Agency

53 Over London

My apologies for our abruptness,” said the white-haired woman, the vehicle coming to a dreamlike, jolt-free halt, having somehow, just then, pretended to be a perfectly silent high-speed elevator. “If the situation were less urgent, we could introduce you to various concepts more gradually, but I’m afraid that’s not the case.”

“No dysmorphia, right?” asked Rainey, looking at Verity.

“No,” said Verity. “Urgent?” she asked the white-haired woman.

Concave screens appeared, down both sides of the vehicle, replacing beige blankness. On them, what seemed a single panorama of urban night sky.

“Have a closer look,” Rainey said, getting up from her chair and out of the carpeted pit. She offered Verity her hand. Taking it, Verity rose, feeling a slight dizziness. Rainey released her hand and stepped toward the screens, Verity following.

“Three hundred and fifty meters,” the woman said, still seated.

“Shit,” said Verity, reaching the edge of the carpeted floor. Beyond it, to the horizon, stretched a regularly spaced array of towers, roughly similar in height. Through which, she saw, lowering her gaze, wound a river’s serpentine curves.

“There,” said Rainey, pointing out something Verity couldn’t distinguish. “London Eye. Only tall thing, aside from the original Shard, that you’ll have seen before. They took down what was left of the rest. These are called shards too, after the first one. Relatively few are habitations.”

“What are they?” Windows were lit, a few, if the lights she saw were windows.

“They scrub the air,” the woman said, behind them, now standing.

An older, lower city, at the feet of the towers, like lichen in comparison. There were forests too, she saw, with greenways between them. “That’s the Thames?”

“Of course,” said Rainey.

But with more bridges, at least two of them planted with what looked like forests of their own. And tributaries, none of which Verity remembered. Some of them appeared to have been roofed with glass, illuminated.

“CG,” Verity said. “VR, AR. A game.”

“That’s the commonest initial assumption,” the woman said, “on first seeing it. Though I suppose natives of eras earlier than yours might assume dream, hallucination, visit to a supernatural realm.”

“You’re saying it’s the future?”

“Entertain the idea. To one side, so to speak. A mere possibility.”

“It’s not your future, though,” said Rainey. “Your 2017 forks away from our 2016.”

“Slightly earlier, actually,” said the woman. “2015.”

“When’s this supposed to be?” Verity asked.

“2136.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Lowbeer,” the woman said

Verity turned back to the window, noting how few headlights moved below. “Not that I believe you,” she said, “at all, but this doesn’t look anywhere near as seriously fucked as we’ve been led to expect the future will be. What about global warming?”

“The shards,” said Ash, no feed of her appearing, “are units in a compensatory system. Attempting, with some success, to stabilize climate.”

“This is supposed to account for Eunice?” Verity asked. “That she’s from the future?”

“No,” the woman called Lowbeer said, “Eunice is of your era. The result of a military research project in our common past. She was with Cursion, when we found her, or rather the programs that produced her were, surreptitiously acquired from a military research project.”

“We’ve explained this sort of thing before,” said Wilf, likewise only a voice, “to people in your situation. What they usually have the most difficulty with is that this isn’t their future. And that we’ve no idea what the future of their stub will be. Or of our own, for that matter.”

“Stub?”

“Regrettable expression,” Lowbeer said, “regrettably common usage, here. Inaccurate as well, since your continuum won’t remain short. It appears so to us, but only since it’s just diverged from our shared past. Its birth, as it were. But it also reflects an undeniably imperial aspect of what we’re doing, because we assume our continuum to be that from which so-called stubs branch. The mechanism that permits us to do that appears to be located here, however mysteriously. Stubs, lacking that agency, are unable to initiate stubs of their own.”

Verity blinked, feeling lost. “What are those three-armed things, out in the Thames”—she pointed—“with lighthouses at their tips?”

“The Trefoils,” Rainey said. “A tidal power-generation system. They navigate the river, optimizing their efficiency. The islands are a part of it as well, and move with them.”

“Cursion’s not the first gaming company I’ve worked for,” Verity said. “The last one could have built all of this. I’ll give you points for a sense of depth, and a lack of conventional clutter, but why should I assume it’s real?”

“As good a way as any, for you to initially organize the experience,” Lowbeer said.

“What about that urgency you mentioned?” Verity asked.

“Qamishli,” Ash said. “We don’t have that situation, in our past. We can’t know where nuclear conflict would take you, but any prognosis whatever is dire.”

“Why do you care?” Verity asked. “You’re not there.”

“Because you and everyone else in your world are as real as we are,” Lowbeer said. “And because we do care, we need your help.”

“Me?”

“Eunice generated a network,” Lowbeer said, “employing admirable tradecraft. You’re its focus, apparently. It exists primarily to protect you. Our access to your stub is limited. If you join forces with us, so will the network.”

“And if they do?”

“If they do,” Ash said, “we’ll share their agency in your stub.”

Verity looked from Lowbeer to Rainey, then back to Lowbeer. “If I were to go along with this, what exactly would it look like?”

“You’d need to disappear,” Lowbeer said, “but then you already have, as far as Cursion’s concerned. As of this afternoon.”