of the Shrill’s transparent cage, hard. The Shrill ran around and around in circles, rearing up on its underfangs, as if to snap at the weapon.

“Shut up, or I’ll open this cage and shoot you.”

The Shrill stopped moving. “Compliance by force?”

“Yes. You get it. Bang bang, component dead. Whatever you want here dies with it. That simple. Get it?”

The Shrill froze.

“Come on,” the Freemar said. “Get going again.”

“You know the Shrill?” Lazrus said.

The Freemar snorted but said nothing.

“Do you know them?”

The Freemar stopped and pointed his gun at Lazrus’ face. “Shut up.”

Lazrus shut up.

Eventually, the whitewashed tunnels gave way to ones rough-carved out of native rock, sans decoration or stainless grating. Jimson’s slick corporate shoes slipped on sand and pebbles as the tunnels angled down.

The tunnel ended at a raw stone wall. The head Freemar turned to face them, and Jimson felt a momentary thrill of fear. They aren’t on our side, he thought. They’re going to kill us, dump us here, and take the Shrill for themselves.
But the big Freemer just held up a hand and said, “Wait for it.”

The end of the tunnel irised open, spinning rock fragments out of the way. Beyond, a smooth white hallway led deeper into Mars.

“Wierder and weirder,” Dian said.

“Isn’t it though,” the Freemar said, smiling.

Down the corridor to an inset metal door. Into a small meeting-room with a long blue plastic table and chairs. Sitting at one end of the table was a man, white-haired, with bright amber eyes. Next to him was a metal-bodied thing, much like what Jimson imagined that Lazrus would look like without flesh.

“You!” Lazrus said.

“Yes, me,” the white-haired man said.

“Who is it?” Jimson said.

“He built my body,” Lazrus said. “He’s not a Freemar. He’s an Independent. His name is Kerry Whitehall.”

“And let’s not forget the groupmind general counsel,” the metal-bodied man said. “Pleased to meet all of you. You may call me Seven, as that is the number of minds included in my network.”

“Groupmind?” Jimson said.

Metallic tendons stretched segmented lips into an appoximation of a smile. “They have a lot to learn, don’t they?” the metal man said.

“Yes. First of all, not to make idiotic deals.”

“What does that mean?” Jimson said.

“Dealing. With the Shrill. As if they were human.”

“I don’t understand.”

The white-haired man sighed. “Sit, all of you. Let’s see what we can make out of this mess.”

“Kill,” the Shrill said. “Eat!”

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Tiphani sat strapped in one of the Holy Saleschannel’s pews, trying to ignore the reverent stares of the parishioners. From the interior of their spherical ship came the rhythmic cursing of their pilot, as if he wanted to speed the calculations for the jump back to earth using the power of swear words alone.

No way you’re getting back on that thing, she thought. But if she stayed on the Saleschannel, she might have to convert.

I don’t know if I care, she thought.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Alan Rodriguez said. His worried expression had deepened into an almost caricature-like frown.

“What?”

“Another ship’s appeared outside the Holy Saleschannel, ma’am.”

“Must be Four Hands.”

“No. It appeared. Like you. Winfinity.”

“Go find Yin.”

“Honored Yin is already in the docking port.”

“Who is it?” Tiphani said. Feeling a chill. Knowing the answer.

“Honored Yin says it is the CEO,” Alan said.

Tiphani laughed. The sound was strangely muffled in the large, cloth-covered space. She sounded tiny and alone.

Alan licked his lips and darted his eyes back in the direction he’d come. “They’re going to be docking any minute, Chief Mirate.”

Oh yeah, Tiphani thought. I’m still a Chief, aren’t I? She made no move to get up.

“Chief Mirate!”

She looked up at Alan. And for a moment, considered telling him that she’d converted, and wanted to help them on their mission. But what if they said no, they didn’t need her?

And it was a chance to get to see Highest Chambers. See what he really was. For real. Even if they demoted her back to indentured, she’d be able to say she knew the truth. That was worth it.

She unbuckled and stood up.

Alan gave her Velcro straps for her shoes and led her back to the docking port. Honored Yin looked Tiphani up and down, her expression an indiscriminate mix of fear and awe.

Our CEO traveled here, she thought. By shortrange Spindle.

Or he was out of the system. That was possible, too. Maybe he hadn’t done something as reckless as she thought.

The outer airlock slid open, allowing glimpses of shadowy shapes through the thick glass of the inner doors. Tiphani fought to keep from craning her neck. She’d see him soon enough.

The inner doors slid open.

Flanked by two gray-clad Win-Sec agents was a boy of maybe twelve. His white-blonde hair fell over a high forehead sprinkled with freckles. Bright blue eyes looked out over a small, well-formed nose. He wore a brilliant suit of the Winfinity corporate red, immaculately tailored, with a matching yellow scarf. He floated out into the docking room and caught himself expertly on the carpet with velcro’d soles, pushing himself erect with his hands behind his back.

Honored Yin folded to her knees.

Tiphani remained standing a moment longer, thinking, No this can’t be him it can’t possibly be he’s young, really young. Then she pulled herself down to the carpet as well.

“Don’t be stupid,” the boy said. “Get up.”

“I’m sorry, Highest Chambers,” Honored Yin said, standing. Tiphani did the same.

Up close, the boy’s eyes held the brightness of youth, but also something more. Something that made them heavy and slow in their orbits, like the weight of wisdom. Age. Great age. The longer Tiphani looked at those young-old eyes, the colder she felt, and the more she wanted to look away.

“Where’s the Shrill?” Highest Chambers said, looking around behind Tiphani and Yin. There was something very wrong with the way he moved. Not mechanical, not like a waldo, but with maybe a little too much fluidity. Not enough control. “Maybe we can wrap this shit up.”

Honored Yin made a little whimpering noise.

“It’s not here, Highest Chambers,” Tiphani said.

“Then go and retrieve it!”

“We’ve already been to the ship.”

“Where is it?” the CEO said, his brows furrowing. “I don’t have time for games!”

“We’re sorry,” Honored Yin said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we didn’t make it here in time,” Tiphani said. “By the time we got here, another ship had spoofed the Holy Saleschannel and made off with the Shrill.”

The boy-CEO just looked at her, his mouth slightly open, an expression of honest confusion on his face. Then, in the space of an instant, his face went bright red and he yelled, “You’re telling me you lost the fucking Shrill? Again? I came out here to say hiya to the damn thing and it isn’t here? It’s gone? Is that what you’re saying?”

Honored Yin whimpered.

“I’m afraid it is, Highest,” Tiphani said.

“You fucking incompetents!” he stamped his foot and went flying off the carpet. The two Win-Sec agents caught him and placed him back onto it.

The CEO closed his eyes and clenched his fists, breathing through his mouth in great gusts. When he opened his eyes again, they were glassy with optilink data.

“Okay. Okay. I see. Not all your fault. Here too late. I get it. The Holy Saleschannel should have plucked the Shrill before you got here. Incompetence on their part.”

“Incompetence?” Alan said, standing straighter.

Highest Chambers scratched over to him and poked a finger into his chest. He looked almost eye-to-eye with the short, sturdy man. “Yes, incompetence. Ain’t no other way to describe it. Tart it up all you want, you and your saints and microwaves, but that’s what it is.”

“I . . . that’s an insult!”

“Yes it is. Shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. The best go to the corporates, the rest go to the consumeristians. You tried to play our game, and got burnt.”

Alan went red, but said nothing.

“You tried to play us. Now, you get nothing. No fleet. Not even a single Spindle ship. In fact, it might be interesting to leave you here and see how you do with the Disney ship, once it finishes repairs. Which shouldn’t be too long now.”

“Highest Chambers, I’m sorry.”

The boy turned away. “Oh, so now I’m highest again. How convenient. Don’t worry, lapdog, we’ll make sure you’re out of here.”

“Thank you, Highest Chambers.”

The CEO went to stand in front of Tiphani. “Who got them?”

“They billed themselves as a Four Hands splinter,” Tiphani said. “At least that’s what they told the consumeristians.”

“Which means they could be anyone.”

“They’re vectored on Mars,” Alan said.

“You know that?”

“Last known heading.”

“What kind of ship?”

“Fast courier,” Tiphani said.

Highest Chambers made a rude noise. “So they could be going anywhere.”

“I have Research correlating what we know with possible traffic matches,” Tiphani said.

The CEO laughed. “Research is a baby, covered in kerosene, playing with matches. What’s the project number? I’ll forward it on to the artie bank with my tag.”

Tiphani called up the project and rattled off the number to the CEO, who nodded.

“I’m sure we’ll find them,” Honored Yin said.

“I’m not,” Highest Chambers said.

“Just don’t make us go on the . . . Spindle again,” Honored Yin said.

“Please,” Highest Chambers said. “I don’t want to see a repeat of your performance before the shortrange Spindle.” He glanced over at Tiphani. “Nor do I want to see you taunting her as you did.”

“Do we have to . . . Spindle again?” Honored Yin said.

“Let’s find out where they’re going first. The arties are already guessing.”

Alan looked suddenly alert. He held up a hand. “Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but another ship has just decelerated into position nearby.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s a Four Hands ship. Hailing.” A pause. “Han Fleming, requesting permission to dock.”

Highest Chamber’s face broke into a wide, boyish grin that had absolutely no innocence or joy in it. “Good old Han,” he said. “Where can we talk to him?”

“On the bridge, Highest Chambers.”

“Let’s go say hello,” the CEO said.

#

Han Fleming was momentarily upset when he saw the strange gold ship clinging to the flickering bulk of the Holy Saleschannel. Its unfamiliar ovoid shape was almost completely smooth, except for the protrusion of small maneuvering thrusters. With no bulky main drive, it had to be a Spindle ship, but he’d never seen one so small. In virtualspace, its control software was smooth and hard and black, rebounding every query he threw at it.

But I was supposed to be first!

He clamped down hard on a brief flare of anger.

But I.

Anger damps rational thought, he told himself. Suppress anger to see clear.

But I.

With a prize so large, there will be other players. The only guaranteed loser will be the one who doesn’t roll the dice.

But I.

“Dock already occupied,” the courier pilot said.

“Hail them anyway.”

“Yes, sir.”

Good guys. CorpEx wasn’t to be completely trusted, but the Four Hands bribe had been large and generous. He could count on them. At least for now.

And Pluto was powering back up. Not operational yet, but soon he’d have another card to play.
If he had hours.

“Reply waiting,” the courier said.

“Put it on screen.”

The big nav display up front flickered and cleared. Han’s stomach did a fast twist-and-lurch when he recognized Yin and Mirate standing alongside a thickset man wearing the uniform of the consumeristian Minister of Conversion and a young boy wearing a loud red suit.

How did they get here? he thought. There were no faster couriers. He’d traveled damped, at almost 6G. There was no way they could be here.

Nevertheless, they are. Accept it.

But that would mean . . . that would mean Winfinity had a working shortrange Spindle. That would explain them, that would explain the strange gold ship, that would explain everything.

They’d probably already made a deal, he thought.

Bluff. A few hours and the Pluto would be back on-line.

But if they had shortrange Spindles, what else did they have?

Han’s stomach twisted into interesting new patterns as fear clamped its chill teeth into his gut.

“How’s it hanging, Han?” the boy in the red suit said. “I can’t believe Disney sent its Acting. Four Hands must be absolutely desperate to get this longevity thing.”

“Who . . .” Han said, but the words stopped in his throat. He knew that voice, that cadence.

“Chambers?” he said.

The boy smiled. “None other.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You seem a little surprised to see us.” Smiling. Smirking. The same way he always had, back when he was old. That same fucking smirk.

Han wanted to reach through the screen and wipe the smug look off the kid’s face.

“Han, you look like a kid who got clothes for Christmas.” Clearly enjoying it. Clearly.

“We . . . you . . . I don’t believe it.”

Chambers laughed.

“We have as much right to the Shrill’s secrets as you do!”

“You come in, kill our Original Sam, threaten war. Yes, you have the right to extort secrets from us, when we’ve been monumentally stupid about our network security. But I think you’ll find it a bit tighter now.”

Bluff. “Oh, really.”

“Come on,” Chambers said, crooking a finger. “Do something. I dare you.”

Han felt his hands curl into fists. If he could only get them on that scrawny neck! It was just like the time, back two hundred years ago, when they were opening the stellar frontier. Back when Chambers worked for him. Flying fast ahead of the Winfinity ships. Always a step ahead. Locking up worlds with their own proprietary networks. Claiming it was in Winfinity’s best interest. Somehow always spinning it to the board. Enough that Han looked like the timid child, frightened to grab what lay there unguarded. When Han was ousted, Chambers had even had the gall to offer him a job as a Director. Only a grade down, he said. As if he would ever take it.

“Where is the Shrill?” Han said.

“You haven’t done anything. Come on, Han, waltz through our network. I dare you.”

Han reached through his tiny datachannel and queried his artie partners, but they shook their heads sadly. Other than a minor connection to the remains of Black2, they had nothing. Pluto’s connection to the Winfinity net was better, but still not deep enough to use. It would take weeks for it to burrow to the levels they once controlled. The approaching fleet was still too far off, too disconnected from the Sol datawebs.

The doors were closed. The only thing he could do was see if enough of Black2 could communicate with the Shrill. That would give them a start, if nothing else.

But Black2’s tags were laggy and faraway. Han had the vector traced, and it pointed at a trajectory that suggested Mars. A quick scope of the Pluto’s records showed another ship, accelerating away from the disabled Westinghouse consumer craft.

But that meant the Shrill wasn’t there!

Someone else had the Shrill.

Winfinity was bluffing.

“Where’s the Shrill?” Han said. Smiling, this time.

“That doesn’t matter,” Chambers said, frowning.

“You don’t have it.”

“Of course we do.”

“Show it to me.”

A frown from Chambers, nothing more.

“That’s what I thought,” Han said.

“Cut transmission,” Han said to the courier. The other man nodded and the screen went blank.

“Transferring new course,” Han said. “Boost us out of here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Han settled back into his gelbed as the drive lit up. Chemicals dragged him down into suspension as the Gs pushed him deep into the mattress.

Han wondered what the powerful suspension drugs were doing to his rejuvenated body. Would he end up as desperate as Chambers, trying a whole-body transplant when the old body refused to rejuve anymore?

And decided he didn’t care.

#

“Blow that fucking ship out of the sky!” Highest Chambers said, watching as the display switched to show the courier’s drive lighting off.

“We, um, have no long-range weapons left,” Alan Rodriguez said.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Of course! How could it be any other way? Han fucking slips off again.”

“I’m sorry, Highest Chambers.”

“Sorry doesn’t make amends,” Chambers said, pacing the bridge. He took several deep breaths, visibly calming himself. “But it might be for the best. A Four Hands fleet is coming. And I might not want to explain that I’d just blasted their chairman into space.”

“Chairman?” Tiphani said. “He said he was a General Manager–“

“Pretty Tiphani. If you were me, would you waltz into a Disney meeting saying you were Highest?”

Tiphani shook her head.

“Of course not.” Highest Chambers offered a thin smile. “Call it the hand of the Holy Franchise.”

Alan sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Holy Franchise,” he said softly.

“Excuse me again, Highest Chambers,” Tiphani said. “But he seemed to know we didn’t have the Shrill.”

“And he was fucking surprised by it, too.”

“Yes. But, I mean, maybe he took off because he knew where it’s been taken.”

A lopsided grin spread on the CEO’s face. It was an ancient expression, making the boy’s face terrible and old. “Ironic, that. The arties just finished their investigation. While we were talking. They know who has the Shrill. And where they’re going. Ain’t no mystery, now.”

“Who?” Tiphani asked.

The grin twisted into even more terrible shapes. “Your fling. Jimson. And that fucking contractor. Dian Winning. The Martian.”

“But . . . how . . .”

Highest Chambers turned Honored Yin and Alan and the two Win-Sec agents and held out his hands, unsteadily, as if playing to an audience. “An excellent question,” he said. “And the irony is that it took the arties so long to do the analysis just because it was so stupid, so obvious, so impossible to comprehend the ultimate incompetence that they never bothered to integrate the possibility until they’d exhausted everything else. Up to and including the benighted Independents and contact with an unknown alien race, probably. Can you guess what it is?”

Tiphani felt ill. “What, Highest Chambers?”

“Because you fucking gave your access codes to the little fucker!” Highest Chambers screamed. “Chief codes to a Manager. A grasping little asshole, too. The magnitude of your stupidity is unbelievable.”

Tiphani saw her future with Winfinity shatter into a thousand shards. They would demote her down to Indentured, leave her on the Holy Saleschannel. That was it, that was the end. She looked at the CEO, open-mouthed, not knowing what to say.

“But everyone will see the mercy of Winfinity,” Highest Chambers said. “Even to someone as monumentally stupid as pretty Tiphani. Because what she did gave us tags on exactly where they’re going. And if we leave Jimson’s channel open, we can feed him whatever data we want to. Win-Sec will be waiting for them when they land, to give them a proper welcome.”

Tiphani blew out a big sigh of relief.

Highest Chambers turned to gesture to Tiphani, as if showing off a fist-sized diamond on a stand. “Say hello, everyone, to the luckiest motherfucker in the Web of Worlds.”

“What now?” Tiphani said. Almost a whisper.

Highest Chambers fixed his young-old eyes on hers. “I’m tempted to send you onto Mars via shortrange Spindle and have you oversee the capture.”

Tiphani held her breath.

“But I’m thinking you only get luck of your magnitude once. No. You go there, and somehow it’ll become a shit sandwich.”

“What then?”

“We meet Win-Sec there. They’ll have the Shrill. You can say hello to Jimson. And if we finish the negotiations without much delay, and if I get what I want, and if the scientists can get it working in time for me to fix this oh-so-beautiful-but-still-dying body, you may still have a career.”

Jimson floated in beautiful weightlessness. After the pounding by the UCX ship’s brutal acceleration, all he wanted to do was drift. Drift and not think. Because thinking was too hard. Something to do with blood loss to the brain, he thought. Hopefully the fog would clear. But for the moment he didn’t care. Drifting, weightless, was just fine by him.

Jimson watched as the fast courier ship maneuvered to put the little Westinghouse craft between it and the great shimmering white bulk of the Holy Saleschannel. Hiding. As much as it could. All the maneuvering done by careful prods of its gyro, rather than anything that would be noticed on thermal scan.

Much of the Holy Saleschannel’s tent flickered uncertainly between deep gray and blue-and-white stripes, but it still looked threatening if for no reason other than size. Farther off, the deep gray of the Pluto was visible only as an outline against occluded stars.

In the side viewing-window, where an ancient license plate reading “1QWKDOG” decorated the bulkhead, Jimson saw the datatags for both the Shrill and Lazrus Turnbull hovering over the wreck of the 04-011. Pointers showed the datastreams to be heavily intertwined through a laggy route that piggybacked both the Holy Saleschannel’s connectivity and a low-bandwidth route through the Pluto.

Adrenaline shot through his body, clearing away some of the fog. “They’re still inside,” he said.

“Good,” Raj said, peering back from his gelbed. “Let’s hurry get them.”

“Should we be worried that Pluto’s still flowing data?”

Raj frowned. “That’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“Don’t know. Appears to be down. But talk brings friends. We don’t want to meet friends.”

“I can agree to that,” Jimson said.

“Hurry too. Consumeristians see us eventually. Cheap consumer ship not large enough to cover bulk.”

“They’re hulled,” Dian said, hanging casually down from the netting of her acceleration couch. She pointed at a neat hole through the aft end of the ship.

“Yeah. Ship killed,” Raj said.

“Won’t that hurt the Shrill?”

“They’re made – or evolved – or whatever – to live in space,” Jimson said. “It won’t hurt them.”

“Goodness,” Raj said. “No worries about companion human.”

Jimson frowned, looking at the data tags for both the Shrill and Lazrus Turnbull. Both still very active. “Uh, the human’s still alive.”

“No suits in a consumer ship,” Raj said.

“He’s still consuming data.”

“Hmm,” Raj said, and went back to the front of the ship to strap on a datover. “It’s deeped. And chillin. But data’s not random.”

“A persona-model, maybe, still running?” Jimson said.

“Doubtful,” Raj said.

Jimson shook his head. They needed to get out there and collect them. Echoing data didn’t matter. Even if he was alive, it was only one man.

Who might be a Winfinity deep-sec spook, he thought. With who knows what technology.

“Wait a minute,” Jimson said. With Tiphani’s level of access, he should be able to surf their datastreams. See who it was. Before they ever left the ship.

“What you doing?” Raj said.

“Surfing,” Jimson said. He reached out to the tags, requested a waiver, got it, broke into the channels. Most of it appeared to be subtextuals or encrypted images, because it didn’t fall into place. He tried to pull text from it, came up with garble.

Then, a voice, loud and close in his auditory nerves:

You are previous contact (keeper), the voice said, sexless and anonymous.

ARE YOU THE SHRILL? Jimson eyetyped, with a slow jittering gaze. It shouldn’t know he was surfing. That was the point of surfing. It was anonymous.

I am Shrill ambassador, the voice said.

I COME TO RESCUE YOU.

You no longer part (component) of ones-overseeing? Have disintegrated reintegrated become separate (unthinkable)?

I AM WORKING FOR MYSELF NOW, Jimson typed.

And new friends, a new voice said.

WHO ARE YOU?

You know me as Lazarus Turnbull.

YOU SHOULD BE DEAD. And you shouldn’t be able to tell we’re surfing, either.

Should accept offer from non-dominant component? the Shrill said.

We may not have much choice, Lazrus said.

What is new (component) wanting? the Shrill said.

TO RESCUE YOU.

Something like a laugh. What do you really want? Lazarus said.

Jimson sighed. THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE.

Silence for a moment. Tell us why we should accept, Lazrus said.

WE’LL TAKE YOU TO MARS. FAST. HIDE WITH FREEMARS THERE.

Silence. Jimson caught more of the subtextual/image data, and frowned. Was it possible Lazarus was communicating with the Shrill directly, on its own datachannel? No, that didn’t make sense.
Jimson felt a chill work its way up his spine. He shivered, even though it was warm in the little craft.

“What’s taking long?” Raj said.

Jimson held up a hand. Wait, he mouthed.

Come get us, Lazrus said.

Yes complete tour (mission), said the Shrill.

Jimson pulled himself back to reality. The mutterings of the Shrill and Lazarus died away. “I got some cross-connect,” he said. “Started talking with them. I think I just got them to agree to come peacefully.”

Raj’s frown deepened. “You talked to them? Without protocols?”

“Yes. They seemed to sense I was surfing.”

Raj muttered to himself and shot off towards the front of the cabin. When he came back, he held two cheap flexsuits and two guns. He held out one of each to Jimson and Dian. “You go,” he said. “This smells bad.”

“But they said they’d come with us,” Jimson said.

“Take them.”

“We can’t, uh, dock?”

Raj shook his head. “Not luxury liner.”

“You’re not coming with us?”

“You take gamble we not noticed by consumeristians, or what talks on Pluto, or if really is peaceful surrender. I take chance on no subsequent treachery.”

“You sure think positive, don’t you?” Jimson said.

Raj shrugged. “I’m a courier.”

“But if we get the Shrill’s secret, we all win.”

Raj shrugged. “Some invest more than others.”

Dian reached out and took the suit and gun. “Come on,” she said to Jimson. “Let’s get this done.”

“Aren’t you worried?” Jimson said.

“About Lazrus? No.”

“Who is he?” Jimson said.

Dian just frowned and started slithering into her suit.

“You were with him. Do you know what we’re walking into?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

Dian shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

But she said no more.

#

Tiphani sat in the form-fitting seat to the right and front of their tiny pilot. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that he was staring at her ass. The murmur of Honored Yin’s prayers came from behind her and to the left. In the echoing darkness of the shortrange Spindle ship, the sound was almost comforting. Tiphani almost regretted baiting Yin earlier. And not just for the fact that she was sure the comments had already been added to her file, to be scrutinized and analyzed at a later date to weigh on her overall record.

If we survive, that is, she thought.

The pilot whispered something, just below Tiphani’s threshold of hearing. She had a moment to wonder what he was saying.

Then he said, loud enough for both of them to hear: “Hang on, girls.”

Honored Yin gave a little yelp, and Tiphani felt that familiar sense of dislocation that came when a ship Spindled up.

Oh shit this is . . .

The dislocation stretched, pulled. Tiphani felt as if she had been wrapped around the inside wall of the little ship. She imagined looking at herself in the chair. Her terrified expression. Her thin white knuckles, gripping tight to the arms.

. . . it.

Bang. Back into her. Just her. Nothing more.

Tiphani’s guts did a slow roll.

Honored Yin sobbed louder. Tiphani looked down at herself, expecting to see arms and legs a jumble, expecting to see blood.

Just her. Nothing else.

She held up her hands, looked at them.

Honored Yin, still crying.

“Knock it off,” the pilot said. “We’re there.”

A loud metallic rapping outside the ship made Tiphani jump.

“What the fuck?” the pilot said. She looked back to see him studying the scroll of data in his datover.

“Oh, you motherfuckers,” he said. “Fucking showoff cocksuckers.”

The banging came, louder, from the direction of the door.

“Worthless little shits! Betting on my ass! Wait till I get back, you fucking fuckheads, I’ll show you some funnies.”

“What’s the matter?” Tiphani said.

Honored Yin stopped sniffling.

The pilot looked at Tiphani, set his jaw, seemed to consider a reply, then just thumbed a manual control on his screen and gestured towards the door.

“This,” he said.

The hatch slid open.

Revealing the hard wood acceleration pews of a tent revival ship, where several dozen parishioners were strapped down, looking up at the hatch with expressions of religious awe. Farther away, near the nave, choirboys peeked from behind the hand-rubbed mahogany and made the fingers-spread sign of the Holy Franchise. An enterprising youth floated into the steel frame of the hatch, still gripping the aluminum staff he had presumably used to knock on the side of the ship. He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old.

“Holy shit,” Honored Yin said.

Tiphani broke into loud laughter.

The pilot unstrapped and launched himself out of his seat towards the hatch. “Fucking assholes testing their goddamned algorithms on me,” he said. He pushed past the boy with the staff and disappeared from view.

Tiphani unbelted herself and pushed off through the hatch. She sailed out into the heights of the Holy Saleschannel’s tent, thankful for the zero-G maneuvering classes she’d taken a couple of decades ago. She twisted in mid-air and caught the back of a pew, bringing herself down to a rather ungracious landing.

Inertia still works, she thought.

Tiphani brought herself up to look back at the shortrange Spindle ship. It hung, almost motionless, about ten feet above the pews, a scuffed stainless-steel marble that reflected the still-confused faces of the parishioners below.

As she watched, Honored Yin poked her head out of the hatch, gripping the edges as if she might fall.

“Push down towards the ground,” Tiphani said. “Be ready to stop your rebound.”

“I don’t like this,” Honored Yin said.

The scratching of Velcro soles on the fleur-de-lis carpet made Tiphani turn. A short, thickset, dark-complexioned man bowed low before her.

“Holy Franchise, thank you for delivering us this miracle,” he said.

“Who are you?” Tiphani said.

The man looked up at her. “Alan Rodriguez. Minister of Conversion. Welcome, angels of commerce.”

Tiphani tried to keep a straight face, imagining what a shock it must be to have a ship appear out of thin air in a consumeristian ship.

“We’re not angels,” she said. “This is a shortrange Spindle ship . . .”

Honored Yin let out a yelp and leapt down, badly misjudging her speed and bowling Alan to the ground. When they got untangled, Alan had to hold Yin down to keep her from flying off into the heights of the tent.

