Agency

12 Alfred Mews

Rainey had decorated their flat with furniture collected since joining him in London, all of it the product, relatively speaking, of human hands. None of it, as she put it, liable to shape-shift. She admired Scandinavian design of the mid-twentieth century, but couldn’t afford it, so looked for period knockoffs rather than assembler simulacra.

“So it’s earlier, there? Earlier than the county?” she asked from the kitchenette, as she plated their evening meal.

“The year after the Americans elected their first female president.”

“Gonzalez?”

“No. They elected theirs earlier, in 2016. And the Brexit vote was to remain. May I help you?”

“Have a look in at Thomas, please.”

He crossed to the nursery door, saw Thomas curled in his crib, surrounded by a soothing miniature auroral display. “He’s fine.”

“Are people happier there?” she asked. “Happier than they were here, then?”

“I gather they aren’t, particularly.”

“Pity,” she said. “Ready for tilapia tacos? Place on Tottenham Court Road. Better Mexican in your new stub, no doubt. Why aren’t they happy, there?”

“The drivers for the jackpot are still in place, but with less torque at that particular point.” He took a seat at the table. “They’re still a bit in advance of the pandemics, at least.”

She took the seat opposite. “Nothing before the 2020s has ever seemed entirely real, to me. Hard to imagine they weren’t constantly happy, given all they still had. Tigers, for instance.” Picking up a taco. “What had to change, to produce the opposite result in that election?”

“We don’t know yet. Connectivity’s too poor to access the data needed for that.”

“Could you take me there?”

“Not yet. That same lack of connectivity. Infrastructure’s wanting.”

“I liked the county,” she said, “even though it made me sad.”

“It did? Why?”

“They’re living in a conspiracy theory, but a real one. Controlled by secret masters. Your employer, primarily.”

“But isn’t it better there now, than if we hadn’t intervened?” he asked.

“It is, I’m sure, but it makes a joke of their lives.”

“But everyone you know there is in on it.”

“I don’t know whether I’d rather know or not know,” she said, and took a bite of taco.