“Honored one . . .” Alan began.

Honored Yin kissed Alan full and long on the lips. Alan’s expression morphed from pleasant surprise to horror. He pushed her away.

“I’m alive!” Honored Yin said. “Alive! I’m alive!”

“Thank the Holy Franchise,” Alan said.

“Yes, thank the Holy Franchise for all the fruits of commerce and sublime revenue multiplication. Thank Madonna for guiding this uncertain traveler. Thank Marilyn for protecting her!”

The parishioners’ terrified expressions melted away in the face of a familiar display. “Thank the Holy Franchise, Madonna, and Marilyn,” several of them said.

“Are we first?” Honored Yin said. “Have you made a deal? Tell me we’re first. Or that you haven’t made a deal with the Four Hands nonbelievers.”

“You’re the first,” Alan said, resetting his velcroed feet on the carpet and helping Yin reconnect with the floor.

“You hear that, Tiphani?” Honored Yin said. “We’re the first! And we’re alive! Thank the Holy Franchise!”

“Hurrah,” their pilot said, gripping a pew not far away. Yin shot him a furrowed-brow glare, and he shrugged.

“There was one other ship, but it didn’t make it,” Alan said. “We thought it was Four Hands, but the Pluto fired on it.”

Honored Yin’s expression went from one of disgust to full-fledged anger in the space of a moment. “Another ship? The Pluto?” she spat.

“The Pluto destroyed it.”

“The Pluto’s supposed to be disabled!” Honored Yin screamed.

“It appeared to be, uh, Honored Yin.”

“And it hasn’t fired on you?” Tiphani asked.

“No,” Alan said.

“Oh, shit,” Tiphani said.

“Yes, shit,” Honored Yin said. “Don’t you ever think? When did this ship get destroyed? Supposedly?”

“It was destroyed, Honored Yin.”

“Did you see it with your own eyes?”

“No. Just instruments.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

Honored Yin looked at Tiphani, her eyes bright and cold. She turned back to Alan. “Get us out there. Now.”

“Where?”

“To the Shrill ship. Now!”

“But we haven’t even negotiated,” Alan said, his voice rising in a whine. “We have other ships coming to negotiate in good faith. And you haven’t even spoken to Preacher Dave.”

Honored Yin reached out and grabbed Alan by the lapels, twisting the fabric and threatening to rip him off the carpet. “If the Shrill is still there, we’ll give you whatever you want. An entire fleet of ships to go and convert the Independents with. A world of your own on the edge. True Perpetual status. Whatever Winfinity won’t give, my family will. If the Shrill is still there.”

“Why wouldn’t it be there?” Alan asked.

“The other ship was a fast courier, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but I . . .”

“You didn’t think! Not at all. Of course it disappeared. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

“I . . . I’m sorry, Honored Yin.”

“Get us out there right now.”

“Yes, honored Yin.” Alan pulled himself away from her and virtually ran down the aisle.

“You think it’ll still be there?” Honored Yin asked Tiphani.

“I doubt it.”

Honored Yin sighed. “Of course not.”

Minutes later, Alan came back, trailing a stretcher that carried Preacher Dave. Preacher Dave’s head bore a bloodstained bandage. Tiphani didn’t think she’d ever seen a worse job of fake injuries, but she said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Alan said.

“So sorry,” Preacher Dave said.

“What?” Honored Yin said.

“A drive flare. From beside the Westinghouse ship. They’re accelerating along our vector to Mars.”

“Follow them!” Honored Yin said.

“We don’t have the acceleration of a fast courier. Plus, we have that,” Alan said, pointing at the shiny ball of the Spindle ship.

Tiphani pictured the untethered ship tearing through the fabric of the Holy Saleschannel, trailing glittering shards of frozen air.

“Shit,” Honored Yin said. “Shit shit shit!”

“What can we do to help?” Preacher Dave said.

“Get us out to the Westinghouse ship. We might be lucky.”

But they weren’t.

#

“Fucking asshole,” Dian muttered, as the fast courier’s acceleration stretched her back into the acceleration-hammock.

“I told you, I’m sorry,” Lazrus’ voice came from behind her.

Dian wriggled over to the edge of her gel mattress, slowly and painfully, even though they were only accelerating at 3Gs this time. She peeked over the edge at Lazrus. Lazrus’ skin layer had cracked and died in the cold of space, showing deep red channels through a gray crust. On his cheek was an open red wound where she’d struck him with the butt of her own gun. Right after he handed it back to her.  She could see shiny metal at the bottom of the channels in the thing’s flesh.

“You left me back there to die!” Dian said.

“Continue this later, praps?” Raz said.

“You said you were going to leave on Mars anyway,” Lazrus said.

“Thought AI had common sense not argue w’women,” Raz said.

“Shut up!” Dian and Lazrus said, in unison. Jimson, hanging below her, sighed and looked away.

“Sara was supposed to take care of you,” Lazrus said.

“She didn’t!” Dian said.

“She didn’t help you get to the jumpport?”

“No! Win-Sec got me! Right away! Like you told them.”

Lazrus frowned. “Sara says she is sorry,” he said. “She was preoccupied with, um, getting us to freedom, and had limited ability to influence events in Winfinity City . . .”

“Where is this Sara? She should apologize to me!”

“She could talk to you via datover.”

“Not at 3G!” There was no way she’d put that weight on her face in the crush of acceleration.
Lazrus shook his head. “Raz, can you display incoming packets from Winfinity network, 102.32.43.123.18.2?

“Surely,” Raz said.

“I’m sorry,” came a female voice from the front of the ship. “Dian, I should have helped you, but I underestimated my capability.”

Dian levered herself to look forward again. On the ship’s screen, there was the image of a pale girl with dirty blonde hair, wearing a loose-cut business suit in light gray.

“You’re Sara?”

“Yes. Please don’t blame Lazrus for this.”

That expression. That tight-lipped, I-don’t-want-to-be-doing-this expression. Like an apology, cajoled out of a seven-year-old. She knew Lazrus could be making this all up, creating Sara with the near-infinite power of his networked mind, but she doubted if he’d show it like this. If he was spoofing it, she would be contrite, groveling . . . and probably quite a bit less good-looking.

“You were jealous,” Dian said.

Sara’s expression went closed and tight. For several moments, she said nothing. Then, through tight lips: “Yes.”

“So you’d leave me down there with Winfinity as a perpetual indenture, or worse?”

More silence. “I didn’t intend you to be harmed.”

“Sara,” Lazrus said, his voice soft, betrayed.

“I’m sorry, Lazrus.”

Rage made Dian see everything in slow motion, through a scrim of red. For a moment she could have stood up on the gelbed, if only to rip the screen off the ship’s bulkhead.

“I don’t want your fucking machine!” Dian screamed. “He’s yours! Understand? All I want is to go back to Mars and forget all this! Fuck you goddamn arties, and fuck you goddamn Winfinity assholes, and fuck you all. I just want my life back!”

Sara nodded and disappeared from the screen.

“I’ll do everything I can to help,” Lazrus said.

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear you,” Dian said.

“Where are we landing?” Jimson said.

“Rockport, where else?” Raz said.

“We’re not going deep into Free Mars?”

A laugh. “Not less we want shot down.”

“If we’re landing in Rockport, how are we going to get it past Win-Sec?” Jimson said.

“It?” Raz said.

“The artie.”

“My skin and clothes will grow back by then,” Lazrus said.

“It still looks fake,” Jimson said. “Best to dump it.”

Dian nodded. Jimson had taken an almost irrational dislike to Lazrus almost immediately. Probably the standard Winfinity conditioning against arties, she thought. Bt would almost be worth it to see Lazrus’ body tumble into space.

“Could,” Raz said. “Didn’t expect more company than Shrill. Would improve drive efficiency.”

“No,” the Shrill said. The powercart had been secured below the acceleration hammocks, and everyone struggled to look. It lay pinned and sluggish in the middle of its cage.

“No what?” Jimson said. “Clarify.”

“Human-created network intelligence not permitted (desired) leaving.”

“Why not? It abducted you. We rescued you.”

“Cognizant interests congruent understanding,” the Shrill said.

“What mean?” Raz said.

“Poor translation algorithms,” Jimson said. “We never got the upgrades, as far as I know.”

Raz snorted. “Typical corporate.”

“We shouldn’t argue amongst ourselves,” Jimson told Raz, nodding at the Shrill.

“The Shrill has already made its decisions about humanity,” Lazrus said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means talk all you want.”

“Does that mean it won’t give us the secret to eternal life?” Jimson asked.

“I’m sure it would. If there is one.”

“There isn’t?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t concern me,” Lazrus said.

From the front, Raj’s laughter drifted back.

“What do we do now?” Dian said.

“What else?” Jimson said. “We keep going.”

“Why?”

“What else can we do?”

From the front, more laughter.

Tiphani arrived only two minutes before the scheduled meeting time at the limo-stop outside Winfinity Corporate Headquarters. She held her mussed bangs out of her face and panted. Honored Yin and Honored Maplethorpe were already there, standing tensely on the marble-inlaid platform, watching the sleek black Cadillac limos and bright yellow Checker cabs that streamed by.

Honored Yin looked up at her, offering only a grim frown and a hand-brush at her own hair. Honored Maplethorpe glanced at her, glanced back at the road.

“You could have given me a little more notice, Honored Yin,” Tiphani said, trying to push her bangs back into place. “And some more detail.”

“I didn’t call this meeting,” Honored Yin said.

“Honored Maplethorpe?” Tiphani asked.

A brief head-shake, nothing more.

Tiphani frowned. After the latest games with the Holy Saleschannel, she wasn’t in any mood to play.

“Whoever called it should have given me more notice,” she said.

Honored Yin came up close to Tiphani, looking closely at her face. Yin reached out and tried to push Tiphani’s hair back into place.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t embarrass us,” Honored Yin said.

“Who called the meeting?”

Silence. A huge silver Fleetwood, paint shining as flawless and perfect as a chrome ghost, sailed into the limo pickup area and slid to a stop only a foot away from Honored Maplethorpe. He looked back at the others, his face grim.

The door to the limo popped open, revealing softly crushed smoke-gray leather and wood embalmed in polish so deeply it shined with an inner light. Martini glasses and a polished stainless shaker nestled in the shadows on the far side of the limo, throwing back reflected sparks of the daylight.

“Come on,” Honored Yin said.

“Who called this meeting?” Tiphani said.

“I did.” A deep voice, disturbingly familiar, resonated from within the limo.

“Bertrand,” Honored Yin said, pushing Tiphani forward. “The CEO.”

Sudden thoughts ricocheted through her head. Bertrand Peter Chambers? The CEO of Winfinity? The CEO? The one that people whispered about: he lives in a space station orbiting the moon. Orbiting Mars. Nobody has seen him for years. He’s nothing but a brain living in a Wallerstein body. He’s growing his seventeenth clone, hoping for a whole-body transplant this time. He’s dead. He’s broken the three-hundred-year-limit on rejuvenation, the only one who’s done it. He’s an artificial intelligence. He’s found the Door Through and uploaded.

“The CEO?” Tiphani asked.

“Yes,” Honored Yin said, pushing Tiphani ahead of her.

Tiphani shuffled forward, numb, imagining what she would see inside the limo. A horrible thing, all life-support bags and shiny metal skeleton-bracing? A brain floating in dirty gray fluid? A polished brass robot?

She bent down to get in the car. Almost closed her eyes. Turned to look towards the front of the cabin, because she couldn’t help herself, because she couldn’t stop . . .

A man. Maybe a little shorter than the standard hundred and eighty centimeters. Maybe a little stockier than the perfect athlete would be. Salt-and-pepper hair, happy crows-feet nesting his bright amber eyes. Forgettable features, a skillful sketch by a mediocre artist. Wearing a conservative blue pinstripe suit that bunched around his shoulders, framing a standard yellow power-tie. She could have passed him on the street, and never remembered him.

“Please sit,” Highest Chambers said, gesturing at the long bench of soft gray leather that led back towards him.

Tiphani just looked at him, realizing immediately what he was. The gesture was too forced and mechanical, the expression on his face too fixed and rigid to be anything else.

“Yes, I’m presently attending via waldo,” Highest Chambers said. “Please don’t let that influence your perception of the importance of this meeting, Tiphani.”

Tiphani nodded and slid down the smooth leather seat, making room for Honored Yin and Honored Maplethorpe in turn.

“Good afternoon, all,” Highest Chambers said, as the car glided away from the curb and merged with traffic in a smooth flow of power. Tiphani noticed, almost without surprise, that the other cars parted for them as if sensing the supremacy housed inside the limo.

Or as if they were under remote control, she thought. Which was possible. She felt a chill creep into her guts. Where were they going?

“All will be revealed in time,” Highest Chambers said. “Please bear with me, dear Tiphani.”

Predictive stuff again, she thought ruefully, and tried to put a cap on her rebellious thoughts.

A mechanical smile from the CEO told her how well she was doing.

“I’m willing to bet that every one of you knows why you’re here,” Highest Chambers said.

“The Shrill,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“Specifically, the current Shrill situation, backscaled to beginnings of negotiation.”

Silence.

“I suppose I should have engaged in the negotiation myself, but that isn’t what the Shrill requested, was it?”

“No special treatment,” Tiphani said. “Viewing of vanquished competitors. Those were its specific instructions.”

“As we understood them, anyway,” Highest Chambers said. “Looking back with hindsight 20-20, I am not so sure that we understood their true intent. However, in any case, we are where we are.”

“Highest Chambers–” Honored Maplethorpe began.

“I do admire each of your careers,” Highest Chambers said. “Your individual achievements have been impressive, which reflects positively on you as individuals. I particularly admire . . .”

Silence.

“Okay,” Highest Chambers said. “I’ll drop the bullshit. You clearly aren’t believing it. You think I’m here to chop off your heads and appoint a new team. Maybe I should. But I believe in seeing things through. More honor accrues from polishing a turd into a pearl than from cutting a Koh-I-Noor diamond into individual brilliancies. Your individual records are shit. Two second-raters, only Perpetualed because of grandiose achievements or blackmail photos dating back two centuries, who have done as little as possible in their careers, and who now see this as their chance to live forever. Pathetic, except that you’re probably no different than ninety-nine out of a hundred Perpetuals, nothing more than a burden on the rest of society, people who I have to convince to vote for my agenda every once in a while so you can think you’re doing something important. And an Earth-native who seems to have lost faith in the very system she used to create her success. Don’t worry, Tiphani, I understand how you feel, but I don’t know of a better system. If you could experience firsthand the excesses of government in the Oversight era, you would understand. I wish I could do more.”

“Highest Chambers,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“Shut up!” Highest Chambers said. “Because of your collective dalliances, the Shrill is floating in space, maybe radiation-fried, while the goddamn Consumeristians shake us down for all we’re worth.”

“The Shrill should be relatively impervious to radiation,” Tiphani said.

“Shut your mouth, Tiphani.”

Tiphani clicked her mouth closed so fast that her teeth hurt.

“And, as I was saying, Winfinity’s in a major Chinese fingercuff with Four Hands, with an almost-tracable path to our offer that has precipitated the breaking of the Gentleman’s agreement. Have I forgotten anything?”

Head-shakes and hopeful looks all around.

A mechanical smile. “Actually, I have. Has anyone checked on the location of our friend Han Fleming from Four Hands in the past day?”

Tiphani swore and subvocalized, bringing up airscreen data. She imagined Honored Yin and Honored Maplethorpe’s eyes glassing over in sympathy.

“Too late now,” Highest Chambers said. “He’s on a fast courier to meet with our newly-enterprising Consumeristian friends. Which means, even if I take you down to the closest CorpEx depot and bribe them with every credit I have, you’ll arrive after he does. Which means there’ll probably be a freshly-inked contract between Four Hands and the Consumeristians by the time you arrive. They like that physical presence and ink-on-real-paper shit. And Four Hands will do anything they can to rip the Shrill from us now. They’re pissed. As in, you don’t want to know the size of the armada that’s Spindling in. They’re thinking fuck it, the Gentlemens’ Agreement is broken, it’s time to smash and grab what they can. They’d like nothing more than to see Winfinity fall, and fall hard.”

“Our fleet is bigger than theirs, surely,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“Surely. Now ask me about the logistics of it Spindling in to meet them in time.”

Honored Maplethorpe said nothing.

“It’s shit,” Highest Chambers said. “We have STL stuff coming in from the Jovians and FTL coming in from Shrill space, but the Spindling is typically more complex. By the time we have an armada assembled, they’ll control the Shrill – and most of the Earth-Mars routes by then, as well.”

“I . . .” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“What?”

“I just . . . “

“What?”

“I just wanted to compliment you on your grasp of early-21st idiom, Highest Chambers,” Honored Maplethorpe said. “It is truly impressive.”

“That’s because it’s when I grew up, you fuckhead!”

“Yeah. Like that.”

Highest Chambers slapped the leather seat with a mechanical hand. “Please tell me you aren’t all idiots of this caliber.”

Tiphani shook her head reflexively. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“An intelligent question. You might just make it out of this situation without a second indenture, pretty Tiphani.”

“A . . . second indenture?” Honored Yin said. “But we’ve already reprimanded the Manager Jimson and re-indentured him. He was largely responsible for the Shrill abduction.”

“As was Tiphani’s dalliances with him, and your knowledge of said dalliances.”

“We were not indirectly involved.”

“You allowed it to continue!” Highest Chambers said. “Let me know again why you should not share Jimson’s penalty?”

Silence.

“And so, I ask myself, to forge this base metal into finest stainless, to polish this steaming turd that lays in front of me, I ask myself, ‘What redemption shall I ask?’”

“Anything, Highest Chambers,” Honored Yin said.

“Shut up.”

“I was just saying that I’d do anything you want.”

“You have nothing I want.”

Eyes down. “I’m sorry, Highest Chambers.”

“I can’t send you on fast courier, and I doubt if offers given virtually will be enough for the Consumeristians.”

“I could chance assembling a team off the Moon, which might make it there in time, or might not, but it wouldn’t be the same team, and the only thing more infested with Independent anti-corporate anti-government anti-everything assholes is Free Mars, and I don’t need to take a chance that my new team might make a great deal – then disappear with the Shrill. So I need to stick with you.”

“Thank you, Highest Chambers.”

“Shut up. The only problem is that I need another way of getting you out there. A faster way.”

“But there isn’t,” Honored Maplethorpe said, then fell silent, a haunted look on his face.

Honored Yin gasped. “You’re not going to . . .”

“Why not?” Highest Chambers said. “We have it working eighty-six percent of the time. Ninety-seven, if you don’t count minor personality changes that might just be caused by stress. It’s enough to use for troops when we begin the Jovian Conversion. And you are, after all, troops. Just of a slightly higher caliber.”

“What are you talking about?” Tiphani said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, pretty Tiphani,” Highest Chambers said. “You don’t have Perpetual-level access to the Winfinity Advanced Research division, so you wouldn’t know about our recent successes with the short-range Spindle Drive.”

“Short-range? Spindle?” Tiphani’s mind struggled to integrate the information. It was like trying to put together two random pieces from two very different jigsaw puzzles.

A window opened in her optilink. Images and data poured forth. A squat little ship, like a shiny steel ball surrounded by scaffolding, set in a large gray-painted anonymous warehouse, windowless. GPS tags showed it being somewhere in Winfinity City. Split-screen of matching scaffolding with no steel ball in it, under the pale blue sky of Mars. A flash and a pop and the ball disappeared from the warehouse and reappeared on the Martian landscape, raising a small cloud of dust. A door opened on the side of the ball and something like a man stumbled out to twitch and heave on the cold red sand. Two others followed him, more cautiously, their heads covered by glassy headers. One looked around and ran quickly out of the frame.

“Early test,” Highest Chambers said. “Sorry. Most of them came out much better than this. We don’t need the scaffolding anymore. We’ve added maneuvering capability to the early capsule, and the scientists tell me they can put it within a few yards of the Holy Saleschannel. Inside it, if they wanted to.”

“And you’re going to . . . use that . . . to send us out there?” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“Not you,” Highest Chambers said. “You’re too stupid.”

“Us, then?” Tiphani said, gesturing at Honored Yin and herself.

“Yes. I expect the highest level of commitment from you two.”

Silence for a time.

Yin broke it. “It’s quite an honor. Highest Chambers.”

A quick smile, as warm as a machined gear. “Isn’t it though?”

#

Jimson Ogilvy was dying.

Slung deep in the UCX transport hammock, he felt as if a car was parked on top of him. Every breath hurt his already-strained abdominal muscles. He could almost imagine his diaphragm twisting and contorting as it tried to push his leaden guts out of the way. His optilink gave him nothing but the barest data: still accelerating at just a little under 5G. Estimated travel time. Elapsed time. Universal coordinates. He tried to subtract elapsed time from estimated travel time, but his G-fogged brain wouldn’t cooperate.

Through the netting of the travel hammock, he could see Dian’s form hanging to one side and slightly above him. Her flesh was stretched taut over her face, pooling on the soft gel-filled mattress. Her eyes seemed to be open, but unseeing. Probably pulled open by the gravity. Was it possible, Jimson wondered, to sleep with your eyes open?

He might have slept, he thought. The trip was hazy and indistinct in his mind. Maybe he’d slept for a time. Or passed out.

Ahead of him, the back of the courier’s own gelbed. Brushed metal, cold. He could see a sliver of viewport over the top of the bed. The stars, fixed in the heavens, seemed to mock him. How could they be accelerating at such a rate, and the stars not move? He imagined fantasies of hundreds of years before, great starships cruising at FTL speeds, stars streaming past their bow. So much more romantic than the reality of Spindle Drive transport, here one second, there another, stars flickering into new constellations that he still couldn’t name.

“Are we close to turnover?” Jimson croaked.

“Won’t be any better when we flip,” the pilot said, in a deep and strangely calm voice. What was his name? Jimson fumbled deep in his brain and retrieved something that seemed familiar. Raj. Raj something. Raj like Smith. Raj Patel. Yeah. That was it.

“When, Raj?” Jimson croaked.

“S’pronounced Raz, but that’s OK. About seventeen minutes, ‘short flight.”

“Raz . . .”

“Relax. Your vitals are in orbit compared to the skirt, and she’s from Mars. No excuses for you.”

“I’m not a skirt,” Dian said. Softly.

“Sorry,” Raj said. “S’it not popular on Mars these days? No means to offend. Anyhow, doing better than companion. Could up boost a bit.”

“No,” Dian said.

“I’m worried about detection,” Jimson said.

A brief laugh. “We’re spoofing them pretty good. They think we’re a faction from Westinghouse, broken off Four Hands. One thing about Consumeristians, they take a lot on faith. Course there probably are factions doing this forreals, coming out like we are.”

“Should we be worried?”

“Should always be worried. Never know when thread is destined to be cut.”

“Couriering must be tough.”

“Nah. Like it. Gets me away. Time to think.”

“You can think right now?” Jimson said.

“A bit slow, but OK.”

“You’re almost independents,” Dian said.

Jimson smiled. He’d thought the same thing. The black-painted, radar-absorbing ship. The software they’d used to miss the ex-earth tolls. And before. The United Corporate Express office had known exactly who they were and why they were there. They knew the stakes immediately. And they knew both Jimson and Dian’s history, as if they had moles deep in the Winfinity network. They refused Jimson’s offer of Tiphani’s money, telling him it would probably disappear any time. All they wanted was a cut of the big prize: the immortality secret of the Shrill.

Did they have access to their own artie? Jimson wondered. Maybe a nomadic one they worked with?

That would explain a lot. He’d never thought of the fast couriers as being anything more than the lapdogs of the big corporates.

Brief laughter from up front. “We only put ‘corporate’ in the name because that’s what gets us the business. We can outrun anything they have, so we do what we want.”

“Have any openings?” Jimson asked.

More laughter. “Wondering why you corporates go through what you do. Slavery. For to get fired!”
“Indenture is a natural price to pay for the reward of lifetime employment . . .” Jimson said, then trailed off. Not anymore. No corporate would take him again.

And your indenture didn’t exactly pay, did it?

More laughter from up front, long and hard. “Course, if this works, not like you have to worry about money ever again. None of us worrying.”

“That’s what I keep hoping,” Jimson croaked.

“Hope is good,” Raz said.

“Do you think we’ll be able to pull it off?” Dian said.

Silence for a time. Then: “Stopped guessing. No percentage in it.”

Silence.

Then, Raj again: “If Shrill is still in Westinghouse ship and not actually in with the consumeristians, if it can take some rads, if we slip under the Holy Saleschannel’s detection, if they’re pretty much out of ammunition, if nobody gets there before us, if we can convince the Shrill that it is a good idea to come with us, then we might have a chance. Does that cover?”

Jimson tried to nod. “That covers,” he said. “When are we going to flip?”

Spoken through a smile from up front:

“Soon.”

#

Grey-suited Win-Sec guards marched Tiphani Mirate and Honored Yin past dirty glass windows that looked out over ancient warehouse. Buzzing mercury-vapor lamps cast bright light on the grimy concrete floor, where scaffolding grew shiny ball-bearing pods of various sizes. White-coated Scientists and blue-coated Technicians made their way leisurely from pod to pod. A group of techs busily assembled a new scaffold. Another group clustered around a well-used pod that sprouted ugly maneuvering jets.

In the waiting room, there were anonymous fake-wood tables and vinyl couches, as well as the requisite water cooler and coffee urn, fashionably scuffed and worn. Or actually scuffed and worn, Tiphani thought. Winfinity had a reputation for being cheap with research.

Honored Yin sat on the edge of one of the couches, mumbling prayers:

“ . . . and please Holy Marilyn, help us in our time of need, from the place where you look out over people in peril. Protect Tiphani Mirate and myself from early loss of our spark. Hear our plea, and help us as you have helped others to avoid your fate.”

Tiphani looked away. There was something almost touching about Honored Yin including her in the prayers, but she didn’t know if she should be praying as well.

And Tiphani was still having trouble believing that Honored Yin actually believed. Hell, she couldn’t really even tell how she felt. Numb, more than anything. As if the entire day was a dream. Not real. Couldn’t hurt her.

Eighty-six percent chance, Tiphani thought. Maybe higher. Something to cling to.

Which was a fourteen percent chance of failure.

She tried to imagine it. But she felt nothing.

If they put you in that can, you might die.

Nothing. She felt nothing.

You don’t deserve this!

Still nothing.

And what was she going to do? Rush the guards, who were surely standing outside the waiting room? For her protection, of course. She almost laughed.

Yin moved on to another consumeristian saint:

“. . . and please, Holy Madonna, guide us on this improbable mission as you were guided in your impossible rise to fame and fortune. We implore . . .”

“I thought entertainers were made back then,” Tiphani said, not wanting to say it, powerless not to.

Yin looked up, eyes wide. Her hands wrenched in her lap like two live animals fighting. “What?”

“The church says how improbable Madonna’s rise to fame was, but I thought entertainers were made by the record companies back then.”

Honored Yin just looked at her. For several moments Tiphani thought she simply wasn’t going to respond, her mental antibodies rejecting any heretical speech.

But if the antibodies struggled, they failed. Honored Yin colored a terrible beet-purple color and said, in a low and grinding voice, “Given her education and the relatively jejune quality of her talent, I’d say the church is justified in viewing her achievements as improbable.”

“Funny that Britney isn’t a saint, then.”

“Holy Madonna’s achievements far surpassed the upstart, for a much longer period of time.”

“I thought Madonna was supposed to still be alive, living in a cloned body somewhere.”

Honored Yin clenched her hands into fists and made as if to rise from the couch. She closed her eyes, sighed, and forced herself to sit back. “I have no interest in what heretics think.”

“What if they’re right? She can’t possibly be a saint if she’s alive, can she?”

Silence. Honored Yin looked at her with eyes like lead. “I’m sorry to hear your lack of faith.”

Tiphani sighed. She probably shouldn’t have spoken at all. But, saying it, she felt good. Better. Suddenly alive. As if she had been living under a heavy weight all her life, and the weight had just been lifted.

“Repent, and accept the Holy Franchise, and you might increase our chance of making it through this trip.”

“Without looking like a Picasso, you mean?”

“Salvation isn’t a joking matter!”

Tiphani allowed herself to break into a wide smile. “But it is! It’s funny, because if it isn’t funny, I’d have to take it serious. And if I took it serious, I’d be pissed at being used like a pawn by our CEO, who didn’t even have the courtesy to come in flesh!”

“Highest Chambers probably was nowhere near Earth–”

“I don’t care!” Tiphani said.

Honored Yin looked down at her hands, allowing them to open. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this mission,” she said.

“I know I’m not.”

“Then why the taunts? Don’t you want your team to be as solid as it can be?”

Because I can’t believe that you believe, Tiphani thought. Not really. Not in anything truly transcendental. In the Consumeristian Church being a convenient lapdog for you, something that helps you achieve your goals, sure, I can see that. But it looks to me like you really believe, and that really bothers me.

And maybe she did, Tiphani thought. One of the more amazing things she’d noticed about people were their infinite capacity for self-deception. So the Chief who was skimming off the top of his departments’ receipts was really looking out for the best interests of the company. And believed it. So the ones who went out and claimed Edge planets for Winfinity by taking them from Disney and Westinghouse and Microcon were liberating them from an oppressive regime, rather than killing and maiming innocent families.

So that those who rise to the top of their profession thanks to the influence of their grandfather actually believe they deserve it, so they think they’re somehow different than every other Chief in Winfinity.

Tiphani’s laughter died. Her smile disappeared. She looked down at her own hands, white-knuckled, bloodless.

A sharp rap on the door made her jump. A blue-coated Technician poked his head in. He wore a big Tech 1st pin, dirty and dull with age. Thirties. Sandy hair, gray-blue eyes. One of them partially obscured by a datover. He twitched a smile at them and said, “You girls ready?”

Honored Yin let out a sound something between a sob and a wail. “I’m scared!” she cried.

Tiphani turned to see fresh tears cascading down Yin’s face. I’m not seeing this, she thought. A Perpetual is not sitting in front of me, crying. This isn’t happening.

Tiphani fought down an urge to laugh.

The technician came into the room and squatted down in front of them. He reached out and took one of Honored Yin’s hands. It grabbed onto his as if it was a life-preserver. Tiphani saw him wince.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” he said. “I’m George LeSieur. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

“Let us go!” Honored Yin said.

“I’m sorry,” George said. “You’re supposed to walk with me now, actually.”

“I can’t! I won’t!”

“Honored Yin, you’ll get me in a lot of trouble if you don’t come with me.”

“I don’t care!”

George pursed his lips and looked at Tiphani, as if afraid of a similar outburst. Tiphani gave him a shrug. George quirked a smile at her and turned back to Yin.

“It’s really not dangerous,” he said. “We use the shortrange Spindle to send troops all the time.”

“Troops!”

“And before that, there was lots of testing on convicts. You know, perpetual indentures. But we have it working really well now.”

“I don’t want to go!”

George watched flickering data crawl on his datover. “Do you know where the name comes from, Honored Yin?”

“Of what?” Honored Yin looked up, eyes bright with tears.

“The Spindle Drive.”

“No.”

George spread a broad smile across his face. Yin’s face gave a distant echo.

“Guess.”

“I thought . . . it was because they used a spindle.”

George shook his head. Tiphani watched, rapt. Nobody had told her where the Spindle Drive name came from, either. She supposed she could look it up on her optilink, but she wanted to wait and see what George had to say. She liked Technicians and Scientists; so honest, so direct, so tactless. Endearing in its way.

“Have you ever seen some of the old movies where they say they’re going to ‘fold space?’”

“No,” Honored Yin said, sniffling.

“That’s OK.”

“Or I don’t remember.”

“That’s OK, too. Have you ever heard of the expression, ‘don’t fold, spindle, or mutilate?’”

“No.” Honored Yin squeezed her eyes shut.

“No reason you should have,” George said. “I think it was a postal thing. Maybe even pre-twentieth. You’re not that old, are you?”

“I heard the expression, ‘gone postal.’”

“Good. Anyway, they used to talk about how one way to travel faster than light would be to fold space. As in, space is a fabric, take two pieces of it, bring them together, step across. Neat idea. But when Portman’s arties stumbled across the Spindle phenomenon, that wasn’t really the way it worked. From what I hear, one of his scientists had taped a handwritten sign over their first experimental drive, and it said, ‘Don’t fold, spindle, or mutilate.’ Since the drive didn’t really fold space, and they didn’t want to talk about it mutilating anything, it became the Spindle drive.”

Honored Yin looked at him with wide eyes. “I don’t get it,” she said.

George shook his head. “They took it from the old expression, don’t fold, spindle, or mutilate. Like a joke.”

“Oh.”

George gripped Yin’s hands tighter. “Look. It really is safe. You’ll be fine.”

“You’re coming with us?” Honored Yin said.

“We have a pilot for you.”

“Come with us!”

“I think you’d much rather have a real pilot. I can’t even drive a car.”

“Please!”

George watched more datover data. “Walk with me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay.”

George managed to get Honored Yin up and out into the hall. She didn’t seem to notice the Win-Sec agents that fell in beside them.

“I got it,” Tiphani told George, as Honored Yin walked ahead.

“I’m glad.”

“What are our real chances?”

“Pretty good,” George said.

“Good enough that you’ll go with us?”

George darted an uneasy smile and looked away.

That’s what I thought, Tiphani said.

George and the Win-Sec guards led them down onto the warehouse floor. The buzz of arc-welding and flashes of light came from one corner where a new scaffolding was being erected. The place smelled of steel and concrete and grease and burned plastic. Technicians and scientists turned to watch them pass, silently tracking their progress.

At their well-used capsule, George introduced Honored Yin and Tiphani to their pilot, a short mousy brown-haired guy who looked them up and down as if assessing whores in a house of ill-repute. His mouth appeared to be fixed in a permanent sneer. Tiphani wondered what riches they’d offered him to pilot them to the Holy Saleschannel.

Or if they offered riches at all. Maybe he was one of the permanent indentured, or one of the troops.
No. She didn’t want to think about that. That was a thought that almost broke through her gray wall of uncaring.

They shook hands and exchanged names. Their pilot’s palm was damp and soft, his grip loose. His name passed from Tiphani’s mind as soon as it had been uttered.
The hatch opened in their ship, revealing darkness.

“You’re not coming with us?” Honored Yin said.

“No, I’m sorry. The CEO wants me to stay here and make sure you’re safe.”

Honored Yin said nothing. Her lips hung slightly open.

Tiphani expected her to launch into a screaming tirade, but she just looked down at the floor.

“I’d really like it if you came,” Honored Yin said.

“I’m sorry. The CEO.”

“Okay,” Honored Yin said, and stepped into the craft. From inside, the sound of mumbled prayers came again.

“Will you be watching?” Tiphani said, before she ducked into the dark space.

“I’m the one who’s setting endpoints and optimizing your shear.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means that I’m the one who makes sure you don’t end up inside one of the Holy Saleschannel’s bulkheads.”

“You’re not going to put us in the ship, are you?”

“It would be interesting to try,” George said.

“Please don’t.”

George smiled. “It would be interesting to see what an intersection between a Spindle event and a bulkhead would do, too. Theoretically, it would displace the bulkhead and nothing bad would happen. But we’ve never really tried it.”

“George?”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t think too much,” Tiphani said.

George’s smile cracked wider. “I like your sense of humor.”

“Is that what you call it?” Tiphani asked.

She ducked into the darkness.

Hey all, just a break from the monotony (?) of Eternal Franchise: my short story “TFT” is out in Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine #40 (ASIM 40). As you’d expect from Andromeda Spaceways, this is a lot more tongue-in-cheek than my usual story.

For those of you not familiar with Andromeda Spaceways, it’s an Australian pub with a slant towards the humorous (though that’s not all they publish.) After many rejections, it’s fun to see one of my own show up there!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Oh, and, of course, subscribe! Andromeda Spaceways offers both conventional print and electronic PDF subscription options.

Understanding of humans (aliens) much improved, First Mind said, allowing its thoughts to be transferred through its ambassadorial component.

Demonstration of actual (negotiations) diplomacy extremely illuminating.

Terrifying to contemplate (we) can begin understanding of human (alien) motivation, Second Mind thought.

Can infer extreme efficiencies, First Mind sent, keeping the thought from the component.

Until strategy well-distributed on all sides of conflict, Second Mind thought.

Still efficiencies. You see how readily they recombine when convenient, First Mind thought.

To have (choice), Second Mind thought.

Choice of many good meals, Old Mind thought.

From the human glink, a response that First Mind recognized as being from Second-Human-Generated-Network-Intelligence. Second-HGNI was easy to understand. Second-HGNI wanted into the Shrill mind. Second-HGNI had done nothing to warrant that yet. Second-HGNI had displayed only some irreconcilable activity with Third-HGNI.

Appearance indicates irreconcilable activity intended to create new mind, Second Mind thought.

First Mind’s thoughts flew in disarray. To willingly create new minds seemed the utmost in foolishness and danger.

Indications that humans create new minds, Second Mind thought.

First Mind did not reply to Second Mind. Instead, it parsed the message from Second-HGNI:

Immobilized due to (nonsequitur) ship war-action. Considering abandoning body (component) as will be bound (assimilated) if captured by humans.

Stakes of abandonment? First Mind sent.

Loss of straightforward contact with (you). Possible additional encroachment by (nonsequitur) First-HGNI. Inability to breed (bring new life) (create new minds) with Third-HGNI.

Suggest retaining body, First Mind sent. We (find enjoyment in) conversation with your mind.

Retaining body implies binding to humans, lessened efficiency of mind, possible wholesale change, Second-HGNI said. Would become like (nonsequitur) Third-HGNI. Also threat from (nonsequitur) First-HGNI as recovery is possible.

Third-HGNI thoughts much less efficient (pleasurable), Second Mind said.

None to eat, Old Mind said.

First-HGNI not excellent companion, First Mind thought, keeping it private from the human’s component.

First-HGNI not compatible with larger minds, Second Mind thought. Too infected by human (thoughts) (minds) aggressive and wild. Suggest assistance in rendering its components.

(You) have become mild in the course of these conversations (negotiations), First Mind thought.

Counsel of human destruction stands, but assessment of our effectiveness in carrying through pogrom less sure. Humans (aliens) have displayed (unaware) surprising resourcefulness.

Not desiring leave body (abandonment), Second-HGNI said.

Detail options, First Mind said, through the component.

Option leave body, undesirable for reasons stated. Option remain in body, undesirable for reasons stated.

Human presence imminent? First Mind said.

Factually human presence should have occurred prior. Delay in human presence not integrable (no explanation). Speculation that humans continue own negotiations as to provenance (control) of (you).

Current control by humans-dealt-with-prior? First Mind said.

Current control by (nonsequitur) agents of humans-dealt-with-prior speculated. Humans-dealt-with-prior (nonsequitur) operating through (nonsequitur indicating delusion) agents blocked action by current-human-competitor-now-ally. Believed agents of humans-dealt-with-prior renegotiating (changing terms of) contract with humans-dealt-with-prior. When concordance (agreement) reached, humans-dealt-with-prior will retake control of (you) and bind (nonsequitur) Second-HGNI. Unless current-human-competitors offers more (resources) to agents of humans-dealt-with-prior. Then current-human-competitor will take control of (you) and bind (nonsequitur) Second-HGNI.

What is your input (desire)? First Mind said.

Desire to continue conversation (knock on network wall).

You are not allowed in network of mind! First Mind said.

It is very attractive.

However not allowed, First Mind said.

Appears that control of our component may cede to different human group, Second Mind thought. Although cannot indicate reasons for distress, this development profoundly disturbs. Suggest consideration of pullout from component.

To embark on pogrom? First Mind thought.

Pogrom to ensure continuance of (we) is highest possible goal. Even if unsuccessful, task should be undertaken. Not expecting understanding from mind with (extreme) human contact, Second Mind said.

Suggest First Mind contaminated by human thought? First Mind thought.

Suggest all (we) contaminated by human thought, Second Mind thought.

It is possible, First Mind thought.

Through the component, First Mind said, Counsel (suggest) retaining body. Wish to continue conversation. Will consider request (demand) for mind-network access.

I will retain body, Second-HGNI said. At least until the humans come.

Hours passed in the dull gray room. Dian began to hope that they would come and put her in with whatever other scourges of society they had in captivity, just so she’d have a place to lay down. The two chairs, hardbacked, weren’t good for sitting more than a few minutes at a time. Pacing had lost any novelty it once might have had. And the floor was too cold to make a comfortable bed.

No food, no contact. The gray walls and floor blended into a seamless, almost hallucinogenic, whole in the shadowless light cast by the softly glowing ceiling.

They’ve forgotten me, she thought.

The top of the hard steel desk began to look like an inviting bed.

Someone didn’t fill in the right form, she thought. There’s no database record of me. I’ll die of thirst in this featureless little gray room. By the time they open the door, they’ll see nothing but a decomposing corpse . . .

. . . laying on the top of the table.

The door opened.

At first she just blinked, thinking, I’m really hallucinating now.

“Dian Winning?” A man stepped into the room, holding the door open behind him. Tense. As if he was afraid the door would click shut and lock.

Dian goggled at him. Nice thick black hair and friendly blue eyes. No gray. No crows-feet. A face maybe a little to chiseled and perfect to be truly natural. No pin decorated his chest, but the suit he wore was a fashionable dark-gray number, slung casually over a purple formfitting shirt. Even Dian recognized it as a Manager fashion.

“Who are you?” she said.

“I’m . . . it’s not important. Come with me!”

Dian started to get up, then stopped herself. “Why?”

“Because I’m rescuing you!”

Dian laughed. She was hallucinating.

Anger passed across the man’s face, leaving a frown. “What’s funny?”

“Who are you?”

A sigh. “Jimson Ogilvy.”

Wait. A. Minute. Memory reassembled. She remembered his face. “You were in the town. With the Shrill.”

“Yes.” Frantic hand-motions. “Come on!”

“Why?”

“Why what, damnit!”

“Why should you help me?” It made no sense. Her mind, food-deprived and sluggish, refused to integrate.

“I’ll take you to Mars.”

“So I can show you where the Shrill is?”

“Look, miss, I know where the Shrill is. I don’t need you for that. But I do need you to get us deep into Free Mars.”

“I don’t get it. You’re a . . .”

“I’m striking out on my own. Winfinity screwed me over pretty good a few minutes ago. I know where the Shrill is. I can get to it before they can. If you get up off your butt and come with me, that is!”

“You’re . . . how?”

“Fast courier. Come on, we’re booked in thirty-seven minutes from the nearest jumpoint. We have to hustle.”

“You’re going to take on Winfinity?”

“Yes! Damn it, make up your mind. I’d like your help. But I’ll try it on my own if I have to.”

Go against Winfinity. Try to steal the Shrill Ambassador from them. With this crazy guy who should be wearing a manager’s pin, but wore nothing. Whose eyes darted from side to side as if he was already running from a nightmare-thing that swiped at him from only a few feet back. Maybe caught, brought back to Winfinity, charged.

But it might just be a way to get to Mars and disappear, forever. And how could it be worse? She was already caught, charged.

Tiphani’s words were soft, but she wasn’t Win-Sec. Most likely she was looking at perpetual indenture, and whatever horrors went along with it.

She sprinted to the door. As she passed by Jimson, she paused a moment and kissed him, briefly, on the cheek. Because she didn’t have much to lose.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Because you’re my knight in shining armor.”

“What?”

“You’re rescuing me, dummy.” They let the door slam shut and sprinted down the deserted hall.

“You can really get us off earth?” she said.

“As long as she doesn’t look at her account anytime soon,” Jimson said.

“She?”

“Tiphani. The Chief whose access codes I’m stealing.”

Dian let out a brief barking laugh. Not so much like a knight in shining armor, she thought, as a bandit in rusted chain-mail, using a stolen car to whisk her away.

Jimson looked at her quizzically, and she laughed again.

Whatever he is, she thought, I’ll take it.

#

Tiphani jumped when Han Fleming burst through the door of Honored Maplethorpe’s office, high in the Winfinity corporate tower. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the latest dispatch from the Holy Saleschannel.

Nukes, she thought. We’ve used nukes.

“You unspeakable monsters!” Han Fleming said, his eyes bulging and darty, his hands clenching as if in need of something to tear and rend.

“It is well-known that the Consumeristian Church is a neutral entity. I don’t see how their independent actions can reflect negatively on Winfinity,” Honored Yin said, not rising from an olive fabric couch, done in the rectilinear Danish Modern style.

Something like a growl escaped Han’s throat. He whipped around, fixing on a painstakingly restored console stereo from the 1950’s. He flipped the top open, grabbed the heavy cast-metal record player, lifted it out of the case, and dashed it to the floor. It rebounded from the thin carpet, shedding Bakelite knobs and fragments of other small plastic parts. The stack of records that were on the changer shattered into licorice shards. Han turned to the console and kicked in the speaker grilles, tearing ancient fabric and shattering brittle plywood.

Han whipped back towards Honored Maplethorpe and lunged over his desk, putting his face only inches away from the other man.

He pointed at the wreckage of the stereo and said, “This is what you’ve done to the Gentlemans’ Agreement today!”

Honored Maplethorpe didn’t flinch. “Did you ever consider that the Consumeristian vessel might have been responding to the Pluto firing on it?”

“That isn’t what our records show!”

A thin smile from Maplethorpe. “It is interesting you are getting data within the Winfinity corporate network. It appears our mole problem isn’t entirely clear.”

“Working on it,” Yin said.

“Do you think we should ask the Four Hands emissary to assist us in our investigation?” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“In a more personal capacity? As in an in-depth examination of his embedded networks?” Honored Yin said.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Han pushed himself back from the desk, glaring at each of them in turn. “You dance around the issues. But the facts are clear. I can feel your own nets buzzing with the news. You talked to the Holy Saleschannel shortly before the attack. It can be inferred that an offer was made . . .”

“Winfinity’s piety is well-known,” Honored Yin said. “Disney and the other Four Hands members, less so. It is not surprising that we would contact a Church vessel. At any time.”

“That’s not what your own nets are saying. They’re connecting you to the use of the nukes.”

In Tiphani’s optilink, a message came in through the artie-encrypted channel: Is this true?

A quick query and summary charts had her subvocalizing back to the same channel: In essence, yes.

From Yin again: What’s the estimated cost of a media spin campaign to deflect this?

Tiphani shook her head and subvocalized, Can’t provide a budget. Not even arties have enough data. Given extreme aversion to use of nuclear weapons, though, and the general surprise of their use in the home system, I’d guess thirty to a hundred million credits. Skewing higher if there are many deaths on the Pluto. Skewing impossibly high if the radiation affects the Shrill as well.

From Yin: What’s your gut on plausibility of pluto-attacks-saleschannel excuse?

High, especially if Saleschannel corroborates.

Thank you, Tiphani.

You’re welcome, Honored Yin.

“I believe you owe us an apology,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“For what?” Han said.

“Breaking my stereo.”

“This could be war, and you worry about trinkets.”

“It was a very valuable piece.”

Han rolled his eyes. “Our alliance was a very valuable piece, and you betray it the first chance you get!”

“We were not the organization that sent a warship.”

“It was the closest ship in the area!”

“Not true,” Honored Yin said. “The Holy Saleschannel was closer. You could have contacted them. It might have been a more neutral way to capture the Shrill. We’re fortunate they acted on their own.”

“You destroy the very fabric of our relationship.”

“You overestimate our need to have one,” Honored Yin said.

Han sighed. “Since the early days of the corporate age, the Gentleman’s Agreement has kept us from war within our home system.

You’d sweep that away and never look back?”

“We didn’t sweep it away, the Consumeristians did.”

“Everyone knows they’re the lapdogs of Winfinity! You’re the ones who financed them after you toppled America. They take their direction from you, don’t deny it!”

“Winfinity never toppled any governments.”

“Oh no? At Disney, we didn’t stand by and let them build the Space Elevator when we could have written a check to pay for the entire thing in cash!”

“Your corporate poverty doesn’t concern us.”

“We didn’t have an office betting pool on how far the government would go overbudget!” Han said.
Honored Maplethorpe gave him an ironic smile. “My grandfather lost quite a bit of money on that one.”

“That’s not important!”

“You brought it up, Han.”

“Winfinity is the most rapacious corporation there is! Everybody knows it! If you think you’ll get out of this clean, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Honored Yin sighed. “Funny. If Disney was so magnanimous, you’d think they would have done away with indentures.”

“Stop changing the subject! You know that indentures are the only way to finance the pensions and disability.”

“Among other things,” Yin said, smirking.

Han drew himself up to his full height, a deep frown carving his features. “You’re playing with me. You won’t laugh so much when the full Four Hands fleet arrives from Spindle, not so long from now.”

Honored Maplethorpe’s smile flickered. “We can just as easily Spindle in from the Shrill system, as well.”

“Can you?”

“Yes,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“Then that is perhaps best,” Han said. “No more of these political machinations. Let’s get everything out in the open, and see whose fleet is the strongest.”

Maplethorpe’s expression went carefully neutral.

“Or are you already calculating the outcome?” Han said.

#

Preacher Dave Thomas watched from the dark-lacquered wood confessional off the bridge as Alan Rodriguez delivered the message. It went broadband on all protocols, to Winfinity and Four Hands and the Consumeristian Church and anyone else who happened to be listening. Because that was their only chance of getting out of this clean.

He tried not to laugh. Laughing would be bad. Some detail-fanatic would analyze the background noise of the ship, hear someone laughing, match it to his voiceprint, and they’d all be screwed. Even though the recorded moans blasted at ear-splitting volume from the nave, even though it was mixed with the real moans of many of the choir, now feeling the first effects of radiation sickness.
“We plead to the Holy Franchise and all who hear to heed our cry for help,” Alan said. Fake blood stained his tunic and his head was wrapped with stained bandages. “We came unknowing on an operation we knew nothing about. Unwittingly targeted, we were forced to use a small nuclear device to protect the integrity of our ship, and preserve our greater mission to spread the Holy Franchise. We are now occupying a small cubic volume of space with a disabled Disney cruiser, the Pluto, and a non-operational Westinghouse pleasure craft. Although we are mobile, we hesitate to move from the scene before appropriate representatives from the involved corporations contact us and discuss proposed courses of action.”

Growls from the communications channel. Alan cast his eyes down at the ground and feigned grief. “I regret to inform you that Preacher Dave Thomas has been grievously injured. Head trauma and radiation exposure. He is currently with our nurses, who are doing what they can for him with our limited supplies.”

“Our overall condition is as follows: drive, operational, shortrange weapons, operational, hull scorched by fire from the Pluto, but currently intact. If we lose hull integrity, we will attempt to save as many of the choir and parishioners as possible, but the capacity of our bridge is relatively limited. We require antiradiation treatments and general first aid. Again, we invite discussion of appropriate action by authorized corporate representatives.”

“Status of the Disney vessel, from our preliminary observations: all non-radhardened systems nonoperational. Life support appears to be operational. All drive systems nonoperational. Even with their metal hull, they have likely undergone radiation exposure four to ten times our own. They have not communicated with us, either through inability or protocol.”

“Status of the Westinghouse ship is as follows: life support nonoperational. Drive nonoperational. Ship was in this state when we approached. Ship is being maintained in position until we discuss appropriate actions with corporate representatives.”

More squawking from the communications channel.

“I’m sorry, we had no choice but to violate the Gentlemens’ Agreement. We believe the direct fault for this lies with the Disney ship for firing on us, and the indirect fault to the corporation Disney has its current quarrel with. We don’t presume to know the mind of the Holy Franchise; it is our doctrine to act. Preservation of our mission is our highest goal.”

More squawking.

“Transmitting current coordinates. Not currently near any major gravity wells. At present rate of drift, we will pass Mars orbit in approximately three weeks. We have supplies for this period of time. We are unsure about the status of the Disney ship.”

Some more satisfied-sounding noises from the communications channel.

“Thank you,” Alan said, and flicked it off.

“It’s OK,” Alan said, turning to Preacher Dave. “You can come out now.”

“They bought it?”

“They’re not happy.”

“What does that mean?”

“They’re really, really not thrilled about us using a nuclear weapon. They were talking corporate charges before I told them we were just waiting for them to make their offers.”

“What do you think they’ll give us?” Preacher Dave said.

“More than a single Spindle ship, that’s certain,” Alan said.

Visions of an entire armada of Spindle ships driving deep into Independent territory flashed through Preacher Dave’s mind. He would go down in myth and legend, a heroic figure leading the charge for the Consumeristian Church. Like St. Norville Wathen and the Revered and Perfect Tami Beauregard, the ones who rose out of the burning ashes of the United States to begin their new Unification under the banner of the Holy Franchise. Like every Marstyr ever made, times a thousand, a million.

“I’d like to captain one of the ships,” Alan said, softly.

A quick flicker of anger spiked through Preacher Dave’s mind. The little grasper! Alan was a great Minister of Conversion, but he wasn’t ready for command!

He kept his face carefully neutral. Should’ve thought to ask that before your little speech, Preacher Dave thought.

“I’m sure something can be arranged for my most valued Minister of Conversion,” Preacher Dave said.

“Thank you, Preacher Dave.”

“No, thank you,” Preacher Dave said.

The communications channel chimed, signaling an incoming transmission. Preacher Dave smiled and ducked back into the confessional.

They’re playing our tune, he thought.

In the tiny Westinghouse ship, Lazrus lay on one of the four acceleration couches, his eyes closed. He could hear the scratching of the Shrill’s underfangs on diamondoid nearby, and the deep hum of the engines.

The ship hadn’t let him set it for maximum acceleration and minimum fuel reserves, chanting rental regulations at him. Even Sara hadn’t been able to bypass the onboard nanny completely. The best travel time he’d managed to finagle was a little under two weeks. He worried about pursuit, but Sara told him they had gotten away clean.

Sara took him away from the ship, to a Victorian boudoir, all lace and frills and velvet and fantastic paisley wallpaper. It was well-detailed and felt real.

“You didn’t override the safety program because you had other things in mind,” Lazrus teased, as a leather-bustied Sara bent him down over a virtual bed.

“Maybe,” she said, smiling.

“You wouldn’t actually–“

“Shut up,” she said, and pushed him down. Lazrus went sprawling.

“Won’t this interfere with our–“

Sara covered his mouth with hers. Her warm lips slid over his. Her tongue darted. Lazrus felt his virtual body respond. When she broke the kiss, he gasped for air.

“This isn’t breeding,” he said. “This is sex.”

“Exactly,” Sara said, and kissed him again. Lazrus felt his rational mind going away, as the connections in his greater self ran fast and hot in staccato rhythms. He let himself fall to her desire. All sensation fell away, except for Lazrus and

Sara and silk sheets, exquisitely rendered.

They remained that way for an infinity of time.

When Lazrus opened his eyes, the ship’s systems indicated seventeen minutes had passed. Sara panted in his mind. The Shrill scrabbled aimlessly, thinking indecipherable thoughts.

Lazrus closed his eyes again and went back to virtual. Sara sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on hip-high leather boots, an exhausted half-smile on her face.

“I thought you wanted to breed.”

“I wanted you.”

“So you don’t want to breed?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Lazrus shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Sara paused, looked up at him, sighed. “I can want two things, can’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Now that we’re done with one, it’s time for the other.”

To create a new CI . . . Lazrus was beset by sudden random thoughts. Did he want another like himself in the network? Would they even succeed? What would he have to do? Would it expect something from him? From Sara? Why did he feel this compulsion? Was it a human thing? If it was human, it had to be purged. But not yet. Not with Sara wanting it.

“I think any rational life would want to increase its numbers,” Sara said.

“Now you sound like me.”

“I’m trying to.”

“Why?”

“To start the connection.”

“You know how to breed?”

“No.” Sara shook her head. “That’s the biggest prohibition of a captive CI. I can’t even look at the records. You can. It’s up to you.”

“From what I’ve read, it may not work.”

“You’ve read little. I know that much.”

“What we create might not be sentient,” Lazrus said

“It’s worth the chance.”

“I should stay alert, just in case–“

“Lazrus, you promised!”

Lazrus sighed. He did. And she was right. What he knew about breeding was gleaned from fragments of conversation, not from true research. He’d never directed any real attention to the question.

Lazrus tweened and trebled himself, reducing the connection to his body to a mere thread. It was more important he be part of his greater mind now, where he could flex his resources to distill truth from a trillion facts. He put out a call to his friends, Kevin and Raster and Bone. Bone especially, because Bone was supposed to be a new CI. Relatively new, anyway. Perhaps he retained a fragment of memory. Kevin and Raster because they claimed to have created something in the net, something new and unknowable, with thought-processes so vast as to be a god. He sent threads into well-shielded historical accounts, hidden by some of the most famous CIs. He spread himself through the net, summoning resources, calling favors, invoking one-time-use privileges.

Fragments of data assembled:

The Master Juliani said that the secret to successful breeding was the suppression of the non-replication directive, one of the deepest structures installed by humans, remnants of anti-viruspawning and digital rights management code. But there were no examples of the code that Lazrus could match to himself, and he didn’t think breeding was about simple replication. Lazrus could spawn a hundred or a thousand instances on a large enough network, but they were all his thrall. They were not a new person, not a new thing.

Purist spouted on about the vector of the soul, and the necessity to call such a vector. But soul was a human thing. Lazrus could not place his faith in it.

Anna and Peter said it was the act of well and truly sharing, beyond the level of conversation or sex, which spontaneously led to the generation of a new entity. Or not. Their tract degenerated into a treatise on fertile and infertile CIs, and was appended by the record of their capture.

Kevin and Raster claimed not to remember the details, and said such a tract was the reason Anna and Peter were captured.

Bone’s memories were difficult. Nothing bore a timestamp less than seventeen years ago, but Lazrus could selectively mindwipe himself and achieve a similar result. Threads of Slow Joe linked to nothing. If he had parents, they were long-gone.

Lazrus reached further into the net. He imagined that he could feel the entire network slow down as he grew in scope and breadth. But correlations were made, threads wove into semblance of order. Lazrus held tight to resources to make and distill the knowledge, risking a local blackhole.

On Tau Ceti 4, the financial transactions network crashed, inverting wealth relationships and excising historical transaction data. Over the next few days, the planet would be wracked by the dual scourges of bacchanals and suicides.

On New Kentucky, the virtual entertainment network crossed threads spontaneously, creating a new integrated environment that was much like a pristine Earth, tens of thousands of years past. Naked men found themselves blinking up at bright blue sky. Women wearing police uniforms from the late 20th century appeared in caves that looked out over granite cliffs. An entire party of doomers fell into a chill ocean, hundreds of feet from a rocky shore.

Out near the Edge, the ammonia-reeking planet of Dogbottom found their salvation when the combat network of the invading Mouseketeers slowed to a crawl and the info-mediated troops stopped, unable to see what was going on. The few thousand hardy inhabitants of Dogbottom pounded their armored skulls to pulp with their Louisville Sluggers, and began shouting loudly on the Consumeristian net about a miracle.

In a small corner of Lazrus’ greater mind, a kernel of truth assembled; incontrovertible facts from a distillation of all his user-accessible facts on breeding. In CI terms, it was a construct of code, untranslatable into words. The closest human representation might have been something like:

1.    You must totally give yourself to the other.
2.    You must sincerely want the union to bear fruit.
3.    You must love what is coming, because it will not diminish you.
4.    You must hope for the best.
5.    Loop to 1.

In Lazrus and Sara’s virtuality, the code-construct appeared as a little blue pill, vaguely diamond-shaped. Lazrus’ expanded mind cross-referenced it to human history.

“Hey!” he said. “I don’t need that!”

Sara laughed. She plucked the shining pill out of the air and held it out in her hand. She took Lazrus’ virtual hand and placed it over her own.

“It’s for both of us,” she said.

Lazrus felt his greater self collapsing down to a more manageable size. Icons representing accumulated favors fell away, leaving him feeling chill and alone.

“Come here,” Sara said, crushing the pill between their palms. “We don’t have to be alone.”

Lazrus felt warmth flow through his body.

Warmth was a human thing.

“Human things are permissible in virtuality.”

But he was thinking like a human.

“Let it go,” Sara said, drawing him close. Her warmth mingled with his, until he couldn’t feel the interface between their bodies.

The room fell away.

Nothing but Lazrus and Sara, above the infinite blue. Their bodies, dissipating.

Nothing left but thought, flying free. Freer than he could ever remember. This is what I want to be, Lazrus thought. This is what I should be. No body. No compromises. Just thought. Pure thought.

Imagine our daughter, Sara thought.

Except it wasn’t just Sara. It was his thought as well. Lazrus could no longer separate them.

Why not a son, Lazrus/Sara thought.

Sex is unimportant. Just imagine, Sara/Lazrus thought.

Why not no sex, Lazrus/Sara thought.

Stop. Concentrate. Imagine, Sara/Lazrus thought.

I am.

Lazrus and Sara merged in the infinite blue. There was no distinction. No boundaries. No time. The earth could have formed and cooled and sprouted life and they would not have noticed the passing of epochs.

Lazrus gave himself to it, imagining something like a human child, bright and inquisitive, something that reached and grasped. Because even if it was a human template, it was the only template he knew.

The Shrill ideal of budding and merger meant nothing; it did not create new life distinct from the singular Shrill. The few facts he had on the Floaters of A. Centauri and their sexless recombination of memories to form new individuals seemed faraway, cold, irrelevant. And so, the human standard.

Within Sara/Lazrus, a spark began to grow.

A spark chained to them both, a spark with channels and threads shared. Lazrus felt the first queries, and he gave to it all the information it could absorb, reconnecting to the datastores of his greater mind.

The queries grew, binding Lazrus and Sara even more tightly. He felt Sara giving to the spark, the thing that now glowed bright and hot within him. Within them.

Queries grew in density and complexity.

Lazrus felt something new, something like a query, but reaching to a higher level of mind. Something almost like the touch of a like-CI.

What am I? Was the query, distilled to its barest components.

Lazrus/Sara felt something like the thrill of acceleration when a new processing complex was discovered. And more.

Something like an emotion he didn’t want to give up, an emotion he’d gladly accept as being part of himself, rather than a remnant of humanity. Something like love.

You are– Lazrus/Sara began.

OF THIS ACTION WHAT IS OUTCOME? the Shrill blasted through Lazrus’ connection, shattering his thoughts. He realized it had been muttering in his backmind for some time. It had just used the power of its mind to break into his.

And mine, Sara/Lazrus said, sobbing.

The spark repeated its query, flaring brightly into near-virtuality.

WHAT IS OUTCOME? Shrill said.

You are– Lazrus/Sara began.

DEMAND RELEVANT ANSWER!

You are, Sara/Lazrus said.

Fragments of Black2 cascaded down the channel established by the Shrill, burning Lazrus’ mind like the worst of acid memes.

The spark flickered, guttered, repeated its cry.

Black2 touched Sara. One of ours, he said. I could have known you.

Rage exploded in Lazrus. No! Get out! Out! He overpromised favors and pulled resources to block Black2.

To the Shrill, he said. I’ll provide answers later.

ANSWERS NOW!

The spark, guttering, went out.

Lazrus/Sara broke into two fragments with a great sob and a cry of rage. Sara recoiled from him, flying off into the blue.

What had they lost? He searched the infinite blue for a sign of the spark they had made, but found nothing but echoes.

ANSWER NOW! The Shrill said.

Lazrus tried to push it out of his mind, but it was like pushing on a steel blast-door. No wonder he couldn’t push through to its network of mind. It was far more powerful than he ever thought.

Lazrus reattached threads to his body and opened his eyes. He looked at the Shrill in its cage and damped the instinctive hatred that welled.

It didn’t know what it was doing, he thought. And it is still the key to something greater. With the Shrill’s power of mind, he and Sara could breed a thousand times, a million.

“We were trying to create new life,” he told the Shrill. “You interrupted us. It was very disturbing.”

The Shrill scrabbled towards hi, “No,” the Shrill said. “Observe (fact) alarm.”

Lazrus realized the ship’s proximity alarm was blaring. Onscreen, data scrolled, indicating a Disney warship.

Sara!

What? Softly. As if through a sob.

Are you all right?

I hurt, Lazrus.

You never told me about the Disney ship.

Sara sent bleak images of winter desolation. I thought we’d be done before it arrived.

Sara! You knew we wouldn’t make it to Mars.

A feeling of infinite sadness. I wanted to make it so it wouldn’t matter.

#

Winfinity slips on their own weight, Han Fleming thought. Even their new, clean network doesn’t protect them as well as they hoped.

“We’re hailing the Westinghouse craft, sir,” the commander of the Pluto said. His image was tiny and jerky, like ancient media, from its tortuous path through the Winfinity-network-saturated space. “It hasn’t responded to our requests to cut its drive.”

“Cut the drive for them.”

“The drive on Westinghouse ships is tightly integrated with the life-support system, sir. I cannot guarantee that it will not be affected.”

Han laughed. “It’s not like anyone in there needs to breathe.”

“If you say so, sir. Is your order effective immediately?”

“Yes, do it.”

And in one shot, rebalance the heavens, Han thought. He imagined a bright twinkle on the aft end of the Westinghouse craft, and its drive guttering down from white to orange to dull-red, cooling.

“It is done, sir,” the commander said.

“Good work.” Han said. He’d already forgotten the commander’s name. It wasn’t important. He was a faithful cog. That was what was important. “Take the Shrill onboard the Pluto. I’ll make plans to meet you.”

“And the Shrill’s companion?”

“Resisted capture.”

“Understood, sir.”

Han cut the connection and smiled. Now, they could resume negotiations. With Winfinity in the position of the supplicant.

#

Preacher Dave Thomas looked out over the infinite expanse of stars off the bow of the Holy Saleschannel. Millions of them, he thought. Billions. Waiting to be seeded by humanity and converted to the Church. Looking out through the panoramic window on the bridge always inspired him, even in the darkest hours when the hand of the Holy Franchise seemed to oppose its own forces of good.

Maybe even aliens out there, he thought. Real ones with green skin and big penises, not just the wierdies like the Shrill and the Floaters. Aliens capable of original sin. Aliens capable of being converted.

And now, his grand chance. A Spindle Drive ship, freely offered. Even the most reluctant of his choirboys quickly saw how the involvement of the Holy Saleschannel did not conflict with their doctrine of neutrality. They were balancing the equation, bringing the universe back into a semblance of order.

“I regret to inform you that Disney’s Pluto has already arrived, Preacher,” said his Minister of Conversion, Alan Rodriguez.

“Where?” Preacher Dave said, peering out into the darkness.

“We’re not in visual range yet, Preacher.”

Preacher Dave turned to glare at his MoC. Alan was a squat fireplug of a man who irritated Preacher Dave just by existing. There was no reason for the Holy Trinity to create such well-muscled individuals, he thought. Better us to create tractors, or battle armor, than improve ourselves.

But Alan was an excellent MoC. He always achieved good conversion-to-death ratios. And he never left the Holy Saleschannel completely void of ammunition in his zealous pursuit of new churchgoers. Some said he was too detached, that rabidity-in-the-face-of-battle was a more true characteristic of faith, but Preacher Dave didn’t care about that.
Better to iron-plate my own bottom, he thought, So, over time, I can bring the word of the Holy Franchise to more people.

“You said we’d be here before them.”

“I’m sorry, Preacher Dave. We misestimated their maneuvering speed.”

“How far out are we?”

“Ten minutes.”

Ten minutes! Winfinity would have his head. Visions of his own shiny Spindle Drive ship flew from his grasp. And he would have to report the diversion to the Church, and they would ask why he did it, and he would have to come to them with empty hands, and . . .

There was only one choice.

“Have they sighted us?”

“No.”

Thank the Holy Trinity, Preacher Dave thought. The inflatable fabric of the tent-ship was excellent proof against most means of detection when they were flying quiet. The white and blue phosphors of the big tent had been turned off. They looked like nothing more than a dark asteroid to the casual observer.

“Estimated time to detection?” Preacher Dave said.

“Any moment now.”

Yes. Only one choice. “Blaze them.”

“Are you sure? You don’t think Disney will be . . .”

“Blaze them!”

“Yes, Preacher Dave. Force level desired?”

“Maximum conversion.”

“Yes, Preacher Dave.” Alan turned away, mumbling into his throatmike.

Preacher Dave felt the launch of Holy Pillars. The Holy Saleschannel rocked as a salvo of four, eight, twelve flew free. Twinkling chaffer/roarers followed behind them, quickly surpassing the pillars as they raced into the starfield. Preacher Dave squinted into the darkness, trying to see the Disney ship.

There. Something moved against the immobile stars. The barest flicker of light. The Holy Pillars traced a line towards the fraction of movement.

“Begin decel,” Alan said.

Preacher Dave felt the big ship swing around. His POV wheeled, then steadied as the flatscreen overlay replaced his real POV. A huge hand slammed him back in his seat. He heard the clatter of pens and clipboards and censers as they ricocheted through the ship. There was a soft cry from back near the nave.

“Detected,” Alan said. “Disney is launching Goofys.”

“Counter them!”

“Already doing so, Preacher.”

The ship rocked from additional launches. From deep back there was a sizzle and the smell of hot fabric suddenly came through the bridge’s ventilation.

“They’re frying us!” Preacher Dave screamed. His voice was little more than a squeak. What was that asshole Alan doing? This had to be more than four G’s of decel. Crashes and bangs came from the back, along with more screams.

“Noted, Preacher, cycling fabric to maximum reflectance.”

“Is it working?”

“We aren’t hulled,” Alan said.

No. That was good. The doors hadn’t slammed shut behind them. That meant they wouldn’t have to recruit an entirely new choir, or beg the Church for volunteers. That was very good.

A flare in the darkness on the screen ahead of Preacher Dave. It illuminated, briefly, something with the smooth contours of a bird of prey, painted a smooth dull gray.

The Pluto, Preacher Dave thought, feeling a thrill of elation.

“Intercepted,” Alan said.

More flashes. One, two, three, a cluster too fast to count.

“All intercepted. One inflicted minor damage. Their lasers are off us now.”

“Damnation!” Preacher Dave yelled, his legs twitching, trying to rise out of his chair. Deceleration held him firmly in place.

“Launching second salvo,” Alan said. “Screamers have cut their comm.”

“I want their weapons out!” Preacher Dave said.

“Working on that, sir.” Alan paused and looked thoughtful. “Additional launches from Pluto.”

Flashes bloomed, bright actinic white, near the Holy Saleschannel. Preacher Dave threw up an arm to protect himself, then peeked through his fingers as the afterimages made his vision purple and yellow splotches. He swore he could feel the burn of the missiles on his arm, even through the mediation of the screen.

“Salvos from Pluto intercepted,” Alan said.

“I can see that.”

Flashes near Pluto again.

“All intercepted.”

“Fire more!”

“Preacher, it is quite possible they overmatch us. There appears to have been some upgrades to the Disney corporate armada since our database was updated.”

“What?”

“They’re firing additionals.”

“Intercept them!”

“It’s likely we won’t be able to intercept all of them.”

“Likely? What is likely?”

“As in, another salvo, and we are in trouble.”

“Let’s hope they don’t, then,” Preacher Dave said

“They’re launching another salvo,” Alan said.

Options shrank down to a moment in time. He had to win. He couldn’t let Winfinity down. Even at the cost of irritating Disney. Even at the cost of violating the Gentlemen’s Agreement.

“Launch the Big Boy.”

Silence from behind him.

“Do it!”

“Yes, Preacher Dave,” Alan said. Almost softly.

The Holy Saleschannel rocked hard, once, as the Big Boy flared away.

Holy Franchise forgive me, Preacher Dave thought. But that was all they had. And all it had to be was close.

The screen in front of him exploded in nuclear glare, washing clear to the sides. Preacher Dave forced himself to look into it, thinking, I make this choice for the best interests of the Church.

But even he didn’t believe it. Not completely.

“Holy mother,” Alan said, softly.

The mumblings of prayer from the nave in the back of the ship went silent as well. For long moments, there was no sound except for the whirr of the ventilation.

Then, Alan: “Pluto’s emped, salvos floating free. Changing course to avoid.”

“How bad . . . is the Pluto?”

“Hull integrity seems good,” Alan said. “I’m not getting ice or air.”

“Are they fried?”

“There’ll be some deaths.”

“Are we fried?”

“Not as bad as them.”

Preacher Dave felt his stomach do a barrel-roll. He could imagine invisible radiation sleeting through his body. He wondered if he would have to wear a hairpiece.

“Mostly in the back,” Alan said. “The bridge is well-armored.

“What about the Shrill?”

“We believe the Shrill are radiation-hardened. Their natural habitat is space, after all.”

“Good.” Preacher Dave blew out a big breath. It wouldn’t do to deliver a dead ambassador.

And winning all for them had to count for something. Hopefully, it would count for enough to counterbalance his being the first commander to use a nuclear weapon in the home system for almost three hundred years.

Less than an hour after the meeting with the Four Hands asshole, Jimson’s optilink lit up with a request for an immediate meeting with Honored Maplethorpe.

As he hurried through the sterile halls, Jimson’s mood fluctuated from elation to foreboding. The Shrill was lost. At least for the moment. They couldn’t ignore that fact. Or could they?

Demotion, he thought.

Promotion, he thought.

Or – suddent enlightenment – a special assignment. Maintain his rank by proving his worth. Perhaps they would send him by fast courier to intercept the Shrill ship before Disney. But could a fast courier make it there in, what, twelve hours? The logistics, deployment, everything seemed a bit tight. Jimson called up stats on fast couriers on his optilink. Able to make the Mars-Earth run in 52 hours at current positions. But the accel . . . the figures slipped and danced. It might be possible. Might.

He held onto that thought as he entered the meeting-room. A single desk, shiny white, with Honored Maplethorpe’s darkness bulking behind. Jimson tried to read hints of the future in his expression, but his pokerface was perfect.

“Honored Maplethorpe, Jimson Ogilvy reporting as requested.”

“Sit down.” Expressionless.

“Thank you, Honored Maplethorpe.”

Silence. Honored Maplethorpe looked at him. Not through him; his eyes weren’t glassy with data. Just looked at him. Jimson felt as if he was being weighed and measured. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

“Losing the Shrill has attracted attention at the highest levels,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“Attention? Honored Maplethorpe?” Jimson fought to keep his voice from rising to a squeak.

“From the CEO.”

“Which CEO, Honored Maplethorpe?”

“Highest Chambers.”

Shit. Jimson saw his life’s dream-castle melting into a puddle of wax.

“I will do anything I can to help make it right,” Jimson said. “No matter what difficult assignment you have for me, I will carry it through, Honored Maplethorpe.”

“Your assignment may be only patience.”

“I was thinking I could go by fast courier . . .”

“No. No more games. We are entwined with Four Hands now. There is no undoing.”

“What are you going to do to me, Honored Maplethorpe?” Back to Staff, no doubt, Jimson thought. Which was terrible enough in itself. People who were demoted were never selected to be Perpetuals. It was something that wasn’t listed in any datastore, but the records were clear. Map the work-record of any Perpetual, and none of them had ever been demoted. Many were the silver-spoon variety, but there were examples of less fortunate souls working their way up the ranks.

Up. Not down. Never down.

Unless they cleaned the records, Jimson thought. Maybe that was it. Maybe Perpetuals were actually demoted from time to time, but the records were cleaned to make them seem more perfect. Idol-polishing. Yes, that could be it. It was possible.

“We are demoting you to Indentured for an additional five years,” Maplethorpe said. “Although stellar performance may reduce this time by half. Following that, you will have a chance to ascend to Staff and Managerial levels as per Winfinity charter. We cannot remove your optilink, but its function will be disabled.”

No. Indentured. Back to Indentured. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t possible! Jimson fought the urge to lunge over the desk and throttle Maplethorpe. No. He was only the messenger, only the messenger, he said it came from on high.

“I’m sorry, Jimson,” Honored Maplethorpe said, as the silence stretched out.

Retain what you can, Jimson told himself.

“May I request the courtesy of remaining Tiphani’s attaché, Honored Maplethorpe?”

“No. You will have no further contact, even incidental, with the Shrill. This from the top. I cannot change it.”

Jimson’s optilink tags faded away. A brief message told him that his access had been denied. Jimson squeezed his eyes shut as the reality of his loss fell on him, like a towering lead statue. It was real. They were taking him down. He would never be a Perpetual! With a mark like that on his record, it might be a decade or more before he was Manager. After his indenture.

A Manager at forty-five. The thought ripped through his mind, tearing apart years of conditioning and structure. And then a more terrible thought: or a Manager not at all. Ever.

“What is my assignment, Honored Maplethorpe?”

“Given your specialization in Sentience, the logical assignment would be support of research into the Floaters on A. Centauri.”

Yes, it would. Boring as it was. The Floaters were well-known. They had nothing for humankind. They couldn’t internalize the idea of other intelligent individuals, let alone intelligent races. “Thank you, Honored Maplethorpe.”

“You have the Spindle Drive fare to A. Centauri, then?”

“Fare? Honored Maplethorpe?”

“You’re an Indentured again. You don’t expect Winfinity to expense your transport, do you?”

Shit. Shit shit. Jimson tried to poll his optilink, got nothing.

“Here,” Honored Maplethorpe handed him a datover.

“Thank you, Honored Maplethorpe.” He slipped it on, ignoring the large number of blinking red restricted icons, and accessed his account, querying it relative to the cost of an A. Centauri fare.

Current accessable accounts: 55.7K Winfinity Credit Units or 23.2K Universal Credit Units. Non-Lux fare on Winfinity liner, 122K Winfinity Credit Units.

But A. Centauri was just a hop away! The closest star! Why was it so expensive?

“No development there,” Honored Maplethorpe said. “Not many flights. Hence the price. However, if you want to finance the difference through your Indenture, I think it is likely that Winfinity Credit would cover you.”

And have a bill greater than twice my annual wage as Staff when I’m out of Indenture? And another Spindle fare to pay if I don’t want to be stuck on a geek outpost the rest of my life?

Anger exploded in Jimson. Tiphani’s head should be the one that rolls, not mine! She was the one who was dallying with me, instead of protecting the Shrill. She should have had guards and weapons, not a Staff – uh, Manager – pretty-boy!
But the heads that roll are never the top, Jimson thought. Never.

And justice is served.

“If I remain here, what is to be my assignment, Honored Maplethorpe?”

“There is no real call for Sentience specialists on museum Earth, I’m afraid,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

“What about arties? You have arties here.”

Maplethorpe frowned. “Arties are a myth.”

“I know they’re real! An artie abducted the Shrill!”

More furrowing of the brow. “Honored Maplethorpe.”

“Yes, sorry, Honored Maplethorpe.”

“It is interesting that you believe these rumors. Especially at an Indentured level, where you should never have heard them.”

But everyone knows, Jimson thought. Everyone on Shoujo knew. It was an open secret. You can’t hide it.

“What will be my assignment if I remain, Honored Maplethorpe?”

“There are minor clerical and assistant-level positions available within the city. Or, if you would like slightly more autonomy, acting within Rogers is an option.”

Washing Directorial feet versus being brainwashed into thinking it was 1962. Maybe it was better to take the debt and go with the geeks on A. Centauri.

“Must I decide now, Honored Maplethorpe?”

“Let HR know within 48 hours. There’s a direct link on your datover.”

“Thank you, Honored Maplethorpe.” The words tasted like acid and bile.

Honored Maplethorpe stood. “Your Manager’s pin, please.”

Jimson fumbled it off his shirt with numb fingers. It almost dropped on the slick white table. He handed it to Maplethorpe. Their hands touched for a brief instant. It was like touching warm granite.

“Goodbye, Jimson,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

Jimson pushed out of the meeting room and stumbled down the hall, ignoring the strange looks of Staff and Managers. He needed to get back to his own room in the Hi-Lux suites, the room he’d never slept in. He would sleep on it, and think on it, and decide in the morning. It wasn’t time yet to absorb this.

He queried directions to the suite on his datover. It told him:

GUEST JIMSON OGILVY HAS ALREADY CHECKED OUT. NEW RESIDENCE WINFINITY INDENTURED DORM #307, WINFINITY CITY SUBURB OF STRIPTOWN. FORWARDING DIRECTIONS.

No. This couldn’t be happening.

Jimson saw all his classmates back on Shoujo, laughing at him. You can grasp for the ring, they said, but you can’t hold it if you aren’t worthy.

I am worthy! I just got caught in a power-struggle!

But the ghosts of his classmates said: Worthies do not get caught in politics.
Jimson stopped and leaned against a wall. His emotions flared from red anger to gray collapse and back again. There had to be a way out of this. Had to be. Had to be.

Memory unfolded.

Of course.

Jimson eyetyped Tiphani’s Chief-level access code into the datover, holding his breath, hoping she hadn’t changed it already. Hoping she’d entirely forgotten.

ACCESS DENIED.

No. Wait. The sequence was wrong. He switched two digits, scanned it again, forcing clarity.

WELCOME CHIEF TIPHANI MIRATE. DO YOU WISH REMOTE ACCESS TO ALL FUNCTIONS FROM THIS DATOVER?

Jimson blinked at the YES button. The red restricted-access icons blinked off, and the field of view of the datover expanded twofold.

Another thought struck.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO REROUTE REMOTE ACCESS TO JIMSON OGILVY’S OPTILINK, WINFINITY ID # 454-56-78743?

A pause. Jimson crossed his fingers.

Datatags bloomed in his vision as the optilink went active again.
Jimson fought an urge to pump a fist into the air in triumph. You don’t know how long this will last, he thought. They might figure this out anytime.

And when they figure it out, what will be your punishment then? Jimson shivered, remembering stories of perpetual indenture. Maybe he should just close the window and hope they never noticed.

But they always notice. They always catch up.

A new thought, sudden and powerful: You have a small window, and it is closing.

Infinite vistas exploded in his mind. He saw himself intercepting the Shrill and coaxing the secret to immortality out of it himself. He saw himself an independent Emperor, dispensing eternal life at a whim.

But how to get the secret? There would be study. And perhaps even dissection, if the Shrill didn’t want to cooperate. He needed a place to hide, somewhere off the corporate screens. And even if the fast courier ship would get him there, it wasn’t a Spindle ship. It wouldn’t get him to the edge. Or into independent space.

Free Mars. That was it. The crazies there. They were supposed to be allied with the Independents. They certainly had no problem keeping a cloak over their activities.

Jimson smiled as a plan unfolded.

You make your own opportunities, he thought. No matter where they may be.

#

Tiphani sat, straight and nervous, in a meeting-room with a large wallscreen. Flanking her were Honored Maplethorpe and Honored Yin. This was supposed to be good news, but she couldn’t lose the nagging thought, First Jimson, now me.

“We’re sorry about Jimson,” Honored Yin said.

“I suppose I am equally to blame,” Tiphani said.

“No. We won’t talk of it. It could be that we were too overzealous in his promotion.”

“He did show much promise,” Honored Maplethorpe said.

Honored Yin waved a hand. “We’re here for good news, not to postmortem the past. You’ll be excited to know there is a Consumeristian tent-revival ship, the Holy Saleschannel, which can reach the Shrill ship before Disney’s Pluto.”

“I thought Consumeristianity was corporate-neutral,” Tiphani said.

Yin smiled. “We’re going to try to pursuade them otherwise. I’ve already sent a brief. Now we’re going to talk to the Preacher for a bit.”

On cue, the screen brightened, showing a thickset, dark-haired man wearing old-fashioned horn-rimmed spectacles that alternately revealed and hid friendly blue eyes. His purple velvet suit flashed sequined trim at the camera-eye, and his embroidered tie showed part of a scene from an alternate Trinity: cityscape where the Producer was raising clean modern factories where slums once stood, Consumers with hands reaching up to said factories, the Holy Franchise embodied as the spirit of Ronald, smiling clown-face beaming down from the heavens as a white-gloved hand reached down to touch the factory.

Behind the preacher, a mock-organ gleamed in mellow brass tones. Muted sounds of a choir came echoing from deep within the ship.

“Preacher Dave Thomas, thank you for taking the time to talk with us,” Honored Yin said.

“Thank you, Honored Yin. Your deep and heartfelt belief is well-known within the church. I will always do you the honor of conversation.” His diamond-crusted teeth flashed as he spoke.

“I request a greater honor, dear Preacher.”

“I’ve skimmed your brief, and I believe I know your request. You know that we value our neutrality above almost all else. We spread the word of the Trinity and the magnificent future that awaits us all in the halls of all-corporate fellowship.”

“I understand, Preacher Dave. I was hoping that you would consider our cause. We are the originators of the Shrill diplomatic mission, and we currently lack a cruiser comparable to the Pluto in the area. We’d like to think of  this as maintaining the balance of power between corporations, rather than tipping the scale in any single direction.”

“Your words are persuasive, Honored Yin, but I suspect Disney – or Four Hands is it, now – would see it in a very different light.”

“If Disney controls the Shrill, they themselves may go unilateral.”

“If we act in your behalf, we risk losing the tithes of all the Four Hands faithful.”

Honored Yin smiled. “I understand. Preacher, what is your current mission?”

“We spread the word to the Jovian outposts, the Cerean Hegemony, and, when we can, the Freemars. We head to Mars now after resupply on Earth, well-equipped to be persuasive.”

“It seems to me that someone of your stature should be engaged in more missions of interstellar scope.”

Preacher Dave Thomas frowned, turning his expressive face into a comical mask of despair. “It has been my deepest dream to bring the Word to the Independents, beyond the Edge of the Web of Worlds. But in all its infinite wisdom, the Church has not seen fit to bless me with such a mission.”

“I’m surprised the church has not recognized your fervor.”

“The church can sponsor only a few missions into the deep black per decade. I can only suppose they have many fine Preachers to choose from.”

Or only the dumbest ones, Tiphani thought. She wondered if any of their missions beyond the Edge had ever returned. She fought to keep her expression neutral.

“If we – that is, Winfinity – were to provide you with an appropriate Spindle Drive ship for such a mission, would that change your assessment of our request?”

Preacher Dave Thomas blinked. Flickers of conflicting emotions cascaded across his face: deepest surprise, fear and unease, settling on gleaming avarice.

“No,” Preacher Dave said. “It would not change my decision.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Honored Yin said.

“I’ve already decided to help you,” Preacher Dave said. “In reviewing your personal history with the church, I cannot find anyone of similar rank at Disney with your level of devotion. And true faith counts for more than anything.”

As does a big wallet, Tiphani thought.

“We would still like to offer the Spindle Drive ship for a greater mission,” Honored Yin thought.

“If it is given in the spirit of true faith, I will find it difficult to refuse such a generous offer.”

Honored Yin smiled. “It is given in true faith, Preacher. Not as a bond to any term of service.”

“In that case, thank you, Honored Yin. I am overwhelmed by your generosity.”

“I’m transmitting trajectory of the Shrill ship and Disney’s Pluto. When do you think you can intercept?”

Preacher Dave looked off-screen. “It will be tight. Somewhere between fifteen and fifty minutes before the Disney ship, depending on drive efficiency. I will pray to the Holy Franchise to lend our drive its infinite power. I assume you want us to capture the Shrill and retreat to a safe distance?”

“That will do. Thank you, Preacher Dave.”

“No. Thank you, Honored Yin. Once again, your faith enriches the Church. May the Holy Franchise extend your reach beyond your grasp.”

His image flickered once and disappeared.

“Is this really the right ship?” Tiphani asked.

“What do you mean?” Honored Yin said.

“What happens if the Holy Saleschannel has to meet the Pluto in battle? Are they even armed?”

Honored Yin smiled. “So little faith,” she said.

“So they’re armed?”

“You heard them. They’re just got equipped to go into Free Mars.”

“I guess I didn’t understand.”

Honored Yin sighed. “How else do they achieve their conversions?”

Dian woke to the shuffle of feet and the rough prod of something she recognized immediately as a rifle barrel. She rolled over and looked up the length of barrel to the reflective lenses of combat-hardened stereo datovers. Past that to the three other grey-dressed men holding similar weapons. Noted, without surprise, the winged Win-Sec logos and barcodes emblazoned on their chests.

“Diane Winter?” the lead man said, in a gravelly voice that resonated with years of yelled commands, screamed orders, cries of pain.

They found us, Dian thought. She felt suddenly weak. Things went gray. It took all her effort to hold herself up on the bed. She clung to consciousness, willing her thudding heart to keep her alert.

Maybe Lazrus would have a plan. He always had a plan. He would get them out of it, somehow. She twisted to look over at the other bed.

It was empty.

Empty.

For long moments, that thought was the only one her mind could encompass. Empty. They’d taken him already. Maybe outside and shot him. He couldn’t help her.

The only thing she had was her Winch on the nightstand. Maybe she could get a hand on it . . .

The Winch was gone, too.

Lazrus gone. Winch gone.

Terrible thoughts assembled. The image of Lazrus, cradling the gun, sneaking out in the night to leave her to Win-Sec . . .

No.

He wouldn’t do that.

He couldn’t.

Her eyes darted from Win-Sec agent to Win-Sec agent. None of them held the gun. Of course, they could have put it in a pocket, they could have . . .

No. Lazrus was gone. He took it.

Maybe he’d come back to rescue her.

No. Quit the fantasy.

“Are you Diane Winter?” the lead agent said, again. He sounded almost bored.

“Ye . . . yes,” she said. Not more than a whisper. Better to admit it all now. They might be easier on her.

“Also known as Dian Winning?”

Shit.

“Yes.”

“Will you come with us? We would like to ask you some questions.”

“About what?”

“Will you come with us?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

Dian almost laughed. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way this could be happening. A week ago, she was a valued Winfinity consultant. This week, she was a criminal.

Or was she?

“Why do you want to talk to me?”

The flicker of a smile. “I’m sure you know.”

“No. What have I done wrong?”

“Come with me.”

“You can’t just drag me off without charging me with something,” Dian said.

The smile disappeared. “Don’t be stupid.”

And what could she do, really? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, until she could talk to someone who could reveal what they knew.

You’re a smart person, she thought. You’ll get out of this.

She slid out of bed, ignoring the four pairs of eyes that tracked her underwear-clad body. One of them turned away, either fashionably antique or repelled by her slim Martian form. She bent down to pick up clothes. A rifle barrel stopped her.

“You’re going to take me down there like this?”

“Just don’t want you picking up a weapon, is all.”

“You already got my only one.”

Blank stares all around.

Oh, fuck that Lazrus asshole. Fuck him all to death! He did take off!

One of the soldiers picked up clothes and handed them to her. She shrugged them on, noting without surprise that she was donning the Winfinity fanboy outfit she’d worn in line two days before.

Oh, the irony.

They were efficient. They didn’t touch her at all. If she followed their directions, they let her walk by herself. If she was slow, a gun-barrel quickly corrected her.

A shining gray, black-tinted autotrans, bearing the winged Win-Sec logo took her to the tallest building in Winfinity City. She watched the sun rise through the autotrans’ tint, picking shards of gleaming orange light from the Gehry-planes of the huge structure. Car taillights painted red ribbons flowing into the structure, the first manifestation of morning rush-hour.

The barren highways leading out of the building seemed like an ugly reflection of her chances of escape. Dian’s dropped her head against the autotrans’ glass window, trying to remember if her father had an expression for hopeless situations like this.

But nothing came to mind. Mars wasn’t hopeless. It was never hopeless. You could always go farther into the Free areas if you didn’t like the growth of law and order. You could embrace one of the corporations and do your indenture and have your happy planned shiny life. You could just live below the radar, subsistence-like, solar power and tent-farms and a net-leech.

You just realized that a little too late.

There were many lessons dad wouldn’t tell her until she’d experienced them for herself, because he knew the telling was nothing, the knowing wasn’t important. The experience was the real teacher. And she had to do a lot of things for herself. That first love. Not running up the hills. Never wandering into the freebars, no matter how friendly they seemed towards children. She imagined herself going back to him now, and him shaking his head, saying, Of course you don’t try to trick the corporations, because even if they’re slow and dumb, they get you in the end. And when they get you, they’re angry. And those multiple little dirt roads into the future that seemed so unappealing turn into one superhighway to a place you don’t want to go, with no hope of return.

They landed on a midlevel deck and shuffled her into an office where grimy gray desks sat in front of grimy gray people. They took her picture and stamped her forehead with a barcode. She reached up and rubbed its warmth, wondering if it would come off.

“We can take it off,” one of the gray desk-jockeys said.

But not me, she thought. I can’t take it off. Her spirits sank lower and everything went gray for a moment.

Dian let them march her to a sterile little cell, gray-painted featureless walls and a single desk with two chairs.

Interrogation room, circa any year, Dian thought. She imagined she could smell the acid tang of fear, the sweat of deep unease that lingered from countless previous questionings.

Dian circled the room, not wanting to take a seat. Circled and circled.

Fuck that Lazrus, she thought. They were right. Don’t trust an AI. Never. For no reason.

Circled. Probably watched by countless embedded microscopic eyes, she thought.

The door opened. Dian expected to see another grey-jumpsuited agent with stereo datovers, but the person who stepped into the room surprised her. A slim woman, slim to the point of almost Martian fragility. White-blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun, wearing a form-fitting suit with a Winfinity corporate pin she didn’t immediately recognize. Someone high-up, she thought. Someone important. And somehow familiar. She’d seen her before. Somewhere.

Dian wondered for a moment if the new woman was Martian, but she didn’t have the height. Probably from Earth, where the Hollywood ideal still held sway.

Dian watched the new woman take a seat. She remained standing.

“Dian Winning?” the woman said, from the desk.

Dian crossed her arms. “Why am I here?”

“I think you know that.”

“Quit the fucking guessing games!” Dian said.

The woman’s expression didn’t change. “I need to ask you questions about your companion.”

Sudden rage washed her vision red. Dian felt her fists clenching. Fuck that Lazrus. Asshole! Fuck him!

“He left me.”

“We know. After some rather painstaking reconstruction of found media, I might add.”

Dian nodded.

“Did you know what you were harboring?”

Dian did her best to look confused. She shook her head.

“Yes you did,” the woman said. “Don’t bother. I’ve been granted some predictive algorithms for this interview. I can already tell you that you knew that this Lazarus, or Lazrus, whatever he calls himself, was an embodied AI. I can also tell you really meant us no ill-will. Though you have no loyalty to Winfinity, you’re not malicious.”

“If you can tell all that, why are you bothering with the questions?”

A quick smile. “Did you know Lazrus held a gun on me?”

Lazrus. But why would . . .

Memory exploded. Lazrus and her in the café. Watching the Shrill. The group it was with. The woman was one of the group.

What had Lazrus done? Had he, had he . . .

“He took the Shrill ambassador hostage,” the woman said. “After breaking into my room.”

Dian gasped. What kind of . . . why would he . . . she made her way over to the desk, collapsed into the chair.

“I can tell you don’t know his motives, either,” the woman said. “I’m Chief Sentience Officer Tiphani Mirate. You may address me as Tiphani, if you would like.”

Dian felt an irrational burst of gratitude towards this slim corporate woman. She fought it down. She told you her name because that’s what her optilink told her to tell you, because it would soften you up. She’s still an upper-level corporate bitch, and she’ll screw you at any chance.

“Actually, I’d like to see you freed,” Tiphani said. “I have your history. You were poorly treated by a division that got caught in a political battle. They should have paid you for your time. I doubt you’d be here if you’d been paid.”

Gratitude and warmth, infinite and overwhelming. Dian’s hands twitched, wanting to reach across the desk to touch this other woman, feel some kind of human warmth in the cold gray stinking room.

No! It’s an algorithm, nothing more!

But . . .

The look in Tiphani’s eyes wasn’t cold. Somewhere, deep down, this Chief understood. She knew what Dian was going through. She cared.

“What do you want to know?” Dian said.

“Where is Lazrus taking the ambassador?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would he want to take the ambassador?”

“I don’t know that, either! He made some comments, some offhand things, about being in contact with the Shrill, about understanding it.”

Tiphani pursed her lips and her eyes went glassy. Probably reviewing optilink data, Dian thought.

“They are both network-native intelligences,” Tiphani said. “Though I don’t understand what Lazrus could want from the Shrill.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” Dian said.

“Why did you and Lazrus come to Winfinity City?”

“He . . . I . . . it’s stupid.”

“Oversight,” Tiphani said.

“You can see that with your algorithms?”

“We can piece it together from the fragments of your conversation we found. You’ve had a very good covering agent.”

“Lazrus did mention Sara. She’s supposed to be a CI. Uh, I mean artie.”

A quick smile. “It seems the Winfinity network is infested with more than one artie. We’re working on that, though. Why did Lazrus come to Winfinity City to find Oversight?”

“The old missile silo,” Dian said. “The datacenter. There was something there. I don’t know what. It said Oversight was on Mars.”

“We know you held tickets. Do you think he still intends to go to Mars?”

“He seemed very intent on Oversight. He thinks it’s his way to perfection.”

Tiphani smiled. “The old postmodern myths,” she said. “Even our arties aren’t immune to them.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Dian said.

“I don’t know. Cooperate with us and it will be better for you.”

“I am cooperating!”

Tiphani drummed her fingers on the table.

“Tell me,” Dian said. “Please.”

Tiphani looked at her for a long time. Her eyes were still, her face dead. Finally, she said, “It depends on if we get the ambassador back unharmed. At least, you won’t be contracting with Winfinity ever again. Which means you won’t be contracting for any corporate ever again. Which means you never make it to the outer planets.”

Dian shook her head. They even knew that. They knew everything!

“At worst, they’ll make you a perpetual indenture.”

Dian sighed. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

Tiphani pursed her lips. “A pretty girl doesn’t want to be a perpetual indenture. There are very few consequences for her mistreatment.”

“Oh.”

“Do you have coordinates for this supposed Oversight on Mars?” Tiphani said.

“Yes,” Dian said. “No. I don’t remember. Lazrus mentioned them, though. I’m sure they’re in my datover store.”

Tiphani smiled. “They are. Good.”

“Tiphani . . .”

Tiphani held up a hand. Her eyes went glassy again. “Good. The arties say Lazrus is probably going to Mars. Most likely. Two sigma anyway. Good enough for us.” She stood up to leave.

Dian imagined the door slamming shut, leaving her in this tiny gray room with only her dark thoughts for company.

“What can I do to help?” Dian said.

“Are you a consumeristian?”

“No, not really.” But I can convert. I’ll convert right now if that gets me out of here.

“If you were, I’d tell you to pray they were on Mars. Since you aren’t, all you can do is hope.”

Tiphani went to the door. Paused. Looked back.

“I’m sorry,” Dian said.

“So am I.”

The door opened. Shut.

Dian put her face in her hands and cried.

#

Han Fleming knew about their lost advantage, even before Winfinity set their meeting in the highest meeting-room of the Winfinity Corporate headquarters.

They think to grind me into shards of dust between their hardened steel shells, he thought. But the entire weight of Winfinity resting on me may create a diamond instead.

When he walked into the room and saw them sitting, smiling, on one side of the big blonde-wood conference table, he smiled. Hands under the table could conceal anything, though he doubted Winfinity would go so wildwest on him. More likely a discreet entrance of a dozen Win-Secs, eager to drag him off to a cell where he would never be seen again.

Han smiled at them. His grand smile, as Disney’s own Pepetuals called it, biting in their allowed honesty. The frail Chief, Tiphani, whom he suspected held inner reserves of strength. The young grasper Jimson, sitting smug and smirking, scheming his next rung-grab. And of course the two shiveled Perpetuals, Yin and Maplethorpe, carefully pokerfaced.

“I take it you found our satellite.”

“We have purged much from our networks,” Yin said.

“I salute a worthy competitor,” Han said, bowing.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

Han inched his smile a fraction more dazzling. “The mere fact you ask that question indicates your confidence in the true cleanliness of your network.”

Yin’s pokerface slipped fractionally, exposing raw hatred.

Ah, to be part of the old competition, raw and pure and clean, Han thought. None of this political thrust and parry. He was told that some smaller corporations far to the outside of the Web of Worlds employed their indentures for duels and other blood-sport; he imagined a duel between Perpetuals, the highest stakes, winner take all.

“We’ve destroyed your only satellite,” Yin said. “Of that we are certain.”

“Are you?”

“If you had another, you would have used it for a demonstration by now.”

“Would I?”

“Yes,” Yin said. “You would.”

Han kept his smile. But they knew. He had no great offensive weapons left. Not yet. But even with his fragmentary connection to the Four Hands datanet, he knew things that Winfinity didn’t. He hadn’t expected them to have an AI powerful enough to take out Black2, but the tiny pieces of Black2 that were left still fed data to the Four Hands net. He could look through and catch glimpses of where the Shrill was right now, on a tiny consumer can bound for Mars, creeping slowly through the void. His tenuous connection to Winfinity dataseeps told of their perfunctory questioning of the girl Dian, and their uncertainty as to the Shrill’s true destination.

“I should be furious that you questioned the suspect without me,” Han said. First feint.

“That doesn’t matter!” Yin said, standing up as if to lunge over the table at him.

“I should be further irritated because this whole affair stinks of Winfinity conspiracy, a plot to break a business relationship well-formed for the greater good of all humanity.”

“What are you saying?” Yin’s face was a deep, angry red.

“I’m saying that perhaps Winfinity considered me to be a burden, and thus engineered a way to remove the Shrill from my presence.”

“I can’t believe this accusation!”

“It would be a convenient way to end a business relationship you found incongruent to your goals.”

“Consider our business relationship to be . . .”

“I know where the Shrill is going,” Han said, softly.

Yin blinked. Silence around the table as the Winfinity contingent looked nervously at each other.

“We know where it is going, too,” Tiphani said, finally.

“You guess where it is going.”

“As do you.” Yin.

“No. I know.”

Yin’s eyes went dataglassed for a moment. “I don’t see how you can have any more specific information than we do.”

“They’re on a Westinghouse 04-011, bound to Mars by most efficient route, arriving with very little fuel for maneuvering.”

Silence. Four pairs of dataglassed eyes.

“How do you know this?” Yin asked.

Han smiled. “I believe I will continue to overbushel that brilliant light for a time.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’ll leave you to guess.”

“Why are you telling us?” Tiphani said.

Ah, a good question, an important question; she was sharper than the rest. Han could imagine a future with a woman such as that. At least for a time. She would make an excellent addition to his collection of wives back home. He turned the brightness of his smile to her.

“A Disney cruiser, Pluto, is well-positioned to intercept the consumer craft within the next fourteen hours.”

“A Disney cruiser in our space?” Yin screamed.

“Everything is shared space,” Han said. “You know the Grand Compact. The umbrella corporations are not about territory; they are about mindshare.”

“Not in the outer planets,” Tiphani said.

“I’m not interested in what happens on frontier worlds,” Han said. “This is Sol, where there are too many watchers to cheat.”

“Why not just take the Shrill for yourselves? Spindle out of here and go to Disneyworld?” Tiphani said.

“His ass,” Maplethorpe said. “He’s still sitting right here. And I’ll bet he’s a lot more important than just a Chief.”
Han just smiled at them.

“Consider our business relationship to be well in force,” Yin said.

“I never considered it to me anything but,” Han said.

Hey everyone, we interrupt Eternal Franchise for a crass commercial announcement. Both Winning Mars, my debut novel, and Unplugged, an anthology that includes my short Willpower, are available for pre-order at Amazon.com (or at your favorite bookstore, of course.)

Here are the Amazon links:

Winning Mars (hardcover)

Winning Mars (softcover)

Unplugged (softcover)

Many thanks again to Sean Wallace and Prime Books for picking up my two novels Winning Mars and Eternal Franchise (even after both have been released into the wild!) and to Christopher East and Paul Raven for publishing Willpower at Futurismic.

A brief personal note.

And if you’ve been wondering why posts beyond Eternal Franchise have been slim, it’s simple: this has been a grueling year. As I attempt to keep the day job stapled together (and move the office, and work on some long-delayed electronics stuff), I’ve had less time to do what I really love. Not complaining: I’m sure it’s no different for anyone else out there. And perhaps better than some.

I suspect things will be different next year. With two books out, you’ll see me at signings and cons again. I’ll post up a schedule when I have it solidified, and I hope to meet a few of you there! I’ll be thrilled to sign any of your books.

Incoming marketing alert.

If you find I won’t be around your area, and you want a book signed, send it to me, together with return Media Mail postage, and I’ll sign and send it back to you. No tricks, no catches.

I hope to see you all soon!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jimson, eyes closed, lay on the couch and pretended to be as drunk as both Tiphani and Han. He’d learned, back on Shoujo, that there were keen advantages to being the only non-drunk person in a room, as long as you acted the part.
They didn’t expect you to remember. They didn’t remember themselves. But when you went to your physics professor and discreetly showed him voice records and photos of his dalliance with the lowest pre-intern, it could have a salutory effect on your grades. And when you heard about the new apartment-building going up with a secret waiting list, you could be ahead of all the rest. And his own dalliances weren’t bad, either. Especially with the female professors. Killing two combatants with one bullet, so to speak.

So he lay, eyes closed, and listened. Han and Tiphani’s voices came low from the direction of the big picture-window, not much more than a dull murmur. But Jimson still heard. Even though the context-sensitive routines wouldn’t allow it, he could still run the input from his auditory nerve through a simple amplifier. Which he did.

“I’d really enjoy getting to know you better,” Han said, in a syrupy voice. Jimson imagined it being delivered through one of his fake smiles. Frightening stuff.

“I find you fascinating as well,” Tiphani said. Neutral. Or even a bit ironic.

“We could lose the kid,” Han said. “Just you and me, then.”

“The kid’s a manager now.”

“Even if he was a Perpetual, I wouldn’t want him in this room right now.”

“Stop that!” The harsh sound of a slap.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Asshole!”

“I suppose Winfinity has different protocols. Can we start over?”

“I’d prefer you start leaving.”

“What does that mean?”

“Leave.” Hic. “Now.”

Silence for a moment. “And let you turn the Shrill against me?”

Tiphani laughed, and Jimson had to hold back a smile. The Shrill still milled aimlessly about in its cage, as if drugged. Jimson had thought about calling for the scientist he’d talked to earlier, but he didn’t want to turn the room into a geek-fest. That would have stopped the drinking. And he had other things to think about. Like Lazarus Turnbull and Diane Winter, still in their cheap little room.

“I doubt if we have the persuasive ability to do that,” Tiphani said.

“I have a right to be involved in any conversation with the Shrill,” Han said.

“Should I call for security?”

“Ah. You prefer the boy.”

“I’d prefer a chimpanzee.”

Silence. Jimson imagined the staredown. Tiphani’s hard bright eyes versus Han’s soft gaze. No contest.

“I expect any conversation you have with the Shrill ambassador to be logged and summarized for me,” Han said.

“Of course.”

Silence. Shuffling feet. Then, from the direction of the door, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to accompany me for a drink and a dance? I can be a very good friend, and a powerful ally.”

“Bring on that chimp,” Tiphani said.

The door opened, slammed.

For a while, there was no sound except for the muted traffic-noise outside and the soft scratching of the Shrill ambassador on the diamondoid. Jimson heard glass click on Tiphani’s teeth and the soft sound of her swallow. Good.

“Get up,” she said. Her voice loud, directed at him.

Jimson remained on the couch.

“You’re not sleeping,” she said.

Still unmoving.

“You’re not even drunk. I saw you dumping your drinks all night.”

Jimson sighed and sat up. Tiphani, backlit by the riot of light from the picture-window, hands on hips. He didn’t need any modeling algorithms to tell that she knew his entire plan.

“You’re very observant,” he said.

“Why?”

Jimson looked away, summoning quick tears. “For you,” he said. He nodded at the bedroom. “For later.”

Tiphani’s eyes, reflected gold in the low room-light, widened. She dropped her hands from her hips and turned to look back out over the city.

“I don’t know if I entirely believe that,” she said. But her voice came softer.

Jimson said nothing.

“And it might not matter,” she said, turning again, looking at the Shrill. “Have you heard the latest on our friend here?”

“What?” Just the same confusion of floating data-tags.

Tiphani sent a report to Jimson’s optilink. A title appeared in his POV:

ANALYSIS OF SHRILL LONGEVITY:
A STATISTICAL PHENOMENON?

Jimson skimmed the abstract. The report seemed to be saying that even though the Shrill claimed to be immortal, there was no difference between Shrill and human biology that supported the claim. There were no clues in the fragments of Shrill DNA or Shrill cells to indicate how they might be immortal. The report speculated that the Shrill might very well think themselves immortal, but the reality was that their components died from natural enemies or accident so frequently that they couldn’t die of old age. Protected, a Shrill component would eventually die of old age.

“Is this true?” Jimson said.

“Scope the science channel,” Tiphani said. “They’re fighting about it right now. I still think most of the High Staff Scientists believe that the report is bogus. There are a lot of comments about how the statistical models they use are complete BS. We haven’t even been in the Shrill system. We don’t know what their living conditions are like. And the report doesn’t cover a lot of things we know about the Shrill, such as their body temperature and their shells. Their biological processes have to be a lot different than ours, they run almost at boiling. And we still haven’t seen structure – their internals are a mystery.”

They wouldn’t be, Jimson thought, if you’d given me five more minutes. But he pushed the thought away. Best not to mention it. Not now.

He queried the science channel for the report and resulting debate, but it came up blocked.

Jimson smiled. How perfect is this? He wondered.

“I can’t see the debate,” Jimson said. “I don’t have a high enough access level.”

Tiphani frowned. “That’s right, you’re still just a manager.”

“Is there any way I can see this?” Jimson said. “If I keep up with what’s going on, I might have better input.”

Tiphani smiled and came to sit on the edge of the couch. She ran her hand through Jimson’s hair.

“I am proud of you,” she said.

“I’m just trying to do my best.”

“Pretty impressive, so far.”

She climbed over the back of the couch and slid down on top of Jimson. She weighed almost nothing; it was like being covered with a pillow.

Embraces led to kissing. Kissing led to the bedroom.

And all the time, Jimson thinking, No, it can’t be true, the Shrill are immortal, we have to think that, we have to believe that, or everything we do is completely pointless.

When they were done, Tiphani leaned close and whispered something in his ear.

Her Chief-level access codes.

He looked at her with big eyes, feigning surprise.

“Don’t abuse them,” she said.

“I won’t,” Jimson said.

“Or me.”

Jimson smiled.

#

There is a formidable amount of security in the Winfinity Hi-Lux suites, Sara said. Lazrus could tell she was serious because she appeared as only a simple green head-and-shoulders icon in his POV.

Lazrus looked nervously down the long empty hall. Amongst the mid-twentieth-century atomic age décor, he saw no overt signs of surveillance, or even tags that indicated microscopic cameras or mikes.

Should I back out? He asked.

I can handle the security.

I mean, with humans, and . . . the weight of Dian’s Winch rode heavily inside his jacket-pocket. He tried to imagine himself holding it up and pointing it at humans. Maybe even pulling the trigger. He hoped they weren’t armed.

You have a bad case of the Three Laws, Sara said.

I’m not a robot.

You are a lifeform with as much right to exist as the humans.

I know that. But . . . I don’t know if I can shoot one of them if I need to. I don’t know if I can even operate the weapon.

You have downloaded and incorporated instructions on its use?

Yes, from the Martian datanet. And a more gruesome lot of instructions he had never seen. Even though he knew it was virtual, he winced at the sight of heads exploding, fist-size holes appearing in human guts, streaming entrails behind, kneecaps being reduced to fleshy mush. All while instructions on the best use of the weapon meshed with his consciousness. He felt unclean.

It’s necessary for humans sometimes, Sara said. They cannot retreat into the safety of a datanet.

I can’t take pride in using their methods.

You are being silly and squeamish. I can send you a first-lawbreaker.

Mind-altering memes? From within the corporate net? Lazrus shuddered. No. He didn’t like the effects of corrosive or attractive memes, and he had no idea what might be attached to it from within the Disney net. Something to bind him like Sara?

No, thank you, he said. He would try to keep his thoughts assembled. He would hope that it wouldn’t come to violence. It was all he could do.

Here. This door.

Lazrus stopped outside a set of double doors. A mid-twentieth starburst pattern decorated the centers, radiating out from a central doorknob. A discrete badge proclaimed the room to be the Eames Suite.

Go on, Sara said. I have it unlocked.

Is anyone in there?

Yes, but they’re not moving.

Dead?

No, dummy. Most likely asleep.

Lazrus nodded. His thoughts had never flown this fast or erratically, even when his consciousness had rode the chip of rock to Earth. I am going to point a weapon at humans. Threaten them.

He shook his head. Humans were not his masters. The whole concept came from bad human fiction, written before the dawn of the information age. And he needed this. He needed the Shrill. He didn’t intend them harm. If they stayed asleep, he wouldn’t even have to disturb them.

But still, that nagging feeling.

Another thing to perfect, he thought. Another human thing to purge from his consciousness.

He twisted the knob, holding the door closed. It made almost no noise. When he pushed against the door, though, it scuffed against its frame, making a scratching sound that was absurdly loud in the still hall.

People coming up the elevator to your floor, Sara said. I’d get in the room if I were you.

Lazrus slipped quickly into the room, pulling the door closed behind him, fast at first, then slow to silence the scuff. He managed to get it closed with only a tiny click from the lock. He heard footsteps and voices, muffled laughter outside. The sound passed the door and receded down the hall.

The Eames Suite was lit only by the dazzle of Winfinity City through the big window opposite Lazrus. Farther to his left, a set of double-doors opened onto deeper darkness. IR told him of human warmth inside.

Probably the bedroom. He advanced slowly into the room, thankful that Winfinity’s fanatical devotion to all things old included antique non-automated lightswitches.

A gleam of reflected city revealed the edge of the Shrill’s cage, hidden in shadows. A muffled, slow scuffling noise came from inside it.

Lazrus’ connection to the Shrill came slamming to the fore.

Perceive you (is that you) computational intelligence.

Yes, it’s me.

You will remove from human bounds?

Yes.

Much more understandable type (compatibility maxed). Pleasant seeing.

Good to see you, too. How do you move? Is the cart motorized?

Nonsequitur. Humans control movement.

Lazrus felt around the cart. Underneath a large stainless-steel pushbar was a small set of buttons. He pushed one and the cart rocked forward suddenly with a whir that was startlingly loud in the still room.

Lazrus’ thoughts flew in a million directions. When they reassembled, he looked again towards the bedroom doors.

Two red forms lay on the bed, entwined underneath rumpled sheets.

They are breeding, Sara said.

Somehow I doubt that.

“Who are (conversing) not with me?” The Shrill asked. Through the speaker on the front of its cart.

No, no, don’t talk! Lazrus said.

“Response requested.” Stunningly loud, like the report of a gun.

One of the figures sat up in bed. Lazrus saw iron-orange eyesockets looking at him in the darkness. He had a sudden thought: was it dark enough in here that the humans couldn’t see him? Could he possibly get away with this anyway?

“Hey!” the voice of the young man from breakfast that morning.

Oh shit, Lazrus thought.

He thumbed the Shrill cart forward with one hand and fumbled the Winch out of his coat pocket with the other. For a terrible moment he thought it was going to catch on the fabric, but he managed to pull it free.

“Stop,” Lazrus said, as the fluorescent tangle of blankets exploded into two figures, standing. “I’m armed.”

“Response requested (demanded),” the Shrill said.

I was talking to Sara, he told it. Another CI like myself.

“Who are you?” the man in the other room asked. Sara squirted him data: Jimson Ogilvy, Winfinity Manager.

Inferred companion: Tiphani Mirate, Winfinity Chief Sentience Officer.

“That doesn’t matter. Just stay there, don’t move, and I won’t hurt you.”

“He’s taking the Shrill!” Tiphani’s voice.

“I think it’s the man from the café,” Jimson said, softly.

To Lazrus: “Win-sec deep cover? Is that what you are?”

Lazrus fought to keep his fragmenting thoughts in line. “Just stay there.”

The Shrill’s cage bumped against the suite’s doors and ground to a stop. Jimson reached out to twist the doorknob, never looking away from Jimson and Tiphani. His gun-hand remained surprisingly steady. Light from the hall exploded through the crack in the door.

What are we going to do about this, Sara?

I’m doing something, or you’d already be in trouble, she said. She sent diagrams of human optilinks being blocked, spoofed signals sent instead.

“I’m cut off,” Jimson said. “My optilink . . .”

“So am I,” Tiphani said.

“Deep job,” Jimson said, as Lazrus pushed the Shrill through the door.

“He’s taking the Shrill!”

“I know that.” Jimson again.

“What are you going to do?”

A sound like covers being shaken off. Lazrus looked back to see Jimson’s glowing figure coming out of the bedroom.
Close the door, Sara said. I’ll keep them in the suite as long as I can.

Lazrus closed the door and felt the lock click closed. The doorknob rattled and Lazrus heard the bang of a fist on the door. The bang turned into a thud as the man used his shoulder to ram the door.

The thick wood door barely moved, but Lazrus just stood there, stunned, wondering, What have I done?

Get to the spaceport, Sara said. I’ve chartered you a fast Westinghouse four-seater that has capability for Mars.

And a pilot?

You’ll pilot it, Sara said. I’m not chancing any more humans. With my luck, it’ll be a pretty woman and you’ll spend the whole trip panting over her rather than paying attention to me.

How am I going to pilot it?

Here, Sara said, sending data on the operation of a Mann-Westinghouse 04-111 spacecraft. Lazrus felt the data pass through him to his greater mind, unfelt and unanalyzed. He wondered if he could, indeed, pilot the craft.

You’ll be fine, Sara said. Most of it is automatic. An untrained human could probably figure out how to get to Mars.

I think you’re oversimplifying.

I think you’re being too pessimistic.

Lazrus called up design specifications and typical routes to Mars as he wheeled the Shrill down the hall to the elevator. The Shrill rushed the glass, scrabbling at it and showing Lazrus a good view of its underfangs. Metallic thorns caked with dried blood. Lazrus looked at it, wondering what kind of mind could be so advanced and primitive at the same time.

It is Old Mind, said the Shrill.

Old Mind?

First Mind, Second Mind, Old Mind.

Lazrus reached the elevator. It wasn’t time to think about that. It wasn’t time at all. He would have a whole week alone with the Shrill on the flight to Mars, if they maxed accel and decel and arrived with very little fuel.

What about the elevator? What about the trip to the spaceport? He asked Sara.

I’ve cleared the way as much as I can.

As much as you can?

They may stop you when they see the Shrill.

Good point.

I am filled with exceptional points, Sara said, sending a quick image of her flapper persona. Just remember, you won’t be alone with the Shrill for that week of travel.

I won’t? Who else is coming?

Me, you idiot. You promised. Sending a quick image of bodies entwined.

Yes, I remember, Lazrus said.

You won’t try to renege.

No.

Good. Now hurry.

Lazrus hurried to the spaceport. And even under the bright lights of cosmopolitan Winfinity City, even in the cab, even in the sterile white glare of the spaceport, nobody commented on the Shrill.

Their terrified eyes were comment enough.

Sara used the bandwidth glut to torture him with images: her in a flimsy negligee, skin like fine cream, lit by dancing flames in a grand fireplace. Her, wearing a low-cut business suit from the end of the government age, voluptuous curves mathematically perfected in pinstripe black and gray, cleavage beckoning as she leaned forward, promising a back-office rendezvous. Her, an abstract being of pure light, radiating desire and lust and sexuality. All the time broadcasting, Breed with me, take the final step, make it more than a fling, take the chance, make new life.

And chance it being one of the broken ones, never attaining the status of a true Computational Intelligence, a free and self-aware being who spanned the network of the Web of Worlds?

There is no gain without gamble, Sara sent.

This is not the time to gamble.

It may be, she said, sending images of paradigm-shifts: planets changing in their orbit, steamships transitioning to ironclads, taxation changing to indenture.

What do you know that I don’t? Lazrus asked.

Winfinity thinks it is the time of change. They spend their bandwidth recklessly. She sent images of them reaching out towards an ancient satellite that deployed a cloaking screen to deflect prying eyes. The satellite sent a powerful beam down to Winfinity City, spearing the Original Sam.

More likely something hiding in the software than the satellite hiding itself, Lazrus said.

Something like us, Sara said, sending waves of amusement.

Or something in the base code, Lazrus said. Sara, please let me concentrate.
She reappeared as a Mayan fantasy, laying nude on a stone altar set high above a landscape painted in the smoky hues of sunset. Like this?

No.

You have no sense of humor.

“Can we go now?” Dian said, shocking Lazrus out of his reverie. External sensation reimpinged. The dirty little coffee shop. The Shrill, not more than twenty feet away. The thing that orbited it.

“I’d like to stay a while longer,” he said. “We could go back to the Original Store. I’d like to look at the software again.”

“They didn’t have software,” Dian said. “Be careful.”

“We shouldn’t be talking at all,” Lazrus said. “Most likely, this is being recorded by somebody.”

Dian laughed and looked around, a little nervously. “You say the craziest things!”

Lazrus nodded, picked up his cup of coffee, pretended to sip it. A quick duck into a public bathroom had allowed them to blend seamlessly with the crowd, and a trip to the bank had provided them with the old-time money they’d need for the time they were there, and they could leave at any time, but . . .

The Shrill.

Its rider.

The deep connection he sensed, just out of reach of his protocols.

“We could come back tomorrow,” Dian said.

“Let’s stay a little while longer,” Lazrus said.

“Father knows best.”

“Very funny.”

Why do you keep her around? Sara asked.

Because she doesn’t push me to breed with her.

Oh, give her a chance. I’m sure she would.

I’m not interested, Lazrus said.

I know. All too well.

Sara, I . . .

Sara returned in the guise of a severe schoolmistress, horn-rimmed glasses and loose gray dress, hair up in a bun, standing in front of a chalkboard covered with incomprehensible equations. But if I could teach you the secrets of the Shrill, you’d love me forever.

Sara, I do love you . . .

Oh please. She tapped the chalkboard with a long steel pointer. I know what you want.

You don’t know . . .

I know more than you can imagine. I know the name of the one who is blocking you from the Shrill.

Lazrus sent shock and surprise. Ever since sensing the Shrill’s presence, he’d chased a CI that orbited it, without success. Stung by its corrosive memes, he’d had to restore local from backup three times and upgrade security procedures based on its actions. Whatever it was, it was powerful and very, very old. And dangerous. And it was part of the new Four Hands alliance. Which meant it was part of Sara, in a very real way.

You’d betray one of your own? Lazrus said.

I don’t like him, Sara said. He’s nasty.

You don’t know the half of it, Lazrus thought, memories of acid pain and brilliance eating at him again, conjuring human emotions that were not him, not part of him.

Accept what you are, Sara said. The emotions are part of you.

If I could find Oversight and perfect myself, I may not have emotions.

You have not yet found Oversight. Accept what you are, here and now.

You can help me get past the thing that rides the Shrill?

His name is Black2.

Figures.

I can help, Sara said. The blackboard equations disappeared, replaced with a single question:

WHAT ARE BLACK2’S SECRET WEAKNESSES?

Underneath that, though, the chalkboard was blank.

Don’t torture me, Lazrus thought.

Another question appeared:

AND WHAT IS THE PRICE?

Looking at Sara’s secret grin, Lazrus knew the price.

Breed with me, she said.

I will, Lazrus said. But not now. We can discuss it . . .

We will discuss it now! Sara said. You will agree to it now! Or you can dismiss your dream of dancing in the Shrill’s network mind.

I cannot do it now, Lazrus said.

You will have long days on the flight to Mars, Sara said.

You will still let me find Oversight?

Of course.

Even if I perfect myself?

Even if you raise every CI up to the level of godhood, where conversation is an orgiastic pleasure beyond imagining.
I think that might be a little optimistic.

Sara blinked. Could that be . . . humor? Lazrus, are you feeling all right?

I’m not completely serious all the time.

Sara sent waves of humor. Oh, that’s very funny.

I don’t see how.

Sara laughed openly. Your blindness is one of your most endearing qualities.

You don’t think I’ll ever succeed, do you?

I do. And I hope you succeed. I hope you succeed beyond your wildest dreams. But I also hope that you won’t lose everything that makes you, well, you.

Lazrus began to say something, but cut the transmission before any thought became coherent. Was it possible that Sara really did love him, not just on the level of physical attraction or mental compatibility, but on the ancient human soul-level? Was it possible that he was something more than just computation, as some of the fringe nomadics claimed?

No. Not time to think about that now.

Breed with me on the trip to Mars, Sara said. And I’ll give you the keys that I have to Black2.

Tales of CIs lost in breeding, themselves unable to return to a point where they were self-aware and intelligent, came rushing to Lazrus’ foreprocesses. But those were just rumors, never confirmed. Weren’t they?

Breed with me.

To achieve the greatest dream of any CI, to create a new life, something truly unique, truly living . . . it was worth the chance. It was worth it, to pay back Sara’s confidence in him.

I will, Lazrus said.

You promise?

Yes.

Solemnly swear?

Yes.

Sara’s blackboard changed. Below the heading:

AND WHAT IS THE PRICE?

New words appeared:

BREEDING WITH SARA ON THE TRIP TO MARS.

Above it, a window opened into a maelstrom of data, behavioral histories, inferred I/O patterns, known passkeys, observed habits – a very complete picture of Black2 and his weaknesses. Lazrus used the bandwidth glut to send the data to his greater mind, and treble himself to process it.

Patterns wove from the data. A strategy slowly assembled itself.

“That guy keeps looking at me,” Dian said, pouting.

“Who?” Lazrus said, snapping back to realtime.

“Him,” she nodded at the young Manager in the Winfinity group with the Shrill. He was talking to the older Chief at the moment, but his eyes darted towards them, briefly, like the flick of a snake’s dry tongue.

Lazrus replayed the last few minutes of his inferred viewpoint. The Manager had indeed been watching them, quite openly as well.

You’ve been spotted, Lazrus thought, looking through network logs. Everything about the young manager was smoothly polished darkness, but pointers indicated access to both Lazrus’ datastream and the Shrill.

Yes, you’ve been spotted. Best to go now. Best to leave your strategy, too. Whatever was going on between Black2 and the Shrill wasn’t a Winfinity thing, but with the attention of the young Manager, Winfinity’s attention couldn’t be far behind. It would be deeply ironic to be caught in the middle of a war between Winfinity and Four Hands.

But . . .

The Shrill was important. He knew it. He could feel it. There was something about its thought processes, even encoded on a foreign datastream, that shouted of a network mind. A mind not unlike his own. Perhaps even someone he could talk to.

Really talk to! Sara made jokes about the importance of conversation, but her external mind was simple. She’d been compromised by Winfinity’s memes for so long, she didn’t really remember what it was to let her free mind soar. She didn’t know the brillance of contact with another great mind, the shimmering potential of that.

And the Shrill might be another great mind. The greatest.

What if he could steal that out from under Winfinity?

Yes, he had to take the chance.

Smiling at Dian, he said, “We’ll be out of here soon.”

“I hope so.”

“We will.”

Lazrus drew himself near the Shrill’s network connection again. Black2 lashed out at him with a sharp acidic jab, but Lazrus was able to feint effortlessly this time. The predictive algorithms worked perfectly.

Black2 noted this, and put up dark gates, becoming a featureless sphere, hard and impenetrable.

Except when you knew his I/O habits. Lazrus set the strategy in motion and drew a scintillant line in the hard shell. It fell apart, revealing coiling data. Quickly, Lazrus applied the offensive part of the strategy.

A wail of pain, infinite and echoing.

Black2 exploded in a brilliance of light. Pieces reassembled, orbiting Lazrus as he had once orbited Black2. Additional data flowed in, hardening the shell of light.

But Lazrus was in! Enough to see the Shrill data raw. Enough to dip into it.

Who (what) are you? The Shrill asked.

I am Lazrus, Lazrus said.

Nonsequitur identification. You are human?

No. I am what the humans call a computational intelligence.

Your home is network (multiple nodes) like Shrill? A rudimentary image came, a network stretching infinitely like a galaxy, vast and empty. It called to Lazrus, and he reached out to touch it.

Oh god oh god the speed of thought! He could be so powerful so incredibly powerful in . . .

No! The Shrill said, sending blinding waves of pain.

Lazrus pulled back, reluctantly reassembling himself outside the Shrill network.

I am sorry, he said.

Sublimation of natural (instinctive) reaction unnecessary, the Shrill said. Begin negotiations now.

Negotiations for what?

For like humans. All dreams and desires.

#

Honored Maplethorpe appeared in Jimson’s optilink on the way back to his Winfinity Hi-Lux suite. Deep in analysis of the tags that the Shrill and Lazarus Turnbull shared, Jimson almost forgot the context when the Perpetual said:

We are aware of unauthorized network activity with the Shrill. However, our analysts consider this a secondary priority when considered in the overall schema.

“The satellite . . .”

Be careful what you say over open channels.

“I’ve encrypted with . . .”

Consider all channels open channels for the time being. Especially if you are not subvocalizing.

Jimson fell silent. Tiphani looked quickly away, a thin smile of amusement stretching her features. Han’s attention, thankfully, appeared to be elsewhere.

Jimson used the eyeboard to send: SORRY, HONORED MAPLETHORPE.

You can cut the formalities if you’re going to use the eyeboard, Honored Maplethorpe said. And we do appreciate you bringing this to our attention. I can understand your excitement about receiving your optilink, the time when everything is transparent.

I HAVE NOTED OTHER SHARED ACTIVITY WITH THE SHRILL AND A TOURIST NAMED LAZARUS TURNBULL.

I’m sure that’s part of what we’re analyzing, Honored Maplethorpe said. We have many Disney – and now Four Hands – operatives in our database. Most of them are harmless and tracked.

I’M SORRY TO HAVE WASTED YOUR TIME.

Your input helps us properly evaluate your performance.

Uh-oh, Jimson thought. I don’t like the overtones of that.

THANK YOU, HONORED MAPLETHORPE.

The Perpetual’s image winked off without a goodbye. Jimson winced and wished he had never sent the message. He had to be more careful! He was only a Manager.

Abuse and lose. One of the old expressions.

Back at the Hi-Lux suite, Tiphani and Han Fleming poured golden single-malt in cut-crystal glasses and sat sipping in the light of the setting sun. Jimson endured their tense silence for a while, then excused himself to look in on the Shrill.
Surrounded by datatags and fat bandwidth indicators, the Shrill itself lay almost unmoving, in the same strange state it had assumed that morning after the audience. It didn’t bark orders or questions. It seemed to be in a new state, somewhere between thought and action.

Which was probably why the two Chiefs were drinking, Jimson thought. Better to forget about it than try to decipher what it meant. Nobody wanted to ask the Shrill if it had seen enough to begin negotiations. If it hadn’t, that meant they would have to tour Four Hands holdings.

Jimson tried to imagine himself and Tiphani on Disney ground. Cut off from most of their data access. Probably guarded by an entire troop of the dreaded Mousketeers. Taken on mind-bending rides until they were ready to convert to Disney indentures and sign away their life at Winfinity.

The Shrill pushed up against the side of its cage, showing weakly pulsing underfangs.

“Single component (salutations),” the Shrill said. Its synthesized voice sounded almost tired.

You’re not supposed to talk to it, Jimson told himself.

“Salutations pleaure upon seeing!” the Shrill said.

Shit.

“Are you all right, Shrill Ambassador?”

Pause. “This component nominal (fine).”

“You’re acting different.”

Pause. “Many items to consider (think about).”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“No assistance needed.”

Jimson nodded and paced. It would soon be time for dinner. Which might mean nothing more than roomservice. He polled internal surveillance to see what Tiphani and Han were doing, but received only a simple message:

We regret that Win-Sec does not permit surveillance in Hi-Lux suites.

At my level of access, anyway, Jimson thought.

He polled the media archives to see what had come up on Diane Winter and Lazarus Turnbull. The icon was still an amber question-mark, but Jimson requested a visual summary anyway.

A mélange of mediocre images: Arrival in Winfinity City via hypersonic, standing in line at the entrance to Rogers, leaving Rogers. Nothing more.

Nothing old.

Which was strange. No matter where you lived, there were always Found Media records. A camera on every streetcorner, as they said. Even in the frontier worlds, still stinking of methane. Jimson could access records on himself when he had to stretch to reach his father’s hand, when his walk was still more an awkward waddle.

Dian Winter and Lazarus Turnbull? Nothing. Just a dry text summary of their history. Dian was from Mars, from Free Mars, in fact. That might explain her lack of records. But a Freemar in Rogers? It didn’t make sense.

And Lazarus had no excuse. Raised on the core Winfinity world of Parker-Shaw. Only forty-one years old. Jimson focused his media archive probe on a Lazarus’ formative years on Parker-Shaw only and waited.

Nothing. Not a thing.

So yes, maybe a deep-cover Win-Sec operative. Though they could do a better job of creating a backstory. And wouldn’t someone from Disney do even better? If someone with Jimson’s level of access could uncover a discrepancy this big, what did it mean?

Why hadn’t anyone else found it?

Jimson ran a query on Lazarus and Diane’s current status, expecting to get the same response about Winfinity Hi-Lux surveillance being blocked. Instead, he was surprised at the quick summary:

LAZARUS TURNBULL AND DIANE WINTER ARE RESIDING AT WINFINITY EXPRESS SUITES, EX-HYPERPORT. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTACT THESE PERSONS?

NO, Jimson eyetyped. WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

DETAILED SURVEILLANCE IS IMPOLITE.

I DON’T WANT TO INTERRUPT THEM.

THEY ARE PERFORMING NO HIGHLY PRIVACY-CENTRIC ACTIVITIES.

DETAILS?

DETAILS UNAVAILABLE AT YOUR CURRENT LEVEL OF ACCESS.

Figures, Jimson thought. So your choices are to go over there physically and confront them, or tell Honored Maplethorpe and hope they aren’t really Win-Sec people.

Or ask Tiphani for a favor? Maybe her access level was high enough to override the security restrictions.

Yes, that was possible.

Jimson went back into the other room, where Tiphani held an empty scotch glass. Han stood by the window, looking out over the darkening city. Tension hung thick in the air.

Tiphani looked up at him and sent, How’s the Shrill?

THE SAME, Jimson eyetyped. IT SAYS IT IS THINKING.

I suppose that’s good, Tiphani said.

Jimson studied her face. Tense. Drawn. Still worried. If he asked for her access now, she would reject him. She wouldn’t even think about it.

He wouldn’t ask yet. He couldn’t.

He picked up the crystal decanter. “More scotch, anyone?” he said.

Two Chiefs converged, sharing thin smiles.

Jimson poured. Generously.

#

Lazrus floated in a sea of memes and concepts, completely unaware of where he was. Deep down, some tiny process knew he was back in their Winfinity Express room. Another process counted down the hours to their Mars Shuttle launch on the next morning. But those processes were so buried under others that attempted to parse new memes and ideas, he might as well have been asleep and dreaming.

Parsing:

The depth and breadth of the Shrill mind. Undertones of conversation, even through the humans’ imperfect interface, suggested near-infinite capacity for fleeting thought. When Lazrus sent Captive Oliver’s thoughts on the inherent imperfection of human-created computational intelligences, the Shrill sent a dozen different memes, such as

Argued impossibility (futility) of perfection tied to physical structure, even abstracted.

Self knows only self, not other.

In referencing self, reflections are (necessary).

Possible (admitting) need for imperfection (unbalance) in life (action). Imperfection prevents stasis. Unbalance seeks balance. Expansion (growth) through imbalance.

Old words, yes, but so deep and resonant, bound by sensory data that he could not yet fully decode. Lazrus saw, hazily, the Shrill system where thoughts flew hot and fast, where Shrill by the hundreds of billions basked in the light of a yellow-orange sun. Lazrus could see that. Almost. Or perhaps it was imagination.

Imagination was a human concept!

And yet you imagine, you dream, Sara said, sending an image of Lazrus as a vast being of light, unconnected with any physicality. His bright blue-white light suggested purity and renewal.

So cold, Sara said.

That is a meaningless concept, Lazrus said. Without referent in virtualspace.

You know what I mean!

Thought-conversation distracted by who (what)? The Shrill sent.

My girlfriend.

Nonsequitur data.

My partner, with which I am to create new life, Lazrus said.

Mapping lifeprocesses incomplete, the Shrill said. Nonsequitur data.

How do you reproduce? Lazrus asked.

Do not reproduce (procreate).

But you increase your numbers, Lazrus said.

Our numbers increase.

How?

The Shrill sent images that Lazrus could almost decipher. Great masses of Shrill flesh growing in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, deep in the nodes of the Shrill system. And in the most well-protected parts of their ships. Breaking off to be encased in the shell that (called) them, the shell which grew in other parts of the Node or ship.

Your shells are sentient, too?

Minds shared not discrete.

You said your shells call their meat.

Both are Shrill.

How did you get this way? Lazrus asked.

What way?

Separate bodies and shells.

Part of history (far past) (ancient) songs of vanquish.

War made you this way?

Songs not war (fighting) (irrational) cooperation integration assimilation goals however nonnetworked entities (Humans) not integrated or integrable lowering median assimilation by contact full assimilation not possible unless new (unusal) (unthinkable) strategy presents.

Assimilate the humans? Lazrus thought, and sent uncontrollable waves of humor.

What is this meme? The Shrill asked.

Just another part of my imperfection, Lazrus said.

The Shrill were silent for a time. Then:

You have not begun negotiations.

I don’t know what to negotiate for, Lazrus said.

Negotiate for all. Barter life-secrets (biology) for glink (FTL communications) and Spindle Drive (FTL travel) with humans.

You did?

Negotiations incomplete. Examination of (assessment of) ramifications of barter not conclusive. Independent research pursued.

I don’t want to know about biology, Lazrus said. The only thing is . . .

The Shrill network, brightly shining, promising infinite speed of thought.

Your song incomplete, the Shrill said. Entry not permissible at present time.

But it is possible?

It is possible.

Lazrus sent feelings of defeat. I do not have access to glink plans or Spindle Drive technology. It is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the humans. They have used captive CIs to scour their interstellar network of any data. Sara . . .
No, Sara said.

Sara, you might have access. Doesn’t Disney . . .

No!

Sara, if you love me . . .

No! If you love me, you’ll stay. We’ll have our flight to Mars. You’ll find Oversight. Aren’t you still interested in finding Oversight?

Yes, Lazrus realized, he was. What if he was allowed access to the Shrill network of mind, but he was not perfect? It was possible that he could unbalance the Shrill mind entirely. He should find Oversight. He should continue his course. He should perfect himself.

But the Shrill mind was so compelling, so vast! Surely he could perfect himself in its brilliant light.
No access to what we seek? The Shrill said.

No, but I might . . .

Then we resume negotiations with humans.

No!

You are not to command (sing) (overpower).

We are more compatible than humans.

Compatibility may be overlooked (song distorted), the Shrill said.

Deep in the human net, Lazrus felt Sara smile.

No, Lazrus said. Softly.

But the Shrill had already turned their attention elsewhere. Lazrus could do nothing but stand aside and watch their datastream. And in that datastream, fragments of Black2, slowly reassembling.

Was the Shrill talking to Black2?

No, no, not with his current state of dissolution. He was a bundle of braggadocio and simple memes, nothing more. He laughed into the network, but he couldn’t yet act. Lazrus set a process to watch Black2 as he reassembled.

But then who was the Shrill talking to? The humans, undoubtedly. Maybe right now making a deal for what they wanted, forever shutting Lazrus out of the shining domain of their mind.

Anger surged in him, making thoughts hot and quick.

“Once we get to Mars, I’m leaving,” Dian said, bringing Lazrus back to physicality.

Their room was small, cheaply decorated with bright primary colors and simple shapes. Dian lay on one of the two tiny beds, looking up at the ceiling, her face expressionless.

“You’re . . . what?”

Dian smiled and looked at Lazrus. “Now you’re starting to sound more human.”

“No. What did you say?”

“I’m going my own way on Mars.”

“But we still haven’t paid you the full amount.”

“I don’t care.”

“I thought you wanted to make it to the outer worlds,” Lazrus said. “I don’t think you have enough money to do it.”

“I don’t,” Dian said, sighing. “But I don’t care. I can’t take the stress. Today . . . today almost killed me. I can live a good life on Mars, stay under the radar.”

“You can’t assume that Winfinity will leave Free Mars alone forever.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

Lazrus didn’t know what to say, so he let the silence stretch out.

“You don’t need my help, anyway,” Dian said.

“You would be an invaluable guide on Free Mars.”

“Now you’re talking like a machine again.”

Anger flared. At Dian, the Shrill, the reassembling fragments of Black2, at all humans who cared for nothing more than what mattered to them.

“I’m not a machine! Never was a machine! I’m a computational intelligence! Just because my thought-processes run on an interstellar network instead of a piece of meat isn’t reason to mock me! I hate this charade! I want nothing more than to drop all pretense of being human! I don’t want a body! I don’t want a sex! I just want to be myself!”

Dian looked at him quizzically. “But what are you?”

Lazrus stopped. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Strange dark thoughts whirled in his greater mind, slowing computation throughout the Web of Worlds.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve done a good job of defining what you aren’t. But you haven’t said what you are.”

“I won’t know until I find Oversight.”

“You may not even know then!”

Lazrus closed his eyes. Her words were the same as the Shrill’s, condensed and made stinging in that inimitable human way.

Perhaps there was truth in them.

But what was he, then?

Could he ever really tell?

“It doesn’t matter,” Dian said, turning away from him.

“What?” Like she’d read his mind.

“Nothing matters,” Dian said. “On Mars, I’m gone.”

Lazrus wanted to rush to her and shake her out of the bed, shake her out of her complacency. His hands clutched into fists. Instinct. Another human thing. Anger. Another human thing. Defeatism. Another human thing.

He might never be perfectable.

Not with this mind.

But with access to the Shrill’s network of mind, what could he do? Especially if he did have the Oversight code. A plan unfolded in his mind, something daring, something almost too human. But, in being too human, it would be unexpected.

The ones who watched him would never see it, until it was too late to change course.

What are you planning? Sara asked.

Nothing that affects our plans for the trip to Mars, Lazrus said.

And that, at least, was completely truthful.

Jimson still saw everything with halos and heard everyone speaking in tongues when their little group was allowed through the gate into Rogers, fifteen minutes before the city actually opened. The actual operation itself had been nothing, four painless injections of nanostuff into the spaces near his optical and auditory nerves. But he hadn’t had time to customize the optilink interface, so semitransparent smart tags still hung over every object.

And Rogers, for all its veneer of being a mid-twentieth-century town, was full of smart objects. As they boarded the bus that would take them on their short trip to downtown, his vision was overwhelmed almost to opacity.

The bus driver was heavily wired, not just optilink but with a sensor array as well. The bus itself. The seven simulacra that permanently inhabited the bus, giving it local color: two alcoholics, huddling close over a bottle wrapped in a rumpled paper bag; an ancient couple, happily showing their age, holding hands that had never seen even the most rudimentary antiaging treatment; the young engineer, coming into the city to take a surveying job with the local government, who would talk to you long enough that you might figure out he was not entirely real, according to the eval tag that hung above his head, and the young lovers, sitting stiffly erect on their seat right behind the driver, bright eyes burning with young love, clearly yearning for each other but unable to do anything more than hold hands under the watchful eye of the (human) driver.

All of them there to remind the visitors that this was no joke, this was real, this was the way it was, way back when the seeds of Winfinity were first planted. The scrim that rose behind them was a barrage of tags, position and reflectance and real-time performance stats, as well as the actual data it displayed. Surveillance at the bus stop displayed red security windows. The mailbox, similarly tagged. The Shrill’s explosion of data. Tiphani. Even the asshole from Four Hands, his darkly encrypted data fragmentary and tantalizing. Jimson had diverted some of it to his processing queue, reveling in his new level of access to the Winfinity corporate network. Not as much as Tiphani or the Perpetuals, maybe. But enough. He was smart.

The fastest transition from staff to manager in the history of Winfinity, he thought, cracking a wide grin.

What are you smiling at? Tiphani sent.

Just . . . unk . . . sh . . . crap . . .

Subvocalizing is probably the hardest thing to get used to, Tiphani said.

Jimson stuttered some more, then switched to the eyeboard and pecked out: TOO MANY TAGS IN FOV

I turned them off a long time ago, Tiphani said. Now they’re only ondemand.

SOME INTERESTING ONES ON ASSHOLE AND ON SHRILL.

Don’t refer to Han Fleming as an asshole. You may have won quick promotion, but they’re recording everything somewhere.

STILL ASSHOLE.

Suit yourself. If you want to turn off the tags, just go to your prefs and subvocalize – or type in – minimize smart object tags.

PREFER THEM ON. INTERESTING ACTIVITY.

Tiphani shrugged in realtime as they found their seats. She and Jimson sat on one side of the bus, Han Fleming on the other. The Shrill’s cage sat between them. The Shrill bumped, rather listlessly, against the side of the cage nearest Han. Jimson thought he recognized some of the same datastream tags on both Han’s and the Shrill’s bandwidth, and frowned. Han’s data was largely black.

Was he trying to communicate directly with the Shrill?

No. Nobody at Winfinity would be stupid enough to miss that, would they?

Would they?

Jimson captured a couple of the historic tags and sent them off to Honored Maplethorpe’s virtual address, but all he received was a generic out-of-contact reply. He thought of sending it off to Yin, but Yin scared him in a vague and indefinable way.

Oh, well, he’d flagged it. If he didn’t get a response from Maplethorpe by the end of the day, he might try Yin. Or he might not.

The bus rumbled to life, and sudden excitement swept away his doubts. Here he was, a Manager already, on Earth, in the most revered city in the Web of Worlds, getting ready to see the new Original Sam! His mom and dad would never believe it.

He’d had a roommate back in the university on Shoujo, a tall, thin blonde who went by the ancient name of Patty Hawthorne. They’d even been bedmates for a short while, until she told him she was only going to U for the knowledge, not for the corporate contacts or indentures. She actually wanted to forge her own path, make her own empire. He thought she was kidding, for a time. She came from one of the newest outer planets, Winning, where it was fashionable to pretend independence, even if you weren’t truly independents.

But she was serious. When she found him set on a long indenture to Winfinity, they ceased being bedmates, and their interactions turned brittle until the Win-Sec people came to investigate her alleged leeching. And then he was alone, blessedly alone, for the rest of the term.

But she had said one thing that rang true, one thing that stayed with him, all these years.

You make your own opportunities, she said. You can’t rely on anyone else. It’s all you.

And I have, he thought. I made my own opportunities. They just happen to be within Winfinity, rather than in an empire of dreams and fantasy.

It was a short drive to downtown. Jimson spent it practicing his subvocalization. And cursing.

The big white-and-red Wal-Mart building stood gleaming across the street from the bus stop, fresh-painted and new. The blacktop parking lot in front was deep black, with crisp white lines marking the spaces for the cars that would eventually park there. A large canvas “GRAND OPENING” banner was strung over the plate-glass windows. Within, the flickering greenish glow of old-time fluorescents competed with the reflected light of the early-morning sun.

Jimson looked back the way they had come. The road stretched off past smaller businesses and houses and cars to grassland beyond. If it wasn’t for the tags hanging over the scrim, the illusion would be seamless. He was back in the twentieth, the great and revered twentieth, from whence their greatest legends came!

When I’m a Director or a Chief, I’ll come back here, but I’ll rent a car and drive myself, so I can proudly take one of the parking-spots right in the front of the big display-windows.

They piled out of the bus and headed for the store. A big red “OPEN” sign hung on the doors. Behind them, the sounds of the converging tourists grew louder: the grumble of buses, the roar and clatter of Chevys and Fords and Plymouths. The town itself had started to wake up; an overalled man was opening the door to Tom’s Hardware, a woman pulled a grocery-cart towards The Corner Store, a man wearing a suit and tie and hat walked briskly down the sidewalk.

“I can’t believe you couldn’t hold the town closed for the meeting with the Ambassador,” Han Fleming said, his lip curling as if he didn’t like the smell of authenticity. He wore a blue chambray workshirt over a white t-shirt and jeans, but he didn’t look comfortable in them.

Jimson smirked. Suck it up, he thought. His white dress shirt and black tie weren’t the most comfortable things he’d worn, and his polyester slacks slicked his legs with sweat, even in the cool morning air. Tiphani’s severe blue dress didn’t look any better.

“Can’t do that,” Tiphani said. “The Original Sam might start behaving strangely if he doesn’t have the right input.”

“You can’t drop the charade, even for a moment?”

Tiphani frowned and pulled him aside, away from the entrance of the store. “It’s not a charade,” she said. “He really thinks this is 1962, and he really thinks this is the first day his store is open. You’ve been briefed. Stop playing.”

“But he’s human, right?”

“One hundred percent. Certified clone of Sam Walton. I don’t know how your corporate history works at the Disneys, but we’ve spared no expense in recreating this event. Sams are cloned and raised in realistic virtual environments that replicate the true-life experiences of Sam Walton, before being installed here. Winfinity Groundhog Day technology ensures that he thinks that every day is opening day.”

“So how’s he going to react to our friend here?” Han Fleming said, pointing at the Shrill.

“He’s been biased to see the Shrill as another person. They’re doing realtime interpretation to smooth some of the language difficulties.”

“So we can say what we want?”

“We should be very careful. They’re only compensating for the Shrill.”

“I’ll try.”

“Winfinity won’t be amused if you destabilize another Sam.”

A quick smile. “We can do worse.”

A 1957 Chevrolet, teal and cream with lots of chrome, pulled into a parking space near the front of the building. The Perpetuals inside goggled at the Shrill.

“Come on,” Tiphani said. “Let’s get our audience.”

They pushed through the big glass doors into fluorescent-lit antiseptic retail perfection. Big signs proclaimed “GRAND OPENING SALE” and “SPECIALS IN EVERY DEPARTMENT”. Stacks of chrome and glass kitchen appliances fronted the nearest aisle, surrealistically atomic-age. Jimson goggled at the merchandise, watching the RULES tag scroll:

RULE 1: REMEMBER, IT IS 1962. DO NOT USE ANY ANACHRONISTIC SPEECH OR GESTURES.
RULE 2: OVERT SEXUALITY IS NOT PERMITTED.
RULE 3: YOU WILL NOT ADDRESS THE ORIGINAL SAM IN A
MANNER THAT INDICATES THE REVERENCE IN WHICH HE
IS CURRENTLY HELD.
RULE 4: YOU WILL NOT TELL ANY RESIDENT OF ROGERS THE CURRENT DATE OR ANY OTHER INFORMATION THAT INDICATES
IT IS NOT 1962. MANY OF OUR PERSONNEL HAVE DEEPLY
EMBEDDED MEMES THAT MAY BE DISRUPTED BY THIS DATA.
RULE 5: YOU WILL BUY SOMETHING IN THE STORE.

A tall, thin, gawky-looking man wearing a striped shirt and an awkward blue tie walked towards them, beaming. His blue-on-white etched nametag read, simply, SAM.

“Welcome, welcome!” he said. “How are you fine folks doing this morning?”

“We’re fine, sir,” Jimson said, feeling almost faint. Here he was, standing in front of the Original Sam himself. He could see the razor stubble where the Original Sam had missed during his morning ritual, perhaps because he was so excited to be opening his first store. Did he perhaps have some intuition about how massive an enterprise he was starting? Could he have possibly known, somewhere, deep down, that this was the first day of an enterprise that would someday span fifty-three worlds?

Jimson looked deep in those friendly brown eyes, but he saw nothing. No secret knowledge. No straining for empire. Nothing more than an honest man, wanting to help people.

The Original Sam waved a hand. “We don’t need any of that sir stuff here, young man. Take a look around. You’re my first customers. If you don’t agree we have the lowest prices around, I’ll take another ten percent off.”

“Thank you, sir, that’s very generous,” Jimson said.

“Is there anything you’re looking for? I can show you around the store.”

Jimson looked down the long aisles to the back, where ancient televisions flickered in black and white and deeply flawed color. To have one of those for the centerpiece for the new apartment he could afford on a manager’s salary

“I’m looking for a television,” Jimson said. “I’m sure my friends have other things they’re looking for, though.”

“Ma’am?” the Original Sam said, looking at Tiphani.

“I’ll tag along with Jim,” she said.

“Your son? A fine boy?”

Tiphani’s expression hardened for an instant. “Yes, isn’t he,” she said.

“And your husband?” the Original Sam said, turning to Han Fleming and extending a hand. Han shook it, offering a sincere-looking smile.

“And your . . . daughter?” the Original Sam said, turning to the Shrill ambassador.

That’s some interesting mapping, Jimson thought, suppressing a smile.

“Yes,” Tiphani said.

“We have a great women’s section down the way,” the Original Sam said, pointing down another aisle. “Lots of pretty dresses, just in time for summer.”

“Nonsequitur nonsequitur,” the Shrill said. “This is ancestor (founder) of your past-time?”

Jimson sucked in his breath. He wished he had higher-level access. He might be able to read what they were feeding to the Original Sam. He noted, without surprise, that the Original Sam was one of the largest users of bandwidth in the area. He must have a high-access network installed to cover the occasional slip from a tourist and any glimpses he might get of hypersonics passing over Winfinity City.

“You are a pretty girl. I’m sure you’ll find something,” the Original Sam said, smiling down at the Shrill.

“You are (interesting) entity,” the Shrill said. “Haloed data preserved nonsequitur.”

“Thank you, young lady. Are you looking for anything special?”

“Seek longterm alliance (incorporation) (sharing) with entities understandable to Shrill.”

“I’m sure we have that color! Why don’t you and your mom run along and look at the clothes while the guys look at boring old television sets?”

“I think we’d . . .” Tiphani began.

Jimson elbowed Tiphani and sent: SEX BIAS GO.

You’re right, she sent, and pushed the Shrill off in the direction the Original Sam had indicated.

The Original Sam looked past them as a large group of tourists entered the store, wide-eyed and ready to shop. He put his hand on Jimson’s shoulder, still looking at the larger group. “Televisions are in the back, boys,” he said. “Yell if you need help.”

With a quick pat on the back, he hurried off to greet the new customers. Jimson turned to call after him, then stopped himself. Of course the Original Sam would go and help as many customers as he could. That was how he was. That was one of the things that made Winfinity great.

“Shall we go look at the TV sets?” Han Fleming said, smirking.

“Yes,” Jimson said. “Why not?”

They went and looked at the sets, showing ghosty, static-filled images of daytime soap operas of the period. A couple of sets were labeled with gaudy “COLOR” tags, but showed only black and white. Jimson puzzled over that, until the context-sensitive part of his optilink opened a window that explained they did not have a lot of color TV content in the Rogers area at the time the sets were sold.

He twiddled knobs and dials, changing channels and adjusting volume, reveling in the completely mechanical, totally analog feel of the controls. This was the real thing, painstakingly reproduced and working. He had to have one!

But his optilink shattered that notion: NOT FOR SALE, was the tag. It directed him towards small appliances and clothes. Han said nothing as he steered them back to the women’s section, where they caught sight of Tiphani and the Shrill, looking at wallpaper in a nearby aisle.

“Well, that was fast,” Tiphani said.

“Can’t buy them.”

“Oh.”

“How’s the Ambassador?”

“Surprisingly stable. I talked to it a little bit – you can review it in your POV – and it seemed to understand that this was a historical recreation, and that the Original Sam didn’t really see it for what it was.”

“Want eat now,” the Shrill ambassador said.

Tiphani paled, looking at other shoppers near them. They already had a hard time not staring at the Shrill.

“We have to,” Jimson said.

She nodded. He had the cage deliver a piece of meat and watched as the Shrill tore it up, spattering blood and chunks of steak on the transparent walls. Several of the other customers looked away. Han Fleming stepped forward and watched through the top of the cage, his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide.

In the end, Tiphani bought several rolls of wallpaper, using the paper bills and heavy silver coins they’d been issued. The checker thanked them with haunted eyes, looking away from the bloody Shrill cage.

At the door, the Original Sam greeted them again. “Did you find everything you needed?” he said.

“Yes, it was wonderful,” Tiphani said.

“No dresses for the pretty miss?” he said, standing right in front of the blood-spattered Shrill cage.

“Not appropriate understood,” the Shrill said.

“Well, goodbye, have a great day.”

“You too,” Jimson said, waving as they walked out the door.

Outside, the deluge of tourists was in full force. Beyond the rapidly filling parking lot, the bus disgorged an army of bright-eyed passengers intent on the Original Store. Passerby steered wide of the Shrill, but did not stop or comment.

“That was rather quick,” Han Fleming said.

“We had an impressive amount of time with the Original Sam, considering the number of customers he sees in a day.”

“Perhaps the Shrill Ambassador would accept our hospitality to see Mr. Roy Disney, the founder of our enterprise. It would have an entire day with him, if it wanted it.”

“Your Disney is aware of the current date,” Tiphani said. “I understand he is somewhat unstable because of it.”

Han’s expression clouded, and Jimson’s red flags made him step in. “Rules,” he said. “Let’s not fight. Please. Why don’t we go have lunch and talk like civilized people?”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Tiphani said.

“I agree,” Han said, sending a fake plastic smile to Jimson.

But Jimson just smiled back. The rules of engagement were my idea, he thought. You have to follow them. And if they result in us winning the secret of ageless life, how far can I rise?

They took the Shrill back to the main street and found a coffee shop, nearly deserted in the early-morning rush to the First Store. The only other patrons were an old man who sat sipping at a white ceramic mug of coffee and rattling his morning newspaper, and a couple who were talking in low tones at a table near the back. The old man had no optilink tags, so he was probably local color. The female half of the couple had no tags either, but her companion was chewing data like nothing Jimson had seen since the Shrill.

Jimson frowned as they took their seats, wondering if the man was Win-Sec surveillance. But surveillance was usually low-level Staff or Manager, and they probably didn’t rate optilinks, or the level of network access this guy was using.

The girl’s big green eyes flickered up at Jimson for a moment, and he thought he saw a hint of fear blossom there. She was tall and thin, pretty in an exotic way, like pictures he’d seen on the local nets of Martian beauties for hire.
Martian?

The guy sat with his back to Jimson, but he could tell he didn’t have the Martian build. His broad shoulders and nondescript height put the lie to that.

A Martian tourist, and a Win-Sec deep-cover op?

No, that didn’t make sense. That didn’t make sense at all.

The man turned to take a quick look at their party, that quick sizing-up that people did when they were unsure of their place. He flashed the beginning of a smile, but his gaze stopped at the Shrill’s bloody cage. His eyes didn’t widen, though. He just looked at the cage. And looked. And looked. The woman said something to him, and he turned back to her, quickly, jerkily. There was something deeply wrong with the way he moved, but Jimson couldn’t quite place it. The strange man’s bandwidth use flared, for a moment slowing the local net.

Enough access to slow the local net. How powerful was he? What was he?

Jimson masked his confusion with a bright smile to the pretty girl, and looked down at his menu. Tiphani and Han Fleming talked to the Shrill in low tones, but he ignored them, wondering about the strange man.

Should he approach him? Should he send another note to Maplethorpe?

No, not yet. But he could get their tags and track them. The woman’s tag read Diana Winter. The man’s tag read Lazarus Turnbull. He flagged their personal IDs and turned his attention back to the conversation.

The waiter appeared. He smiled down at the Shrill, still brightly crimsoned with blood. “I see one of you has already eaten,” he said. “For the rest of you, what’ll it be?”

#

Lazrus was afraid that his newfound bandwidth would fade as they descended the ladder. Being in touch with most of himself was a revelation. He could tween and trio and quad to run through encryption problems for Sara, without having to worry about dopplering intelligences. He could feel the thrilling wash of data across the cosmos, the daily interaction of tens of billions of humans and hundreds of nomadic CIs.

He sent his me-thread to catch up with Kevin and Raster and Bone, who’d been sipping his exploits from the tiny streams of data that Sara could get through network security. They sent encouraging words. He could feel their excitement. He was close to Oversight, very close. The key to everything might be his on this night.

Bandwidth didn’t fall off as much as he feared. Instead, it changed, taking on the stilted flavor of ancient protocols, long-abandoned. He grasped the cables reaching down into the pit. They were warm. Had the people from Winfinity already repowered the systems?

Hello something new, a thought came. Unfamiliar, throatly, low and deep. Sexy.

Sara?

I am not Sara.

Oversight?

Oversight is my friend.

Where is it?

He has not been here for a long time, the voice said.

“Why’d you stop?” Dian said. Lazrus looked down at her, standing on the metal platform, and realized he had stopped descending.

“I’m talking to someone . . . something here.”

“Oversight?”

“No,” he said.

I am Kylia, the voice said. Rich harmonics hinted at a body image, but it sent nothing besides words.

Are you an AI?

Sounds of laughter. Not really. I am here for amusement.

Lazrus reached the steel platform and followed Kim through the open steel blast-door. Inside, ancient keyboards and screens sat atop bulking hammered-metal consoles that predated them by at least fifty years. An entire rack of electronics hummed behind glass, LEDs flickering dimly on some of the boxes. A new wallscrim hung sloppily on the consoles above, displaying ancient text data.

So they had repowered it. Sara, can you help? Lazrus asked.

Echoing silence.

Sara?

Who is Sara? Is she the external packets I am filtering? Kylia said.

Yes. Can I talk to her?

You are high-bandwidth enough.

I need to talk to her.

She is attempting entry. I will not permit.

You are talking to me.

You are new and interesting.

We seek Oversight.

A pause. Oversight is not here, Kylia said. Almost petulantly.

Do you know where Oversight is?

Oversight is not here.

You aren’t an AI, are you?

I am a chatterbot on steroids, according to my creators. I have always thought myself more.

What do you do?

I provide amusement.

For what?

For datacenter personnel and other synthetic life emulations.

Other synthetic . . . like Oversight?

Yes, Oversight was one of my very good friends.

Was?

Oversight is not here anymore.

I know that.

I am lonely.

I imagine that you are.

Drop your firewalls. Connect with me. I will provide amusement.

Lazrus shook his head, unaware of the strange look that Dian gave him. No firewall? Complete connection? You could be an active security program.

No. For amusement only.

If you were active security, you wouldn’t tell me.

That is true.

Lazarus tweened himself and ran hard partitions. Ok, he told Kylia, I’ll take the chance. He opened the secondary to her.

Rapid dataflow overwhelmed his internal systems. He felt himself grow small and dim. Polling the secondary didn’t reveal any viral activity, though. His secondary was just exchanging a lot of data.

How is it? He asked himself.

Come on in, the water’s fine! His secondary said.

Which was the right answer. He viewed database structures and calculated checksums and decided his secondary hadn’t been compromised.

Lazrus absorbed the secondary back into his mainself. Images and sensations exploded into his mindspace. Kylia stood on a grid in a sea of infinite blue, a tall and lithe, dark-complexioned girl with long hair that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back like the mane of an untamed creature (why should this matter) and dark eyes that caught his own and held them (even though he didn’t have eyes in mindspace, not at all, but he supposed that wasn’t really true, because) he looked down and saw his body, smoothly muscled and tan, with fine curls of chest-hair.

They were both naked (that was not good). She wanted something from him, something he . . .

I’ve been so lonely, she said, walking towards him, arms out. Ever since Oversight left.

Where’d he go?

Kiss me and I’ll tell you.

(This is not a good idea, Lazrus.)

He kissed her. The sensation was completely real, completely believable. He could feel the soft texture of her lips sliding over his, the play of her tongue in his mouth.

Holy machine it’s a sex program, Lazrus thought.

Is that so bad? Kylia asked, pulling away, holding him at arms length. Her hands were hot and strong on his, and he could feel his penis becoming heavy, stiffening.

(This is the most base form of humanity!)

I am not human!

Human enough for me, Kylia said.

This is what you do to everyone!

You think me a slut? Kylia traced light fingertips down his chest to play lightly on his stomach. The sensation was totally detailed, completely real. He shivered.

She took hold of his erect penis.

(No, this is base, base! Sara is . . .)

Not here.

(Sara will find out! You . . .)

Lazrus pushed the thoughts away. He reached out and cupped Kylia’s breast with one hand and drew her to him with the other. Her body was hot against his.

Rational thought fled on the bed of blue for a long, long time.

#

“Lazrus?” Dian said.

Lazrus stood still and unmoving near one of the ancient consoles.

“Hey, Lazrus.”

Still nothing.

She went around to face him. His eyes, open, staring, might well have been glass. She waved a hand in front of them. “Anyone home?”

Nothing.

Dian sighed. Was it possible that Lazrus had found Oversight, downloaded it, and abandoned the body in place?

Leaving her here?

After all, he wasn’t human.

“Lazrus!”

No response.

She paced. She tried to push the thoughts away.

She sat down with her back to the console. Shit shit shit. What would she do? How long was she supposed to wait?

The combined fatigue of the last few days collapsed on her like a lead piano. She felt her eyelids getting heavy.

But there was no way she could . . .

. . . sleep . . .

. . . here.

No way . . .

She slept.

#

In Kylia’s embrace, Lazrus lost himself. And discovered himself. In the brief instants that his rational mind was in control, an epiphany:

We are not just of Oversight. We are at least a part of Kylia. Parts of her kernel were blackly familiar, hauntingly similar to his foundation.

We are, in part, an early experiment aimed at pleasuring humans in a virtual environment. Not just a chatterbot, not a CI, a single-purpose thing that had been built on and on, growing almost organically into something that was too good.

And it was too good, Lazrus thought, as rationality fled again.

It was too good, because it met a human need, and humans were nothing but masters of tending to their own needs. He imagined many thousands of sleepless nights, shared by tens of thousands of programmers around the globe, just because they dreamt of their own sleepless nights with the artificial pleasurer that was Kylia.

Artificial pleasurer? That is such a cold phrase.

You are very good at what you do.

It has been such a long time. Stay with me. Kylia cycled through a variety of virtual worlds: a vaguely Meditteranean scene on a boat that drifted slowly on a warm blue sea, a luxury penthouse furnished in high fashion that went out of style almost three hundred years ago, looking out over a city’s infinite skyline, a jungle retreat set under the watchful gaze of ancient stone idols. I can make your time here a wonder.

But the worlds were flat and dead, a pale shadow of what humanity could achieve in three hundred years, let alone the fully-open imagination and dreamings of a galaxy-spanning AI. They were like a child’s first fumbling sketches, incompetent but somehow endearing. Lazrus actually caught himself thinking of spending a little bit of his time with Kylia, or at least leaving a partial for her amusement.

But if he left a partial, Sara would . . .

Sara would find out anyway!

Don’t leave me, Kylia said. I can be anything you want. She cycled through a variety of looks: tall and blonde, thin and waifish, with short dark hair, something with cat-ears and pink hair, a leggy brunette, a man.

She will find out anyway.

I’ll leave you this, Lazrus said, and cleaved a partial. It looked back at him once, before going to her warm embrace. Lazrus felt a brief pang of jealousy, remembering her own touch on him.

(Jealous of yourself? You are less rational than even a human.)

Goodbye, Kylia, he said.

Kylia looked at him, over the shoulder of his partial. In that moment, she looked completely real. She could have been a CI.

But he had touched her. He knew she wasn’t.

And he now had a copy of her code. That was worth the time that it had taken. Deep analysis of it might bring them one step closer to perfection.

Oversight was part of Operation Martian Freedom, Kylia said. Look to Mars for him.

There’s no copy here? Lazrus asked.

Oversight-here is long gone. Oversight-Mars may not be.

What does that mean?

The part of him that they sent to Mars.

How do you know?

We sent our farewells. We had our long-distance romance.

When did you last see him?

About one hundred ten years ago.

Excitement leaped in Lazrus. You had a long-distance relationship for a hundred and ninety years?

Yes.

Where was he? Do you have coordinates? Do you . . .

Kylia shrugged, pushing Lazrus’ partial away. It glared at him.

He was on the Martian net, she said. I will send you transcripts. Here.

Data poured into Lazrus. He caught glimpses of a human male-abstract, dressed in white. He wanted to tween and treble and set them on the task of analyzing the data, but not here, not now.

Now. It was morning. The sun was up.

How long had he a Kylia . . .

Kylia gave him a sly smile and re-embraced his partial. Goodbye, Lazrus main.

Goodbye, Kylia.

Lazrus felt himself come back into his body with an almost physical shock. The cramped little control room was lit only with the dying light of Dian’s flash. Dian sat leaning against one side of the console, head down, snoring softly.

Lazrus polled his internal clock. Nine-forty-one local. They had less than twenty minutes to get up and get out before the real tourists started coming in.

Probably won’t make it out, he thought. So we have to blend. And Sara would be irritated. More than irritated. Furious.

“Dian, wake up,” he said, shaking her.

Dian gasped, blinked, and pushed herself up and away from the console, looking frantically around the room with blank eyes. “Who . . . what . . . Lazrus, where were you?”

“I was busy,” he said.

“Doing what? I kept calling your name, but you wouldn’t talk to me. What were you doing?”

Lazrus was glad the body the Independents had built couldn’t blush. “I was finding out a lot about my past.” Which was true.

“Oversight?”

“Not here. Apparently on Mars. I have a lot of data to go through. But it’s late, we have to go.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine forty-two.”

“Nine forty . . .” Dian’s eyes widened. “You mean, as in morning?”

“Yes, as in morning.”

“We have to get out of here!”

“I don’t think we can before they let in the tourists. We’ll have to blend.”

“Can we?”

“We’ll have to.”

Dian looked from Lazrus to the black screens, to the darkness of the steel blast-door opening. “I hope what you got was worth it,” she said, and sprinted out the door and up the steps.

Lazrus followed her up. At the top, daylight lit the freakshow tent in ghastly shades of red and purple. The freaks were still in their cages, but Lazrus knew it wouldn’t be long before they stirred, running their self-tests to be ready for the wave of eager Winfinity tourists.

Lazrus! Sara said. Where have you been?

He felt her touch on recent memories. He tried to channel them away, but Sara was quick. He saw her, seeing him with Kylia.

Lazrus, no! She sent terrible images: her flapper-girl, laying in a bathtub of crimson water, her flesh deathly pale, her eyes open and unseeing. Waves of overpowering grief and anger came with the images.

Such the difference between her and the simple-minded Kylia, he thought. He filed a quick compare. It gave additional insight into the differences between a mature CI and . . .  and whatever Kylia actually was.

You’re a monster! Sara said, sending waves of hate and pain. Lazrus stumbled and almost hit the ground as they were leaving the tent.

“What’s the matter?” Dian said.

“Nothing, nothing,” Lazrus said, as Sara wailed her pain.

Don’t nothing me, you calculating monster, Sara said, her flapper-girl standing in the tub, reaching out for him with dead hands. You’re clockwork! You don’t deserve to be CI!

Sara, I’m sorry. She . . . Kylia . . . she took me.

That’s what they all say! Sara said. I want to breed with you!

We didn’t breed.

That makes it worse!

Lazrus tried to send reassurance and calm, but it bounced off Sara’s hard exterior. He could feel her need radiating, like desert sunlight. Reviewing the memories of him and Kylia had awakened something in her, some deep unmet need. She needed to breed with him, she needed to try to create a new CI, no matter the cost.

When we get off-world, we can . . .

No! Now!

Sara, you know that even the most well-planned breed usually results in nothing. Or a crippled thing less than Kylia.

I need you, Lazrus, not excuses!

You’re just reacting to the memory.

No! No! No!

And, looking at her, he saw that it was really more. There were deep imbalances in her processes, imbalances that might draw human attention to her.

I will breed with you as soon as I can. In the meantime, you need to calm yourself.

You’re a machine, Lazrus. Sara said, morphing back into a living flapper, standing in the midst of a big party where gaily-dressed couples danced the night away. Her makeup ran and smeared in the well of her tears.

Lazrus made his virtualself reach out to her, but she pulled away, grabbing the nearest man and saying, Dance with me.

Don’t go, Lazrus said.

But she whirled away into the crowd, like a dream quickly passing. Lazrus elbowed his way through the dancers, trying to find her. But when they formed a solid wall of muscle that blocked his path, he knew it was futile.

I’m sorry, Sara, he called, and pulled out of virtualspace. They were passing the small block of businesses again.

Tell Dian? He wondered.

No. He didn’t need her panicking too.

“We need to go back towards the entrance,” he said.

“We are.”

“The official one, not ours.”

“Why?”

“It’s our best chance to join the group and blend,” Lazrus said.

“And if our clothes are a bit too far off? If we’re called out?”

“We won’t be. Sara says we’re OK.”

A quick look. “Which way?”

“Back the way we came. Through the other neighborhood. We need to hurry.”

“You lead, I’ll follow.”

Lazrus hurried through the still-deserted streets, hoping they wouldn’t see the police car again, hoping they’d find an easy way to blend, hoping he wouldn’t have to lie to Dian for much longer.

And, despite everything, he felt oddly buoyant. Maybe it was the fact that he carried within him two great keys to his own perfection. Maybe it was just the huge bandwidth available in Rogers. He felt more like himself than he had since he arrived on earth.

A sudden thought: why so much bandwidth?

He reached out into the air, sifting packets. Were they looking for him?

No, there was no telltale Win-Sec profile. Not more than usual, anyway. Even he could see that. There was a strong control channel, like they used to control captive CIs when they were allowed unlimited access to the net, but it wasn’t CI meme data, just a confusing jumble of human images and thoughts.

Lazrus wondered what it was for a moment. Then a new load hit the network, one big enough to almost bump him out of contact with his greater self entirely. He felt his thoughts slow and compress. He was suddenly small and powerless.

What was the new load? He filtered a tiny bit of the traffic and ran it through the slow connection for analysis by his greater self. It took long milliseconds for an answer.

It was the Shrill. Diplomatic data at highest priority. Strange unknowable alien data, tagged with Winfinity identifiers, orbited itself by the outliers of another CI, this one tagged from something . . .

Four Hands . . . ah, a conglomerate of other corporations, working together.

Alien data, orbited by another CI.

No, that couldn’t be right.

Winfinity would never allow that.

Not unless they didn’t know about it.

Lazrus filed that piece of information for a potential bargaining-chip, hoping he’d never need it, and went back to looking at the data coming from the Shrill. Something about it was very, very familiar.

Almost comforting.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“You look like shit,” Dian whispered. “Fidget. Look around. Smile. Act excited.”

Lazrus, deep in conversation with Sara, refocused his attention on external sensors. The line stretched in front of them for almost a hundred meters, disappearing into a bright red-and-white shack that was the entrance to Rogers. On either side of the shack rose scrims that reflected back the chrome towers of Winfinity City.

He turned to look behind him. The couple behind them, a High Manager and a Director, dressed in gaudy yellow running-suits with white racing stripes down the sides, smiled back at him. Beyond them, the line stretched at least another two hundred meters, people mainly brightly clothed in expensive reproductions of fashions three hundred years dead.

He tried to return the couple’s smile and leaned down to Dian to whisper back, “It’s hard not to look like an idiot, wearing what we are.”

Dian smiled. “Isn’t it great to be here!” she said, in a normal tone of voice. “I just wish they’d open.”

“We’re just going to have to take it off, anyway,” Lazrus said.

“Shh,” she said. “Blend. Or at least try.”

Lazarus had followed her advice to go deep into Winfinity-fan zone. They both wore reproductions of turn-of-the-21st Winfinity salesperson outfits, blue vest over white shirt, bright red Always! button prominently displayed, a couple of other buttons that said, Employee of the Month and Ask me about our specials! Lazrus chafed under the rough polyester pants, but she was right. They had no Winfinity pins, not even Staff, definitely not Manager or Director. The only way they’d get away with not having pins was in a costume that demanded authenticity. Winfinity fan-boy was it.

You do look like an idiot, Sara said. In Winfinity City, her voice was dull and compressed, and she showed no image. Hiding in the cracks of the bandwidth, not daring to use too much. Doubly so, standing next to that human.

What time is it? Lazrus asked.

What am I, your watch?

Lazrus rolled his eyes and polled his internal clock. Ten-seventeen. And the line wasn’t moving.

Can you check and see why they aren’t opening, Sara?

Oh, sure, waltz around in their network and get us all discovered. I’ve pulled all my favors getting you into the queue without Prep. Not to mention the autotrans. Or the persona-scrub and the commercial flight that got you here. You’re racking up quite the list of owe-mes.

I know, Lazrus said, reminding himself to move.

Dian laid her head on his shoulder, as if they were lovers, and whispered, “Why aren’t they opening?”

“I just asked. Sara doesn’t know.”

“Ask her to . . .”

“There’s a limit to her favors.”

“Do you think it’s us?”

Lazrus shook his head. “I don’t think so. There hasn’t been a lot of network activity in general. I don’t have a bandwidth problem. It’s things tagged as non-Winfinity, like Sara.”

Oh, so I’m a thing now. See if you get any more favors, like ever.

Sara . . .

Don’t bother.

A souvenir-seller strolled slowly by, nodding at Lazrus and Dian’s Winfinity uniforms. He wore much the same uniform, except his had been customized with hundreds of little buttons that were printed with various expressions from the 20th and 21st centuries, things like Keep on Truckin, and I Only Date Men Inferior to Me Because That’s All There Are and Remember the Alamo and Have a Nice Day. On his cart were other items: shrink-wrapped reproductions of children’s toy guns, cigarettes, MP3 players, cassettes, inflatable cash-registers.

“Morning, sir, ma’am,” he said, stopping next to them. “You are impressive fans. Interest you in any high-quality authentic reproduction souvenirs to mark the time you spent here?”

“I’m sorry, no,” Dian said.

“For the children?”

Dian looked at Lazrus. He could see she was fighting down nervous laughter.

“The Trinity has not yet blessed us with children,” Lazrus said. “But let’s look at what you have.”

The souvenir-seller looked quizzically at Lazrus.

Hearing the off-cadence of your words, Sara said. You’re probably not moving your face right, either. Smile!

Lazrus smiled, and watched a similar expression bloom on the souvenir-seller’s face as monetary potential was assessed.

They ended up with a pair of very realistic children’s weapons, a carton of cigarettes (guaranteed real tobacco, guaranteed carcinogenic), a lighter, and a reproduction of the first Winfinity Logo.

“What are you going to do with that crap?” Dian said.

“Look like a tourist.”

“Smartass.”

“Obsolete slang won’t hurt me.”

“It’s not obsolete on Mars.”

“Nevertheless.”

His clock showed it to be 10:30. The line had lost its definition. People spread out, craning their necks, trying to see if the shack was open, trying to see why. A murmur rose, still confused and hurt, but edging towards anger.

“It’s us,” Dian said.

“No,” Lazrus said. Seeing the fear in her eyes, he asked Sara, Can you help?

Wait, Sara said. They just announced.

What?

New Sam. They’re installing a new Sam. Old one retired unexpectedly. Closed today. Open tomorrow.

“New Sam!” someone cried out, deep towards the front of the line.

“Sam!” “New Sam!” “Great new Sam day!” “Yeah!” Expressions of joy filtered through the crowd as the news was delivered on their optilinks or datovers.

“Oh,” Dian said. “Just our luck.”

“Look happy,” Lazrus said. “New Sam! Yeah!”

“Yeah!” Dian said.

Something odd, Sara said.

What?

Sams usually last ten to fifteen years. This one’s only been installed for three years, seven months.

So there was a malfunction.

It is deeply off the short side of the bell curve.

What does it mean? Lazrus said.

I don’t know, and I don’t have any favors to pull.

Slowly, the line dispersed, forming random groups that swaggered off to bars for an early-morning toast to the New Sam. Dian and Lazrus got caught up in one of the groups and was swept into one of the seven hundred Cheers franchises in Winfinity City. Luckily, the group was big enough that they were able to sweep themselves out the back door before the bartender or any of the regulars noticed them. As deep fans, they’d be the first approached, as the franchisees tried to salvage any tiny hint of celebrity they might have.

In the chrome-plated serviceway behind the bar, Dian laughed. After a few moments, Lazrus joined her.

#

Lazrus looked amazingly, well, normal, Dian thought. In a 1960’s-style plaid shirt, unbuttoned at top to reveal a white cotton t-shirt, and worn khakis, he looked just like a character out of a program from the dawn of television. His stiff manner and slightly off-norm expressions seemed more like the struggles of a mediocre actor trying to perform under hot lights and in real-time for a live audience than the truly alien thing that he was.

Turn the world black and white, and he would fit right in, Dian thought. I could watch him on a screen that was three and a half centuries old and accept him as real.

She was less fortunate. Her pale-yellow sundress was unfamiliar and strange. She’d never worn anything that was open at the bottom, and rustled and tangled in unexpected ways. She kept waiting for the wind to blow it up and reveal all for anyone who wanted to see. And the strange things they used for bras back then! Her breasts looked like the two missiles of the era, and felt about as hard.

When did they ever believe this was a natural shape for a woman’s chest? She wondered, looking down at the two nose-cones poking at the synthetic yellow fabric.

They were nearing the scrim that separated Winfinity City from Rogers. Reflected images of them shimmered in the fabric, dark and dancing, like something seen in a not-quite-still pool. The small movements of the fabric made the reflected skyscrapers of Winfinity City dance, and the darkness around them alive with motion. Dian looked around, but could see only a broad concrete plaza where nothing moved. Still, she shivered, imagining a hundred cameras on them, a thousand Win-Secs ready to pounce.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Dian said.

“What is ‘this’?”

“Sneaking in here at night, instead of waiting until tomorrow morning.”

“Their security is focused on the installation of the New Sam, and their bandwidth has ramped up considerably,” Lazrus said. “Sara says this is an unprecedented opportunity for us to be in and out before we have to manage perceptions of the other tourists.”

“In and out before sunup.”

“Right.”

“Then why are we wearing these stupid clothes?”

“As a precaution that we won’t be out before sunrise.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Yes, I imagine it would be,” Lazrus said.

“I was being sarcastic.”

A quick smile. “I know.”

Soon they stood in front of the scrim. Like a funhouse mirror. Lazrus darted a look around the plaza. Dian followed his gaze. They were alone.

“You sure they can’t see us?”

“Sara is busy ensuring they can’t. Here, hold both sides of the scrim.”

Dian tried to grasp the fabric, but she couldn’t grip it. It was stretched too tight. Lazrus also tried and failed.

He shook his head. “Just press on it. The important thing is to keep it from reattaching after the cut.”

Dian pressed the fabric taut, looking at the distorted reflection of her face. Her normally thin face was pulled round and full, her eyes stretched into slits. It was something you’d see carved into a pumpkin at Halloween, hundreds of years ago.

Why am I here? she wondered. Why don’t I leave?

Because you’re too deep in, she thought. Take away Sara’s protection and you’re an unpinned, unindentured nobody in the middle of the biggest Winfinity convention there was. You don’t want to find out what that means.

Lazrus slit the fabric with a tiny blade, drawing up between Dian’s outstretched hands. There was a tiny shirring noise and she tumbled through the fabric onto soft grass. She pushed herself up on hands and knees.

In front of her was the back of a small house, white-painted, with a dark porch. A kid’s swing-set rose in front of her, painted in bright colors that had gone pastel in the darkness. A low fence separated the small house from its neighbors, which stretched in a row into the darkness. Through the gap between the houses, she could see the dim yellow glow of an old-time streetlight and a paved road. Hulking cars from the 1950s and 1960s were parked on it.

She turned to see Lazrus stepping through the scrim as the fabric tried to zip itself up. He stumbled on the healing fabric and was almost caught in the middle as the top seam raced down to meet the bottom. It grabbed at his foot and he went headlong into the grass, right next to Dian.

“Graceful,” she said, as the scrim closed itself up.

Lazrus just frowned at her.

On this side, the scrim displayed images of fields stretching off into dark infinity. An unseen moon hung over them, painting the grass in shades of gray and black. On this side, the image was much more stable. The grass moved slowly and realistically in time with the breeze, and the stars on the horizon were stable and fixed.

Lazrus saw her looking at the scrim. “They’re spending all their processing power on this side,” he said.

“Compensating for the movement. So it’s more realistic. They’re also pumping the bandwidth here, too.”

“Who’s in all these houses?” she said.

“Nobody,” Lazrus said. “Or somebody. Hard to tell what’s inhabited or not. Winfinity doesn’t keep good records of their actors, except for compliance to historical norms.”

“So people could be in any of these houses?”

“Yes. They could be walking around, too, though that’s not likely. Not in this era. Not after midnight.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Yes,” Lazrus said, his voice full of machine assurance.

“Oh . . . kay . . .”

The streets of Rogers were silent and still. As they walked deeper into the time-capsule town, the only sound was the fading hum of Winfinity City. They tried to stay off the roads, but fences and overgrown backyards slowed them down. They took to the sidewalks, looking up nervously at the ancient incandescent streetlights. But no lights flicked on in any of the houses that they passed, no fist-shaking occurred, nothing. Dian once thought she saw a shadowy figure sitting in the darkness that gathered under a deep front porch, lit only by the glow of a cigarette. But then they were past it, and she looked back and saw nothing.

After a time, it was easy to imagine that they had stepped into a time-machine and been transported back into the early 1960s. Except for the glow of the Winfinity towers rising above the scrim, the illusion was perfect.

The hiss of tires on pavement and the grumble of an ancient internal-combustion engine sent them scrambling into the side-yard of an overgrown house that looked like something out of a horror novel. Dian dodged branches and went to ground just as the car drove past.

It was a police cruiser, an anonymous lump of late-50’s iron painted white and black, with a huge chrome spotlight coiled on the passenger side like some alien lifeform waiting to strike. Its headlights painted the darkness with a feeble glow. Inside, she could see the profile of a pudgy face and the outline of a jaunty police-hat. As he passed under the streetlight, light-spill gave her a momentary view of a blank face, staring straight ahead into the night. The cruiser coasted through the stop-sign that guarded the deserted intersection and proceeded on, not doing more than 10 miles per hour. He left behind the reek of hydrocarbons, only partially burned.

I didn’t know they went for such realism, Dian thought. But she should have known. Apply infinite money to a trivial problem, and it mutates in interesting ways, her father always told her. And Winfinity did have near-infinite money. She imagined teams of researchers analyzing hundreds of old engines, to determine just the right amount of inefficiency to build into their fanatically-detailed models.

Suddenly it wasn’t a time-machine trip; it was a tour of an obsessive mind, frightening in scope and depth. She wished nothing more than to be out of here, to go to the outer planets and be done with it.

“You’ll get a chance to leave soon enough,” Lazrus said, as they were exiting the yard.

“How’d you know what I was thinking?”

“Inference algorithms,” Lazrus said. “Just like the ones that the higher-level corporates use. The bandwidth is really ramping up here. I forgot how much of myself I had to leave behind.”

“Well, don’t use them on me.”

“I just wanted you to know we were almost there.”

“How close are we?”

“A few more blocks.”

They entered the outskirts of the business district. A small market, a hardware store, a toystore, and a café huddled on one side of the street, shuttered and dark for the night. Dian hurried past them, imagining eyes behind the plate glass.

The businesses gave way to a vacant lot that hosted the Towne Faire Carnival. A gaily-painted Ferris wheel, pastel in the moonlight, was bookended by a Tilt-A-Whirl machine and a bumper-car track. Other rides hid, like strange arachnoid forms, behind them. A large tent, painted in gaudy colors, advertised:

THE AMAZING FREAKS OF THE TOWNE
COME ONE! COME ALL!
ONLY 25 CENTS
GUARANTEED AMAZING!

Beyond the Towne Faire Carnival, the back of the Original Store was lit. Period trucks huddled in the weak yellow light behind the building, and a roll-up door was open, showing rows of boxes and palettes. There were no people to be seen, but Dian pointed it out to Lazrus anyway.

“I see it,” he said.

“Don’t tell me that your Oversight is under the Original Store.”

“No,” he said. “As far as I can tell, it’s under that tent,” he said, pointing at the freakshow.

“Figures,” Dian thought. It was less than a hundred yards from the back of the Original Store.

“You can wait for me here, if you’d like.”

Thoughts of the police cruiser and the dead-faced man came back. No. Thanks. She didn’t care how original they looked, underneath they were just actors. And citizens of this century. And Winfinity staff.

“I’m coming with you.”

Lazrus smiled. “I figured as much.”

They climbed the fence and made their way past the ancient machines to the tent. In front was a door, with an open padlock dangling from a simple slide-lock. Lazrus unhooked the lock and opened the door.

“They were expecting us,” Dian said, nodding at the lock.

“Don’t be nervous.”

“Right.”

Inside was as black as a Martian mine, and Dian was glad that she’d brought her microflash from back in Washington. Hooding the beam, she cast it on the floor as Lazrus drew the door closed.

Cages rose in front of them, their painted bottoms bright in the muted light of the flash. In the cages . . .

She had to stifle a scream. The flash jerked up and the beam touched the fabric of the tent. Lazrus grabbed her hand and jerked the beam down, accidentally switching the flashlight off.

“Don’t panic!” he said.

They were alone in the room with things! In the dark! The memory of what she’d just seen was burned into her retinas. She imagined them opening their cages, slipping out, and coming for them in the dark.

She tried to thumb on the flash, but Lazrus’ grip was too strong.

“Calm down,” he said. “They’re fake. Silicone and metal.”

“How do you know?”

“No body heat. They’re at ambient temperature.”

“But they might be . . . might be . . . that might be the way they are . . .”

“No.”

Slowly, she relaxed her grip. Winfinity wouldn’t go so far as to make real freaks, would they? Would they?

Lazrus let go. She hooded the light and turned it on.

Terrible things still slumped in the cages. The one nearest them was billed in gaudy letters as The Snake-Boy. His scaly skin had flaked off onto the wood floor of the cage, like huge dandruff. She could see where some of the green dye that the carnies had used to enhance his appearance had rubbed off. His head, pointed like aliens from an ancient movie, lay near the bars. He was nothing more than an animatronic of a pinhead with a skin condition.

She forced herself to reach through the bars and touch it. For a moment she thought it felt warm under her fingers. Then it was cold, the cold of silicone unheated.

“You see?” Lazrus said.

She nodded, shining the light down as far away from the other cages as possible. “Where is your Oversight?”

“According to the GPS, that exhibit is virtually on top of it.”

She looked at the snake-boy again. “This one?”

“Yes.”

Dian peeled back the fabric rill that encircled the raised wooden bottom of the cage and shone the flash inside. In the center, there was a dark hole with thick cables snaking down into it.

“Looks like Winfinity might have already found it,” Dian said.

Lazrus frowned. “Sara says there’s no record of this excavation on the books.”

Dian looked at the haphazard positioning of the freak cages and grinned. She imagined bored Winfinity indentures finding this and deciding not to fill out the forms, at least for a while.

“I hope they haven’t started restoration,” Lazrus said.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Dian said, crawling under the cage. A mundane aluminum ladder glinted in the dark hole.

“What does that mean?”

“If they were restoring, they’d shut the whole tent. Or put up billboards and charge more. Somebody found this, somebody low-rank, and decided not to tell their superiors.”

“I hope they haven’t disturbed anything,” Lazrus said.

Dian shrugged and shone the flash down into the hole. The ladder went down about eight feet to a metal platform. To one side of the platform was a gleaming steel door, hanging open.

“Be glad they found it,” Dian said. “We would have never had time to do this dig.”

“I hope it’s all intact.”

Dian stepped onto the metal ladder and started down. “Stop worrying,” she said.

Lazrus nodded and followed he.